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forgottenbrigit · 8 months ago

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If it hadn't been her for own pride (and that of her sisters'), Brigit wouldn't have minded if all of Astaira knew what had happened at Malconaire. Everything had crumbled in Valentina's hands and if it hadn't been for those around her who loved it so, it would have collapsed entirely. But it was their own love for Malconaire -- and for the legacy that their father had entrusted to all of them to uphold -- that Brigit never dared to say a word.

She suspected Valentina must know this, due to the fact that the girls had all gone along with her scheme, at all. It was a shame, for it would have been so happily and lovingly done, if only Valentina had tried to share in the labor that she demanded upon them while also refraining from spending any profits they managed to produce on such silly and extravagant luxuries.

Brigit couldn't quite help rolling her eyes when Valentina reinforced to her that none of them could appear as though anything were amiss at Malconaire, "Oh, never fear, stepmother, I shouldn't think anyone would ever mistake you for being anything other than a lady of leisure." In fact, in all of Valentina's years as mistress of Malconaire -- in both times of peace and war -- Brigit couldn't recall ever having seen her do anything more strenuous than writing letters -- and even then, she often had Aoife write her correspondence if there was too much to be done.

Brigit started to say more on the subject but then stopped, suddenly.

If there was one way Valentina could manage to stop Brigit in her tracks, it was to remind her that she once saved her from being burned as a witch.

It had shocked her to see that her stepmother had come forward on her behalf. Brigit often thought that if some accident befell in her in the woods or upon a horse, that Valentina would secretly celebrate her loss. But when all she had to do was step aside and say nothing if she wanted Brigit to meet a fiery end, she not only pleaded for Brigit's life but managed to convince them that they had made a mistake.

She'd come to terms with the fact that all of this was likely propelled by Valentina's desire to preserve the family name and ensure her own children's futures. For all of her faults, Brigit had to admit that Valentina's love for her own children far outweighed whatever hatred she held in her heart for Brigit -- as she demonstrated that fateful day before the pyre walk.

If it hadn't meant condemning her own sisters to the same suspicion and ruination that Valentina and her children would have succumed to, there would have been a part of Brigit that would have wished Valentina had been brave enough to let her die. She certainly wouldn't have gone quietly -- she could think of many more preferable ways to die than being burned at the stake -- but she would have died knowing that her death had played a part in the ruination of both Valentina and her family.

As it was, she didn't particularly like being reminded that she owed Valentina her life -- whatever her reasons, in the end, Brigit knew that if Valentina hadn't interfered, there she likely would not be alive.

And she hated her for it.

"Imperially wed?" She almost laughed to hear her stepmother imply that such an outcome was plausible in the same breathe as she stated that such a union would help for the accusations against herself to fade. "Do you think the emperor or his daughters should look twice at either of your children?"

Brigit was, perhaps, a bit unfair to Sonya who was both beautiful and intelligent -- and since Roderick did not seem to care how many wives he had, she was just as likely as the next noblewoman to catch his eye -- but when it came to Cassimir, who was the heir to a kingdom that Roderick had already claimed and only had a estate that was facing ruin to his name -- what on earth did Valentina truly believe he might be able to offer a princess of the Varmont empire?

Not to mention that her own son was secretly engaged to Eithne. Brigit would have loved nothing more to see the look upon her face when Valentina learned that her own beloved son had proposed without her knowledge or consent and meant to disregard all of her grand plans for his future.

But Brigit had no desire to turn Valentina's anger away from herself and onto her sister, so se bit her tongue.

Her eyes widened as she listened to Valentina justify why she would have them all bow to Roderick Varmont, despite the horrors he had inflicted upon them. "I do not know what he did to your own family," She admitted, "But after seeing what he has done to Astaira, I can easily imagine. And still, after everything, you would rather align your own family to him so that you might live in comfort and ease? You would see Sonya married to him, just so she might sport a crown? You are a coward!"

Valentina's slap came hard and fast. It was not the first time Valentina had struck her, but it still came as a shock. Brigit infuriated her often, but their arguments would end with her instructing Brigit to be lashed. It was not often that she so struck a nerve that Valentina was driven to such violence, herself.

Brigit could feel the heat rising from it; could feel the sting linger moments after she had been hit. She wondered if it would leave a mark? She raised her own hand to it and contemplated, for a moment, if she ought to heal it when she was alone, until deciding that she certainly would do no such thing.

If Valentina Malconaire meant to strike her, let all of Astaira see.

"And what shall I tell everyone happened here, stepmother?" She asked, her eyes defiantly meeting Valentina's.

Unacceptable | Brigit & Valentina

"She cannot be serious. Am I supposed to wear this the entire evening?"

Brigit still wasn't sure what was so terribly wrong with the plain brown dress she had been wearing (the color hid the mud stains on the hemline well enough, in her opinion), but Valentina had made such a fuss, stating she looked "half wild" and insisted that she change.

"It's only for a few hours," Aofie said, softly, " ... and it is rather lovely color."

It wasn't hideous. Brigit supposed she ought to be thankful for that. It was one of Sonya's old gowns that was a season old, but it had hardly been worn and looked almost new, even if a tad out of style. But Brigit hated it, all the same. It was too constrictive: she felt as though she could hardly move.

"How am I supposed to ready the horses in this? And what if something happens on the road there? I don't think I could nock an arrow, let alone shoot one."

"I don't think you are supposed to do any of those things in that dress, Brigit."

Brigit exhaled, still very much frustrated but ultimately having resigned herself to her fate. She would have faked an illness to avoid this evening all together, if she wouldn't worry so much about her sisters being at this ball without her. The thought of attending a ball held by Roderick Varmont in the palace where the Staffords had ruled for centuries made her angry -- and the fact that she was supposed to pretend to enjoy herself angrier still. But she knew Cassimir would take this opportunity to lavish his attentions upon Eithne; in addition the three Varmont princes would be swarming about all three of her sisters -- and this was not to mention the other men who would come circling.

No, she had to go. But that didn't mean she was especially happy about the idea.

Brigit descended the stairs, following her sister, to meet with the rest of the family who were all gathered in the hall waiting to depart. It had been late enough, already, when Valentina forced Brigit to change (she had fused over the appearance of her own children first, before turning her attention to the other girls), and now they were sure to be late. Brigit supposed she had that to be thankful for: the later they were, the less time they would have to spend there.

She walked directly up to Valentina, "Have I met your approval, step mother?" Brigit almost wished that she would find more fault with her -- anything to delay the evening further.

