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flclarchives · 3 years ago

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Amusing Himself to Death, an Akadot.com interview with Kazuya Tsurumaki (director of FLCL and assistant director of Evangelion) from around December 2001. In the article, Tsurumaki explains a few things about Evangelion, his mentality behind FLCL as a whole, and the meaning of the name ‘FLCL’.

Full article text is under the cut, or read the article in its original form [here].

Kazuya Tsurumaki was a relatively little-known animator when Hideki Anno selected him to work as the assistant director on Neon Genesis Evangelion. For the TV series, which became a smash hit in Japan and one of the touchstones of the current surge of interest in anime in the US, Tsuramaki served as the main storyboard artist as well as assistant director, and when Studio Gainax began production on a trio of Evangelion films Tsurumaki got his first directorial assignment.

As he tells the story, Anno came to him after Eva and announced that he was out of ideas and that it was up to Tsurumaki to dream up the next project because, "you are next." Tsurumaki let his imagination run wild, but by the time he had written a script, Anno - despite his declaration that he had no stories left to tell - was already several steps ahead of Tsurumaki and in pre-production for his next series, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo, leaving Tsurumaki a chance to have complete and unsupervised creative control of his own series FLCL.

FLCL, referred to as "Fooly Cooly" (or "Furikuri" by its American fans), is unlike any anime series to come before it. Wild, maniacally fast-paced physical comedy; exaggerated, exuberant animation alternately pushing towards surrealist- as when mecha exuviate from a bump on young Naota's head - and deconstructionist - as when the animation literally stops and the story is told by a camera bouncing across a page of black and white manga art panels; and obsessively, often irrelevantly, referential to obscure Tokyo-pop bands and anime insider trivia; FLCL was hyperkinetic and disorienting, yet mesmerizing, almost transgressive, and undeniably original. It inspired enthusiastic admiration for Tsurumaki as a creator, even amongst the perhaps 90% of the series' fans who were absolutely baffled by much of it. One is tempted to refer to it as announcing the arrival of full blown post-modernism in animation, or perhaps as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable of the anime industry.

When Tsurumaki visited Baltimore to speak to American fans at the recent Otokon Convention, predictably, many of the questions were along the lines of, "Hi, I really loved FLCL [or Evangelion], but could you please explain this part of it to me?"

Tsurumaki answered all questions genially with a self-deprecating and often mischievous sense of humor. For example:

Why does Haruko hit Naota over the head with her guitar?

Kazuya Tsurumaki: Naota is trying to be a normal adult and she belts him to make him rethink his decision.

Why does Evangelion end violently, and somewhat unhappily?

KT: People are accustomed to sweet, contrived, happy endings. We wanted to broaden the genre, and show people an ugly, unhappy ending.

Why is the character of Shinji portrayed as he is?

KT: Shinji was modeled on director Hideki Anno. Shinji was summoned by his father to ride a robot, Anno was summoned by Gainax to direct an animation. Working on Nadia [Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water, one of Anno and Tsurumaki's earlier projects] he wondered if he still wanted to work like this. He thought that working on Eva could help him to change.

Is there any particular reason why so many Gainax series feature very anxious, unhappy young male protagonists with no parents?

KT: Yes, the directors at Gainax are all basically weak, insecure, bitter, young men. So are many anime fans. Many Japanese families, including my own, have workaholic fathers whose kids never get to see them. That may influence the shows I create.

Could you explain the mecha bursting from Naota's head in FLCL?

KT: I use a giant robot being created from the brain to represent FLCL coming from my brain. The robot ravages the town around him, and the more intensely I worked on FLCL the more I destroyed the peaceful atmosphere of Gainax.

Why doesn't FLCL follow one story?

KT: In the third episode Ninamori was almost a main character, a kid who, like Naota, has to act like an adult. After episode three her problem was solved so we wrote her out. She has many fans in Japan and we got plenty of letters about that decision. For FLCL I wanted to portray the entire history of Gainax, and each episode has symbols of what happened behind the scenes on each of Gainax's shows. Episode one has many elements of Karekano; episode two, a lot of Evangelion references, etc.

Where does the title FLCL come from?

KT: I got the idea from a CD in a music magazine with the title Fooly-Cooly. I like the idea of titles that are shortened long English words. Pokémon for "Pocket-Monsters" for instance, and an old J-pop band called Brilliant Green that was known as "Brilly-Grilly."

Is there any reason why the extra scenes added to Eva for the video release were cut in the first place? Did you think the story would mean something different with them intact?

KT: The scenes that were added to Eva for its video release aren't that important. We added them as an apology for taking so long to get the video out. Maybe they'll help people understand things, because the episodes were done under tough deadlines the first time around.

Can you explain the symbolism of the cross in Evangelion?

KT: There are a lot of giant robot shows in Japan, and we did want our story to have a religious theme to help distinguish us. Because Christianity is an uncommon religion in Japan we thought it would be mysterious. None of the staff who worked on Eva are Christians. There is no actual Christian meaning to the show, we just thought the visual symbols of Christianity look cool. If we had known the show would get distributed in the US and Europe we might have rethought that choice.

After the panel, Mr. Tsurumaki sat down to speak with Akadot.

Do you enjoy confusing people?

KT: I have a twisted sense of humor. I'm an Omanu Jacku, a contrarian. [Writer's note- Omanu Jacku is a folk character a bit like Puck, a mischief maker]

What do you see differently now that you're working as a director rather than only as a visual artist?

KT: As an animator I have only the art; as a director story is really big. I still feel as an animator and I often have trouble putting the needs of the story first.

Did you intend from the start for FLCL to be as bizarre as it wound up?

KT: From the very start I wanted a different flavor. To achieve this I had to re-train the animators to be as stylized as I wanted them to be because I wasn't drawing it. I knew that not everyone would get it. I deliberately selected very obscure J-pop culture and anime sub-culture jokes and references. Because Eva was so somber I always intended to make FLCL outrageous and wacky.

Why the choice to break out of conventional animation and use manga pages? Was it at all a response to how many anime are using computers to achieve smoother and more realistic visuals? Were you trying to go the opposite direction?

KT: I like manga, not only to read, but the visuals. The pen drawings, the frame breakdowns and layouts . . . This is the first time I have used digital animation, and those bouncing manga shots wouldn't have been possible with cel animation. Personally I'm not interested at all in using computers for realistic animation. I'm impressed by it sometimes, but I'm interested in using computers to do what was once impossible, not to do smoother versions of what has already been done. I want to be less realistic.

Has using digital animation techniques changed the way you work, or the way you feel about your work when you see it? Does it still feel like it's yours if a computer did much of it?

KT: Before I got into digital animation I saw other shows that were using it and I felt that there was no feeling, it was empty. As an animator, there's a sense of release when you draw a cel. There's something there. Working on FLCL, though, I learned that computers can do more, and, most of all, that they allow room for trial and error and revising, more freedom to experiment. That is why I now feel that cel art cannot win against computers. For actual animation everything is still drawn on paper. That work hasn't changed. It's the other stuff, the touchups, and coloring. If we didn't use paper, maybe the feeling would change.

Earlier today you said that you were trying to broaden the genre by giving Eva a sad ending. Does the sameness of much of today's anime bore you?

KT: First of all we didn't use a sad ending to annoy fans. When they're upset, that really bothers us. Personally, I think a happy ending is fine, but not if it is achieved too easily. That's no good.

For all the fans that are confused at all, if you had to define in one sentence what FLCL is about, what would you say?

KT: FLCL is the story of boy meets girl. For me it is also about how it's ok to feel stupid. With Evangelion there was this feeling that you had better be smart to understand it, or even just to work on it. With FLCL I want to say that it's okay to feel stupid.

Even though it may be strange to us, do you have in your head a logic behind it? Are you trying to portray a story that follows the logic of dreams, or is it supposed to make sense symbolically?

KT: I'd like you to think of FLCL as imagination being made physical and tangible, just as it is for me when I take whatever is in my head and draw it.

So what are you working on next?

KT: Right now Gainax has told me that they'll support anything I choose to create, but I'm having trouble coming up with any ideas.

Why is that?

KT: Releasing titles for market, I know I have to make something to please fans, but I'm not a mature enough person to accept that fact. If I'm not amusing myself I can't do it. I feel bad that fans have to put up with such behavior from me. I apologize.

#FLCL #Evangelion #archive.org #Kazuya Tsurumaki #also i can upload the text as a PDF if anyone would like it!#things like these articles make me realize the people who say FLCL is too confusing aren't artists. because as an artist this is cathartic-#-to read. i'd kill to be able to make something as high-strung stylized and full of weird references as FLCL.#and with GAINAX too? holy shit #interview #article

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gaelic-symphony · 5 months ago

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Okay, so first of all, I genuinely want to thank @angrylittlesliceofpizza for listening to Jews when we talk about antisemitism and doing the work of starting to learn about supersessionism and how pervasive it is, and how it works to create a culture of antisemitism in our society. And your tags aren't entirely wrong: Christian supersessionism very much *is* Christians deciding they're better than Jews and taking our history and theology and sacred texts for themselves.

But here's the thing: Supersessionism isn't just a Christian phenomenon. It is every bit as ingrained into the foundation of Islam as it is in Christianity. Supersessionism is Christians AND Muslims deciding they're better than Jews and taking our history and theology and sacred texts for themselves. You can't fully understand supersessionism and how harmful it is unless you can recognize it in BOTH Christianity and Islam.

Christianity, at least here on Tumblr, is an easy target. If you're interested in being anti-racist, standing up for marginalized groups, and deconstructing traditional imperialist narratives of history, taking a critical look at the history of Christianity and Christian institutions is a very good place to start. There is certainly A LOT to criticize there, and unless you're an antitheist asshole, it's generally understood that being critical of Christian institutions and Christian nationalism doesn't mean that individual Christians are bad people who shouldn't continue practicing their faith in peace and finding joy and meaning in their Christian communities. It's comparatively low-risk in left-leaning circles to be critical of Christianity's complex history as a geopolitical institution and call out Christians when they are causing harm in the name of their faith. It's much harder for young people and left-wing people, and especially young left-wing people, to grapple with the same issues when it comes to Islam.

Something I've noticed a lot in liberal/progressive/leftist circles, especially among young people from Western countries who grew up in the era of post-9/11 islamophobia and the War on Terror, is an overwhelming reluctance to entertain anything even remotely critical of Islam or Muslim societies and institutions out of concern for being seen as racist or islamophobic or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. And on a very basic level, it's good that millennials and gen z are pushing back against the islamophobia they were raised with. But a lot of these progressives and leftists have come all the way back around to, for lack of a better word, islamophilia, believing that Islam is a "better" and "purer" faith than Christianity.

The truth is that Islam is every bit as supersessionist as Christianity, if not more so. Islam is structurally and institutionally antisemitic in much the same way that Christianity is. And much like Christianity, Islam is a universalizing religion that has spurred on centuries of violent imperialism, forced conversion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide across much of Asia, Africa, and Southern/Eastern Europe. And to this day, Muslim societies and nations have many of the same problems and injustices that Christian ones do.

Muslim and Arab empires historically tried to forcibly assimilate non-Arab and non-Muslim populations that were indigenous to the lands that they conquered, and today, Muslim countries still tend to be hostile to those ethnic and religious minorities that resisted Arabization and Islamization: Jews, Hindus, Kurds, Yazidis, Samaritans, Druze, Amazigh, Circassians, Dinka, Parsis, Sikhs--and yes, also Christians. Spend five minutes talking to an Assyrian, a Copt, an Armenian, a Maronite, or a Pontic Greek about their people's history and you'll realize they do not actually benefit from the same kind of Christian privilege that Western Christians do. Where Christianity has white supremacy, Islam has Arab supremacy. It is wielded as a cudgel for Arab nationalist movements and religious fundamentalists just like Christianity is in the West, and these Islamist movements in non-Western countries are no better or more liberatory than fundamentalist Christian nationalists in the U.S. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are "freedom fighters" in the same way that the architects of Project 2025 are "freedom fighters": They're fighting for the "freedom" to forcibly impose their religious fundamentalist ideologies on everybody else.

Of course, none of this means that Islam or Muslim communities are inherently bad or dangerous, just like Christianity and Christian communities aren't inherently bad or dangerous, and NONE of it justifies violence or prejudice against individual Muslims or Muslim communities and institutions. And it's also true that many modern-day Muslim countries and populations were *also* victims of colonialism themselves from European empires, and that Muslims living in non-majority Muslim countries are a marginalized minority whose lived experience is often more similar to Jews, Hindus, and Sikhs than to Christians, and they often experience oppression on the basis of both religion and race/ethnicity. But on a global scale, as a geopolitical force in history, Islam and Christianity have A LOT in common with each other, certainly more than either of them has with any other religion. So if you're rightfully critical of the French, British, or Spanish empires, but not the Ottomans, Mughals, or Caliphates, then you might be falling into the subtle bigotry of low expectations. And if you want to understand antisemitism and supersessionism and be an ally to Jews, you have to be willing to view Islam with the same critical lens as you do Christianity.

Something I wish more gentiles understood, especially Christians, is that "supercessionism" is just a fancy academic term for "colonialism of the soul."

It's cultural appropriation. It's taking our sacred texts and saying "we know your history, your faith, and your G-d better than you do." It's twisting the deeply Jewish meanings of the Tanakh into somehow being about things that wouldn't happen for hundreds or thousands of years. It's taking the history of our people and egotistically making it all about you, somehow. It's trying to split the spiritual atom. It's trying to sever the self from the soul.

It's assuming you know anything about us because your holy texts talk about us, and because you read our stolen texts through a lens that flatters you. You take our practices and denigrate them, and you take our holy sites and bar us from them with violence. And when we protest this, or even simply try to practice our religion and culture in peace, you try to silence us and stop us. Why? Because you can't stand the sight of the people you hurt and stole from. And the longer the violence continues, the more our ongoing survival becomes loathsome to you. You can't face your people's history and you can't face what you took from us, so you would rather we were dead. But our living ghosts haunt your steps and your prayers. You see us everywhere in the things you took from us and your desperate efforts to write us out of our own story and it drives you insane.

But it didn't, and doesn't, have to be like this.

#jumblr #antisemitism #judaism #christianity #islam #historical revisionism

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carewyncromwell · 4 years ago

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Next Cinderella AU part ahoy!

Conical hats were actually considered very fashionable during the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. What’s fascinating, however, is how they evolved into two very distinct and oddly opposing styles of hat: the stereotypical “Pilgrim” hat and the pointed hat that witches are generally depicted wearing! Around the turn of the 17th century, the most stylish variation of black conical hat was called the capotain, which is a cone, but with a rounded top -- the hat McGonagall wears in that top sketch is one of these types of hats (her dress is based on this design, which also features a shorter version of the capotain). The hats were originally fashionable among both men and women, but over time, one group of women that was most associated with wearing them were Quakers, a branch of Christianity that broke away from the Church of England and advocated quite liberated views for the era, such as the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and a refusal to involve themselves in war. They also passionately believed that one didn’t have to attend church in order to be close to God and that one could practice one’s faith out in the world by living and dressing modestly and being active in charity work. (To learn more about the history of how the conical hat evolved into our modern image of “the witch hat,” check out this awesome fashion history video on the subject.) As one can expect, Quakers and Quaker women in particular were not well-taken-to by a lot of European society, especially by the religious movement on the opposite site of the political scale in Britain, the uber-conservative, Bible-purist Puritans. Many of these same Puritan-types got very involved in hunting witches both in Europe and in the Americas (the Salem Witch Trials are a perfect example). But yes...if one looks up pictures of historical clothing for Puritan men and/or “the Pilgrims” (A.K.A. the group of Americans that colonized Plymouth, who were Puritans), they very often wore a variation of the capotain! Although it’s been theorized by historians that the capotains worn by Quaker women ended up being associated with sin and therefore witchcraft, similar hats were also worn by the men who persecuted them. The hats were worn by both sides -- victim and accuser -- and yet most of us today look at the capotain and immediately think “witch” exclusively. Talk about irony.

Greensleeves is often ascribed as being commissioned by King Henry VIII for his second wife, Anne Boleyn (even Six the Musical references this)...but it actually was written in the later half of the 16th century, when Anne’s daughter Elizabeth I was Queen. So yeah, that’s sadly just an old wives tale. But it is a lovely song! The melody for Greensleeves has been remarkably long-lasting, even being rewritten as multiple Christmas songs over the centuries, including the still popular What Child is This?, which was written in 1865.

Previous part is here -- whole tag is here -- Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee -- and I hope you all enjoy!

x~x~x~x

Carewyn very quickly threw on her mother’s green-sleeved yellow dress and as many warm wool petticoats as she could before fetching her white horse from the palace stable. She rode up through the gate in exactly twenty-five minutes, to find Orion on his black mare waiting for her. Carewyn was ready to ask Orion if everything was all right, but almost as soon as they’d left the perimeter of the gate, Orion urged his horse into a fast gallop.

“Come, my lady,” he cried over his shoulder, “let us chase that horizon!”

Carewyn had to send her horse charging forward in its own gallop to catch up with him. They rode right through the market and then out of the capitol altogether -- they avoided the road that led toward the Cromwell estate, dashing eastward. They weaved in and out of the rolling snow-capped hills, riding beside and around each other. The freedom of riding alone was enough to bring some life back into Orion’s cheeks, and Carewyn despite herself soon found herself smiling.

When they came to a stop at the top of a hill close to the northern border, Orion looked out over the edge with a handsome, endless gleam in his eye, like that of a sailor looking out to sea. Carewyn once again prepared to ask Orion if he was all right...but once again, Orion dodged the question.

“Do you see that eagle, overhead?” asked Orion.

Carewyn looked up. She did -- it was a truly handsome golden eagle, gliding in a circle through the air over their heads.

“I’ve seen eagles just like that nearly every day, up and down the border,” said Orion. “Shall we see if we can ride fast enough to overtake it in flight? Could we take flight as birds do, without ever spreading wings?”

“Orion...”

