#beauty in the divine

[divinechieko222]

girlhood never stops we just evolve…

[mamalovedme]

[flannelepicurean]

Okay, so...

One of the reasons I'm so goddamn bonkers about heritage apple varieties of the South (which I think I owe @werechicken an infodump about) is because of exactly this.

I'm a trans man from North Carolina. Both sides of my family, I'm two generations removed from sharecropping farms. I've got a cast iron pan that belonged to my great-grandmother and has been seasoned with the makings of probably thousands of pones of cornbread. My grandmother on my father's side was functionally illiterate, but she had so many skills in her working hands and her mind, she just knew how to DO THINGS, because...you gotta.

My grandfather on my mom's side is an old hippie, AND a true Man of the Land. When I was a wee young'un, he taught me about foraging, in the woods, in the yard, in the city. All over. He'd point out trees and bushes and weeds on the ground, and tell me how to eat what lived around me. How to tell when dandelion greens would be too bitter for a salad, stuff like that. And he taught me about the sanctity of nature, about doing little things like singing in gazebos along trails just to hear how they echo, just the beauty that's out there and inside, too.

My mom's mom is a Bible-thumping believer. And probably also bipolar, like me. She gets carried away, away, away. She can't hear music and not move. She weeps easily, when she feels things. The blast of color that is life in the world corporeal brings her to tears, and I think that makes her feel God in her soft matter and airy bones.

I'm fascinated, FASCINATED, by so many things, in the place that I'm from. From the way music comes up from people's guts and hollows when they sing about the places they've been, the places they're in, the places they're going whether they wish to or no. The way voices resonate like organ pipes. People open their throats when they sing. I'm fascinated by the fact that we say things in my family like, "Smells like snow," when the air takes a particular olfactory turn in the winter. By the fact that, in the summer, when the sopping-wet heat is just right, the moist places under the bowed-down grass radiate a smell like warm Jiffy corn muffins, the kind that are full of sugar. The bright, brick-orange earth in the Piedmont region. The powdery, cement-gray sand on the coast that squeaks underfoot right as you step onto the beach, before it gets wet enough to cling.

And the FACTS. The fact that NC has a big slice of the Southern Appalachian zone that has the greatest biodiversity of salamanders IN THE WORLD. Just...so many of them. It's truly wild. And the Benjamin Long Blue Ridge Fresco Trail, a series of churches in the mountains where one of the few modern masters of fresco art created religious paintings in the wet plaster of walls and ceilings of rugged old buildings. And gosh, just the mountains. Those rolling, rambling mountains that come out bursting with bright leaves like a slow fire on the hillsides in the fall.

And it's apple country up there. Henderson County, NC, produces the bulk of our apples. If Henderson County was a state, it would rank No. 8 in the nation for apple production. Currently, North Carolina ranks No. 7 in the U.S. Most of our commercial apples get processed into other items like juice and applesauce.

But.

Some time ago, I ran across this article, about a retired chemical engineer living within shouting distance of where I was born, who started an ongoing quest of finding old varieties of apples, thought extinct or lost to time and the wilds, of bringing greater diversity to the varieties available, and also simply the idea - “How neat would it be to find an apple nobody’s tasted in 50 or 100 years?”

Tom Brown is an apple hunter - there's a whole society of folks who do this, who go up the backwoods through old farmland and woods and scrubby brush, barns and backyards and all sorts, based on clues and hearsay and information gleaned from folks around and about, to find a few, a couple, a single tree. And they take seeds, cuttings, bring them back to the nurseries and orchards, and they bring. The trees. Back. And now, for example, we have a state Historic Site with a dedicated heritage apple orchard with ALL THESE APPLES (scroll down for list, it’s a good thing they are grouped, because there are OVER 400). And you can taste these apples, that haven’t been tasted in decades, perhaps a century, reach back in time, reach into the land and pull from the earth and the sun and the water something good.