#comment #valentina malconaire #unacceptable

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lotrobsession · 6 years ago

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Letter to Brigit By Viggo Mortensen I could not bring myself to take pictures of any of it, to take anything, although I did for a moment consider grabbing my camera to ensure that later on I’d have an image, some tangible visual record of the process of losing you. Maybe that momentary impulse came from fear that the emotional weight of participating in your last days as flesh-and-blood would eventually outweigh or alter the straight facts that photographs might hold. Fear that visuals so fresh right then, as I sat on one of the two plush green leather couches of the crematorium waiting room, would reshuffle themselves and gently blend together as merely tolerable sentimental recollection. It wouldn’t have been right, though, to shoot what only you and I should know. The camera stayed in the truck. ---- The kind man in charge of the ovens had just gone out into the noon blast of July in the San Fernando Valley to check on the progress of your burning. I’d followed but stopped thirty feet back as he’d asked me to. “You don’t really want to see—it’s something you probably wouldn’t want to see… The. … uh …,” he’d mumbled, faltering in a way that had won me over instantly. “You mean if she isn’t done yet?” I’d said, completing the thought for him. “Yes, exactly. The, uh… sometimes they’re not completely …” He’d paused, looking as pained as if he’d known you the way I had. “Her insides?” “Yes,” he’d blurted out with a slight squeak in his voice. “It isn’t pretty.” “No. I can imagine it wouldn’t be,” I’d said. “Not at all pretty.” He had stood there, putting on his fire-retardant gloves and his sunglasses, still looking at me as if needing to say something more. And I had waited. It’d already been a hell of a long morning, so I hadn’t been in any big hurry at that point. “I do this all the time, but I couldn’t personally, you know, do this.” I’d thought I understood more or less what he meant. “My uncle’s dog,” he’d continued, “I had to do that one, and it was very difficult. I could never do it again.” “I understand,” I’d said. “Very difficult.” “Yes, I’m sure.” He’d started backing sideways toward the oven. It was one of the three on the back lot that seemed to be in operation, as evidenced by the grey smoke rising from their steel-pipe smokestacks into the smoggy haze above us. As inappropriate as the thought might have been, I somehow couldn’t help but think of the much larger indoor ones I’d once seen in the Dachau concentration camp memorial. I’d felt a momentary urge to ask if these ovens had been manufactured in Europe, but it had passed. “Please stay back here while I check and see how she’s doing,” he’d then said. “OK,” I’d said. “And how do you check?” He’d stopped side stepping toward the oven. “I open the door and look.” “Oh. Yeah.” “She might not be done. She might not be ready.” “Yeah. OK. I’ll wait… ” “Plus, it’s real hot. About 1,500 degrees.” “I’ll wait here then.” “I’m so sorry,” he’d said, tugging down the bill of his navy-blue ball cap and turning toward the oven. He’d said “sorry” several times since I’d arrived, and he seemed to mean it. “Sorry for your loss. I am truly sorry.” After a minute spent carefully peeking through the slightly opened oven door, he’d closed it and walked back to me. “I’m sorry. She’s not done yet. Another ten or fifteen minutes.” “Should I go back inside to the waiting room, then?” “Yes. If you don’t mind. Sorry. I’ll let you know just before I get her so you can come and watch me do everything. Check, you know, to see if… see that… ” “Yeah, good. OK, thanks.” ---- A tall, well-groomed black poodle named Paris, as I’d overheard her being called when I’d first arrived at the crematorium office, had been staring at me for a while. From her position under a sort of anaemic-looking potted ficus by the doorway to the office, she was able to monitor all comings and goings. Suddenly, she rose and bolted straight for me, jumping up on the couch right next to me, barking excitedly. Her breath smelled like boiled carrots. Sort of sweet and not altogether unpleasant, but not something I craved at that moment. The receptionist called Paris, no doubt trying to keep the dog from further upsetting me, the grieving customer. Paris was not bothering me at all. I understood that she had been barking for attention, not out of aggression—probably bored out of her mind in this place where all other dogs were dead and burning or about to be. She hadn’t even barked that loudly, really, and her company was comforting in a life-goes-on-and-there-are-lots-of-nice-dogs-in-the-world-sort of way. Paris gave me one more quieter bark right in my left ear, licked my face and left me to see what the receptionist wanted. “I’m very sorry,” the receptionist said, as she led Paris into the back of the office area. “That’s OK,” I said. “She wasn’t bothering me. Female, right?” “Yes, she certainly is. I am sorry for your loss.” I know she meant it as well. Expressions of sympathy for the customer would to some degree have probably been obligatory for the crematorium personnel, but everyone did seem to be personally and genuinely concerned. People doing their utmost to run a decent family-owned business with kindness and compassion. The compulsion to record all of this got the better of me, finally, and I went out to the truck to look for my notebook. After a quick scramble through the papers, books, cameras and other assorted commuter debris on the back seat, I found the notebook. Although I had not had the time to take many pictures or to sit down and write much of anything lately, a camera and something to write in are always in the car, or in whatever bag I carry, just in case a moment special to me presents itself to be stolen. Resisting once more the temptation to take the camera, I grabbed the notebook and a pen and returned to the waiting room to begin writing this. Kind strangers have given me a few handsomely bound journals and notebooks over the years. Some, like this one, are bound in beautifully tanned and tooled leather. This one’s cover has a giant oak tree cut into it, with other old oaks on a distant ridge beyond it. The big pewter button used for tying the notebook closed with a leather thong is cast with an oak leaf and acorn detail. I am not much good at keeping a diary, or diligent about any sort of regular journal entries. My way to remember has usually been to write stories, poems or more often than not, to make photographs or drawings. I felt a little rusty and awkward writing in the waiting room under the quietly watchful eyes of the receptionist and Paris. Maybe it didn’t seem at all odd to them, my scribbling away. Probably what bothered me was my own sense of guilt over being inclined to record the events surrounding the processing of your body. Just a short time earlier I had been openly weeping while crossing the city in morning rush-hour traffic. I suppose we humans can be resilient—nearly as resilient as you were, Brigit—and as accepting of life’s unpredictably rough patches as most animals seem to be. Whatever the reason, I found I could not write fast enough in my attempt to describe the events of the day. “Do you want to come out while I clean this out?” the kind voice of the oven-minder asked softly, interrupting me in mid-sentence. I looked up and nodded. “Yes, please. I’ll … let me … let me just finish this sentence—this paragraph. I’ll be right there.” “Sure …” ---- “Do you write a lot?” he asked, as I followed him outside. “Used to.” “Nice-looking book you got there.” “Thanks. Yes, it is.” I closed it, marking my place with the pen, just as he stopped and turned to me. I was standing on the same spot I had been asked to watch from earlier. “Please stay right here. I’ll shut her down and get everything. You’ll be able to see everything happening, but it is very hot now, and also …” “Yes, ok I’ll wait here.” As I stood still in the by-now withering heat and watched him switch off the oven and open it, I suddenly realised that there had been no muzak, no music of any kind playing in the waiting room. That was a pleasant surprise and seemed remarkable to me. The tact involved in such a choice on their part told me that they really must care. The ovens were out behind the small, one-story building that holds the tidy crematorium office, some oversize freezers and the very pleasant air-conditioned waiting room. The property was surrounded by twenty-foot-high stacks of automobile carcasses, entire auto bodies and an enormous variety of neatly sorted bits and pieces—fenders, doors, hoods, seats, side mirrors, steering mechanisms, engine parts, dashboards, roofs, etc., arranged in row after row—apparently according to year, make and model. The sprawling salvage yard dwarfed the crematorium and its modest parking lot. Although there was no vegetation in sight, the colourful, encroaching heaps and rows of rendered vehicles almost looked like exotic organic growth, a sort of postmortem environment that seemed to me to perfectly complement the pet-burning business. The thick, lightly buzzing strands of heavy-duty power lines drooping as they crossed some thirty feet above us from one massive steel support to another only added to this entirely man-made, and remade, end-of-nature garden. Its perfume was a blend of acrid and oily-sweet, of melting rubber and asphalt, of taffy-thick black engine grease, of yellowing plastic and peeling paint sluggishly wafting upward and blending with the constant dead-fish reek of Los Angeles smog. ---- I had risen very early—or, rather, got out of bed early, as I hadn’t slept at all. Knowing it was today that I was scheduled to pick up your refrigerated corpse at our trustworthy local veterinary hospital and drive it out to this industrial hinterland for cremating had kept me from being able to rest. Probably I am able to write about this with a degree of detachment because your brother Henry and I have already gone through the worst of your final decay and death process together. We took you, our fifteen-year-old, completely lame and largely incontinent pal, to be “put down” three days ago. In the intervening time we had to wait for a slot at the crematorium to open up. I have been able to largely digest and assimilate the stronger surface emotions of your final morning. As much as I am and will continue to be haunted by your sweet, departing gaze when the brain-stopping serum was administered, time and the responsibilities resulting from your passing have more or less carried me away from that heartbreaking scene. I will always see your eyes slowly lose their gleam as I gently lay your head down. Will always remember your final generous gesture of rolling halfway over to let us rub your belly one last time before the doctor gave you the sedative. I’d arrived at the back door of the vet’s office feeling like I was complicit in some sort of underworld transaction. As had been the case all week, the morning sky was overcast, and the clammy grey marine layer had only added to the death business I was now part of. Two men in overalls had come out with what looked enough like a curled-up “you” shape inside a light-blue trash bag. As I had taken the thawing bundle and carefully laid it on the towel-covered passenger seat of the pickup truck, I had looked at the older of the two men. He’d nodded, seeming a bit uncomfortable, and then had turned and followed his colleague back inside the building without a backward glance or farewell. I had been very tired, a bit teary-eyed, and had not said a word myself. Probably not the most pleasant person for them to be around. I had gotten in the car and begun making my way to the 405 freeway. Moving slowly, stuck in the usual massive commuter caravan headed north toward the Sepulveda Pass, it had occurred to me that tomorrow would mark the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb drops. Then I had thought, not for the first time when passing the Sunset Boulevard exit, about O.J. Simpson’s bizarre televised journey in the famous white Ford Bronco. I had continued in that vein for a while, my mind becoming cluttered with a dizzying assortment of images involving unforgivable murders and other perversions of justice. The ideals of compassion had seemed distant, insignificant. I’d felt resigned, passively understanding that life moves forward just as traffic eventually does. Suddenly, the cars in front of me had slowed abruptly and I had braked hard, glad to see cars in my rear-view mirror doing the same. The bagged corpse had slid off the seat and onto the floor, and I’d tried to pull it back up with my right hand. It had been quite heavy, and I’d realised it would be a difficult and dangerous task to accomplish while driving, so I had made my way across two lanes of traffic and off onto the side of the freeway. As I had come round the front of the truck and opened the passenger-side door, I had decided I’d have a look at you to see if you were intact. I had straightened out the towel on the seat and lifted the bundle back onto it, then poked a hole in the plastic bag, now wet with condensation, where I could feel one of your frozen paws. Long black hair, long black nails. Not much like any of your paws. I had quickly felt for the body’s head, finding a stiff tongue projecting beyond clenched teeth, and then a collar around the neck. We had taken your collar off when you’d expired at the vet’s, and I knew that Henry was wearing it wrapped twice around his wrist as a bracelet today. This dog was not you. The absurdity of it all had hit me immediately as I had stood up and stared at the mass of moving cars through the poisonous-looking heat waves. The sadness of it had been suddenly overwhelming, as was the smell of initial decomposition, which I had not been aware of until that moment, like that of a dead deer that’s been hanging for a few hours from a tree. I had never really wanted to live in Los Angeles. Here I was, on yet another ridiculous errand, feeling vaguely like I was being punished for some past transgression, marking time and forced to make sense of an oddly evolving riddle. I had secured the corpse and made sure the towel was placed so as to keep the dead stranger from touching the seat or any part of the truck’s interior. Eventually, I’d got myself turned around and headed back to the vet’s, feeling sorry for this poor dog I did not know, and for its unwitting owner. En route, I had called the crematorium and informed them that I would be late for our oven appointment because I’d been given the wrong dog. They’d been very kind, had said I should get there when I could, and that they were very sorry. ---- Now the crematorium is about two miles behind me as I sit listlessly sipping coffee at a Mexican restaurant. This is as far as I have got, with my new cedar box containing your remaining bone fragments and ashes. I had asked the oven-minder to please not crush your bones if that was what he’d planned on doing. “Yes, normally we do very gently break down the bone matter so that it fits comfortably in the box or urn as the case might be. If you prefer, though … ” “Yes.” “…we can also not do it and just try and place her, the bone matter—the bag, that is—in the cedar box for you. If they’ll fit—if it will fit—that is.” “That’s ok, I can do it.” Earlier, out by the ovens, I had been allowed to scoop up all your burnt bits from the metal tray that the man had scraped the cooling, fragile ghost-shape of your skeleton onto. I had stopped several times to carefully examine some of your more distinguishable pieces. Vertebrae, hip parts and most beautiful of all, the rounded piece of bone that I instantly recognized as the top of your skull. We have petted that part of you so often. I can feel its shape even now, in memory, feel the bone through your smooth fur, feel your warmth and your happiness. All of it had gone into the plastic bag he now held. “Ok, sir. As you prefer.” I proceeded to gently rearrange the bag and its contents inside the box, and then placed your crematorium nametag and the receipt for services provided on top of your remains before closing the lid with its little brass clasp. “We would like you to consider the cedar box a gift from us due to the unfortunate mistake that was made this morning. We are very sorry about that.” “Oh. Well … thank you …” A woman who seemed to be the oven-minder’s boss, and perhaps the owner of the establishment, stood up and came around her desk to address me. “We are very sorry that … Brigit?… that Brigit got confused this morning.” I almost pointed out that you had not been confused at all, being quite dead, but I resisted the temptation, knowing what she meant. “It is very unusual that something unheard of like that would happen,” she continued. “Very unusual, and we are extremely sorry. If you prefer a larger box or don’t like cedar as a wood type… maybe an urn would be more to your liking?” I was truly moved by her words and the generous offer. “Is it Western red cedar?” I asked, for some reason unknown to me now—perhaps being at a loss for anything better to say by way of response. “You know, I am not real sure about that,” she replied, a bit thrown off by my question. “I certainly can try and find out for you, if you like?” “No, thanks. I was just wondering. Just curious, I guess.” “Would you like to replace the cedar?” “Replace? No. I like cedar. Smells good, looks good. Thank you.” I now felt like a complete idiot. “You don’t have to give me the box, though. Don’t have to give it… I’m happy to pay for it.” “We insist. It’s something we want to do for you.” “Thank you very much. Very kind of you.” “If Brigit doesn’t fit comfortably, not being completely dust and all… ” (“Comfortably?” Never mind… ) “No, that’s fine. She fits. I got her in there ok. And it’s a beautiful box. Thank you.” ---- “Me podría traer un poco de arroz con frijoles, por favor?” “Would you like anything else with that?” the waitress replied, in heavily Spanish-accented English. “Gracias, pero la verdad es que no tengo mucho hambre.” She looked at me calmly, and said “I’ll bring it right out. Warm up your coffee for you?” “Fijese: ahora que lo pienso creo que sí me gustaría una pequeña ensalada de lechuga y tomate… y cebolla, si hay.” “Ok,” she continued in English, “and will you like some dressing—vinaigrette, ranch, French, blue cheese, or oil and vinegar—for that?” Doesn’t happen often, but once in a while my gringo looks or perhaps my Argentine accent seem to be held against me like that. She glances at the cedar box resting on the table to the right of my place setting. I wonder if she has seen this sort of box before. The crematorium isn’t far, and maybe other people stop here now and then as I have, unable or unwilling to drive any further. Maybe they sometimes come here and get a little drunk, become indiscreet and open their boxes to look at what’s left of their animal friends. Maybe they cry and have to be consoled. I do not look at my box, just hold the waitress’ gaze when it returns to me. I’ve taken an initial dislike to her because she seems to refuse to speak Spanish with me, so I’m certainly not going to give her any more clues now. “Will that be all, sir?” she asks dryly. “Sí… y si me puede traer la cuenta con la comida—y un poco más de café—se lo agradecería.” She looks at me for a moment longer, then reluctantly mutters “Por supuesto, señor,” as she turns to go place my order.