Carewyn brought a hand gently down on his arm.

“I know there’s something wrong,” she whispered.

Orion looked at her, his expression losing most of its levity and becoming much blanker and more inscrutable again.

“I understand if you can’t tell me,” she insisted softly. Her blue eyes rested on her own hand on his arm rather than his face -- with the intense concern she felt, she didn’t dare expose them further by looking straight into his eyes. “And I truly don’t want you to feel like you have to tell me anything you don’t want to. Your secrets are your own, and I know you have a reason for them.”

Just as I have mine.

“I only...I can tell you’re running from something...maybe even the thing you’ve being running from, every time you’ve come to see me, all these weeks...and I don’t know what to do, to protect you from what you’re so afraid of. Please...tell me what I can do.”

Orion’s black eyes trailed over Carewyn’s face, rippling with many tiny flickers of emotion that were hard to properly identify -- pain? Affection? Anxiety? Evasiveness? Shame? Longing? Who knew?

At last the Prince of Florence brought a hand out to gingerly rest on top of Carewyn’s on his arm.

“Chase that eagle with me,” he said softly.

Carewyn looked up at Orion and then at the eagle overhead as it soared off toward the nearby woods. Then she gave him a small, sad smile and nodded.

“...All right.”

Dislodging herself from Orion, Carewyn steadied her grip on her horse’s reins and flicked them to make it gallop toward the woods.

“Well, come on, then!” she called over her shoulder with the strongest smile she could. “T’would be a shame if I out-rode you in a challenge you set yourself!”

Orion’s face broke out into a brighter, fond smile and he pursued her.

The two rode their horses down the hill and into the trees. Racing side by side, overtaking each other in their strides and then catching up again -- all while Orion smiled so fully and handsomely, and looked at her with such blazing midnight-black eyes -- was a joy that Carewyn had trouble putting into proper words. His expression was full of such silent, and yet unbridled joy -- free, in every sense of the word.

“You should be allowed to feel like that more often,” Orion’s words returned to her. “Free.”

You should be allowed to feel like that too, Orion, thought Carewyn. You deserve to feel this free all the time.

The two rode with speed until they’d finally lost sight of the beautiful golden eagle. Slowing their horses into a calmer trot, they then journeyed through the trees, enjoying the peaceful serenity of the chirping birds and the pools of sunlight scattered across the muddy, snow-dusted ground.

“I’ve never been out this far before,” Carewyn confessed, her almond-shaped blue eyes trailing over the interlaced branches overhead.

Orion looked at her out the side of his eye. “...This close to the border, you mean?”

“Yes.”

Carewyn caught a strange scent in the distance -- something vaguely like the fires she’d tend to back at the castle and the Cromwell estate.

“...Something’s burning...”

Orion nodded solemnly. “Bonfires. The Royaumanian and Florentine camps aren’t far from here.”

Carewyn looked at Orion, slightly startled. His gaze had wandered northward, but it was clear his mind was far from the trees his eyes were idly resting on.

“We’re near the war front?” asked Carewyn softly.

“Yes...” Orion glanced her out the side of his eye. “...Are you frightened?”

“No,” said Carewyn.

She looked through the trees in the direction Orion had been facing.

Jacob could be over there right now, she thought to herself. The idea of seeing her brother for the first time in nine years -- of hugging him again and seeing his relieved smile -- it made her feel like her heart was being squeezed.

Orion’s black eyes scanned her longing, but fearless face, before shifting back in the direction of the trees that obscured the path toward the war front.

“The scales are going to shift again, soon,” he whispered. He could feel Carewyn’s eyes on him again. “The two sides have constantly fought for dominance...lashing out ruthlessly and then retaliating, back and forth, until they’re forced to come to a stalemate, just to catch their breath. Then one lashes out again, and the precarious balance is thrown to the winds once more...”

Carewyn’s blue eyes rippled with concern. “Orion...is something bad about to happen, out there?”

Orion closed his eyes. His father claimed he needed him, in order to lead the Florentine army in the two-pronged attack on Royaume...but it wasn’t unlikely that the King might make do and find someone else to fill that role...

“Hopefully not,” he said softly.

Carewyn reached out a hand and took hold of Orion’s wrist. Orion looked down at her hand and then up at her face -- she had trouble looking at him, but he could tell her eyes were rippling with concern. His heart felt like it was suddenly being harshly compressed, just to fit inside of his chest.

You wish to protect me from what I fear...but what I fear, I should wish to protect you from.

The King’s words returned to his mind.

“When you make mistakes, the people you cherish, that you want most desperately to protect, pay the price!”

But how could he hope to protect Carewyn from the War and the cost it would demand? How could he hope to stop it, when his own father unknowingly would be sabotaging his efforts for peace? How could he live with himself, if he had to chain himself to the War the way the King had -- to fight against the Royaumanians he’d met and broken bread with as equals?

Orion took several deep breaths before speaking again.

“...My father wishes me to join him, at the front,” he admitted lowly.

Carewyn looked up, startled. “...Your father’s in the army?”

“Yes,” said Orion. “He’s...a high-ranking officer. He expects that I will follow his example and lead our ranks into battle.”

Carewyn considered Orion for a moment. “...You don’t want to.”

Orion’s eyes darkened significantly. “...I don’t want to.”

When Carewyn didn’t respond, he pressed on.

“My father believes that the War can only be ended through force -- that justice can be only brought about by utterly destroying our enemy. But...I cannot believe that. I grew up on the border between Florence and Royaume. The town I’m from is so close that one could hop easily from one to the other. It caused some tensions, yes...but it also made it so that at first meeting, or even third or fourth, you never knew what side of the divide a person was on. And so I found myself constantly thinking...what is it that truly separates us? Is it morality? Is it values? Humanity? And yet I don’t think either side can boast having any of those things exclusively. It instead all comes back to a mistake made fifty years ago -- a land dispute that ended more violently than it should have. So many people have died, all because of that...and because neither King has decided to be the better man and choose forgiveness over vengeance.”

Orion bowed his head, his eyes closing solemnly.

“...My father asked me to help him lead the army, in an upcoming attack on the enemy forces -- one that he believes could end the War once and for all. But...”

He exhaled quietly through his nose.

“...I couldn’t accept that burden...so I left.”

Carewyn didn’t respond. Orion scanned her face, trying to read her reaction, but it was proving difficult when she wouldn’t look at him.

Does she...disapprove? he couldn’t help but think. She did think he was Royaumanian -- she didn’t understand that he wanted to protect her brother, not prevent him from returning home...but how could he explain that to her, without...?

“I know that the War could end, if my father’s strategy succeeds,” Orion explained, trying to keep his voice level despite the anxiety he felt, “but this is only one strategy of hundreds, all of which have failed. And even if our side was victorious...however many lives I could potentially save by fighting, I would be snuffing out far more. I realize that this is my responsibility alone, and sometimes one must be willing to do what others will not, to reach their goal...but flowers bloom under sunlight and water, not blood. If we could avoid burning a forest to the ground, wouldn’t it then be easier to bring it back to life?”

“Yes...but if someone wants to set a forest ablaze, you have to act if you want to stop them.”

Carewyn’s response was very soft and solemn, but there was no anger or disapproval -- instead, to Orion’s immense relief, it sounded almost encouraging.

“If you believe that Royaume could make peace with Florence, then you need to speak out for it,” she said firmly. “If you see it and believe in it, that’s great...but you need to make others see and believe in it too, if it’s going to really come about. Talk to your father, make him see things as you do -- and if he isn’t able to, then...well, I’ll talk to Andre, and you and he can discuss it together.”

Her lips spread into a gentle smile and she gave his wrist a light squeeze.

“My own family may have profited because of the War, but the people of Royaume, the common man, would celebrate, if peace could come about without further loss. If Florence would also, then that’s a step in the right direction. There’s more than one way to fight for something...all it requires is enough courage to place one’s goal over whatever risks stand in their way.”

Orion stared at Carewyn for a long moment. As he did, the black of his eyes seemed to melt, gaining a warmer, softer light that resembled candlelight rippling in endless, dark water.

“...Carewyn...”

Before he could say anything more, however, there was a loud explosion in the distance. Carewyn’s horse reared back in terror, which in turn spooked Orion’s, and both Carewyn and Orion had to quickly calm their steeds.

“Whoa, whoa,” Carewyn whispered in her horse’s ear, “easy, boy...it’s all right...”

Orion stroked his horse’s mane with a slightly trembling hand, breathing in and out as he tried to steady his heart rate. He then looked at Carewyn with a more serious eye.

“...Perhaps we should make our way back to the valley. It’s not safe here.”

Carewyn looked northward through the trees again. “Do you think your father’s started the attack?”

“No. Coordinated attacks require both strategy and assignments, as well as the element of surprise. I’d say this is a skirmish between younger, less experienced soldiers -- and if so, it’s likely to run farther afield and cause damage outside the designated battlefield.”

Orion could see Carewyn still hesitating. Although there was no fear in her face, she seemed reluctant to leave -- likely thinking of her brother, more than the risk to her own safety...

After a brief flicker of uncertainty, Orion reached out a hand and took hold of Carewyn’s arm not unlike how she’d taken his earlier.

“From everything I’ve heard from you about your brother, I truly cannot see him not doing everything he possibly can, to look out for your well-being...including looking after himself.”

A second smaller explosion in the distance made Orion stiffen slightly, his fingers tightening that bit around Carewyn’s arm.

“...We should move out of harm’s way,” he said as levelly as he could.

Seeing the paleness of Orion’s face, Carewyn relented at once.

“Yes.”

Bringing a hand up onto Orion’s horse’s reins, she directed both of them around so they could start riding back out the way they came.

As they came around a cluster of trees, however, their attention was caught by the sound of the cry of an eagle and many snapping branches. Carewyn’s horse reared back again, just barely dodging a large clump of golden-brown feathers that collided sharply with the ground.

Carewyn once again rushed to soothe her horse. Orion quickly climbed off his horse and bent down to get a better look at what had fallen.

It was a golden eagle, just as brilliant as the one they’d chased into the wood -- perhaps even the same one. It was conscious, but clearly in pain when it tried to return to the air -- its left wing crumpled up against its side and covered in blood and what looked like grayish ash.

Orion’s black eyes narrowed.

“Gunpowder,” he said. “The poor creature’s wing must have been struck by a stray bullet.”

Once she’d successfully soothed her white horse, Carewyn likewise jumped off its back. She dashed over to Orion, hitching up the skirt of her mother’s gown as she went.

“Can you hold him?” she asked.

The eagle gave an angry-sounding cry, baring its sharp talons at both of them, and it tried to hobble away back into the air with its one good wing.

“I don’t think he wants our help,” said Orion.

Undaunted, Carewyn ripped off some fabric from her outer-most petticoat. “Well, he needs it, whether he wants it or not. Can you hold him, please?”

Orion looked at the eagle. Rather than try to grab it, he met the eagle’s eyes and tried not to blink. The eagle looked back at him with a piercing gaze. When Orion extended a hand, the eagle lashed out its talons again -- Orion withdrew, but didn’t flinch.

“Steady,” he said gently.

He waited a moment, keeping eye contact with the bird, and then tried again. This time he was able to move close enough to touch before the eagle lashed out with its claws again.

“Peace,” said Orion patiently. “We mean you no harm, feathered friend.”

Another loud explosion in the distance made both the eagle and Orion flinch.

“That one sounded closer,” said Carewyn, her voice faintly tense but as gentle as she could. “We need to be quick.”

The flames of his childhood home were returning to Orion’s mind despite his best efforts, and he shut them out as best he could, closing his eyes and breathing in and out several times. Once he’d reestablished his focus, Orion opened his eyes again.

The eagle looked from Orion to Carewyn almost critically. Finally, after Orion reached in for a third time, it let the Prince run a gentle hand over its back. Once the bird was calm, Orion then carefully extended its wing so that Carewyn could reach it.

“This will likely hurt him a little,” Carewyn told Orion. “Please hold him still, so he won’t fly away.”

Orion brought a hand around the eagle, which fidgeted and cried out indignantly, but did not claw or snap at them. With Orion holding out its wing, Carewyn was able to reach into its blood-soaked feathers and dislodge the bullet. The eagle gave an angry, pained cry, and Carewyn very quickly set about wrapping up the wound with the white fabric she’d ripped out of her petticoat.

“There,” breathed Carewyn, her red lips spreading into a smile. “That should help...”

The bird looked down at its wing, gingerly folding up against its side as it surveyed her with a very beady eye. With a soft click of her tongue against her teeth, she slowly extended an arm out, holding it very still like a branch.

“Climb on,” she cooed. “That’s it...”

The eagle peered Carewyn over, but after a long moment, it gradually scooted over and leapt up onto her arm. Its talons dug into the sleeve of her dress with strength, and it was heavier than Carewyn expected, but she with some difficulty just barely managed to hoist it up.

“Your talent with animals shines through again,” said Orion with a wry smile, clasping his hands lightly in front of him.

“You weren’t half bad yourself,” Carewyn said amusedly. She brought a hand gently along the eagle’s comb. “You’re a very handsome bird, aren’t you? You poor thing...”

“You there!”

Both Orion and Carewyn looked up in great surprise.

Striding through the woods toward them was a very tall middle-aged woman. She wore a black capotain hat and an old-fashioned black dress with a white ruff around the collar, and her graying brown hair was tied up in an austere looking bun under her hat. Despite her apparent age, her step was strong and her posture as straight as a general’s.

“What are you doing here?” said the woman very sternly.

Carewyn stood a bit uneasily, thanks to the weight of the eagle on her arm, but she nonetheless straightened up, resting a hand on the eagle’s back almost protectively.

“We’re merely out riding, madam,” she said, not impolitely, but still confidently.

The woman peered down at both Orion and Carewyn with an eye almost as critical as the eagle’s had been as she crossed her arms. Her height made it so she towered over both of them with relative ease.

“Well, through your riding, you have trespassed on my land,” she said stiffly. “And it seems you’ve claimed something of mine.”

Her eyes flickered over to the eagle on Carewyn’s arm, taking in the makeshift bandage on its wing. The golden eagle gave a loud shriek -- the woman extended her arm, and it leapt the distance, landing on her arm instead. The older woman did not struggle to hold it up the way Carewyn had.

Carewyn blinked in surprise. “Then...he’s yours?”

“Do you have others, like him?” Orion asked curiously.

The woman peered down at the bird on her arm with a look that was rather like a scolding, but still affectionate mother’s. “No -- he’s one of a kind. All the more reason why I’m pleased to see him safe, after coming so close to the enemy camp.”

The eagle bowed its head, its gaze flickering back over toward Carewyn and Orion. When another cluster of explosions rang out through the air, however, both the bird and Orion straightened up abruptly.

The woman looked northward, and then beckoned Carewyn and Orion after her with her hand.

“Come with me -- with the armies positioned just north of us and a band of Florentine bandits just south, the safest place at present to wait out this skirmish is my home.”

The woman introduced herself as the Baroness Minerva McGonagall. Carewyn felt like the surname was familiar somehow, but she couldn’t quite place it in her memory. Regardless, McGonagall led Carewyn and Orion out through the trees. Only once they crossed the perimeter of the trees and McGonagall gestured toward the valley below did Carewyn and Orion see her country estate. It was odd that they didn’t spot it sooner, for although the valley seemed to cradle the small chateau, it was a rather beautiful and open estate framed by a wrought iron gate. The property itself was made of aged brick and stone with stained glass windows and overgrown with ice-trimmed ivy.

After holding out her arm so that the eagle perched there could jump down on the railing beside the stone stairs that led up to the front door, the Baroness invited Orion and Carewyn inside. As stern as she’d first appeared, she actually was a very kind host -- after Orion and Carewyn’s horses were settled in her stable, she escorted the two into the dining hall, where she served them some rose water and ginger biscuits. Once inside the house, none of them could hear the explosions from the battlefield -- it was as though the walls cancelled out all sounds from outside even though they must’ve been so close.

Seeing that the Baroness had no servants to help her, Carewyn insisted on taking the dishes to the kitchen and washing them, so as to thank the older woman for her hospitality. Despite being reluctant to accept the help at first, McGonagall eventually accepted it, her lips upturned in a rather dewy smile as Carewyn left the dining hall.

“Your riding companion has a very kind heart, Your Highness,” she said, once Carewyn was out of earshot.

Orion’s black eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly.

“...You know me.”

"Naturally,” said McGonagall. “You do very much resemble your grandfather -- and your father as well, I expect.”

“You knew my grandfather?”

“We met once, a very long time ago,” said McGonagall rather curtly. “Your name would also be Cosimo, correct?”

“I am called Orion,” said the Prince, his level voice dusted with the slightest edge. “By both my lady, and otherwise.”

McGonagall’s eyes grew a little smaller. “She comes from the Cromwell family, doesn’t she?”

Orion’s eyes narrowed that little bit more, but he did not reply.

“I suspected it due to her eyes,” said McGonagall, “but with how gentle they were, I wasn’t sure.”

Her eyebrows rose over her narrowed eyes as she leaned forward slightly and rested her elbows on the table.

“You have quite a predicament before you, Orion,” she said dryly, interlacing her fingers beside her chin.

Orion clasped his hands on the table in front of him, considering the Baroness carefully.

“Yet you decided not to approach me about it until Carewyn left the room,” he said levelly. “Is it because you suspected I knew your true identity, and why your house has been so miraculously shielded from the War raging on your doorstep?”

McGonagall peered at Orion over her hands with something like wry amusement. “Florentines are generally more favorable toward magic than Royaumanians. And considering your grandfather shielded my family after my mother accidentally killed the King and we fled across the border...well, it would be in-character for you, especially.”

“And yet you returned to the land that the King of Royaume had died trying to claim?” asked Orion. “Why?”

McGonagall gave a dismissive shrug. “It was our home. Even if we had to cast and recast illusions every day to prevent anyone else from finding it again, that was a cost we were willing to pay. And one I’m still willing to pay today, to protect those who live here.”