I gave up my beliefs, any attachment to belief, nearly 20 years ago, and I am much more at peace since then. But I adore symbolism. I love magic as a concept, and I love storytelling, and I love magical realism probably most of all. That kind of, “Watch out you don’t step sideways just right, or you might end up somewhere just a tad bit strange,” and yet, “Well, things are a tad bit strange anyhow, but we get along alright,” kind of magic. And I love beauty, and how many forms it wears, and brings. And I recognize the holy and the sacred, regardless of the divine.

Some things do make me want to go down in the river to pray, even if I don’t really know what that means, anymore. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I dream of wandering into the woods in the gloaming, lying down in a little divot in the loam, letting wet leaves pile over me, and just disappearing for a while in the light of the moon, among trees and stones. When the sun starts to hit just right on a summer morning, and it’s for sure gonna be a hot one and damned-all humid, but the yard smells like warm tomato vines and the okra blossoms are spiraling open, it makes me smile. And sometimes when it rains, I feel red clay in my skin and the muscle of my limbs, and right down to my bone marrow, and I want to sing with an open throat.

there needs to be more content specifically aimed at people who grew up in the middle of rural bumfuck nowhere who love the shitty worn down rusty pickup truck unclean gas station bigfoot sighting 200 degree weather dirt-eating redneck vibe of it all without the whole homophobic white christianity thing

[pennymaykittensworld]

Be honest, would you fuck me? 🍆💦

[von2dutch]

[vixeneptune]

See yourself being perceived by others in this light bc you already are such a remarkable beauty to witness

Pov : everyone who sees you says this about your looks

"Omg you're drop dead GORGEOUS 😍 "

"HOW are you so pretty 😭😭 what's your secret"

" you're literally the prettiest girl I've ever seen I'm not even kidding"

"Your eyes are so mesmerizing wow😍 ..I'm in love"

"U have the most perfect lips"

"Ur eyebrows are always on fleek"

"I love how long and thick ur eyelashes are"

"You're so beautiful I'm obsessed"

"Ur skin is literally FLAWLESS"

"I'm convinced you're a real life goddess"

"I looove ur hair it looks so healthy and soft and luscious "

"How are u even real? U look so ethereal and out of this world!"

"Ur beauty has me daydreaming and writing poems"

"Ur beauty alone leaves an unforgettable mark on everyone"

"I can't fathom how pretty you are"

"Everything about u is perfect, like youre unbelievably stunning"

"What's it like being the most beautiful girl in the world?😍"

"U have this kind of beauty thats so captivating, haunting and addictive to look at"

"I love ur stylee u always look so chic"

"You're such an eye-candy I could look at you forever"

"Ur face is literally my desired face, ur beauty is the standard"

"Girl I would kill to look like u"

"Ur beauty leaves me speechless everytime, how do u have that effect?"

"I don't think anyone who looks at u can resist falling in love w you"

"Has anyone ever told you how powerful your beauty is? Like it's dangerous how beautiful u are"

"Do you model? U literally have the body and looks for it"

"I love ur fashion sense , u give off IT girl vibes"

"Stop looking at me with those siren eyes 🫠"

Pov : people say this behind your back

"She's def the kind of girl who steals all the attention with her beauty when she walks into a room"

"Y/N had a huge glow up, she keeps getting prettier everytime I see her"

"She looks so stunning in pictures but wait till u see her irl its even better"

"I genuinely think she's the prettiest girl in existence"

"There's something about her beauty thats so hypnotic it sticks in ur mind"

"My heart starts beating so fast when she looks at me. Her beauty makes me nervous"

"Have you seen Y/N? she's the prettiest around here"

"She has that kind of beauty that everyone wanna copy"

"She's naturally beautiful like she doesn't even try"

💌💌💌

Let me know if u want more like this 💫

[girlintodust]

[euphorictruths]

Pillars- Oleg Schupliak; 2018

[goddes1skendra]

Dm my kik: love7491

[afropearl]

Health is Wealth 🎍

[pnkhalo]

[divinechieko222]

to tell a story in the form of flowers, what would i say?

[abongthadoll]

brown skin 🤝🏽 COLOUR

[gent-illmatic]

[von2dutch]