#viggo mortensen #brigit #letter to brigit #national dog day #dogs

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juliandev0rak · 4 years ago

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Tumblr is strong but Brigit is stronger!!! (faust vs the courtiers in heart hunter vibes) Lysander sends Beatrice ❤️💖💗 —leila-of-ravens

hehe @leila-of-ravens

Beatrice reaches into her cloak pocket and pulls out a biscuit for Brigit, “Thank you for delivering the message!”

She blushes as she reads the note that includes these sentiments and has to sit down for a minute, “Brigit what do I write back, he’s so sweet...”

Brigit gives her a quizzical look in response and Beatrice laughs and gives her another biscuit. “Ok fine, I’ll write it on my own.”

She sends Brigit back to Lysander with a note that says simply, “I love you!” because really, does she need to say anything more? She also presses a red-lipstick kiss to the folded up note.

#beatrice sending a smooch through the mail #lysander’s response note ‘stop giving brigit so many biscuits she’ll get sick’#i viewed this as them passing notes back and forth from different ends of the manor or something rather than real letters #but that would be a lot of effort to make brigit deliver it lol #vianan #lysander lonan #apprentice beatrice

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unmaskthemagic · 2 years ago

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10. Wheel of Fortune

Left: Arnesson Art Right: Rider-Waite deck

Element: Fire

Planet: Jupiter

Numerology: 10 represents the completion of a cycle.

Keywords: cycle, fate, go with the flow, center

Quotes: "Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own mind." Franklin D. Roosevelt; "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." Lao Tzu; "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." Martin Luther

Symbols: Around the edge of the wheel are the Hebrew letters YHVH, the name of God, and the letters TORA, which can be rearranged a number of ways. TORA could mean law, ROTA is Latin for wheel, TARO could refer to tarot, etc. On the inner wheel there are alchemical symbols which signify the four elements. The snake is the Egyptian god Typhon or god of evil. Anubis, god of the dead, is at the bottom of the wheel. A sphinx is at the top, symbolizing knowledge and truth. The snake can can also represent the life force going down into the spirit world. In the corners are the Zodiac signs for Taurus, Leo, Aquarius, and Scorpio, each holding a book symbolizing wisdom, and bearing wings, which symbolize stability during change.

This card is my personality card (or soul card, different places say different things) and was my card of the year last year! Which honestly makes a lot of sense. I mean, could the universe have chosen a more ADHD card? I've always been looking for that dopamine rush, changing jobs and hobbies like it's going out of style. I transferred schools 4 times in college. On the flip side, though, my soul card (depending on what you look at) is the Magician and I interpret that as focusing my skills in order to succeed. Also, I feel like I've always had to push myself to be okay with going with the flow, (probably the autism showing) which has been an important part of my growth.

The Wheel of Fortune is all about rolling with the punches. It reminds me that the universe is run by cycles and it's a wheel that keeps turning, no matter how much we try to stop it. The Fates are going to do what they want with that thread. I think of all those times in science history where scientists have tried to contain and control nature. It's always a huge mistake and the wheel brings the karma right back. The Wheel of Fortune may be telling me that there are some things I can't change in my life, whether that's present or future problems and I should trust that everything will turn out alright. This card also might be a signal that a big change is coming or to look out for opportunities.

Here are some instructions for how to figure out your soul and personality card.

As part of my study, I use the Tarot Card Meanings Workbook by Brigit Esselmont, biddytarotcard.com, brainyquotes.com (I use the card’s keywords to search for quotes that speak to me), Pinterest to look at other artistic interpretations, and Between the Worlds podcast.