McGonagall’s eyes were drawn to the hallway -- a young man with tanned skin and a sharp nose had just paused in the door frame of the dining hall. His arm was in a makeshift sling and wrapped with what looked like bandages made out of petticoat fabric. When Orion turned around, the young man stared him down with just as beady of a look as the golden eagle from before had.

“The skirmish has ended, Baroness,” the man said brusquely.

“I hope you haven’t determined that by casting any more transfiguration spells, my young apprentice,” said McGonagall with a slightly reproachful look.

The apprentice’s nose wrinkled sourly. “No. The explosions have just stopped -- they probably decided it wasn’t worth trying to fire their cannons blindly in the dark.”

“Very well,” said McGonagall. “Orion, you and Carewyn may leave when you wish. Though I would recommend you steer clear of the border. The bandits in these woods are Florentines, so I doubt they will harm you...but I cannot be sure how they would respond to a Royaumanian, especially one related to one of their wealthiest noblemen.”

Orion nodded. “I understand.”

“Make sure you bring her back to the palace safely,” said the apprentice, his eagle-like eyes still rather critical upon Orion. “It’s the least you can do, considering she doesn’t know the extent of the risk she’s taking, interacting with you.”

He swept down the hallway and out of sight, still holding his arm. Orion was a bit surprised that the Baroness’s apprentice knew where Carewyn worked -- but then, he recalled, he’d seen an eagle flying over his and Carewyn’s heads once, while they were walking through the market together, hadn’t he? Might it have been this man then, as well -- as it likely had, every time he’d seen an eagle while crossing the border?

McGonagall looked back at Orion, her expression a bit more solemn. “I understand your rationale behind not telling her of your identity, Orion...but remember -- deception is just like any magical spell. Even the most powerful ones in the world don’t last long.”

Orion bowed his head. “...I know.”

He knew none of this could last. He knew that once Carewyn knew who he was, everything between them would change, whether he wanted it to or not. He did think that Carewyn would understand -- he desperately hoped so -- but even so, it was sad to him, knowing that his happy times with Carewyn were doomed to be so fleeting...

“I just...want to enjoy my time with her as long as I can,” said Orion softly. “However fleeting it might be...even when it is over...at least then I can cherish the memory of those moments forever.”

McGonagall’s face grew a bit gentler, almost sympathetic. "I see...”

Carewyn returned at that moment, wiping her bangs out of her eyes with her arm.

“Orion,” she said, “it looks like the stars have come out.”

Orion looked out the window. The sky was dark with night and shining with stars.

“So they have,” he said with a soft smile. He turned to McGonagall. “Forgive me, Baroness...but might we sit in the valley outside your home for a short while, before we leave?”

McGonagall smiled. “Of course.”

Orion and Carewyn found a grassy spot in the crest of the valley where they could sit and look up at the stars. Upon learning that Carewyn hadn’t ever gone stargazing before, Orion lay back against the grass and pointed out each constellation above them to Carewyn in turn -- the hero Perseus, his enemy the Cetus, and his future wife Andromeda -- -- the divine twins, Castor and Pollux, otherwise known as a pair as Gemini -- and the queen Cassiopeia, which made Carewyn laugh, thinking of her friend, KC. Carewyn loved listening to Orion’s stories: the way he would vividly embellish every detail and go off on philosophical tangents in the middle was oddly endearing. After he told his first tale about Perseus, Carewyn was reminded of the Song of Roland, an epic about a similarly grand hero, and soon Orion would ask her to sing something in response to every story he told, however weak the connection was. When they reached Cassiopeia’s tale, Carewyn sang one of her favorite songs, Greensleeves.

“I have been ready at your hand To grant whatever thou would’st crave; I have waged both life and land, Your love and goodwill for to have.

Greensleeves was all my joy; Greensleeves was my delight; Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady Greensleeves...”

As before, Orion found himself closing his eyes and relishing the feeling of Carewyn’s voice washing over him. At the end of this song in particular, however, when he opened his eyes, he found himself chuckling softly.

Carewyn raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Orion’s black eyes were sparkling like two miniature night skies as they ran over Carewyn sitting just below him. “It’s a lovely song, as always...but I have not ever seen my ‘star twin,’ so to speak, wearing green -- only ever black and blue. You, however...”

He took her hand so that he could extend her arm out like they were dancing, showing off the olive green sleeves of her dress.

“So it seems you are ‘my lady Greensleeves,’” said Orion with a wry smile.

“Oh, stop it,” Carewyn huffed, her cheeks burning as she withdrew her hand.

Orion laughed fully. It was the first time Carewyn had ever heard him laugh so openly before -- it was a soft sound in the back of his throat, like a chuckle, and yet so much brighter and warmer. Despite herself, Carewyn couldn’t fight back a full smile of her own. Her shoulder brushed up against Orion’s as she reclined back onto the grass, her body tilting slightly toward him as she looked up at the sky.

“...There’s a constellation called Orion, isn’t there?”

Orion smiled and traced the stars of the constellation with his finger. “Just there. Do you see his chest? And there’s his bow.”

“I see it!” said Carewyn excitedly. “His arm is arched back, right?”

“Yes -- he’s holding a club in his other hand. He was a great hunter, you see -- the greatest hunter, they say, aside from Artemis, Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt. Some say that he hunted alongside her. Others say she was his one and only love...and that she, likewise, never loved any other man, in all her days.”

When Carewyn didn’t respond, Orion looked down at her. She was considering the constellation very carefully, looking oddly deep in thought.

Orion tilted his head to look better at her face. “Your eyes resemble a dark pool.”

Carewyn looked up, startled.

“They’re so deep and mysterious, I hardly know what is within them,” said Orion. “Yet I would dearly like to know, if you were willing to share their contents.”

Carewyn’s eyes drifted back up to the sky uncomfortably.

“It’s just...I’m realizing that I don’t even know if Orion is your real name,” she murmured. “You said I could call you it...you did not say it was your name.”

Orion’s face became grimmer. His hands clasped over his chest and he too looked back up at the sky.

“...It’s not the name I was born with,” he admitted. “I chose the name myself, when I was young.”

The memory of the older boys at the workhouse shoving him, piling extra work on him, and mockingly bowing whenever he walked by rippled over his mind.

“Clear the floor for the Prince!”

“Why thank you, Prince Cosimo -- you’re too kind!”

“Does the mud add flavor, your Royal Highness?”

“When I was at the workhouse, my name...antagonized the other boys. So, to try to preempt the reactions, I started avoiding telling anyone my name. I would dread anyone ever asking.”

“Like when I asked you?” whispered Carewyn. Even though her eyes were averted, she was clearly very ashamed and upset.

Orion leaned against her slightly, offering her a gentle, reassuring expression. “No, Carewyn. I dreaded it when I had no answer I could give at all. It made me anxious...made me feel like I didn’t know who I was supposed to be...made it difficult for me to interact with much of anyone at all.”

He closed his eyes.

“But...after hearing the tale of the great hunter whose skill put him on the same level as a goddess...I decided that was who I’d be. I’d chase my dreams with just as much single-minded focus -- be just as free and strong of a man, by fighting the monster inside of myself.”

Carewyn looked up at Orion, her eyes rippling with sadness. “The monster inside of yourself?”

“Mm,” said Orion. “Mine is a frenetic beast. It makes it hard for me to think, act, or even breathe, when it’s particularly intense. It makes me question absolutely everything, including myself. It shouts so many things in my ears so loudly that I can’t move or react properly, and I have to break away from everything and everyone, just to silence it. Sometimes it even brings back bad memories that make the experience even worse.”

Carewyn was once again avoiding his eye, but it was largely because she was having trouble keeping her face stoic.

“...It’s terrible, when you feel like you can’t do anything,” she said lowly.

Orion didn’t speak. He wanted her to feel comfortable enough to continue -- after a silence, she finally pressed on.

“When Jacob first went off to War...I felt so helpless. So...alone. And worse...I felt like that’s how I should be. Like I should be alone, and empty, and cold, and in pain, when Jacob was off at War suffering, while I’m stuck here.”

Her eyes darkened.

“There are times when...I think I still should be. Sometimes...well, it’s all the time.”

She closed her eyes, exhaled heavily through her nose, and then looked up at Orion with a firmer expression.

“...But I know I can’t afford to sit around and feel sorry for myself -- not when I need to be strong, for Jacob’s sake. So I don’t.”

Orion’s black eyes softened visibly, rippling with empathy. “No...you certainly don’t.”

He paused. His eyes ran over Carewyn’s face, trailing through her hair hesitantly.

“Carewyn...” he said at last, very softly, “may I...?”

He swallowed.

“...May I rest my head, on top of yours?”

Carewyn’s face broke into a very sweet, tender smile.

“Of course,” she murmured.

Orion shifted over and, very tentatively, leaned back against the grass so that Carewyn’s head rested in the crook of his neck and his cheek rested against the top of her head. He closed his eyes -- she felt so warm...

“I...realize that the beasts inside of us are ours alone to face,” said Orion softly, “but...should you need a hunter to help you beat yours back...I will be here.”

Carewyn’s blue eyes rippled with emotion as she stared up at Orion’s face. Her red lips slowly turned up in a smile that was full of pain, and yet also fuller still of love.

“And I will always help you fight yours,” she whispered. “If you need me...I will fight for you.”

Orion’s expression cleared, losing all tension as a smile pricked at the corners of his lips. He breathed deeply, his heart slowing to a wonderful peaceful beat as he took in the smell of her hair. Carewyn watched his serene, handsome face, and she found herself moving into him that bit more, just to get a better view. For that moment, it felt like the whole world outside wasn’t there -- that the War and the palace and the Cromwell clan and everything she was and wasn’t didn’t even exist...and in that moment, Carewyn realized...

If she was ever truly free, she would want to love the man called Orion with all of her heart.

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acovenofcaffineandchaos · 4 years ago

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Pagan Yule Traditions Adopted by Christians

With Yule upon us and Christmas fast approaching, I found it appealing to make this post to help others learn more about what traditions started out pagan, and have been adopted over time into Christianity.

First thing’s first, what do we mean when we say pagan? This is a widely encompassing term that means anyone from the Romans, to the Norse in Scandinavia. As Christianity spread through Europe in the early ADs, missionaries met a lot of different groups of people with varying religious systems and beliefs. All these people and religions were lumped into the term ‘pagan’, basically meaning ‘not Christian’.

Although Christians had the goal of spreading their religion across Europe, they were still fascinated by many of the customs and ways of the pagans. Clearly they were fascinated enough to pick up a few of those beliefs and traditions, and adapt them as part of Christian celebrations to boot!

1. GIFT-GIVING AND SATURNALIA

Not only is December a time to celebrate winter solstice, but between the 17th and 24th of the month, the Romans also celebrated Saturnalia. This was a pagan holiday in honor of the agricultural god, Saturn. Romans would spend the week of Saturnalia much like how we spend Christmas holidays today: feasting, drinking, giving gifts, and being joyful.

These days we shell out lots of money on Christmas gifts, but back then the Romans exchanged small gifts mainly for the sake of good luck. The idea was to give a gift in the hope of bringing in a bountiful harvest the next year. Rather than have lists of gifts to give, the Romans shared only one gift with one other person. Somewhere along the line, giving gifts for luck and prosperity became a multimillion dollar business… isn’t that funny?

2. SANTA’S IMAGE & CHRISTMAS STOCKINGS

Our current modern day image of Santa Claus, clad in red fur with a big white beard, was largely developed by Coca-Cola in the 1930′s. But the idea of an old man giving gifts to children dates much earlier than that, back to the time of the pagans.

Father Christmas, otherwise known as St. Nicholas, is a patron saint of children, the poor, and surprisingly, prostitutes. Living around 4th century AD, St. Nicholas was a very generous bishop; who was known for giving gifts to the poor, sporting a big beard, and a long cloak much like the Santa we know and love today.

But even before St. Nicholas, there was another bearded old man called Odin. This deity was worshipped by early Germanic pagan tribes (think the Vikings for general visualization), traditionally portrayed as an old man with a long, white beard, with an 8-legged horse called Sleipnir who he would ride through the skies (just like Santa’s reindeer). During the winter, kids would fill their booties with carrots and straw and leave them by the chimney for Sleipnir to feed on. Odin would fly by and reward the children with little presents in their booties, much like we do with Christmas stockings today.

The Santa Claus we all imagine in our heads today is a patchwork of the generous St. Nicholas, the god Odin and Sleipnir, and Coca-Cola’s iconic red-dressed character.

3. CHRISTMAS CAROLS

While the carols we sing for Christmas are undeniably Christian in the majority, the tradition itself of going door-to-door singing to your neighbors comes from another pagan tradition called wassailing. The rather funny and odd word comes from the Anglo-Saxon phrase of ‘waes hael’, translating roughly to ‘good health’. Every year, wassailers would roam through their villages in small groups, singing loudly with the aim of banishing evil spirits and wishing good health to those around them.

No wassailing group was complete without their traditional drink on hand – made from mulled ale, curdled cream, roasted apples, eggs, spices, and sugar. Medieval alcoholic eggnog in it’s finest. In the 13th century, St. Francis took inspiration from these happy choirs and started the tradition of Christmas caroling.

4. KISSING UNDER A MISTLETOE

Ever wonder about the correlation between mistletoe and kissing? Well, funnily enough, the tradition goes back to the pagans. Everyone from the Romans and Celts, to the Druids and the Norse, had a thing about mistletoe. It was considered to be a highly sacred plant, involved in several pagan rituals.

In the Roman world, mistletoe honored the god Saturn. To keep him happy, they would perform fertility rituals underneath sprigs of mistletoe – yup, that’s exactly what it sounds like: rolling around under the mistletoe! We’ve certainly toned it down as far as mistletoe rituals are concerned, and left it with just a simple kiss – probably a good idea since family is always around, and always happy to judge.

In the world of the Druids, mistletoe symbolized peace and joy. In times of war, if enemies met underneath woodland mistletoe, then they would drop their weapons and form a truce until the next day. In a way, kissing is a form of truce, or at least trusting the other person not to bite your face off.

5. DECKING THE HALLS WITH HOLLY

Mistletoe wasn’t the only sacred plant for pagans. Holly was another holy plant connected with the god Saturn. During the Saturnalia, Romans made holly wreaths to exchange as gifts for good luck. At the time of Saturnalia, early Christians began to celebrate Christmas -however- they were often persecuted for practicing their new religion. It was lucky that Christmas coincided with Saturnalia as it allowed Christians to harbor a cover for their Christmas celebrations.

To avoid detection (and make it look like they were celebrating Saturnalia), Christians started hanging holly wreaths around their homes. This allowed them to recognize other Christians and still do something nice to celebrate their version of the holiday. Eventually, as pagans decreased in number and Christianity grew, holly became a symbol of Christmas instead of Saturnalia.

6. CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATING

Christianity sure has taken a lot of inspiration from the Romans, and tree decorating is yet another borrowed tradition! Besides feasting, drinking, and exchanging gifts during Saturnalia, Romans also hung small metal ornaments on trees outside their homes. Each of these little ornaments represented a god, either Saturn or the family’s personal patron saint.

Early Germanic tribes practiced a similar tree decorating tradition, this time with fruits and candles to honor Odin throughout the winter solstice. Christians merged the tree decorating with ornaments, candles, and fruits to make Christmas tree decorating one extravagant tradition.

7. FRUITCAKE

Fruitcake has become the stuff of legend, if only because once a fruitcake is baked, it will seemingly outlive everyone who comes near it. Stories are abound of fruitcakes from winters past- magically appearing in the pantry to surprise everyone during the holiday season. What’s interesting about the fruitcake is that it actually has its origins in ancient Egypt. There’s a tale in the culinary world; the Egyptians placed cakes made of fermented fruit and honey on the tombs of their deceased loved ones- and presumably these cakes would last as long as the pyramids themselves. In later centuries, Roman soldiers carried these cakes- made with mashed pomegranates and barley- into battle. There are even records of soldiers on crusades carrying honey-laden fruitcakes into the Holy Land with them.

8. THE YULE LOG

Nowadays, when we hear about the Yule log, most people think of a deliciously rich chocolate dessert. But the Yule log has actually its origins in the cold winters of Norway. On the night of the winter solstice, it was commonplace to add a giant log to the hearth to celebrate the return of the sun each year. The Vikings believed that the sun was a giant wheel that rolled away from the earth each year as winter came, and began rolling back on the winter solstice and brought summer with it.

Either way, these traditions -whether you’re Christian or Pagan, Jewish or Buddhist, or anything else- I wish you a happy holiday season, and pray that 2021 will get its shit in order, unlike 2020.

- Black Magpie

#pagan #paganism #witch #witch craft #witchyvibes #yule #yule traditions #evolution of christiananity

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365days365movies · 3 years ago

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November: War

Let me start by saying that war...war is bad.

Yeah, I know, that’s hopefully obvious to everybody. Whether you support a given war or not, I think we can all agree that war is objectively bad. Sure, the results of war can be positive. After all, without the Civil War and its outcomes, I very possibly would be unable to type this right now, as a Black American man. But am I glad that the Civil War actually happened? Well...no. No, obviously no! The fact that it took 618,222 deaths for me to have a movie blog isn’t really worth it, now is it?

But, unfortunately, war is an uncomfortable reality of all species, to a certain degree. You might wonder what I mean by that, since lions don’t have political skirmishes that result in widespread casualties. But, first off all...that’s not exactly true, now, is it?

Competition for resources and territory is VERY much an animal thing to do, and we’re no exception. In our case, though, war is far more complex by nature of our species’ evolutionary complexities. So, no matter what we do, war is a part of human nature. Peace is obviously the preferred option for everybody, but war happens. It has, it is, and it will.

But with that said, the perception of war has DRASTICALLY differed over time. It began as epic tales of glory and heroism, producing legendary heroes and epic battles told mouth-to-mouth. The warrior became the soldier, the soldier became the hero, the hero became the leader, and the leader begat their own warriors. It’s literally the oldest story in the book.