#adhd #tarot #wheel of fortune #wheel of fortune tarot #tarot witch #neurodivergent #adult adhd #autism #neurodivergent witch #witch #witchblr #the fates #beginner witch

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sixtyfivehundredinvisiblebirds · 2 years ago

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what I read in 2022

2022 We Ride Upon Sticks- Quan Barry How to Not Be Afraid of Everything- Jane Wong Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories- Hilma Wolitzer The Rabbit Hutch- Tess Gunty The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams- Jonathan Ned Katz AND Lesbian Love- Eve Adams (in same volume) Thistlefoot- GennaRose Nethercott Bluest Nude- Ama Codjoe The Master Letters- Lucy Brock-Broido (reread) Family Lexicon- Natalia Ginzburg (tr. Jenny McPhee) The Whole Story- Ali Smith The Rupture Tense- Jenny Xie Bad Rabbi: And other strange but true stories from the Yiddish press- Eddie Portnoy A Tale for the Time Being- Ruth Ozeki Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands- Kate Beaton Wandering Stars- Sholem Aleichem (tr. Aliza Shevrin) Moldy Strawberries- Caio Fernando Abreu (tr. Bruna Dantas Lobato) Sarahland- Sam Cohen Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency- Chen Chen Elephant- Soren Stockman Craft in the Real World- Matthew Salesses Life of the Garment- Deborah Gorlin Olio- Tyehimba Jess In This Quiet Church of Night, I Say Amen- Devin Kelly The Wild Fox of Yemen- Threa Almontaser Song- Brigit Pegeen Kelly Qorbanot- Alisha Kaplan w/ art by Tobi Kahn Gold that Frames the Mirror- Brandon Melendez Foreign Bodies- Kimiko Hahn A Little Devil in America- Hanif Abdurraqib Muscle Memory- Kyle Carrero Lopez not without small joys- Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah Too Bright To See & Alma- Linda Gregg Borne- Jeff VanderMeer Harvard Square- André Aciman What We Talk About When We Talk About Fat- Aubrey Gordon The City We Became- N.K. Jemison Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints- Joan Acocella Vladimir-Julia May Jonas Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch- Rivka Galchen Lessons in Being Tender-Headed- Janae Johnson Against Heaven- Kemi Alabi How The Word Is Passed- Clint Smith Earth Room- Rachel Mannheimer True Biz- Sara Nović Motherhood- Sheila Heti The Fire Next Time- James Baldwin Diary of a lonely girl or the battle against free love- Miriam Karpilove tr. Jessica Kirzane Mezzanine- Matthew Olzmann Customs- Solmaz Sharif Edge of House- Dzvinia Orlowsky Only as the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems- Dorianne Laux DMZ Colony- Don Mee Choi Stay Safe- Emma Hine Spring Tides- Jacques Poulin, trn. Shira Fleishman (reread) No One Is Talking About This- Patricia Lockwood Unaccompanied- Javier Zamora Where I Was From- Joan Didion Air Raid- Polina Barskova tr. Valtzina Mort Dispatch- Cam Awkward-Rich Bury It- sam sax A Cruelty Special to Our Species- Emily Jungmin Yoon Homie- Danez Smith Dreaming of You- Melissa Lozada-Oliva

#2022 #what I read

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kangaroo-writes-trash · 3 years ago

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Swordtember - 5. Lava

“The fifth in my list... Ah, here it is. The Lava Lance. Rather simple, but a welcome return to form.”

The family consisted of five: the patriarchal father, their subdued mother, and the three children that they held in high regard. Their make reminiscent of humans, whilst being clearly different. Instead of blood, their veins flowed with burning liquid magma, and instead of flesh and bone, their bodies were comprised entirely of dark igneous rock. Mirri didn’t mind being the forgotten sixth. Purpose was found as a blacksmith’s assistant, and she soon flourished in the simple life she was allowed to craft for herself. The weight of being the first-born - she was glad to be rid of it. But her body was the same, and it would always be a reminder of her kin. Where there was a burning disdain for her father, there was nothing but love for her mother; she was the calm needed to balance her father’s fury. And every day since they parted, Mirri longed to see her once more, as she did for her younger brother, Sol. She was just a child the day she was disowned and discarded by her father, with Sol taking her place from that day forward, she just knows it. Out with one heir, in with the next. Her thoughts were dedicated to the life she led now, to the orders needing finishing, to the plans her and her friends were making, and, thinking constantly of the woman who delivered her letters. The woman who would linger just a minute longer than she needed, sharing idle words with sincere smiles. But in the dark of her room before her mind softly slept, once again came the thoughts of home. She has two sisters; twins, born three years after she found her place here. Brigit and Cindra. News of the fire-bound family found its way to her eventually, it always did, and it always burnt. It had been fourteen years since she saw her brother last, but when a man stood in the doorway of the forge that now belonged to her, she knew it to be him. Almost everything about him was different from what she remembered - his short fiery-hair now long and accentuated with a beard not unlike father’s, and his voice deep and grating. But, the few things that made them family, remained. He invited her home. She wanted to apologise and refuse, to stay with the business she maintained after her mentor’s death, and with the woman who kept her heart cool. But the thought of meeting her sisters for the first time, and once again feeling the warmth of her mother’s arms around her... it would make having to see her father worth it. Sol was the heir she could never be, gladly holding father’s lance despite its tarnished history. Her family were famous and beloved, but it didn’t justify the many bodies that it took to elevate them there. In her years, she had wondered once or twice if the twins knew she existed. Sol would have remembered her, but would her father ban mention of the disgraced daughter? Yet, Brigit and Cindra ran to her with such elation, calling her by name and shouting their excitement at finally meeting their older sister. Mirri lost her fight against tears. The pair were eleven years old - the spitting images of her all those years ago, and where she feared there might be jealousy of the twins, she knew quickly it was love. Her father met with her for just a few minutes, well-dressed and uninterested, as expected. He had always made use of his towering height, and time hasn’t changed that fact, but what has changed, though, is Mirri. He used to terrify her. His shouting would shake the room, the threats that he eventually followed through with, and, the rare but vivid punishments that usually involved some kind of hitting. But now, she sees him as he is. Her mother was ill, but had found the energy to stand just so she could greet Mirri with a kiss and a hug, and once they were alone, fiery-tears were shared by both. Her mother spoke of all that she missed, of Sol’s failures and successes, his soon-to-be betrothed, and his striking use of the lance that they both disapproved of. The twins, how they have always done everything together, and refuse to be separated, even by their father. That she was the one who made sure that Brigit and Cindra knew of their older sister. Sol fought with the lance, whilst Mirri watched with uncertain interest at how he passively dealt with the men and women who sparred with him. She tried her best to not remember when she stood where he now does, denying the use of the lance that he has so clearly welcomed. He moves with such grace when he wishes to, the weapon’s grip being fastened with a velvet-red cloth that Mirri herself had picked out, all those years ago... a part of her was happy it remained. The dark coiled-crust of the lance’s head knocks against the pseudo-enemies he fights with, the weapon notably devoid of heat - quite unlike whenever she or her father would come into contact with it. Their mere touch inviting heat to catalyse within the crust, birthing small beads of liquid lava to then flow through the coiled carvings that were designed to solely accommodate it. Mirri intended to leave two days later, back on course to the life that was patiently waiting for her, but the night before she was meant to take her leave, her mother’s condition worsened. The illness that was originally described as fleeting was finally explained in its truth; quick, and fatal. To gain something, only to be told you’d lose it just as fast, it was nothing but cruel - Mirri knows now why her father relented and allowed her to return. The six members of their family were all present when their mother closed her eyes for the last time, the shared heat of their bodies cooling just a little at the loss of their matriarch. She was given an honourable burial according to the family’s long-held beliefs; buried in stone beneath the estate after being covered in liquid magma - the lava that was produced by the lance when held by their father, and by Mirri. Her body became one with the estate’s grounds and her essence emblazoned the lance, as did all that came before. When next held by Sol, a single, empty warmth, grew. When news of the twins death reached Mirri in her forge four years later, she was the only one to question the rumoured new-found strength of the lance and of Sol, despite the blatantly-mysterious circumstances surrounding the once healthy sisters. Her father was a bad man that didn’t deserve half the things he had, and Mirri gladly wished him dead for many years after their parting, but when returning home to see Sol bury him in the same way their mother and sisters were, she couldn’t help but cry. Mirri wasn’t a fighter - she was strong from her work, but out of practice when coming against the stalwart wall that was Sol. But, she was prepared, suspicious of the truth. The sheer uncontrollable heat that raged within Sol’s body the night he tried to kill his sister would never be matched again. His shouts roared like a bonfire, and the tears he shed, she’ll never forget. She only wanted to escape, to return to where she belonged and to never see her brother again. It wasn’t her fault that Sol’s body couldn’t contain the heat. It wasn’t her fault. Mirri never wanted the lance, but if she was to live, she needed it. She needed to pry it from her brother’s grasp and fight with the family’s flame, for the life she earned for herself. She mourned her brother for the rest of her life.

“Sol was given an honourable burial, despite what he had done. The blame fell to the burning flame of their father; the cause. Sol’s essence empowered the lance that was buried with him. Never to be wielded again by the last living heir.”

#swordtember #draft #writing #oc #prompt five #cw childhood trauma #cw child harm #tw childhood trauma #tw child harm

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april-is · 2 years ago

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April 26, 2023: For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut, Hanif Abdurraqib

For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut Hanif Abdurraqib

Darlings, if your owners say you are / not usually like this / then I must take them / at their word / I am like you / not crazy about that which towers before me / particularly the buildings here / and the people inside / who look at my name / and make noises / that seem like growling / my small and eager darlings / what it must be like / to have the sound for love / and the sound for fear / be a matter of pitch / I am afraid to touch / anyone who might stay / long enough to make leaving / an echo / there is a difference / between burying a thing you love / for the sake of returning / and leaving a fresh absence / in a city’s dirt / looking for a mercy / left by someone / who came before you / I am saying that I / too / am at a loss for language / can’t beg myself / a doorway / out of anyone / I am not usually like this either / I must apologize again for how adulthood has rendered me / us, really  / I know you all forget the touch / of someone who loves you / in two minutes / and I arrive to you / a constellation of shadows / once hands / listen darlings / there is a sky / to be pulled down / into our bowls / there is a sweetness for us / to push our faces into / I promise / I will not beg for you to stay this time / I will leave you to your wild galloping / I am sorry / to hold you again / for so long / I am in the mood / to be forgotten.

More Hanif Abdurraqib: » I Would Ask You To Reconsider The Idea That Things Are As Bad As They’ve Ever Been » When I Say That Loving Me Is Kind Of Like Being A Chicago Bulls Fan » If Life Is As Short As Our Ancestors Insist It Is, Why Isn’t Everything I Want Already At My Feet

Today in:

2022: Demeter, Midwinter, Mairead Small Staid 2021: from A Pillow Book, Suzanne Buffam 2020: Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild, J.P. Grasser 2019: After the First Child, the Second, Mary Austin Speaker 2018: A New Lifestyle, James Tate 2017: Anchorage, Joy Harjo 2016: Poem to First Love, Matthew Yeager 2015: Ode to the Reel Mower, Jim Daniels 2014: So Much Happiness, Naomi Shihab Nye 2013: Habitation, Margaret Atwood 2012: About Marriage, Denise Levertov 2011: In Praise of My Bed, Meredith Holmes 2010: Black Swan, Brigit Pegeen Kelly 2009: In Me as the Swans, Leslie Williams 2008: Gnosticism V, Anne Carson 2007: American Names, Stephen Vincent Benet 2006: since feeling is first, e.e. cummings 2005: The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats

#dogs #the art of losing #grace #hanif abdurraqib #race

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nizynskis · 3 years ago

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*rolls in with a reporter van and crew* would u like to tell the folks at home what poems have shaped your life? ✒

I have to laugh Charlie you cannot know what you’ve just done...I spent multiple hours trying to narrow this list down but I will be normal about it god willing

The Undressing by Li-Young Lee > when I first read lee a long time ago i was fully neutral on him and I didn’t particularly like or dislike him. but then I read this one Lol...Gee golly.

The Laughter of Stafford Girl’s High by Carol Ann Duffy > she is easily the best narrative poet I’ve ever read. I only read this one rather recently and i could not breathe at all. heart picking up thinking about it

Quia Amore Langueo by Anonymous > I love to come back to this one! the difficulty reading it gives me a little more to work with and it’s a silly little challenge I enjoy

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman > one does not simply grow up in brooklyn and not know this one. the neighborhood ice cream parlor always had part of it written across the wall

The Tyger by William Blake > one of my favorite childhood books had this poem in it and when I read it I feel like a baby again. he was crazy for this

Heritage by Kaveh Akbar > when I force my friends to sample contemporary poetry I always always add this one. He is so thoughtful and careful with his words I am in awe

Song by Brigit Pegeen Kelly > everything she writes knocks me on my ass. it’s so satisfying in its way.

Because The Color Is Half The Taste by Paige Lewis > this is like my idea of a perfect poem if one could exist. when I read it I sigh and press my hands to my heart like an old lady

Late Letter by Maria Pawkikowska-Jasnorzewska > this poem is not especially wonderful I suppose because it’s too short to be but it’s how I imagine I would sound if I wrote poetry HEHE

The Poet Speaks To His Love On The Telephone by Federico García Lorca > speaking of how I would sound if I wrote poetry I think it would be very similar to this also. When I think about poetry I love my brain automatically flashes to the last few lines of this

Questions by Bertolt Brecht > I always forget how beautiful brecht is until I go visit his tag on my blog and scream. I like to write in this way when I write letters I hope he appreciates that

Leisure, Hannah, Does Not Agree With You by Hannah Gamble > are you noticing a pattern here! I’m obsessed with repetition. I love love when things repeat it scratches the itch in my brain

Pietà by Rainer Maria Rilke > I find it funny when writers like Erich Heller gently make fun of Rilke for being a romantic or a sap because the subjects of his poems repulse me. They are ugly. But the poems themselves are so beautiful it makes me sick what was wrong with him...is it the language...I haven’t solved the mystery

Magdalene by Marie Howe > she is a killer. I have to write a paper in english class relating three poems to the book we’re reading and you had better believe magdalene is coming in there with me.

Love Opened a Mortal Wound by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz > after reading this I went on a wikipedia rabbit hole abt miss de la cruz and I stayed there all night. She is that good. Very interesting life too I recommend for your next Wikipedia night

Nijinsky by Andrew Glaze > this is the first of two poems about nijinsky I have here. I like to think I’ve read almost all of the poems that have been written about him and I can say with confidence now that there is just something about him that makes writers go feral. They do their very best with him.

The Convent Threshold by Christina Georgina Rossetti > I get a lot of joy from re reading this because it takes me back to being really new to poetry and reading this out loud to myself reallyyyy slowly sophie was so young then and just as excited about poetry as I still am

Consorting with Angels by Anne Sexton > her language is so overwhelming it scares me sometimes. I believe she called herself a ‘confessional’ poet and that just seems like too pale of a word for what this is

Rondel by Tristan Corbière > his entire book Les amours jaunes is so fucking good but impossible to find a physical copy it is very frustrating. The link has almost all of the poems I think and I have a golden time just going through them

My Brother, My Wound by Natalie Diaz > she is easily among the best contemporary poets rn and it was hard to select just one. I love that her field is so specific so I can literally just look at a street lamp or a knife and think Getting a lot of Diaz vibes from this...

Caoineadh Áirt Úi Laoghaire by Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill > if I could memorize any poem it would be this. Not that I havent tried I used to get to it on YouTube and fall asleep listening to it hoping it would work its way into my memory but my brain is too slippery I suppose. Oh to zone out in class and be able to read this one to myself:(

The War of Vaslav Nijinsky by Frank Bidart > my favorite poem in the world. I really owe it a lot. When I first read it I was frantic about it I knew I hadn’t read the whole thing so I looked in so many bookstores. I tried to buy it online and kept getting sent the wrong book. when I finally found it I read the whole thing over three times and decided I had liked the cut off version better and that if bidart had known what was good for him he would have left it like that. and that was my first independent thought about a poem and my first real opinion about a poem and I will not forget that favor

#this post is terribly embarrassing for me I feel so utterly cringe.#but if I could talk about this with anyone it would be you Charlatan I am sure you understand what i mean you get everything <3 #ok back to your regularly scheduled reblogging.#long post #asks #char tag

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degenerate-perturbation · 4 years ago

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Chapters: 26/38 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Pride Demon(s) (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival, Mind Control, Human Experimentation, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Calder was dead.

She hadn't meant to kill him, but it was still her fault. She'd taken away his ability to feel pain or fear. She'd thought it kind.

Loriel put the body in stasis, so it would not rot, and sat down by it. The floor was sticky. Blood new and old stained her robes. She'd hoped to have years. He'd lasted hardly a month.

Idly she wondered whether he would still be her thrall, if she raised him. Probably not. Blood magic affected the mind through the body; it couldn't touch the spirit. But it didn't matter. She didn't need his spirit.

(Probably. Maybe.)

She needed to talk to her collaborator. By now the summoning spell came easily.

Veritas stretched catlike through the rip in the Fade. "Hello, little mageling. Have you updates for me? Did you try the experiment I suggested?"

"Yes," she said flatly. "It killed him."

Veritas tilted its head, curiously. "Oh? What did it?"

"I haven't yet ascertained the exact cause.” Her fingers curled into fists and released over and over again. “I didn't think...I didn't realize it would kill him."

Calder hadn't either. He hadn't felt the pain. Her own fault, for failing to appreciate the necessity of pain. How many times would she have to learn the same lesson? She should have known better.

"Shall we discuss the likeliest possibilities?" Veritas offered.

"Oh, you mean you don't know?" Loriel said sarcastically. "You are an utterly useless demon of knowledge."

"As you've so cleverly noted in the past, my dear Loriel Surana, I do not know everything," sniffed Veritas. "If I did, I would have even less use for you than I do now. I have never taken a mortal body and know comparatively little of such things."

It was true that Veritas had shown remarkably little interest in escaping its bindings or trying to possess her. Perhaps that was part of the reason she kept summoning it. The one time she had asked why it showed so little interest in the mortal world, Veritas had said, I prefer to watch.

"Be that as it may," she seethed, "You've killed my only subject. They are not easy to come by."

"Lie. You killed him. As for coming by subjects-they could be easier to come by if you stopped be so precious about where they come from."

"I’m past that. I don't care where they come from," Loriel said. "I care about keeping the loyalty of my Seneschal. If I were some apostate crouched in a filthy cave, I could do as you say, but I am the Arlessa of Amaranthine and Commander of the Grey."

"Hm. You are that. I wonder why?"

"I have to be. For any of this to matter."

"Lie," Veritas noted.