So, war was a part of mythology and told tales since tales have been told. Pretty early on, belief was tied into war, and religious ideology was tied into not only the war itself, but into the stories told about war. Heroes prospered under the eyes of their god, or under the tenets of strict belief, and war became not only an aspect of heroism, but a noble and honorable thing for a character to engage in.

This meant that heroes weren’t just defined by their ability to wage war, but their willingness to enter it. The Bible has a TON of war in it, and some of its greatest heroes willingly entered those wars. David stepped up and killed a giant, and the people of Israel just went “Hey, you’re cool, wanna be king now?” And so, the glory and power of war could take someone from lowly to being a king. And from that, a dangerous precedent begins to emerge. At this point, according to the stories of the time, war is...kinda good?

By the way, this is mostly off the dome. I am NOT a scholar of this bent by any means, but this is based off of my knowledge of historical depictions of war. And I’m also not saying that history looked kindly on war universally. God knows a HELL of a lot of people hated war, in reality and in story. However, you don’t hear about anti-war stories much. And again...there is a point to this, I promise.

Time passes, and war doesn’t change too much. The gun and artillery are invented, as well as other technologies, and many battles are won and lost worldwide. But in terms of cultural depictions, war is still mostly full of heroic acts and dastardly villains, all fighting for Gods and countries. And again, I’m not saying this is universal (the Bhagavad Gita comes to mind, for one), but it’s definitely present. But all the while, war technology is advancing, and things are getting deadlier and more dangerous. We hit a bit of a lull worldwide, and life moves on for about 40 years.

And that’s when the Black Hand struck.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip in 1914, and events transpire that lead to World War I, also called the Great War. All the countries of Europe are all chuffed to jump in on this one, because war is still seen as a noble pursuit of freedom and justice, for the most part. But what people don’t realize is the fact that war technology has gotten EXTREMELY powerful.

France enters this war with the same military outfits they were wearing 40 years before, and Germany steps to the plate and goes “Schau da! Ein bunter Soldat hebt sich vom Feld ab! Erschieß ihn.” And after that change, and the introduction of grenades, submarines, tanks, machine guns, anti-aircraft weapony, and AIRCRAFT, war got a LOT deadlier, and a lot more dangerous. And after you lose FORTY MILLION PEOPLE to a war, you start to think...this war thing...might be REALLY FUCKING BAD.

And that’s where culture steps in.

In 1929, Erich Maria Remarque writes All Quiet on the Western Front, a book about his experiences on the German front of the Great War, and the brutal story made an impact with audiences worldwide. Ernest Hemingway joined in on the “war is a little fucked” fun with his novel, A Farewell to Arms. And anti-war sentiment slowly builds steam worldwide. Soon after, film jumped in on the game, with the first well-regarded war film being an adaptation of Remarque’s novel, released in 1930.

But then, Germany starts to act up again when some Austrian dude starts making some really fucked-up speeches. And when his speeches lead to a SECOND World War, people start to forget that whole “war is bad” thing, and film as a medium is quickly recruited in the use of...well, recruitment.

Propaganda is all the rage, and the world is all in on this one. The United States ESPECIALLY gets hyped up about it, and it will leave the war forever changed. Anti-war media disappears for a little bit, or is toned down at least. After the Allies win the war (using two FUCKING NUKES in the process), America has a reputation as a powerful, dangerous, warmongering country, and we quickly enter both a cold war and a Korean War as a result.

All the while, anti-war sentiment begins to rebuild slowly, and it ekes out further as films about World War II are made. But the fun thing about war films is that...really, they’re ALL anti-war. So, as soon as they’re made again, they help to fuel this building anti-war sentiment. But that’s NOTHING compared to reality.

And reality is about to hit HARD, right in the fucking face.

When we went into Vietnam in 1955, we were excited to fight against communism in the region, and to spread the American ideal even further. However, both military and media technology had advanced at this point, meaning that the American public could now see war up close and personal.

AND WE DIDN’T FUCKING LIKE IT

Other than essentially birthing the hippie movement, the new footage coming in from the southeast Asian jungle nation shocked and disgusted many Americans, and the rest of the world as well. And while the political ramifications of the Vietnam War and the resulting countercultures are...complicated, to say the least, this post is about the media implications. And boy howdy, were there media-related implications.

See, now that the secret was out, some of the first anti-war messages to be pushed out into the common zeitgeist were released via the art of film. The old anti-war fervor of war-focusing films came back, AND WITH A FUCKING VENGEANCE. And this sponsored some of the best movies ever made.

First and foremost in my heart will always be Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Genuinely a hilarious comedy, and one I whole heartedly recommend to anyone who’s interested. But while this film was anti-war to a certain degree, that sentiment would just grow as time went on, and as films continued being made. And now, Vietnam provided brand new material to use.

Not every way film made at the time was anti-war. John Wayne, professional racist and uber-patriot, was so concerned about anti-war sentiment that he got the permission from Lyndon B. Johnson to make a big-budget war propaganda film...which people saw, but apparently hated. And while this film wasn’t alone, the tide turned QUICKLY. This was especially as war vets started coming home. And those vets...they were not doing OK.

In 1978, Michael Cimino tries to capture PTSD in Vietnam soldiers in The Deer Hunter. Haven’t seen it, but it’s on my list, that’s for sure. This film truly brings the barbarous nature of the war to the cinema, at a time where people were truly tired of Vietnam. Anti-war sentiment was at a high, and Vietnam was a taboo subject in Hollywood. But even then, the film was released after much confusion over the screenplay.

Here’s the thing, though: no Vietnam vets were actually consulted when they wrote this film, as far as I can tell. What that means is that this is a movie made from the media’s interpretation of the war, and not from experience. This is because it was written in a MONTH, and the writer, Derek Washburn, based his script almost entirely on news footage. Which is...problematic. But the next movie would involve a veteran in its production. And it...well...it changed everything.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is considered one of the greatest films ever made. I have not seen it. BUT I WILL GODDAMN IT

Anyway, a friend of Coppola’s served as the basis for the main character of the film. And while some of the events of the film have been disputed or disproven, it at least snows some effort to depict realism in the setting. More importantly, this film set the tropes that would become a part of the entire genre of war films from then on. Sure, many of them had their roots in previous films, but something about the Vietnam War really brought the genre into full focus.

And the rest is movie history.

I’ve touched upon the depiction of Vietnam vets in film with the OG, John Rambo. Check out my Recap (Part One | Part Two) and Review of First Blood if you’re curious. And it’s only, like, my 4th post, so...be gentle, I was (and am) new at this.

But what movies am I looking at this month? After all, there’s a lot of literal history to cover here. And while it’s unlikely I’ll get to all of them, I should still post my list of possibles! Bold ones are the ones I haven’t seen, as per normal. And hey, if you want to use this as a watchlist for yourself, you’re more than free to! And if you’re wondering after all of this what a war film is, well...it’s war

And that’s all there is to it. Right?

World War I AKA The Great War (1914 - 1918)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); dir. Lewis Milestone

Paths of Glory (1957); dir. Stanley Kubrick

Lawrence of Arabia (1962); dir. David Lean

Johnny Got His Gun (1971); dir. Dalton Trumbo

Joyeux Noël (2005); dir. Christian Carion

War Horse (2011); dir. Steven Spielberg

Wonder Woman (2017); dir. Patty Jenkins

1917 (2019); dir. Sam Mendes

World War II AKA The Second World War (1939 - 1945)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943); dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

From Here to Eternity (1953); dir. Fred Zinnemann

Stalag 17 (1953); dir. Billy Wilder

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); dir. David Lean

The Great Escape (1963); dir. John Sturges

Dr. Strangelove (1964); dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Dirty Dozen (1967); dir. Robert Aldrich

Battle of Britain (1969); dir. Guy Hamilton

Patton (1970); dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970); dir. Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, and Toshio Masuda

Gallipoli (1981); dir. Peter Weir (WWII)

Das Boot (1981); dir. Wolfgang Petersen

Sophie’s Choice (1982); dir. Alan J. Pakula

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983); dir. Nagisa Oshima

Come and See (1985); dir. Elem Klimov

Empire of the Sun (1987); dir. Steven Spielberg

Grave of the Fireflies (1988); dir. Isao Takahata

Schindler’s List (1993); dir. Steven Spielberg

The English Patient (1996); dir. Anthony Minghella

Life is Beautiful (1997); dir. Roberto Benigni

The Thin Red Line (1998); dir. Terrence Malick

Saving Private Ryan (1998); dir. Steven Spielberg

The Pianist (2002); dir. Roman Polanski

Downfall (2004); dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006); dir. Clint Eastwood

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008); dir. Mark Herman

Inglorious Basterds (2009); dir. Quentin Tarantino

The Flowers of War (2011); dir. Zhang Yimou

Dunkirk (2017); dir. Christopher Nolan

The Vietnam War (1955 - 1975)

The Deer Hunter (1978); dir. Michael Cimino

Apocalypse Now (1979); dir. Francis Ford Coppola

First Blood (1983); dir. Ted Kotcheff

Platoon (1986); dir. Oliver Stone

Full Metal Jacket (1987); dir. Stanley Kubrick

Hamburger Hill (1987); dir. John Irvin

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987); dir. Barry Levinson

Casualties of War (1989); dir. Brian de Palma

Born on the Fourth of July (1989); dir. Oliver Stone

Forrest Gump (1994); dir. Robert Zemeckis

We Were Soldiers (2002); dir. Randall Wallace

Da 5 Bloods (2020); dir. Spike Lee

Other Wars

Troy (2004); dir. Wolfgang Petersen (Trojan War)

300 (2007); dir. Zack Snyder (Greco-Persian Wars)

Chimes at Midnight (1976); dir. Orson Welles (War of the Roses)

Braveheart (1995); dir. Mel Gibson (First War of Scottish Independence)

The Last of the Mohicans (1992); dir. Michael Mann (French-Indian War)

Johnny Tremain (1957); dir. Robert Stevenson (American Revolution)

The Patriot (2000); dir. Roland Emmerich (American Revolution)

The Buccaneer (1958); dir. Anthony Quinn (War of 1812)

Gone with the Wind (1939); dir. Victor Fleming (Civil War)

The Red Badge of Courage (1951); dir. John Huston (Civil War)

Glory (1989); dir. Edward Zwick (Civil War)

Gettysburg (1993); dir. Roland F. Maxwell (Civil War)

Lincoln (2012); dir. Steven Spielberg (Civil War)

The Steel Helmet (1951); dir. Sam Fuller (Korean War)

M*A*S*H (1970); dir. Robert Altman (Korean War)

The Battle of Algiers (1966); dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (Algerian War)

Che (2008); dir. Steven Soderbergh (Cold War)

Three Kings (1999); dir. David O. Russell (Gulf War)

Jarhead (2005); dir. Sam Mendes

Black Hawk Down (2001); dir. Ridley Scott (Somali Civil War)

Hotel Rwanda (2004); dir. Terry George (Rwanda Civil War)

The Hurt Locker (2008); dir. Kathryn Bigelow (Iraq War)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012); dir. Kathryn Bigelow (Iraq War)

...That’s a LOT of war.

So, no time like the present to get started, right? Let’s see, let’s see, this is gonna be a rough month...let’s start early on, huh? I’d go for Chimes at Midnight, but that’s barely a war film. So, let’s watch something right within the genre. And something about a war I hardly know anything about...

Next: The Last of the Mohicans (1992); dir. Michael Mann

#war november #warvember #war movies #war film #war genre #film genre #film genre analysis #genre analysis #film essay #userlenny #dailyflicks #user365 #365days365movies #365moviechallenge

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rhysintherain · 2 years ago

Note

Okay, I didn't recognise the name either, but after a quick look-up, I do know a bit about what her research grew into.

Namely, the "Mother Goddess" theory of human history and religion. This idea suggests that, prior to the "patriarchal" and "warlike" societies that we traditionally know from history, ancient European societies ascribed to a peaceful, matriarchal tradition characterised by worship of a single or central mother goddess.

I have... A lot of issues with this theory, some of which are archaeological and some of which have to do with modern culture and modern religion.

First of all, this theory rather aggressively pushes the idea that separate genders shape societies in separate ways, and you will have a markedly different society with women in charge than with men in charge. They link matriarchal structures with peace and patriarchal ones with war in a very essentialist way, one we don't actually see in practice. The idea that women will create a compassionate, peaceful society, while men will create a violent and rigid one, isn't something we see in actual cultures. In reality, both men and women rule as a reflection of the culture they were raised in, and carry on those power structures as long as they benefit from them.

This theory also has strong roots in modern western monotheism. It hinges on the worship of a central goddess, and the dominant authority of her priestesses. As someone who has studied pagan and shamanic beliefs to some extent, I just don't buy that the early cultures of Europe structured their religions this way. Celtic religion, for instance, had a wide variety of gods that varied by community, area, and priority. The gods of bronze age Britain would be very different than those of bronze age Germany, and the gods a person worshipped would be the ones with the most impact on their life. Looking at more recent hunter-gatherer cultures in North America, we see a pattern of powerful supernatural beings that wouldn't quite be viewed in the same way as gods. The further back we look, the less convinced I am that modern ideas of one all-powerful deity apply at all to the period discussed in this theory.

If anything, this idea of a "one mother goddess" tells us more about our culture, and our lack of imagination, than about the cultures it ostensibly describes.

It's also very tied up in modern new age religions. This, in my opinion, has kept the ancient mother goddess concept relevant longer than it would have been if it was only an archaeological theory. Religion doesn't require the level of archaeological evidence science does for an idea to persist, and the ideas this theory suggests are very appealing to feminist seekers looking for a way to believe outside the patriarchal structures of organised religion. As a result, it has gained roots in communities not trained to evaluate scientific evidence or put these ideas in the cultural framework of ancient societies.

I think this theory grew out of a perfect storm of modern concerns and profound misunderstandings. In the mid-20th century (and even today) we desperately needed an alternative to the patriarchal religious structures of mainstream christianity. The people championing the idea of a utopia ruled over by a compassionate mother goddess found that alternative in questionable archaeological evidence.

Unfortunately, it's really difficult to conceptualise the culture, values, and beliefs of ancient peoples though a modern lens. Archaeologists study the past for years to get there, and still constantly struggle to tell what is really going on in the archaeological record and what results when that record is filtered through modern western experience.

The mother goddess theory is an example of this. Why do we believe artistic depictions of people to be religious in nature? Because they often are to us. Why do we believe a single goddess, not a variety of female spirits, is depicted? Because we were raised in a culture that considers monotheism the norm.

I can't scientifically disprove that there was ever a culture that worshipped a single mother goddess, but I can also find no reputable archaeological evidence for it. I have no issue with people believing in it, as long as they recognise that this is religion, not science.

I'd also encourage the people attracted to this theory to think critically about why. Why believe women lead us to utopia, while men only lead us to ruin? Why do we need a compassionate creator, man or woman, to inspire us to better? Where do people outside the gender binary fit in this idea?

Anyway, here's a paper that goes over a few of these points, and the issues in the archaeological evidence:

Meskell, L. (1995). Goddesses, Gimbutas and new age archaeology. Antiquity, 69(262), 74-86.

And here's a much more fun and practical take on Venus figurines, suggesting that they could have been self-portraits by female carvers:

McDermott, L. (1996). Self-representation in Upper Paleolithic female figurines. Current Anthropology, 37(2), 227-275.

(full disclosure this isn't an area I've studied extensively, just a tangent related to a side hobby. Anybody with more experience here feel free to chime in.)

Dear fellow digger, your thoughts on Marija Gimbutas?

Prehistoric European archaeology is so far outside my area of expertise that I hadn't actually come across her name before you sent this ask.

Honestly, I don't feel all that qualified to give an opinion, but from little I've gleaned, it seems to me that 1) she was a woman in archaeology when that was very difficult, and 2) while interesting, her theories about gender are a little rigid and binary for me to feel completely comfortable supporting. That being said, she seems to be a product of her era, and I while I might not agree with all of her work, I can understand where she was coming from.

-Reid

#sorry to rant on your post Reid #but I'm in a ranty mood and this topic annoys me #archaeology #anthropoplogy #academia #pseudoarchaeology #sort of #or maybe just bad archaeology?#in this case anyway #this is an abbreviated version of this topic #I could say a lot more but I don't have the energy #y'all can ask if you want clarification on any points

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iamkhange · 3 years ago

Text

Why is Israel a developed country, and why are we still developing?

I am not a very good writer or author. But one day, I sat down to write my thoughts,

Think about it, some irrelevant ideas and questions are starting to get very annoying these days, like:

· Why is Israel a developed country, and why are we growing?

· Why does he have so many resources that he is selling the world and we are just borrowing?

· Are they still a chosen nation, and our share is limited to the "promise of intercession"?

When I started drowning in these and many other questions, I resorted to Google, proving to be very strong.

Many things between the Jewish nation and the Muslims

Like meet

Both are Abrahamic religions

Believe in one God

To worship him

To be cleansed

make ablution

To do charity

Slaughtering and eating animals

Don't eat pork

Circumcision

Believing that jinn are God's creation

Considering Satan disobedient

The act of considering the people of Lot a sin

Don't recognize a relationship without marriage

On the coming of the Messiah before the resurrection

Believing in the reckoning on the Day of Resurrection

Thinking in the same way of being resurrected after death (being made back from the tail bone)

Witt: The practical methods of all these ordinary things are different; for example, they call Allah by another name, the practise of ablution and prayer is different, their Messiah is different, etc.

Now the surprise increased from here that despite so many similarities and similarities, how did they move forward? While here (God forbid), religion has become a chain of feet, the children graduating from our madrassas are seldom integrated into the outside world, and in the modern lifestyle, they are barely visible, any skill anyway. It is not part of our education system that the child is still "reading" (why it is inappropriate for us to teach skills while learning).

We have included religion only in everyday life till the azan at birth and the funeral prayer at death. The rest of it has been left in the niche. The two are not conceived at the same time. Yes, some schools or madrassas are now promoting religious and scientific education together, but on the one hand, their number is like salt in flour; on the other hand, their fees are out of the commoner's pocket. And if the money came in the bag and then the education system of London, Europe and America would look fine, then very few children are getting an education from these modern madrassas.