"Enough. We have work to do,” she snapped. “This situation must be salvaged. I have the body in stasis, but my magic and the taint interact strangely, and it likely will not last."

They talked a while more about what further use Calder’s body might be, before it was too far gone. The next few days went to those experiments. Not useless, but not what she needed.

She did end up raising his shade, out of guilt and grim curiosity. There wasn’t much left of it. Weeks under such crushing mental pressure had left his spirit confused, enraged, and in pain. It didn’t even look human anymore.

It tried to kill her. She dismissed it before it ever got close, but as it was ripped from this world she thought she saw hints of magma in its facsimile of skin.

For several heart-hammering minutes she believed that she had created a Rage demon.

Veritas confirmed that she might have, or at least, the beginnings of one. But more likely before the seed of psychic nucleation could form a demon, the shade would diminish to a wisp and eventually dissolve into the emerald waters.

Most likely.

tck

After that she seriously considered stopping. Would she have done that to Calder’s body if she had known what it would do to his soul? She had thought she had accepted the evil in herself, made her peace with it, but in the abyss of her heart there seemed always to be another unseen chasm, and each time she teetered on the edge she could not help but cling to it.

How could she possibly bear to do that again?

But...could she bear to have done that, and known it to have accomplished nothing? Could she bear to find another way, and know that she needn’t have?

Yes. Yes, she could bear it. Veritas would never let her pretend to be too weak for that. But though she could bear a world where she had done needless evil, that did not guarantee it was this world. It did not mean she was free.

She scrubbed her hands until they were red and stinging and almost clean, and went to go receive Brigit’s report.

No new deaths. No new Callings. No sign of the Architect.

“Oh, and Brigit,” Loriel said, almost on impulse, just as the Seneschal prepared to bow and go. “One further question. The sheriff of Amaranthine. What sort of man is he?”

Brigit had taken her Commander’s direction to dress more finely. She wore a high-necked woolen gown beneath a vest dashed through with silverite. Sapphires glittered at her ears. Her back was ramrod straight and she looked every inch a queen. But there remained the trace of hesitation when she answered: “I believe that he believes himself to be a righteous man.”

“And you do not agree with his self-assessment.”

“He is merciful. But he is not just.” Brigit’s lips pressed together. “I have had reports of certain crimes under his jurisdiction going unpunished, or punished far too lightly. Those committed against women, children, elves…I have thought about replacing him, but he is popular in Amaranthine. Mercy, however unearned, often is.”

“No need to replace him. No need to cause an upset.” The barest of pauses. “But perhaps we might consider having more prisoners sent to the Vigil for processing.”

Brigit listened carefully, and spoke slowly: “You wish to offer them the Joining?”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.” Smooth, perfectly reasonable. “Don’t you agree?”

The Seneschal took her meaning.

“But of course, I do not insist,” Loriel said quickly. "You know how much I value your opinion.”

Faint color came to the Seneschal’s cheeks. She could have said no. She could have taken the out. Loriel gave her every chance.

“I agree with you completely, ser,” the Seneschal said instead, and she knew what she was doing, she had to have known. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

Loriel did not thank her. Only nodded, and that was her cue to go.

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

If she was going to do this, she could not afford to let her pride keep getting in the way. She needed to talk to the expert. She needed to go see Avernus.

tck

She sent a short, impersonal note to Avernus that she would be arriving that week. She gave no further details. Even if she had been stupid enough to write down anything sensitive, every time she sat down to compose anything, after nearly a full year of silence, her mind went blank.

The ride to Soldier’s Peak was long and full of uneasy dread, but when she arrived, Avernus acted like nothing had happened. He shuffled around his tower, checking on bubbling reagents and pulsating petri dishes of living flesh, asking terse questions without waiting for answers. She couldn’t tell if he genuinely had not noticed the absence of her letters or if this was an act for her benefit—and if it was an act, if it was a kind one or scornful one.

Even if it were scorn, it wouldn’t matter. There could be no room for pride.

“I’ve begun to use human subjects,” she said bluntly.

She expected him to gloat, but he only snorted, “About time,” and carried on as though it was nothing, about some experiment with artificial flesh.

“Actually,” she interrupted, “that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh? So this isn’t merely a social visit?” As though they’d ever had social visits. “Well, then, I will say this much—I am certainly glad of it. In truth I did not think you would change your mind so soon, but I am glad you have. Now we might move forward.”

His approval pleased her, and her pleasure in that approval disgusted her.

Avernus knew in detail answers to questions she hadn’t even thought to ask. How to keep a subject alive, with minimal suffering. How to prevent a subject’s spirit from becoming...that thing she had made. She burned with shame to think that she hadn’t asked him before. So much could have been avoided. Already her pride had wrought so much waste.

The only thing she did not mention was Veritas. She knew what he would say if he knew, and did not want to hear it. Avernus was still sour about his encounter with the demon possessing Sophia Dryden, and would curse her occasionally, anytime he found another thing wrong with the quality of the Fade.

“By the way,” he said, “that black crystal of yours. I looked through my library. I cannot confirm it, but it may be depleted lyrium. You can copy my notes if you wish.”

“Oh. Thank you. I will.” She’d never even heard of such a thing before. When she had shown the crystal to Veritas, the demon had hissed and flinched and demanded she take it away immediately. It had been so enraged, all thousand of its eyes bent upon the thing in hatred; it was one of the few times Loriel had felt frightened of it.

Somehow, despite it all, they settled into an old rhythm, of stark and easy mutual curiosity and intellectual challenge. The extended period of no contact meant that there was much to discuss; his lab space was no longer even recognizable, and Avernus could talk about his ongoing experiments for hours.

There was only one bench he hadn’t spoken of.

“That is old work,” he said. “I figured out the formula years ago. There are some perfections to be made, of course, but there are greater challenges.”

“But what does it do?”

He raised a nearly nonexistent eyebrow. “Do you not know? This is the same tincture you stole from me, when you first barged into my fortress.”

“My fortress,” Loriel corrected. “My deepest apologies for the intrusion. I hadn’t realized you were so enjoying being trapped in your tower and tormented by demons.”

“I far prefer to be trapped in my tower and tormented by my superior officer.” The man’s grin was truly skull-like. She was thankful he rarely showed it. “So, you mean to tell me you never made use of it?”

“No. I hardly even remember taking it,” she said. Lie, she heard Veritas breathe in her ear. “It was only a passing curiosity. Though I suppose might still have it somewhere.” As though she did not know exactly in which drawer she had stowed it.

“Hmph. Your passing curiosity cost me four months of work. I had to reconstitute it from scratch. Mind you, the new one was better...so I suppose I should thank you.” Avernus hmphed in amusement and returned to his workbench. “I could tell you hadn’t drunk it yourself, but I thought perhaps you had passed it onto one of your less talented compatriots. That woman of yours, perhaps. Where has that one gotten to, anyway? I have not seen her here of late.”

At first Loriel could only stare in disbelief. By some miracle, in all these years, Avernus had not once, not a single time, ever inquired about her.

Loriel laughed, a thin dry sound, and couldn’t stop.

She knew that there was some reason that she liked him. No wonder he hadn’t written over the past year. What was a year to him? He probably had no idea she’d even been angry. That she had spent any time at all worrying about what he thought of her suddenly struck her as the height of absurdity.

“And just what is so funny?” the old blood mage said dryly. Dryly, of course dryly. Anything so old would be so dry. Would she live long enough to dry out like him?

The thought of enduring so many years sobered her instantly. “Nothing. Nothing. My apologies.” She shook her head. “So, what does this tincture do?”

“Yes, yes, don’t be so impatient. It allows a Grey Warden direct access to the taint in his blood, and draw power from it.”

“From the taint? Like blood magic, but with darkspawn blood?”

“Ah, but only a mage might learn blood magic. With my brew, any Grey Warden, even a mundane could have gained this power. Limitedly, of course, limitedly...there is simply no substitute for a lifetime of training, but a strong-willed Grey Warden born without a hint of Fade about him might have eventually bested a mage of mediocre Circle training. A Grey Warden is so intimately connected to the taint in his blood, you know...Many of my subjects mentioned how profoudnly it changed them to truly gain mastery over that part of themselves.” Then he shrugged. “But the side effects could be quite unpleasant. Took me ages to work out a formula that wouldn’t kill the subject sooner or later. Worth it, perhaps, but perhaps not. Certainly interesting for a Warden mage...there is nothing quite like it. The precision of blood magic, without the cost.” The old mage shrugged. “Mind—the vial you have must have long expired. It is likely poison now. Here is your chance, if you still want it.”

She glanced askance at the bubbling still. “No thank you,” she said primly. “I am not in the habit of experimenting on myself.”

“That is precisely your problem,” Avernus snorted. “But suit yourself.”

Lie, lie, lie, rang Veritas’s sing-song in her head. Of course she had not forgotten the vial. Every once in a while, organizing her cupboards, she would come across it, black and still bubbling, alive, after all these years. She would pick it up, and hold it, and feel its unnatural warmth in her hand. She had done so just last month.

She ended up staying longer at Soldier’s Peak than strictly necessary. There was, as ever, much to do, but for the first time in a long time she was not eager to do it.

tck

“How much powdered deathroot for a draught of neutralization?”

“One of a thousandth of fifteen grams.”

Loriel measured it out, and did not speak again for many long minutes, when she asked: “What is the temperature at which silverite melts?”

“Six-thousand and seventeen degrees.”

She checked the expensive thermometer, ordered for a kingly sum direct from Orzammar, and raised the temperature in the furnace. It would be some time before it would be ready. She would take the opportunity to organize her notes from Avernus.

Veritas prowled. The summoning spell Loriel had been using lately allowed for it.

“Where was Angletierre?” she asked idly, coming across a name she did not recognize.

“It is an old name for Ferelden, in Old Orlesian.” Loriel hummed vaguely and kept reading, until Veritas lost its patience.

“Was there a purpose to you summoning me? Or do you intend to sit in silence ignoring me except when you desire answers to your petty questions?”

“The summoning spell takes nearly five minutes,” Loriel said indifferently, turning a page. “It doesn’t make sense to dismiss and recall you each time I have something to ask. You have free movement about this space; use it if you like.”

“You are incredibly rude, to invite a guest into your home and then ignore him all day long.” When she did not respond, it prodded her: “So, how has your pet blood mage been?”

“Same as ever. Naturally.” She set the stack of books and notes that she had brought upon the oaken desk. “I believe I am comfortable moving forward now, with the next set of experiments."

“And when can I expect to meet him? I think he and I would get along.”

“Never. Not happening.”

“Why, Loriel Surana. It almost sounds as though you are ashamed of me. Don’t you want to take me home to meet the rest of the family?”

“Shut up,” she said vaguely, without much venom. “Go and find him in the Fade, if you are so curious.”

“That’s the problem with you blood mages. You hardly touch the Fade.”

“Then you will have to live with disappointment.”

Veritas’s lion tail swished back and forth. “It’s mostly the mages with an unusual propensity for my kind that I can find most easily. Spirit mages, you call them.”

“Mhm.” Loriel stayed focused on organizing the notes.

“She’s doing just fine without you, you know.”

She was at first so puzzled by the non sequitur that she had no idea how to respond. “Pardon?”

The demon’s eyes blinked and shivered all over its body, as its words slowly registered.

“You should see her from my end,” said Veritas, relishing every word. “Lit up like a beacon. Impossible to miss. Shall I tell you where she is?”

The spell broke. “No, thank you.”

“She’s in Dairsmuid right now. Surrounded by family and friends, free and whole at last.”

“Good. That was quite the point.”

Silence for a time. “You could have been so happy together.”

“We already weren’t.”

She got through several sheafs before the demon spoke again, “Does it bother you, that you are utterly alone?”

“I am no more alone than anybody else.”

“How interesting. You appear to really believe that.”

“Am I wrong?” She snorted. “We’re all alone inside our heads, at the end of the day.”

“And yet you pour your heart out to a demon, one you regard as not-even-a-person, so desperate are you not to be so alone.”

“I am pouring nothing.” She rolled the scroll up with a snap and turned to give the demon her full attention. “Veritas. Precisely what is the point of this little game?”

Veritas smiled broadly. “Simply making conversation.”

“Not one I am interested in having," she snapped. "I do not live in the past. You cannot draw me there with taunts.”

Veritas chuckled, so deep that the stone itself seemed to shake. “Ridiculous mageling. As though you are anything but a mountainous heap of Past, covered by the thinnest crust of Present.”

She rolled her eyes. “Clever. But if you wish to perturb me then I suggest you try a different approach. I do not think of her. I do not think of that time in my life at all.”

It tilted its head. “How interesting! That was the truth. You really don’t think of her.” It settled, and at first Loriel thought it was the end of it. “But she thinks of you. And such thoughts they are, shouted out into the Fade for anyone to hear. Aren’t you curious what they are?”

“I have no intention in indulging myself,” she said, which was not, strictly speaking, the answer to its question.

Veritas huffed. “You are intolerably boring.”

“I am truly sorry that I cannot be of more amusement. But there is nothing true in this world that I would flinch to know. I am not afraid of you.”

Suddenly the demon sprang up. She felt rather than saw it move.

“You should be afraid. And you should be sorry.” She could feel its hot breath on the back of her neck. “If you did not amuse me, I would not give you so many truths for free.”

Slowly, slowly, she turned around. It knew as well as she did that if it touched her, it would be bound. Loriel had embedded the glyph in her skin. She made a point to smile. “For free? As though I rely on your generosity?”

“You can no more force me to serve you than drink the Fade.”

“Try me," she hissed. "I like you, Veritas, and I like your company. You keep me honest.” She thought—intended—the spell of repulsive force. The demon skidded away from her, into the corner, growling. “But this latest game of yours is tiresome and nothing requires me to tolerate it. I summoned you in the first place because I was not on speaking terms with my collaborator, and that is no longer the case.”

“Indeed? You have no further need of me?” The demon’s thousand eyes gleamed. “Is that why you summoned me hours ago, just to keep you company?”

“I said I liked your company. Not that I needed it.”

“Hmm. That is so. It seems that there is precious little that you need. And even less you want." Again the demon settled. "You fascinate me, Loriel Surana. You are rude, but you are interesting.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

A period of renewed silence, interrupted only by the scratching of her quill.

“Did you know,” said the demon of truth, “that your mother has been waiting in the courtyard to see you for over a fortnight?”

The spilled ink ruined several sheafs of parchment, and the stain never did come out of the woodgrain.

#dragon age #dragon femslash #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

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sciencespies · 4 years ago

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Hundreds of Holocaust Testimonies Translated, Digitized for the First Time

https://sciencespies.com/history/hundreds-of-holocaust-testimonies-translated-digitized-for-the-first-time/

Hundreds of Holocaust Testimonies Translated, Digitized for the First Time

On Wednesday, people around the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day—the anniversary of the January 27, 1945, liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

Due to pandemic restrictions, survivors and educational groups couldn’t visit the sites of Nazi atrocities as they have in years past. But a new digital resource from the Wiener Holocaust Library in London offered an alternative for those hoping to honor the genocide’s victims while maintaining social distancing. As the library announced earlier this month, hundreds of its survivor testimonies are now available online—and in English—for the first time.

The archive, titled Testifying to the Truth: Eyewitness to the Holocaust, currently includes 380 accounts. The rest of the 1,185 testimonies will go online later this year.

“We must not turn away from the hardest truths about the Holocaust, or about the world in which the Holocaust happened,” said Toby Simpson, the library’s director, during a recent virtual commemoration, per the Jewish News’ Beatrice Sayers.

Among those who spoke to the library’s researchers in the years after World War II was Gertrude Deak, a Jewish woman from Hungary who was interned in multiple concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau. In her testimony, Deak outlined details of life in the camps, including brutal physical labor and going without food or anything to drink.

Eyewitness account given by Gertrude Deak detailing her imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death march and liberation

(Wiener Holocaust Library Collections)

At one point, she recalled how two women escaped from the camp but were recaptured by the SS.

“We had to stand and watch, while the two girls dug their own graves, then were shot,” Deak said, “and we had to bury them.”

On another occasion, Deak was one of 200 workers selected for the gas chambers. Upon recounting the group’s numbers, camp guards realized they’d accidentally included 201 individuals. Because she looked healthy, they took Deak out of the group and let her live.

Toward the end of the war, Deak was forced to walk barefoot through the snow on a death march. When she was unable to keep going, her captors left her lying in the road. She received help from several German women, who fed her and let her hide in a barn, where she was eventually found by Russian soldiers.

Other accounts tell of resistance to the Nazis, both inside and outside the camps. In one, Austrian police officer Heinz Mayer describes joining the illegal organization Free Austria after Germany annexed his country. Mayer’s father was killed at Auschwitz, and Mayer himself was arrested, tortured and eventually sent to Buchenwald. There, he was assigned to work in the post room, which was the center of resistance at the camp.

“It was the easiest place for smuggling post to the outside world and for exchanging news,” Mayer explained in his account.

When American troops arrived to liberate the camp on April 11, 1945, prisoners armed with smuggled weapons stormed the watchtowers.

“As the Americans were approaching, the SS thought that it was them who were firing the shots,” Mayer said. “The SS fled, and the prisoners armed themselves with the abandoned weapons. We occupied all the watchtowers and blocked the forest in the direction of Weimar in order to intercept any returning SS.”

The accounts relay experiences of those imprisoned in concentration camps, including Buchenwald (pictured here) and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

(Wiener Holocaust Library Collections)

When Mayer gave his account in 1958, he reported that many of his companions from Buchenwald had already succumbed to the consequences of their time at the camp. He’d been deemed “unfit to work” due to a lung disease he contracted there.

The London library is named after Alfred Wiener, who campaigned against Nazism and gathered evidence documenting the persecution of Jews in 1920s and ’30s Germany. In 1933, Wiener fled the country with his family, settling first in the Netherlands and later in the United Kingdom. He continued his work while abroad, gathering materials that ultimately formed the basis for the library, according to the Telegraph’s Michael Berkowitz.