After madrassas, school and college education is also in an awful condition in our country. An example of our education system is termite infested wood. We memorize it. But the same child cannot write 5 to 10 lines on any subject other than these.

Curriculum and the practical world are two different things; there is no match between them; education is so expensive that if one leaves with a degree, he is worried about "recovering his investment" first.

And after all, the sad thing is that 44.5% of children go to high school; 55 out of every 100 children do not go to school.

Beloved God, the Prophet (peace be upon him), prioritized the gathering of knowledge and education over the meeting of remembrance and supplication that I was sent as a teacher (Ibn Majah).

And more than 25 million children in Pakistan do not go to school ... (These are pre-Corona statistics)

In Israel, schooling is free and compulsory, as well as skills and practical business training, paid for by the school/government, and the dropout is skilled. Yes, and also business, he also bears and collects the cost of his further education. Thus, the country's economy is also strengthened, and the expenditure incurred on the child's teaching also starts coming back.

There was no oil in the house at the Prophet's death, but three swords of personal use were hanging on the wall.

On the occasion of the trench warfare, the Muslims dug a fifteen-mile long trench in fifteen days with stones tied to their stomachs and defended Medina on an empty stomach.

Referring to both incidents, Israel's defense minister bought heavy weapons from the United States in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, saying that even if it provided the nation with only one loaf of bread for 20 years, the world would see only a winner after the war. Not empty stomach

In 1973, we lost Bengal, and Israel increased some of its territories.

There is no water in Israel, they make seawater usable, grow crops from it, drink it, and now they have become so skilled that they are selling the world, even purified water, to purify it. Plants, crops grown on them, animals raised on them and their milk/meat,

Despite being the most extensive canal system, it is sometimes time to import wheat and sugar (which are among our significant crops) despite being primarily an agricultural country.

The Hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them until the Jews hide behind a rock or a tree.

“O Muslims! This Jew is behind me. Come and kill him, except for the tree of Gharqad, because he is one of the trees of the Jews” (Sahih Muslim).

Despite being the world's technology hub, Israel has grown the most trees in the last 50 years. While the number of trees in the rest of the world is declining, Israel is the only country growing.

He (the Antichrist) will come to the babe Lud in Palestine. Jesus (PBUH) will have descended, and here they will kill him ... Hadith

Today, Israel has a military airport in Lud and has excellent security.

So, sir, the thing is that religion is not a chain of feet, nor does a large population hold anyone back. On the contrary, the most vital factor that hinders progress is mental retardation, the thought of not moving forward.

If our prime minister said that women's clothes cause mischief, he would also give some ugly justification for the crimes committed against older women, boys, girls, dead (dead bodies). But in our country, Islam starts with a woman's clothes and ends with four marriages of a man. There is no rule of training or justice, no control of the self and no control over the eyes. There is no question of passing any verse of knowledge, of discovery,

Well, this is a collective matter, which we all blame the government and its policies and acquit our political party and ourselves, but our role as individuals is no more negligible.

We never try to pick up a loser, but we call him so bad that he loses confidence in his return. To get a chance to hit a woman,

Mobile has become very popular; about 30 million people in Pakistan currently use smartphones, but sadly, the top trends in search are cricket series, cricketers, political scandals, controversial and bold actors, education, health. We have nothing to do with research and knowledge. Thanks to Corona, the only "Google classroom" in terms of education is still in trend in 2020.

The epidemic is also considered a "business season" in our country, and things are expected at 4 to 6 times higher prices, oxygen cylinders are missing from the market, and a simple mask is available at 20 to 25.

Of course, not everyone is like that; many people are doing perfect things, retail shops deliver rations to needy homes, schools give free education to poor children, etc.

But all this is not enough. It is like salt in the flour. For development, we all have to move forward, so whatever you are, whatever your status, think of collective benefits, your neighbor, partner, house. Help, employee, friend, brother, make encouragement a motto in every relationship, encourage them to move forward, ignore their mistakes and shortcomings, guide them according to their talent,

We are a very talented nation, and the world is buying our talent ... Via the same mobile, laptop and computer,

Anyone around you has any talent, provide information to sell on the net, guide them on how they can make money by selling this skill, don't limit the intake to yourself, because stagnant water, no matter how good and abundant it is, rots, it becomes impure, so keep sharing, knowledge, conveniences, sweet words, whatever is available to you,

Believe in everything you can get money need a little research, information, so do not use your mobile phone to wait for the magic by writing five in the comments it is a great power you can use it; ideally, you can earn money from it, you can strengthen your family, your nation ...

Rise and do your part to move beyond Israel and developed countries like this so that our next generation can breathe in a developed Pakistan, do your part to make this country safe because

ہیں ہے ناامید اقبال اپنی کشت ویراں سے

ذرا نم ہو تو یہ مٹی بڑی زرخیز ہے ساقی

Pray for progress

#education #pakistan #pm imran #motivationalwords

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dweetwise · 4 years ago

Text

day 26: on the road

prompt from: flufftober pairing: felix x ace notes: this was going to be fluff but ace is horny on main warnings: implied sexual content word count: 1070

Ace jolts awake at the sound of sirens.

He feels disoriented and there's a buzzing in his ear but he needs to act quick, needs to bolt before the cops find him, hopefully there's a fire escape. He blinks the sleep from his eyes and looks around the motel room—

And sees a stretch of road in front of him, the car he's in moving at a high speed along it.

“Good morning,” someone says from his left and Ace turns to look at Felix, who is looking at him with an amused smile before turning his attention back on the road.

Right. The roadtrip.

The police car passes theirs and the last dregs of tension leave Ace's body. He's not on the run from the law in the Americas, he's driving through Europe with his boyfriend.

Felix doesn't ask why the siren instantly woke him up, but the knowing little smirk is proof enough of his perceptiveness.

Ace yawns and stretches his arms as much as the confined space will allow him.

“How long was I asleep?” he asks.

“About an hour,” Felix hums. “Though the snoring and drooling didn't start until halfway through.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Ace argues, discreetly wiping the corner of his mouth on his sleeve and indeed finding some wetness there. “Why didn't you wake me up?”

“You looked like you could use a nap,” Felix explains, before smirking again. “And I was enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“That's not what you said last night,” Ace quips.

Felix's smile fades and he bites his lip, no doubt remembering the scenario.

They'd stayed the night in Nuremburg, as it made a good halfway point and Felix wanted to show him some of the Bavarian sights.

They'd managed 20 minutes of sightseeing before spotting a cozy bar in the old town and Felix had changed his priorities from Bavarian sights to Bavarian beer.

Felix had been able to keep himself in check, nothing if not responsible, only drinking a couple of beers since he had to be in driving condition early the next morning. Ace however had no such inhibitions, and had gotten a little too drunk and a little too bold and a lot too loud. When they'd stumbled back to the hotel and started tearing off each other's clothes, Felix had done nothing but egg him on.

Hopefully the room had good soundproofing.

“Fair point,” Felix finally says, and Ace can't see his expression completely because of the sunglasses, but the redness on his cheeks is a good indicator.

Ace is still a little hungover and disoriented after his nap, but the memories of last night and his blushing boyfriend are enough for his libido to wake up faster than his brain.

Ace has never been particularly into cars but Felix looks gorgeous in his, leather jacket and leather driving gloves going with the leather interior of the car. His hair is styled loosely with a stray lock hanging off the side of his face, and combined with the few top buttons of his shirt undone it's a nice, casual look. Ace hasn't quite made up his mind whether he likes the stache or not, reminding him of a cheap porno, but with his mind already in the gutter he wouldn't mind being the co-star in this particular movie.

Felix swallows and shifts in his seat, probably because of Ace's intense staring. He doesn't know whether he's imagining it, but Felix seems to be gripping the wheel tighter than before. God, he'd want nothing more than for him to pull over and make a repeat performance of last night—

“Three hours more,” Felix says, as if reading his mind.

Three hours until they'd reach the small town in the Alps somewhere in Switzerland Ace doesn't know how to pronounce the name of. Felix had picked out the destination, telling Ace of his many childhood vacations there, skiing and doing whatever rich kids did, back when his parents were still in the picture. Ace was always much more of a beach kind of guy, not a fan of mountains or snow or skiing, but he'd go anywhere as long as he got to be with Felix.

It was also a private cabin, which was preferable to a cramped blowjob in the car.

“Alright,” Ace says, sinking back into his seat and looking out of the window to take in the rapidly passing scenery next to the autobahn.

“...Alright? Just like that?” Felix asks, seeming confused.

“I can be patient,” Ace argues half-heartedly.

“I guess miracles do happen,” Felix comments and Ace chuckles in amusement.

“Tell me about the cabin,” Ace encourages. “Is there, like… a fireplace, with a bear skin rug and a moose head on top?”

"It has a fireplace, but I'm not too sure about the animal carcasses,” Felix snorts.

Fireplace. Ace could work with a fireplace, that was a very romantic setting, right? They'd make themselves comfortable in front of it, Ace helping Felix out of his clothes, Felix’s smooth skin illuminated in a warm orange light—

“Oh, and a sauna,” Felix adds, as if an afterthought.

Felix might have said "sauna" but all Ace hears is "an excuse to get naked". Maybe they'd get back to the cabin after a day in the snow, getting rid of all their clothes and getting in the sauna. They’d instantly be surrounded by warmth and comfort, Felix relaxing as sweat trickles down his body—

“Ah, and the hot tub,” Felix seems to remember, and all Ace can do is offer an unintelligible "Hnnnng" as his brain short-circuits.

“You alright, Ace?” Felix smirks knowingly.

“I am literally so horny for you,” Ace admits shamelessly.

He doesn’t really care if Felix thinks he's being ridiculous. At this point his hyperactive libido is kind of a running joke, and even though Felix often rolls his eyes and makes a snarky comment, he’s never once complained.

“Good,” Felix says instead, voice a low rumble, taking Ace off guard. He shoots a dark look over the edge of the shades. “Because we're not going to be leaving the cabin much.”

Ace also doesn't care that he whimpers in arousal, and he pretends not to notice that Felix's foot pushes harder on the gas pedal and goes over the recommended speed limit he’d been religiously following up to this point.

Suddenly, snow and mountains and an isolated cabin seem much more appealing than the beach.

#riconti #flufftober2020 #ace visconti #felix richter #dweetwrites #dbd fanfic #dead by daylight #dbd #prompt #felix x ace #suggestive cw

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uncoordinated-house-cat · 4 years ago

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pls rant about nicholas ii 👀

dude i am so glad u asked. i mean, u didn’t ask for the entire rant about both russian revolutions, but here u are anyway. (but also im a teenager history student so this is very biased and i checked most of my facts but not all of them so don’t quote me and if a history person who actually knows what they’re doing finds a mistake don’t @ me) ok so nicholas ii was an absolute ********** and had an iq of -1000 and he was still super convinced that he could run all of russia, which is like a freaking huge country with millions of people who are super poor (peasants made up 85% of the population in 1905 when the first revolution happened, the number of people below the poverty line was probably way higher when the actual revolution happened and he got overthrown but bitch had it cOMING)

so here’s the thing. nick, a spoiled child who let’s say is twelve years old when his dad alexander dies of assassination (omg i googled the dates and HE WAS TWELVE I WAS RIGHT FHDSJKLAFHSD) has been told, since he was a tiny but no less annoying baby, that he was amazing and very smart and was absolutely entitled to rule all of russia and he was like ‘hell yeah bro this is my divine right wahoo guess i don’t have to pay attention in my ‘how to be a good leader’ lessons cos god chose me to be the tsar so i already am one #thuglife’

so he met this girl named alix, who was princess of somewhere irrelevant and incredibly religious (and also deluded but that becomes important later) and he falls in love with her and they get married, which is nice but probably not a good long-term decision because through her friend, nick meets rasputin (and i love the ra ra rasputin song but rasputin was very very problematic) and that’s one of the many, many, many stupid things he does that makes literally every single person in russia (again, lots of people) mad at him. but nick is in love, and he marries alix, and this is all very nice if russia was a substantially smaller and easier country to run and nick was actually a competent leader then maybe there wouldn’t have been a revolution! but alas, this was not the case.

so as we all know, russia is fucking enormous. for people who have never looked at a map in their entire life, this is russia

and it has more landmass than several continents put together. chonky boi. and the capital city where the royal family lives? well, you’d assume it’s somewhere in the middle ish, since russia’s such a huge country and you kinda need to be in the middle in order to have literally any idea what’s going on and stop your people from revolting under your freaking nose, so put it in the middle.

but nOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. they put the capital in st. petersburg, a place that’s like five minutes drive from finland, estona, latvia, ukraine (although that would probably take a while but u get the point) and LITERALLY NOWHERE NEAR ANYWHERE IN RUSSIA. ARGH.

i’m pretty sure the reasoning for this was ‘it’s been there since forever and everything was fine then so we don’t need to change it’ cos back when russia was actually a country-sized country instead of the mammoth it is now (we’re talking 1539, and by country-sized country it was still bigger than most of western europe put together), the country was all the way over to the left, where st. petersburg is, so they probably had the capital there foreeeeeeever. even after they expanded and became mcfreaking enormous bc sOmEoNe (not naming names *cough cough* ivan the terrible *cough cough*) decided it would be an awesome idea to have some expansionist policy, yay, and now we’ve ended up with this monstrosity. and while you might think that having a big country is great, it’s not. here’s why:

- so many people. soooo many people

- how u gonna keep track of all of them?? it takes like 8 years to get from one side of this bad boy to the other

- since nobody can control russia cos of all the land and all the people, the culture just goes absolutely backward. the peasants are too poor to afford food, let alone an education, and it’s not as if nicky is gonna build free public schools or raise wages or anything, lol, so the collective russian mindset is a bit of a dumpsterfire

- if, say, a revolution were to happen, which of course it can’t hahaha everybody know’s nick’s the divine ruler and overthrowing him wouldn’t be possible cos everyone’s so thrilled with their life in a very cold place with no food, awful policies, terrible wages and working conditions and a tsar who cares more about hanging out with his family than actually doing his duty as leader of the biggest country in the world?? then the tsar wOULDN’T KNOW THE REVOLUTION WAS HAPPENING UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND SOMEONE WAS HOLDING A GUN TO HIS STUPID TINY PEABRAIN HEAD

and nick did not do a lot to help the russian people to live unproblematic, non-poverty-stricken lives. in the early 1900s, there was a big move to the cities cos everyone was moving to the cities which meant there were more educated people getting jobs or going to university and going ‘hey, our wages are shit, nobody has any food and it seems like the tsar is doing a really bad job and just living in the lap of luxury while his entire country suffers?? should we do something about this??’

but he did do something. oh, boy. nicky, looking at all his ancestors going ‘bro aren’t u gonna expand the country that’s literally the one thing russia is good at u can’t break our streak’ went and conquered siberia. then he built a railway, cos he needed a water outlet for trade and stuff. he called it the trans-siberian railway. he wanted to make it really big, and cross over into manchuria, so he had a bit of a war with china which he won and then he built the railway in manchuria.

meanwhile, japan has been practising their war tactics a lot recently and while they don’t have much of a reputation in the west (like at all, nobody takes them seriously) and they also want to expand and flex their fighting skills a bit, they cross into manchuria and are like ‘i want this land. gimme’ and nick is like ‘nah fam i’m good’ and japan is like ‘>:( one last warning’ and nick is like ‘lol ur country is tiny and my country is huge have u seen all these buff russian soldiers i have guarding the railway i could crush u with my boot’ and then the japanese launch a surprise attack! on the russian squadron at port arthur. nick made the pikachu face, then the russo-japanese war started.

uh oh, bad decision! looks like the russians are losing and even tho there’s lots of them there are more japanese and they have better battle tactics, so nick sends more soldiers. thing is, everyone in russia is already super poor so they can’t afford to have the [relatively] healthy, working men go off to war and die, cos that’s not practical at all and now they have even less money and food. fast forward, russia loses the war, nick makes the pikachu face again, stays in his nice mansion while the rest of russia starts going ‘grrr’ as well as ‘brrrr’.

and then this dude called gapon who’s a nice priest guy goes to petition the tsar to have better working conditions, fairer wages, a bunch of other stuff but they’re all very fair and reasonable. nick is like ‘nooooo!!’ and his uncle is like ‘nOoOoO!!!!!!1!!!’ and orders the army to shoot the peaceful protesters, so it gets called bloody sunday. this makes everyone really unhappy again, and it’s called the russian revolution of 1905 cos there are a lot of strikes and even while nick is like ‘haha this isn't happening’ they don’t reeeally accomplish much bc nick stays on the throne, and the russians are very mad but not mad or coordinated enough to overthrow the autocracy. there was this new parliament thingo called the duma, because nick’s only competent political adviser, count witte, was like ‘bro u literally have no choice but to form a new democratic government’ and nick was like ‘oh ok what if i made a government but it’s not really democratic or effective bc they have very limited power’ and witte was like ‘nick nO’ and nick was like ‘hehe nick yes’ and the duma was formed

--fast forward to 1917-- *time vworp noises*

so russia is poor. again. everyone is mad. again. all the men have been sent off to war. again. this time, it’s because of world war 1!

and yikes, the russian army have it bad. like seriously, those dude were suffering lots and lots. very ouchy, no food, too cold, everyone is dying. it wasn’t great.

nick was like ‘hmm this war seems to be going well anyway look at my children aren’t they cute one of them broke an expensive vase today that’s so funny!!!’ (i made that up but he really didn’t care much and spent a lot of money u get the gist)

lots of strikes are happening. nobody is happy, and this time there are actually some organised people who can channel the rage into a revolution that might actually get something done this time.

by the way, rasputin has turned up!! *cue the ra ras*

so rasputin introduces himself to some lady who’s a friend of alix, and alix, being super religious and super deluded and also having a sick son -

oh yeah, she had like five kids (was it five? not sure it was a lot) and the first four of them were girls and she was like ‘oh my god who’s gonna rule the country i have to have a boy’ and then she finally had a boy and his name was alexei and everything was great until they discovered that he had haemophilia, which is a hereditary illness that means ur skin is super weak or smth and whenever u, like, bump a table and u would normally get a little bruise, instead u start bleeding like you’ve been shot and yeah it was super problematic and it meant alexei was constantly sick and bleeding

- and so alix said to rasputin, who proclaimed to heal people like he was basically jesus, ‘yo dude can u pls heal my son it’s pretty urgent ngl’ and rasputin was like ‘uh huh lemme just take a look at him’ and he had a check up with alexei who somehow healed?? i don’t know how, he just sorta did, (he still had the haemophilia but alix was convinced it was gone for good) and so she turned into rasputin’s Number One Fan and started spouting all his very false religious conspiracy theories and made him a very important member of politics which was Not Good

and then count witte, the sensible one, was like ‘hmm this rasputin fellow seems kinda shady also he has thousands of STIs i don’t think it’s a good look if ur wife is hanging out with him all the time bc there are lots of rumours and he just seems super sketchy i reckon we should get rid of him’ and nick was like ‘no U’

he just uno reverse-carded him. witte tried to investigate rasputin and then nick was like ‘hmm i guess i’ll dissolve the duma cos ur being annoying’ and witte resigned like two days later. fair. if i had to deal with nick on a daily basis, there would probably be a lot of punching (of him, by me, in case u couldn’t tell bc im full of rage)

and there were a lot of rumours going around about alix & rasputin (which was kinda fair, because they hung out all the time and rasputin was a very sus person) so alix’s credibility was questioned and she was accused of selling secrets to the enemy, which was a bit dramatic (im pretty sure it was because she came from germany, and she was called ‘the german woman’ by a lot of the public)

--- also this isn’t very relevant to nick but i thought it was incredibly funny how rasputin died and it was time for a break from all that serious stuff so ~INTERLUDE~ ---

note: start listen to rasputin by boney m cos this is where it gets hilarious (and the song also narrates his assassination lol)

so nobody liked rasputin. he had a lot of sex with pretty much everyone, he was very religious but also spouted a lot of nonsense, he was involved in some very dubious stuff and he was in favour of a lot of policies that the general public did not want at all. so a lot of people tried to murder him. and nearly all of them failed!! turns out, rasputin is really difficult to assassinate. there were a bunch of attempts on his life, all failed, before this one dude was like ‘bro i gotta put a stop to this’ so he invited rasputin to his house cos he was rsaputin’s bud (his name was yusupov btw)

dude gave him some cakes. they were laced with cyanide (poison) and rasputin was like cronch cronch, nom nom. did not die. ate a lot of cake.

yusupov was like ?????????????

gave him some wine. wine was also poisoned. rasputin was like ‘dude this wine is good where can i get some more’ and he drank three glasses of it. the wine was poisoned with cyanide as well, btw. and the doctors who had helped plan this had carefully put enough cyanide in each glass to kill SEVERAL MEN. still not dead somehow????

so yusupov went ‘ok time for plan c’ and shot him. rasputin was like ‘ow’ and fell over. yusupov checked his pulse, there was now, he was like ‘ok good job’

and then while they were discussing their cover story upstairs, yusupov went back down to check on rasputin’s body and dude was sTILL ALIVE.

so they shot him again, tied him up, shot him one more time for good measure (and they shot him in the forehead at some point but apparently he was still alive???) and then they threw him into a frozen river. where he died of hypothermia, after having consumed enough cyanide to kill dozens of men and being shot three times, one of which was literally in his head. hhhh.

*sigh of relief* he finally died. fINALLY. the dudes who assassinated him got exiled but nothing worse than that because everyone in russia was like ‘well someone had to do it’

~~END OF INTERLUDE~~

now shit is getting rEAL. i mean, not for nick, obviously. but everyone else is like ‘ohmygosh rasputin is dead we actually got something done yay!!!’

so it’s february 1917 in petrograd. nick is on holiday with his family 800km away with literally no idea what’s going on. 15 million russians were away at war, and 1.7 million had died. lots of strikes and protests are happening. bIG protests. people were breaking into stores to get food, because of the awful food shortages, and it was very very cold so everyone was slightly extra mad. the police shot at some of the people who had gotten up onto the rooftops, so they protests turned into riots. all the people who were on strike from work joined the riots, and the women workers who had come out for international women’s day marched around the nearby factories and got another 50,000 people (including students and teachers) to join the riots (which was A Lot) and by the 25th of february the riots had gotten so big that pretty much every business in petrograd was shut down. literally everyone was rioting.

the tsar was like ‘hmm that doesn’t look good’ and ordered his army to shut the riots down. there were about 180k troops in the city, but only about 12k were actually able to fight bc the rest of them were all injured from the war. they didn’t want to suppress the riots by force bc a lot of women were in the crowds (guess chivalry isn’t dead?) so when the tsar was like ‘no u gotta do it’ the troops were like ‘fuck u’ and either joined the riots or yeeted outta there. hooray!!

the tsar was like ‘ok everything is under control’ (partly bc his official informant gave him the wrong info rip) and didn’t accede to any of the rioter’s demandsor do anything for a while. and here’s the thing. the tsar’s cabinet sent a telegram to nick saying ‘bro u gotta resign, we’re literally on the verge of revolution’ and nick read it, wrote ‘lol’ in his diary and refused to answer.

the next day, there was another telegram saying ‘bro, u GOTTA resign. the revolution is happening now. if u don’t resign, the entire monarchy will be overthrown and ur reign will be o-v-e-r’

and nick wrote an entry in his diary saying ‘what nonsense is this? i can’t believe they’re sending me telegrams about this rubbish, as if i’m going to do anything’ (and im paraphrasing bc i don’t have my book w me but he definitely used the word “nonsense” and wrote a bunch of awful stuff about it)

the next day, nick got another telegram that basically said ‘welp. country’s over. good while it lasted, revolution is happening now and it’s too late for you to do anything about it bc u didn’t listen to my numerous warnings to resign’ and nick was like ‘wait should i... do something about this??? hmm... yeah!! i’ll go up to petrograd and show ‘em who’s boss!! can’t defeat the absolute power of the tsar, huzzah!!’

and he went up to petrograd and got arrested. he had no choice but to abdicate, adn then he and the rest of his family were put under house arrest. there was a bit of an argument about whether they should be exiled to some western country, but all the western europeans were like ‘we don’t want nick u can keep him’ so they put him under house arrest in one of his palaces, where nick pretty much just chilled out with his family until they were all executed because everyone in russia was still very mad at them.

(and in 1981 nick and his family were recognised as ‘martyred saints’, which is fine for the rest of them but nick absolutely did not deserve it)

thus concludes my very, very long rant. i spent way too long writing this, but my history teacher would be proud of me.

#history #history rant #long post #nicholas ii #russia #very long post #very very long post #i probably got a lot of stuff wrong but i did read all this from a bunch of sources so i'm going to blame it on them if i made mistakes ig??

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revlyncox · 4 years ago

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Trees (2021)

A talk abut growth, hope, and paying attention to history

Revised and expanded for the Washington Ethical Society by Lyn Cox

February 7, 2021

In this place halfway between the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring, we draw on imagination and memory, caution and optimism, hope for the future and learning from the past. Many of these things are contained in stories.

I don’t know if the story happened exactly this way, but I believe it’s true. A sage, a wise person, was walking along the road and saw someone planting a carob tree. The sage asks, "How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?" "Seventy years," replies the gardener. The sage then asks: "Are you so healthy a person that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?" The gardener answers: "I found a fruitful world, because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise I am planting for my children." I will tell you where this story is from because I want to give credit, but I also want to notice that this story has a universality to it, a truth that the beginnings of things we set in motion can have an impact long past the horizons of our own lives. This story is from the Talmud, a collection of rabbinic conversations on ethics and customs. (Talmud Ta'anit 23a)

We drink from wells we did not dig and eat from trees we did not plant (Deut. 6:11). Our physical, intellectual, and religious lives depend on those who have gone before. Following their example will lead us to plant literal and figurative trees for the world of the future.

I believe caring for ourselves AND others will help us sustain a shared life of meaning and compassion for a long time.

My first semester studying for my M.Div. degree in California, I worked at one college in the south bay area, and went to school in the east bay area. I enjoyed the fragrance of eucalyptus trees around both campuses. The dry leaves rustled in the breeze, leaves rubbing together like the wings of singing crickets. Some people were distracted by the sound and allergic to the smell, but I liked them. The eucalyptus trees were tall and graceful. One might imagine that they had always been there. There’s a story about those trees. I don’t know if it happened exactly this way.

The American West in the late 1800’s was heavily influenced by dreams of getting rich quick. Non-native eucalyptus trees were brought from Australia because they grew quickly. It was imagined that the lumber and oil would become quickly replaceable commodities for those who farmed them. They were promoted as ornamental trees for rich landowners new to the area and not used to treeless landscapes. Eucalyptus trees were all over California by the 1900’s, and were tested for use as railroad ties. They didn’t work out. Eucalyptus from Australian virgin forests, seasoned and treated properly, behaves differently than eucalyptus grown from seeds in California, hastily treated, and set down in the Nevada sand. Some of the railroad ties were so cracked they couldn’t hold spikes. Some decayed within four years.

The trees themselves grew like weeds. They did what non-native species are famous for doing: thriving in the new environment, edging out diverse native plants that provide food and habitat, with consequences for the entire food chain. An attempt at a quick profit turned out to have unintended consequences. Recently, there has been more discussion in that region about restoring native trees, but it’s complicated. To say that it will take time to mitigate the damage of an invasive species is an understatement. Then again, compare that to the 2,000-year growth of some living redwood trees. May we learn patience and commitment from slow-growing trees.

We strive to be among those people who have the hope and imagination it takes to envision a world of justice and compassion, a world of liberation and self-determination, a world of peace where people sit calmly in the shade of slow-growing trees. In our neck of the woods, we might imagine a world where every person lives in safety and abundance, with access to the shade of a Witch Hazel, Hackberry, or Redbud tree; the three logically native trees our Earth Ethics Action Team recently arranged to have planted on the WES property. In folk music and wisdom tales, slow-growing trees symbolize enough time for a generation to grow without being uprooted by hunger or violence.

The California eucalyptus story reminds us that some of the environmental mistakes we humans have made were decisions made by a few but using the resources and the risk pool of many. Another time, we can unpack the harm that white American westward expansion had on indigenous land rights and communities, and on the horrors of labor exploitation involved in the transcontinental railroad, and on the energy and resources that were available for white colonization but not reparations for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War. Understanding the wrong choices that have been made in the past may help us turn toward making better choices as a society going forward. We can play an active role in the governments, corporations, and organizations to which we belong and who act on our behalf. Let us embody these relationships for repair and renewal.

Contrast the rushed, climate-disrupting story of the eucalyptus trees with the story of George Washington Carver. I had to catch up on some of his story this week, when my kids noticed discrepancies between what was said about Dr. Carver in the elementary school reader on our bookshelf and what they had read elsewhere. Some of us learned in school that the most important contribution Dr. Carver made as a scientist was discovering and promoting new uses for peanuts, but this version of his story is grossly oversimplified and obscures the way his research and activism supported Black self-determination as well as environmental repair.

After he graduated from the Iowa State Agricultural College in 1896, Dr. Carver accepted a position at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Riding on the train to his new home, he noticed immediately that growing nothing but cotton was causing soil erosion and depletion. He had scientific solutions to that. What took longer was figuring out how to empower Black farmers -- especially those who were being exploited as sharecroppers -- to feed their families, improve their chances for subsequent years, and still make enough money to try to get out of debt. Smithsonian Magazine quotes biographer Mark Hersey about the way Dr. Carver understood the problem:

“What Carver comes to see,” Hersey says, was that “altering [black sharecroppers’] interactions with the natural world could undermine the very pillars of Jim Crow.” Hersey argues that black Southerners viewed their lives under Jim Crow through an environmental lens. “If we want to understand their day to day lives, it’s not separate drinking fountains, it’s ‘How do I make a living on this soil, under these circumstances, where I’m not protected’“ by the institutions that are supposed to protect its citizens? Carver encouraged farmers to look to the land for what they needed, rather than going into debt buying fertilizer (and paint, and soap, and other necessities—and food). Instead of buying the fertilizer that “scientific agriculture” told them to buy, farmers should compost. In lieu of buying paint, they should make it themselves from clay and soybeans.

So ends the excerpt. Dr. Carver understood way before what we think of as the modern environmental justice movement that liberation and conservation are entwined projects. The decisions we make for our families, for our communities, and for the planet all go together, and they all benefit from remembering interdependence and the long years of generations to come. Honoring the very beginnings of things, continuing to work on hopes that are barely tangible, believing in the distant future, allows us to live into Beloved Community. White Supremacy depends on the hurry-up-and-profit mindset that brought cracked eucalyptus logs to the Nevada desert. Beloved Community invites us to consider what may come from a seed.

Strong trees grow slowly. Strong communities learn and grow and make connections to other communities little by little over decades. Healing takes time. Repair takes time. And for all of these, we can’t always tell that it is happening. In most cases, we don’t see the seed unfolding under the soil. Our senses are not adjusted to notice the growth of trees right in front of us. Sometimes resilience is about knowing in your heart that change is possible, even when the evidence is not yet obvious.

The nearly imperceptible beginnings of change are also a theme in the earth-honoring holiday of Imbolc. The Celtic calendar where this holiday comes from is rooted in the seasons of light and dark of the northern hemisphere and the agricultural cycles of western Europe. At approximately the same time of year in the British Isles and here in the mid-Atlantic, the middle of winter means that we can start to perceive the time of sunrise and sunset edging toward spring, just a little more daylight each day.

February into March is the time of year when lambs start to be born, vulnerable and full of promise for the coming spring. It’s still cold outside! One theory for where the word Imbolc comes from is that it’s related to the word for sheep milk. The lambs need a lot of help to stay warm and to survive. Yet their arrival shows the persistence of life. Sometimes resilience is about remembering that life is possible.

This is also the time of year when people who grow vegetables in climates like ours make a plan for the next six months, gathering seeds, starting a few indoors, and figuring out how to make the most of the soil and sun that will be available later. Making plans at this in-between time of year takes courage.

For earth-honoring folks in Celtic traditions, the goddess Bridget (and, in her later form, St. Bridget of Kildare) is associated with this early February holiday. In the legends, Bridget protects access to clean, healing water. She is also a figure of light and flame. When you put fire and water together, you can make entirely new things out of what you had before. You can forge iron, cook food, sculpt clay and fire it into ceramics. Maybe this transformative potential is why Bridget is also associated with childbirth, poetry, healing, song, and art.

There is one thing that newborn lambs, vegetable seeds, soup ingredients, raw iron, and future poetry all have in common: They don’t look at the beginning the way they are going to look at the end. You have to have some hope and imagination to believe in the transformation that is coming. You have to keep doing what you are doing, when the evidence for success has not yet appeared. We need to hold on through the long term, through step-by-step processes, through the discomfort of growth and change. And so another thing we learn at Bridget’s holiday is the need for commitment.

If we’re paying attention to a legendary figure of generosity, art, and transformation, it’s a good idea to listen to the voices of poets who figured out how to sustain themselves and their families and communities through difficult times. During Black History Month, we are reminded of many examples of poets and artists who showed and inspired perseverance as they provided hope and imagination about a better world that was not yet fully manifest.

Back in October, on Vote Love Day, we heard about the story of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. She was born in Maryland in 1825 to free parents, was educated at her uncle’s school, and had published a book of poetry by the age of twenty. She became a full-time lecturer and writer, and she was an activist for abolition and for economic self-determination in the Black community. One verse of her 1895 poem, “Songs for the People,” [more on that poem here] reads:

Our world, so worn and weary,

Needs music, pure and strong,

To hush the jangle and discords

Of sorrow, pain, and wrong.

Harper was well aware of the injustice, economic inequality, and violence that still plagued the cities and towns where she toured. She didn’t fail to address any part of that system in her other writing. Yet she still saw a place for music and art. For Harper, poetry was not a distraction from building the Beloved Community, but one of the technologies that can help bring it into being. Out of intangible words and ideas are woven a network of visions that lift up possibilities for liberation.

Good things grow from beginnings that are not yet obvious. The forces that will become spring are already at work under the snow in the middle of winter.

On the Jewish calendar, we’ve recently passed the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, the new year of trees. This is a minor holiday. It’s been around for hundreds of years, yet more people seem to be noticing it as we learn to connect spirituality with care for the earth. Sometimes people in Jewish homes and communities gather to eat different kinds of fruit and nuts, to give thanks for ways of growing, and recommit to stewardship of the planet. In regions where it makes sense, Tu B’Shevat is a time to plant trees.

Clearly, looking out the window today, it is not the right time to plant a tree where we live. Nevertheless, in our gratitude for trees, we are reminded of the growth and the fruition of work that exist because of what has come before. The forces that create and uphold life and our ancestors who cooperated with them knew that growth and resilience don’t always look that way from the outside. They knew that growth can start with something tough or plain. They knew the importance of allowing time and of giving thanks.

We drink from wells we did not dig and eat from trees we did not plant. As a community, part of our task is to muster the hope and imagination it takes to consider growth and resilience over time. We think long-term. We honor beginnings of change, even when they are hidden or barely perceptible. Let us be mindful of the impact of our choices, now and in the generations to come.

May it be so.

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a2000yearjourney · 4 years ago

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Rome 49BC: Order from Chaos

Two thousand years ago, at the dawn of the first century, the world was ruled from Rome. Rome was in turmoil. Civil war had engulfed the empire’s capital city. Dictators seized power, and the Roman future seemed bleak. But from the chaos, the Roman Empire would rise stronger and more dazzling than ever before. Within a few short years, it would stretch from Britain, across Europe, to southern Egypt, from North Africa around the Mediterranean, to the Middle East. It would embrace hundreds of languages and religions and would till those diverse cultures into a rich soil, from which western civilizations would grow. Rome would become the world’s first and most enduring super power, spanning continents. The glory days of Rome were studded with names that reach out to us across two millennia: Ovid and Nero, Seneca and Caligula. But the story of Rome is more than the story of famous men. Millions of less familiar figures struck different chords in the symphony of empire. People such as the wealthy benefactor, Umachia. The rebel queen, Boudicca, and countless uncelebrated soldiers and slaves, senators and peasants.

Above them all, is this man, Caesar Augustus. This was the emperor who set the tone for the astonishing renaissance of Rome.

Part one of my history tells the story of Augustus, (the great-grandfather of my 51st great granduncle) and his people, the men and women who wrested order from chaos. They shaped the greatest empire the world has ever seen and launched the Roman Empire in the first century.

Two thousand years after Egypt’s pharaoh’s reigned supreme, four hundred years after the flowering of Greek culture, three hundred years after Alexander the great - a boy named Octavian was born in a small Italian town. The child would one day be called Augustus, and his birth, one ancient historian tells us, would be gilded by legend. His father, leading an army through distant lands, went to a sacred grove, seeking prophecy on the boy’s future. When wine was poured on the altar, flames shot up to heaven. The signs were heard only once before, by Alexander the Great. The priest declared that Augustus would be ruler of the world.

Suetonius tells the story. Writing at the turn of the first century, he based his biography on eyewitness accounts, on common gossip and on research conducted as imperial librarian. In truth, he writes that the prospects of young Augustus were far from grand. The boy was sickly, with few connections. His family were country people. His father was the first in their line to join the Senate. But worse - Augustus was born into dangerous times. Civil war had flared for decades. Feuding nobles fought to gain power for themselves. And Rome’s traditions of open government were often trampled underfoot. So too, were innocent bystanders. When Augustus was just four years old, his father suddenly died. Without a male mentor, the boy’s future looked bleak. But in 49 BC, when he was thirteen, Augustus’ fortunes took a dramatic turn. For in that year, his great uncle, Julius Caesar, gained the upper hand on the battlefield. Leading an army across the Rubicon River, Caesar declared himself master of Rome and ruler of an empire still aspiring to greatness. At the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire was a bit like a boy who has reached six feet tall, yet he’s only fourteen or fifteen years old. He’s not yet a man. The externals of empire were there - the armies were there. The Romans governed most of the coast of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Egypt. However, they had not yet learned to bring that into a functioning organism. The past decades of internal fighting had weakened the empire. Northern tribes harried the borders. Enemies were confronting Rome in the east. And the province of Spain threatened to break free. Julius Caesar moved quickly to bolster the frontiers, and his own legacy. Caesar had no heir, so when Augustus completed a dangerous mission, Caesar adopted the teenager in his will. Karl Galinsky, Professor of Classics, University of Texas, Austin:

“Augustus realized this was a tremendous opportunity. Mind you, he had no military training, but he was the heir of the greatest political figure that was under the Roman sky at that time - and he cashed in on it.”

It was a heady opportunity for Augustus, but also a perilous challenge. For in 44 BC, foreigners were not the only threat to stability. There were enemies within Caesar’s small circle of advisors. They murdered Caesar at a meeting of the Senate. For the second time in his life, Augustus lost a father. Now, on the verge of manhood, he thrust himself into the maelstrom of Roman politics. Keith Bradley, Professor of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Victoria:

“The death of Julius Caesar was not just a turning point in Augustus’ life, it was a turning point in world history. Augustus was extremely young at this time, only in his nineteenth year. Yet when he knew that he had been made Caesar’s heir, he immediately took up the political legacy of Caesar. He entered the mainstream of Roman politics. He didn’t hesitate to try to avenge his father. That meant, of course, stepping onto the stage of politics, raising an army and immersing himself in a contest for supreme political power in Rome.”

He displayed brutality against enemy prisoners. Once, when a father and son were begging for their lives, he ordered that they should draw lots to determine which one should be executed. The father offered himself and was killed. Because of this, the son committed suicide. Augustus watched them both die. Suetonius describes the crisis as “trial by fire” and Augustus didn’t flinch from the task. He formed a strategic alliance with Marc Antony, a powerful general, who also wanted supremacy. Together they massacred their enemies in the capital. Then they pursued their rivals to the shores of Greece, where they fought and won two of the bloodiest battles in Roman history. When the carnage ended, the empire was theirs. Augustus and Antony divided the spoils of war. Augustus remained in Rome. But Antony took control of Egypt, a land not formally joined to Rome, but firmly under the empire’s command. There, he joined forces with Egypt’s queen. Ancient historians, like Cassius Dio, believed that was a fateful move. When Antony fell deeply in love with his new ally, many feared the ambitious queen was scheming to rule Rome herself. Her name was Cleopatra. Cleopatra’s brazen desire for passion and wealth was insatiable. By love, she had made herself queen of Egypt. But she failed in her goal to become queen of the Romans. Judith P. Hallett, Professor of Classics, University of Maryland, College Park:

“Cleopatra did not enjoy a good press in Rome. What really irritated people about Cleopatra was that she was a powerful woman from the east, and from a very wealthy country with a monarchic system of government. She therefore symbolized lack of moderation, lack of control, frenzied fury, everything that Rome tried not to be. Cleopatra and Antony were cast as leaders of the evil empire.” Antony’s alliance with Augustus withered. But Augustus struck first. The poet, Virgil, later cast the battle as an epic struggle of east against west. “Standing high on the stern, Augustus leads the Italians into battle. Carrying with him the bite of the Senate and the people. Opposing him, with barbarian wealth, is Antony, suited for battle. He carries with him the powers of the orient. And to the scandal of all, his Egyptian wife, their monstrous divinities raised weapons against our noble, Roman gods.” Three quarters of the Egyptian fleet was destroyed. Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide - and the land of the pharaohs was formally annexed to the Roman Empire. Judith Hallet:

“The annexation of Egypt for Augustus was immensely important. It was the equivalent of Hitler’s troops marching through the streets of Paris. Here was a wealthy country that was going to be providing food, that was going to be providing land. But above all, it was a country of great cultural prestige, and once Rome had Egypt as part of its empire, they had truly arrived.”

A Voice:

“There is nothing that man can wish from the gods, nothing the gods can do for men which Augustus, when he returned to the city, did not do for the public, the Roman people, and the entire world. Civil wars were finished - foreign wars ended and everywhere the fury of arms was put to rest.” Upon Augustus’ return to a war torn Rome in 29 BC, the city went wild with enthusiasm. The triumphant general vowed to restore peace and security. It was a promise he would keep. The victory of Augustus launched a period of stunning cultural vitality, of religious renewal and of economic well being that spread throughout the empire. It would be called the ‘Pax Romana’ - the peace of Rome. To many, it marked the return of Rome’s mythic and glorious past. But Augustus himself would never return to the past. He was now a hardened thirty-two-year-old man - the sole ruler of the Greco-Roman world, Rome’s first emperor. Victory had been costly, but the greatest challenge still lay ahead, for to avoid the fate of Julius Caesar, Augustus must disarm the Senate and charm the masses. He must do better than win the war. He must win the peace. That challenge would occupy the rest of his life. A Voice:

“Let me step forward, clear my throat, and announce that I am a native of Soula, a few days’ journey eastward from Rome.” While Augustus fought his way to the pinnacle of power, a boy named Ovid was coming of age under less demanding circumstances. Ovid Speaks:

“I was the second son, a year to the day younger than my brother. We always had two cakes on the birthday we shared, and were close in other ways as well. We studied together, and then went up to Rome to seek our fortunes. I used to waste my time trying to write verses. My father called it waste. He disapproved of any pursuit where you could not turn a decent living, and always used to say, ‘Homer died poor.’” Ovid came from the same stock as Augustus. They were both landed gentries, and like Augustus, the young man found his identity and his ambitions moulded by his demanding family.

Ovid:

“I tried to give up poetry, to stick to prose on serious subjects, but frivolous minds like mine attract frivolous inspirations, some too good not to fool with. I kept returning to my bad habits, secretive and ashamed. I couldn’t help it, I felt like an impostor in serious matters, but I owed it to my father and my brother to try to do my duty.” By Roman law, a father wielded absolute control over his children. Those who displeased him could be disowned, sold into slavery or even killed. The young Ovid tried to meet his father’s expectations. He married, studied law - but the strain proved unendurable. Miserable, Ovid and a friend set out on a journey of self-discovery. Ovid:

“We toured the magnificent cities of Asia. We watched the flames of Mount Etna light up the heavens. We ploughed the waves in a painted ship, and also travelled by wagon. Often the roads seemed short, as we were lost in conversation. When we walked, our words outnumbered our steps - and we had too much to say, even for the long evenings of supper.” Eighteen months later, Ovid settled in Rome, older and more self-confident than before. He resolved to become a poet. He cultivated new friends in Roman literary circles, and soon, Ovid made a name for himself as Rome’s reigning poet - of stolen kisses. Ovid:

“So your husband is coming to this dinner party? I hope he gags on his food. Listen - and learn what you must do. When he settles on his couch to eat, go to him with a straight face. Look modest and lie back beside him. But secretly touch me with your foot. Don’t let him drape his arms around your neck, don’t rest your gentle head against his chest - don’t welcome his fingers to your lap or to your eager nipples. Most of all, no kissing. When dinner is done, your husband will close the bedroom door. But whatever the night shall bring, tell me tomorrow - you refused.”

Keith Bradley:

“It’s a mistake to think that Ovid’s poetry can be read very literally in purely autobiographical terms. That wouldn’t be true, I think, of any poetry from antiquity. But at the same time, Ovid is writing of subjects of which he has some sort of experience and he certainly, through the love poetry, opens up a world that is very different in tone and quality from the official atmosphere.”

While Ovid bloomed as a man of words, the new emperor thrived as a man of action. He rebuilt Rome - and his own family. Divorcing his wife, Augustus married his heavily pregnant mistress - Livia. The move raised eyebrows and hackles, as love was not the only motive. Although Augustus shunned the trappings of absolute power, many suspected he was building a dynasty - a line of heirs to rule Rome for generations to come. Augustus knew it was a dangerous move. He knew that Julius Caesar had been murdered for appearing as a king. Augustus would not make the same mistake. He relinquished high office and struck a delicate balance between fact and fiction.

Augustus writes:

“Having, by universal consent, acquired control of all affairs, I transferred government to the Senate and the people of Rome.” Judith Hallet:

“Augustus was a very cagey political leader because he pretended to be restoring all of these republican political traditions. In fact, what he was running was a full-fledged dynastic monarchy.” A Voice:

“Augustus conquered Cantabria, Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia and all of Illyricum, as well as Raetia.” Augustus not only changed the empire, he expanded it. Egypt had been added early in his career. Soon, Northern Spain was joined. Augustus drove across Europe, into Germany, and he united east and west by adding modern Hungary, Austria, the Balkans and central Turkey. These victories employed Roman soldiers and senators and offered welcome distractions to the city’s poor. When Augustus wasn’t staging chariot races or gladiator shows, he displayed exotic animals, the quarry of Rome’s far-flung empire. A rhinoceros appeared in the arena, Asian tigers in the theatre and a giant serpent in the forum.

Karl Galinsky:

“One key constituency for Augustus was the plebeian population of Rome, and that is basically the city mob. You have several hundred thousand folks here who have no jobs, and to put it very simply, who need to be kept off the streets, and kept from making trouble, because it’s a very volatile, combustible mixture.” The volatile mix that made up Rome stayed quiet for the first four years of Augustus’ rule. Then, in 23 BC, events took a critical turn. Cassius Dio writes that a series of disasters convinced the people that Augustus needed not less power, but more. “The city was flooded by the over flowing river and many things were struck by lightning. Then a plague passed through Italy and no one could work the land. The Romans thought these misfortunes were caused because Augustus had relinquished his office. They wished to appoint him dictator. A mob barricaded the Senate inside its building and threatening to burn them alive, forced the Senate to vote Augustus absolute ruler.” The demands threatened to unsettle the emperor’s precarious political balance. Augustus fell to his knees before the riders. He tore his toga and beat his chest. He promised the mob that he would personally take control of the grain supply. But Augustus refused to be called a dictator. The crowd disbanded, but the lesson was clear. Augustus was riding a tiger. To keep order on the frontiers, the streets and the Senate was a super human task. Super human skills were needed. Luckily for Rome, Augustus had them. Karl Galinsky:

“Then something very fortuitous happens: Halley’s Comet shows up and the word is given out by Augustus that this is the soul of Julius Caesar ascending into heaven. So from this point on he is called Julius Caesar the divine. Politically it became very potent, because what does Augustus do at this point? On all his coinage on all his writings, on all his symbols, whatever, he puts on the words “DF”, meaning Son of the Divine. And it’s really quite an asset in politics to be the Son of the Divine. There are modern politicians I think would be very jealous of being able to do that.”

Augustus enhanced his pious new identity with stories of his lean habits. It was said that he slept in a modest house, and slept on a low bed, that he ate common foods, coarse bread, common cheese, and sometimes, even less.

Augustus:

“My dear Tiberius, not even a Jew observes a fast as diligently on the Sabbath as I have today. I ate nothing until the early hours of evening when I nibbled two bites before my rub down.”

Moral change, Augustus began to argue, was the enemy of Rome. He believed that its future ran through its past, through the restoration of the values he thought had first made Rome great. Augustus:

“I renewed many traditions which were fading in our age. I restored eighty-two temples of the gods, neglecting none that required repair at the time.” In public, Augustus led by example. He sacrificed animals in traditional rituals and he re-established traditional social rules. New laws assigned theatre seats by social rank. Women were confined to the back rows. Adultery was outlawed; marriage and children were encouraged. To many, Roman society had recovered its true course. The son of a god was building an empire for the ages. Augustus:

“Who can find words to adequately describe the advancements of these years? Authority has been returned to the government, majesty to the Senate, and influence to the courts. Protests in the theatre have been stopped, integrity is honored, depravity is punished.” But amid the applause, there were also cries of protest. The emperor’s new traditional values rankled friends and enemies alike. It even rankled his own daughter, Julia. Long a pawn of family politics, Julia assumed that she was exempt from her father’s stringent views. She was wrong. And in the coming years, Augustus, son of a god, would have to confront Augustus the father.

“If there is anyone here who is a novice in the art of love, let him read my book. With study, he will love like a professional.” As the emperor, Augustus firmly charted a course of moral rigor. The poet Ovid staked out different ground. He was now Rome’s most famous living poet, and his boldness grew in step with his reputation. Having all but exhausted the conventions of love poetry, he decided to stretch them. He began composing a manual of practical tips on adultery.

Ovid writes:

“Step one - stroll under a shady colonnade. Don’t miss the shrine of Adonis, but the theatre is your best hunting ground. There you will find women to satisfy any desire, just as ants come and go, so the cultured ladies swarm to the games. They come for the show - and to make a show of themselves. There are so many I often reel from the choice.” Many Romans yearned to follow their emperor back to the good old days of stern Roman virtue. But others reveled in the promises of Rome’s newfound peace. Ovid was one of them. To the youthful poet, old limits seemed meaningless. “Do not doubt you can have any girl you wish. Some give in, others resist but all love to be propositioned. And even if you fail, rejection doesn’t hurt. Why should you fail? Women always welcome pleasure and find novelty exciting.” Indeed, the earlier civil wars had unleashed enormous social change. Some women had gained political clout, new rights, and new freedoms. Tradition holds that one such woman was Julia, the emperor’s only child.

“Julia had a love of letters and was well educated - a given in that family. She also had a gentle nature and no cruel intentions. Together these brought her great esteem as a woman.”

Julia didn’t reject traditional values wholesale. She had long endured her father’s overbearing control. She dutifully married three times to further his dynastic ambitions, and she bore five children. Her two boys, Guyus and Luccius were cherished by Augustus as probable heirs. But like Ovid, Julia expected more from the peace. She was clever and vivacious, and she had an irreverent tongue that cut across the grain of Roman convention. Her legendary wit was passed through the centuries by a late Roman writer called Macrobius.

Macrobius writes:

“Several times her father ordered her in a manner both doting and scolding to moderate her lavish clothes and keep less mischievous company. Once he saw her in a revealing dress. He disapproved but held his tongue. The next day, in a different dress, she embraced her father with modesty. He could not contain his joy and said, ‘Now isn’t this dress more suited to the daughter of Augustus?’ Julia retorted, ‘Today I am dressed for my father’s eyes. Yesterday I dressed for my husband.’

But apparently Julia’s charms were not reserved for her husband alone. The emperor’s daughter took many lovers.

Judith Hallet:

“Her dalliances were so well known that people were actually surprised when her children resembled her second husband, who was the father of her five children. She wittily replied, “Well that’s because I never take on a passenger unless I already have a full cargo.” The meaning here is that she waited until she was already pregnant before undertaking these dalliances, so concerned was she to protect the bloodlines of these offspring.“

Julia, like Ovid, was a testament to her times. But neither of them were average Romans. The life they represented shocked traditional society to the core. And as Julia entered her thirty-eighth year, crisis loom

"In that year, a scandal broke out in the emperor’s own home. It was shameful to discuss, horrible to remember

One Roman soldier voiced deep revulsion at Julia’s extraordinary self-indulgence. "Julia, ignoring her father Augustus, did everything which is shameful for a woman to do, whether through extravagance or lust. She counted her sins as though counting her blessings, and asserted her freedom to ignore the laws of decency.” Julia’s behavior erupted into a full-blown political crisis, which was marked by over-blown claims. The emperor’s daughter was rumored to hold nightly revels in Rome’s public square. She was said to barter sexual favors from the podium where her father addressed the people. When the gossip reached Augustus, the emperor flew into a violent rage. He refused to see visitors. Upon emerging, Suetonius reports, he publicly denounced his only child. “He wrote a letter, advising the Senate of her misbehavior, but was absent when it was read. He secluded himself out of shame, and even considered a death sentence for his daughter. He grew more obstinate, when the Roman people came to him several times, begging for her sake. He cursed the crowd that they should have such daughters and such wives.” As a father, Augustus could not abide Julia’s behavior. As an emperor, he could not tolerate the embarrassment. Augustus banished Julia for the rest of her life. “I was going to pass over the ways a clever girl might elude a husband or a watchful guard. But since you need help - here is my advice.” Soon after Julia’s exile, Ovid released his salacious poem. It couldn’t have been more poorly timed. “Of course a guard stands in your way, but you can still write. Compose love letters while alone in the bathroom and send them out with an accomplice. She can hide them next to her warm flesh, under her breasts or bound beneath her foot. Should your guard get wind of these schemes, she can offer her skin for paper and carry out notes written on her body.” Ovid’s poetry extolled behavior for which the emperor’s daughter was banished. Her fate loomed large as a warning. For the present, the emperor remained mute towards Rome’s most gifted rebel. Ovid turned his hand to less provocative forms of poetry. He remarried, and he embraced a new appreciation for discretion.

“Enjoy forbidden pleasures in their place. But when you dress, don’t forget your mask of decorum. An innocent face hides more than a lying tongue.” Ovid was on notice. The order of Augustus had firm bounds of propriety and Ovid had tested them to the fullest. “Now consider the dangers of night. Tiles fall from the rooftop and crack you on the head. And the drunken hooligan, spoiling for a fight, cannot rest without a brawl. What can you do when a raving madman confronts you? Or tenants throw their broken pots out the window? You’re courting disaster if you go to dinner before writing your will.” At the turn of the first century, the poet Juvenal, was writing verses, which exposed much of Rome to scorn. He was acerbic and had a keen eye for the gritty realities of urban life. Juvenal writes:

“Our apartment block is a tottering ruin. The building manager props it up with slender poles and plasters over the gaping cracks. Then he bids us sleep safe and sound in his wretched death trap.” Ronald Mellor, Professor of History, UCLA:

I don’t think our notion of Rome bears much relation to the Rome of every day life. Because what is left today are the big public buildings, not the squalid hovels without plumbing and sanitary conditions that ordinary people lived in. That’s precisely the reason members of the elite preferred to withdraw up into the hills, and to have their villas up on the hills, a little bit away from the noise and away from the stench and away from that incredible hoard of people pressing close together. Juvenal writes:

“I would love to live where there are no fears, in the dark of night. Even now, I smell fire and hear a neighbor cry out for water as he struggles to save his measly belongings. Smoke pours out from the third story as flames move upwards, but the poor wretch who lives at the top with the leaking roof and roosting birds, is oblivious to the danger, and sure to burn.” In the year 4, in the imperial palace, the emperor, Augustus also lost sleep, but not from fear of fire. Now an old man of sixty-six, Augustus has lost much of his youthful vigor. “His vision had faded in his left eye, his teeth were few, widely spaced and worn down, his hair wispy and yellowed. His skin was irritated by scratching and vehement scraping, so that he had chronic rough spots, resembling ring worm.” As the emperor neared death, plots to succeed him sprouted. His grandsons and intended heirs had both died, unexpectedly. And the emperor himself lived under constant threat of assassination. Speaking for Augustus, one ancient historian voiced his dilemma: “Whereas solitude is dreadful,” he wrote, “company is also dreadful - the very men who protect us are most terrifying.” Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Director, British School, Rome:

“In many ways, Augustus looked so solid, and what he created looked so solid you forget the fragility. I think contemporaries were very aware of that fragility. And surely Augustus was, he was - over anxious, in a sense, to provide a secure system after he’d gone.”

At this time, there were unusually strong earthquakes. The Tiber pulled down the bridge and flooded the city for seven days. There was a partial eclipse of the sun, and famine developed. Ancient historians report that natural disasters predicted political ones. In the year 6, soldiers, the backbone of the empire, refused to re-enlist without a pay rise. New funds had to be found. Then, fire swept parts of the capital. A reluctant Augustus turned to taxation. It was a dangerous tactic, and the emperor knew it. Fearing a coup, Augustus dispersed potential enemies. He recessed the courts and disbanded the Senate. He even dismissed his own retinue - Rome remained on edge.

“The mob, distressed by the famine of the taxes after the fire… openly discussed rebellion. When night fell, they hung seditious posters.” The crisis passed. But soon a new and even greater disaster battered the aging Augustus. It began in Germany, a land of fiercely independent tribes, and to the Roman eye, rugged barbarism. The region had been recently conquered, and Roman customs were taking root - or so they thought. “The barbarians had not forgotten their ancient traditions, their free way of life or the power of arms. But, as long as they were assimilated slowly, they did not realize they were changing, and did not resist Roman influence.” That peaceful evolution stopped, however, in the year 9. The year an arrogant young General named Quinctilius Varus became commander of the Rhine army, and brought an iron fist to the province. “He forced more drastic change on the barbarians, and exacted money as if they were his subjects.” Varus disastrously miscalculated the extent of Roman control, and misjudged German compliance. A trusted German chieftain organized a full-scale revolt, and lured Varus’ troops into a trap, deep in unfamiliar terrain. “The mountains were rocky and covered with ravines. The trees were dense and tall so that the Romans were struggling to make progress. Rain began to fall in sheets. The heavy wind scattered their numbers. The ground became slippery around the tree trunks and leaves. While the Romans were dealing with these troubles, the barbarians surrounded them, suddenly coming from everywhere. First, they came from afar. Then, since no one was fighting back and many were wounded, the barbarians came ever closer, and the Romans were unable to retaliate. They kept crashing into each other…They could not grip their arrows or javelins. The rain forced their weapons from their hands. Even their sodden shields were useless. And so every man and every horse was slaughtered.” Three legions were massacred - a tenth of Rome’s army. Augustus, his biographer reports, was traumatized. “They say he was so disturbed, that for several months, he let his hair and beard grow, and would sometimes bash his head on doors and cry out 'Quntillius Varus, give me back my legions.’” The disaster in Germany underscored a stark reality. The empire was born of violence, and to violence, it ever threatened to return. The emperor was in no mood for leniency. “Believe me, love’s climax of pleasure should not be rushed, but savored. But when you reach those places a woman loves to have touched, don’t let shame get in the way, don’t back off. You’ll see her eyes shine with a trembling light, as when the sun glitters on rippling water. She’ll moan and murmur sweet words just right for the game. But don’t outpace your mistress, or let her leave you in the dust. Rush to the finish line in unison. When man and woman collapse together, they both win. That’s the greatest prize.” Ovid’s sizzling words gripped Rome when they were first published. But a decade later, they would return to haunt him. For the patience of the emperor Augustus has reached its lowest point. Beleaguered, he saw plots in every corner, anarchy in every act of disobedience. Blaming the subversive book, Augustus banished Ovid from Rome. “Hello. Are you there? If so, indulge these verses of mine. They don’t come from my garden, or from that old couch I used to sprawl on. Whoever you are and in whatever parlor or bedroom or study, I have been writing on decks, propped up against bulkheads.” The poet was sent to an untamed backwater on the edges of the empire, on the shores of the black sea. For Ovid, the ultimate urban sophisticate, no punishment could have been harsher. His roguish aplomb crumbled to anguish. “When night falls here, I think of that other night when I was cast out into the endless gloom. We managed to laugh, once or twice, when my wife found, in some old trunk, odd pieces of clothing. This might be the thing this season, the new Romanian mode. And just as abruptly, our peal of laughter would catch, and tear into tears. And we

held each other. My wife sobbed at the hearth. What could I say? I took the first step with which all journeys begin, but could not take the second. I was barely able to breathe. I set forth again. Behind me, she fell, rolling, onto the floor, her hair swept onto the hearth, stirring up the dust and ashes. I heard her call my name. I thought I had survived the worst - what could be worst? But my wife arose, pursued me, held on to me weeping. Servants pulled her away. Whatever worth there was in me died there.”

Ovid was sure his talents would bring him home. He wrote constantly. And as he waited, he sought refuge in a remote frontier town. When the temperatures dropped, Ovid wrote, the wine froze in its vessels, the river in its banks. Across the ice thundered hostile horsemen, plundering and killing. It was a brutal life. Ovid wrote home from exile, a side of the empire that few Romans ever saw. “Beyond these rickety walls there’s no safety. And inside it’s hardly better. Barbarians live in most of the houses - even if you’re not afraid of them you’ll despise their long hair and clothes made of animal skins. They all do business in their common language. I have to communicate with gestures. I am understood by no one, and the stupid peasants insult my Latin words. They heckle me to my face, and mock my exile.” Writing for this audience, Ovid complained, was like “dancing in the dark.” As the years passed, Ovid shrivelled into a bony old man. He fell ill. Contrition replaced his former bravado. “Oh, I repent I repent. If anyone as wretched as I can be believed, I do repent. I am tortured by my deed.” Ovid, however, never got an answer to his pleas. And would never get a reprieve. As he approached death, he became sadly resigned to his fate. “Look at me. I yearn for my country, my home, and for you. I have lost everything that I once had. But I still have my talent. Emperors have no jurisdiction over that. My fame will survive, even after I am gone. And as long as Rome dominates the world, I will be read.” Nine years into his exile, Ovid died. He outlived Augustus, but he had bent to the emperor’s will. At the start of the emperor’s public life, Augustus had won the wars engulfing Rome. By the end, he had won the peace, and men like Ovid paid the price. In the years ahead, when lesser men would rule Rome, that price would rise higher still. “Oh Jupiter and Mars and all gods that raise the Roman Empire to ruler of the world, I invoke you and I pray - guard this prosperity, this peace, now and into the future.” In the year 14, prayers such as these were heard around the vast dominion ruled by Rome. For in that year, the empire stood at a precipice. The emperor Augustus had died. Augustus had been a towering figure. He had extinguished a century of civil war. He presided over forty years of internal peace and prosperity. He forged the vision and power that cemented the empire together. But the peace of Augustus came at a price. By the end of his life, Augustus had eclipsed the Senate, ruled as a monarch, and founded a dynasty that was fraught with troubles. His heirs, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius - these men would lead Rome through years of political terror, imperial madness, assassination - and through the distant founding of a new religion that would one day engulf the empire itself. The years to come would be years of trial - testing the endurance of subjects and citizens, soldiers, and slaves. The men and women of the Roman Empire in the first century.

#order from chaos

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ma-worm · 5 years ago

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy fuck Columbus day everyone(fuck all colonizers actually but this is specifically pertaining to the Americas for the holiday and he’s the most glorified sob), in celebration I'll give some fun information I researched. Credit to @fuckyeahfoodfantasy for the edits of tequila, margarita, brownie, and chocolate, thank you for making these characters more accurate to their birthplaces and/or not grey. Chocolate: The word "chocolate" comes from the Nahuatl word chocolātl and the food/drink is made from the bean/seed from the fruit of Cacao tree native to southern Mexico and Central America. Chocolate was recorded to be important to the Aztec culture, they were said to believe cacao beans were the gift of Quetzalcoatl and they had so much value that they were a form of currency.

Originally prepared as a drink, chocolate was served as a bitter liquid, mixed with spices or corn puree. It was believed to be an aphrodisiac and to give the drinker strength. Today, such drinks are also known as "Chilate" and are still made by locals in the South of Mexico. Only after it was imported to Europe did people start adding sugar and milk to chocolate.

Cacao was also used by other Mesoamerican cultures such as the Olmecs and the Maya people, and each culture had its own preparation and occasions for it that are certainly worth looking into further. Tequila: Tequila is a distilled beverage made from the blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila and in the Jaliscan Highlands (Los Altos de Jalisco) of the central-western Mexican state of Jalisco. It is the most popular type of mezcal(distilled alcoholic drinks made from agave). Mexican laws state that tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco and limited municipalities in the states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas. Tequila was first produced in the 1500s near the location of the city of Tequila, which was not officially established until 1666.

A predecessor to tequila is a fermented beverage from the agave plant called pulque. When conquistadors ran out of brandy, agave began to be distilled to create mezcal and tequila. Planting, tending, and harvesting the agave plant remains a manual effort, largely unchanged by modern farm machinery and relying on centuries-old know-how passed down through generations of farmers called jimadores.

Margarita: The margarita is a popular Mexican and American drink, the Daisy (margarita is Spanish for "daisy"), remade with tequila instead of brandy. This drink became popular during Prohibition as people drifted over the U.S./Mexico border for alcohol. There are many creation stories for the margarita although none of them can be proven for sure, partially because the drink may have been invented in multiple places around the same time period do to its simple concept and appeal.

In a classic margarita, you can expect to find tequila, orange liqueur, and lime juice often served with salt on the rim of the glass. It can be served in many glasses although the most traditional would be the eponymous margarita glass. There are many variations on this recipe including things like flavored tequilas, different liqueurs, or even freezing and blending the margarita into a slush. Cornbread: Native Americans had been using ground maize as food for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. Corn, as we know it today, was actually the English word for any grain although maize was the one that retained the general term in modern times.

Native Americans, specifically the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek tribes gave recipes for maize dishes to the southern colonists and adapted as it became a southern staple food. there are many types of cornbread these days, baked, fried, pone, it’s an incredibly versatile recipe. Pozole, otherwise known as Hominy, which is swelled and softened kernels of maize can also be used in cornbread instead of cornmeal, as well as many other traditional dishes native to the Americas. Brownie: The brownie is a sheet cookie developed in the United States in the late 1800s. Originally it was most likely meant to be a more convenient type of cake developed by the upper class’s chefs. While this is a more European styled use for chocolate, recipes have been developed using more traditional means, such as the addition of chile, the removal of dairy and processed sugars, and/or using different cooking methods.

Turkey: Turkey meat has been eaten by indigenous people from Mexico, Central America, and the southern tier of the United States since before our records of those regions. Turkeys were once so abundant in the wild that they were eaten throughout the year, the food considered commonplace. Turkey with mole sauce is regarded as Mexico's national dish.

Turkeys were domesticated in ancient Mexico, for food and/or for their cultural and symbolic significance. The Aztecs, for example, had a name for the turkey, wueh-xōlō-tl (guajolote in Spanish), a word still used in modern Mexico in addition to the general term pavo. There’s plenty of evidence that Mayans and other Native American groups had been domesticating turkeys over a very long time as well.

The character in-game has many Eurasian elements despite this and I am not actually sure why, from his clothing to the apple in his basic art. It would be nice to see a redesign more faithful to Turkey’s roots but I did not have the time or funds to arrange for that for this project.

Popcorn: Popcorn is a way of processing maize that predates many if not all other forms, an archeological find known as Bat Cave finding samples of it that have been dated back to about 5,600 years ago.

Popcorn, or momochitl, seems to have been both a religious element (art and accounts from conquistadors describing it being used for ceremonial headdresses, ornaments, components, and necklaces) and as a staple food. Zapotec, pre-Inca Peruvian, Pueblo, and Iroquois native Americans were all documented to have uses and recipes for and with popcorn, and it speculated that even more groups of people had access to it and simply didn’t record it since it was such a normal food for them.

Popcorn would be given as a token of goodwill during peace negotiations and settlers were taught how to make it, it was almost exclusively American food since it would not keep during overseas trips. During the Great Depression, it became more popular in America as a snack food thanks to its low cost and has maintained that reputation.

Popcorn’s in-game design reflects the more modern fanciful decoration and uses, due to the color of popcorn, the sheer range, and mostly the fact that the in-game Popcorn could just be albino I chose not to try to adjust his design to be more regionally accurate. Pudding: Pudding, more specifically Flan as I believe the game’s character is designed after, is a dish brought to the Americas by Europeans. However, Flan has become an incredibly popular dish especially in Central and South America, to the extent that there are varieties specific to regions. This is possibly reflected in part by the character’s bolo tie.

While Flan is not a dish native to the Americas it has been raised to new levels and enjoyed greatly by the people so he was allowed to stay. Honorable mentions -

Turducken: Turducken is a dish invented and made popular in the United States. Her backstory does talk about the history of Mado, specifically, it’s colonization, but her role in everything is actually more related to dealing with the aftermath. She frees the trapped and suffering souls, she was summoned after the primary point of conflict. Similarly, the dish Turducken was invented post-colonization, in more modern times specifically by Paul Prudhomme in the 1970s in Louisiana. Additionally, the ingredients of a Turducken(Turkey, Chicken, and Duck) are not all American. While Turkeys and Ducks can be found in North America, Chickens are native to Southeast Asia and brought to the Americas by European settlers. Steak: While steak is a popular food in the Americas and a native bovine, bison, can certainly be used to make steaks, what we know as a steak is not a traditional food of the Americas. Furthermore, the character has many more European elements to his design, and his horns are definitely not those of bison, so I feel safe saying he doesn’t qualify for this specific list. Hotdog, Hamburger, B-52, and Cola: While these are accepted foods common in the Americas, they were invented in modern times and definitely aren’t traditional foods by any means. Regardless, they still get a mention Boston Lobster: While lobsters are a crustacean found on American coasts and there are accounts of Native Americans eating and using them, I do not believe this is the same as the food soul. Lobsters can be found all over the world and the name in the CN version of the game "麻辣小龙虾" translates to spicy crayfish which is going to be closer to the intended dish. While you can also find spicy crayfish in the americas it would be more accurate to assume it means the popular dish in southern China, considering his relations to Rice and Salt and Pepper Mantis Shrimp, rather than the Cajun style. Additionally, his clothing is definitely not designed with the Americas in mind. That's all folks, happy holiday, colonizers have no rights. this was pretty fun to make and a lot of research went into it, I wholeheartedly encourage looking more into these foods and the history of the original American people if you liked this. Worm out

#food fantasy #FF Edits #ff chocolate #ff tequila #FF Margarita #ff cornbread #ff brownie #ff turkey #ff popcorn #ff pudding #ff turducken #ff steak #ff hotdog #ff hamburger #ff b-52 #ff cola #ff boston lobster #happy holiday everyone #ff history bits

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