As Brigit Katz reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2019, Eva Reichmann, the library’s head of research, put out a call to Holocaust survivors in 1954, asking for help documenting their experiences.

“Under no circumstances must this material, written or unwritten, get lost,” she wrote. “[I]t has to be preserved for the future historian.”

Over the next seven years, trained interviewers—many of whom were Holocaust survivors themselves—spoke with eyewitnesses, taking notes and summarizing their stories in the documents that have now been digitized.

The library has previously used its collection of testimonies in exhibitions, like one last year that told the stories of resistance work by European Jews. As Claire Bugos wrote for Smithsonian in August 2020, the show helped fight the persistent myth that those targeted by Nazis were passive victims. Another exhibition at the library documented the impact of the Holocaust on Roma and Sinti people.

In addition to the testimonies, the online archive includes letters, scholarly reports and other materials. Visitors can search through the documents by subject, date range and name.

#History

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catherinegarbinsky · 6 years ago

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Resources

It started with a tweet. I asked:

1 - Poets with MFAs & poetry professors: are there specific books (of poetry, on poetry) that you would recommend for writers who may not have access to formal education in poetry?

2- Poets without MFAs — please feel free to add books that have felt pivotal and educational for you in your process. I mean this primarily as a resource and did not mean to suggest that others may not have valuable texts to offer!

Here are some of the responses (I typed up as many as I could, bolded any that I noticed repeated):

Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio’s The Poet’s Companion

Kaveh Akbar’s Divedapper interviews

Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook

Writing Dangerous Poetry by Michael C Smith

Creating Poetry by Drury

The Practice of Poetry by Behn

Feeling as a Foreign Language by Alice Fulton

A Little Book on Form by Robert Hass

Poetry and the Fate of the Senses by Stewart

Of Color: Poets’ Way of Making Anthology (forthcoming)

De-canon

The Volta

The Alabastar Jar (interviews with Li Young-Lee)

Ordinary Genius by Kim Addonzio

On Poetry by Glyn Maxwell

Fictive Certainties by Robert Duncan

The Flexible Lyric by Voigt

Wislawa Symborska’s “Nonrequired Reading”

The Art of series (especially the Art of Description by Mark Doty, especially The Art of Syntax by Ellen Bryant Voigt)

My Poets by Maureen N. McLane

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

The Crafty Poet by Diane Lockward

Wingbeats and Wingbeats II by Scott Wiggerman

Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle

Picking one poet per year, reading their ouvre and letters (an extremely helpful and nourishing assignment from a genius prof)

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Rigorously study the line, study grammar, and study some kind of oracle system (Tarot, I Ching, astrology, etc) and read as widely in poetry as you can

Poetic Rhythm by Derek Attridge

A Poet’s Guide by Mary Kinzie

The Art of the Poetic Line by James Logenbach

John Frederick Nims’ Western Wind

Poetry: A Writer’s Guide by Amorak Huey and Todd Kaneko

The Making of a Poem (Norton)

Art of Recklessness

Modern Life by Matthea Harvey

Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky

Please by Jericho Brown

Slow Lightning by Eduardo Corral

Meadowlands by Louise Gluck

Kinky by Denise Duhamel

Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz

How To Read A Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry by Edward Hirsch

Carol Rumen’s long-running weekly Guardian column

Poetry 101 by Susan Dalzell

Theory of Prose by V Shklovsky

The Art of Attention by D Revell

Structure and Surprise by M. Theune

Why Poetry by Matthew Zapruder

Poems - Poets - Poetry An Introduction and Anthology by Helen Vendler

Triggering Town by Richard Hugo

The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination by Carl Phillips

Upstream by Mary Oliver

The Life of Images by Cahrles Simic

Being Human (anthology)

How To be a Poet

Nine Gates by Jane Hirshfield

Gregory Orr book on lyric poetry

WIld Hundreds by Nate Marshall

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Helium by Rudy Francisco

Wind in a Box (or anything else) by Terrance Hayes

Blud by Rachel McKibbens

Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith

Poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams, Ted Kooser, Pablo Neruda, ee cummings, Charles Simic, Patricia Smith, Dorianne Laux, EB Voigt, Terrance Hayes, John Donne, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound

Read widely. Read more than poetry. Embrace your outsider knowledge.

Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft by Toby Hoagland

The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky

A Field Guide to Poetry

Ten Windows by Jane Hirshfield

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry

The Book of Luminous Things (anthology) ed. by Milosz

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Poets.org and Poetry Foundation websites

Beautiful and Pointless by David Orr

Find or start a writing group!

Best Words, Best Order by Stephen Dobyns

American Sonnets by Terrance Hayes

The Lichtenberg Figures by Ben Lerner

Poetry Notebook by Clive James

Don Paterson’s 22-page intro to “101 sonnets”

Essays by Barbara Guest

Poetry is Not a Project by Dorothea Lasky

After Lorca by Jack Spicer

The New American Poetry 1945-1960

Helen Vendler’s criticism (The Ocean, The Bird and the Scholar)

Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse ed. By Philip Larkin

The Discovery of Poetry by Frances Mayes

French symbolists

The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

The Poets Laureate Anthology

Poet’s House, 92Y Poetry

Singing School by Robert Pinsky

The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser

Glitter in the Blood by Mindy Nettifee

Poetry: A Survivor’s Guide by Mark Yakich

All the Fun’s In How You Say A Thing by Timothy Steele

The Collected Poems(1856-1987) by John Ashberry

Viper Rum by Mary Karr

The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

Rules of the Dance by Mary Oliver

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Jorie Graham lecture On Description (youtube)

Poetry in Theory

How to be a Poet by Jo Bell and Jane Commane (& special guests)

dVerse Poets

Reading Poetry: An Introduction by Furniss and Bath

Poetry: The Basics by Jeffrey Wainwright

The Poetry Handbook by John Lennard

Broken English: Poetry and Partiality by Heather McHugh

The Poem’s Heartbeat by Alfred Corn

Orr’s Primer for Poets and Reads of Poetry

Penguin’s 20th Century Anthology

The United States of Poetry

Staying Alive: real poems for Unreal Times ed. By Neil Astley

Hollander’s Rhyme’s Reason

52 Ways to Read A Poem by Ruth Padel

A Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry by David Mason and John Frederick Nims

Projective Verse by Charles Olson

Retrospect/A Few Don’t by an Imagiste - Ezra Pound

Against Interpretation - Susan Sontag

Commonplace Podcast

Headwaters by EB Voigt

Olio by Tyehimba Jess

The Orchard by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

The Living and the Dead by Sharon Olds

Sonnets by Bernadette Mayer

The Sin Eater by Deborah Randall

The Art of Poetry Writing by William Packard

The Poet’s Dictionary by William Packard

Freedom Hill by LS Asekoff

Theory of the Lyric by Jonathan Culler

Close Listening ed. By Charles Bernstein

Poetics of Relation by Edouard Glissant

The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary by Frances Stillman

The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner

The Way to Write Poetry by Michael Baldwin

Fussell’s Poetic Meter and Poetic Form

Lofty Dogmas: Poets of Poetics

Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetics by Stephanie Burt

Poetry in the Making by Ted Hughes

A poet needs: grounding in verse and rhyme from nursery lines, a grounding in adult poetic diction by the classic poets (of antiquity, late antiquity, then the mediaeval, early modern and modern periods), and their own poetic vision

Pig Notes and Dumb Music by William Heyen

Satan Says by Sharon Olds

My Emily Dickinson by Susan Howe

#poetry #on poetry #poetry school #self education #resources #learning #about poetry #mfa programs #reading #for your own edification #creative writing #studying

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legendtarot · 5 years ago

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X of Swords

** Card of The Day:** X of Swords [Upright]

“It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”

George Bernard Shaw

Keywords: Back-stabbed, defeat, crisis, betrayal, endings, retaliation, reprisals

Key: Ten/X. The Lord of Ruin”: Sun in Gemini **Element: **Air

Raider-Waite-Smith [circa 1910]

A glance at the history of a hand gesture in medieval Christian iconography

A man is cloaked in red, laying face down in the sand. No shortage of Brutus jokes come to mind in this scenario, but I will skip the cliche. The only Roman reference I am going to make isn’t about Julius Caesar, but the polarities are certainly present.

I do want to reference his hand gesture. It is the same as Hierophant makes in in Key Five. It’s known as the “The Hand of Benediction”. There are a few sources that cite this originating from Saint Peter having an injury to the ulnar nerve within his hand, preventing him from blessing people in the traditional manner of a fist (you can assign whatever metaphor you want to that if you’re feeling salty).

Ancient Romans, used to use hand gestures fluently within their great Greek-inspired councils. One of which was a lifting of the hand, similar to the sign of Benediction, to command silence. This was likely reserved for the elite of society, suggesting the weight and station of the person talking possessed _gravitas _and was deserving of your attention. This may be part of the reason we see Jesus and so many Saints making similar gestures. I enjoy the notion of duality in both blessing, and silence.

Daniel Esparza from Aleteia, recently posted an article that I felt was very relevant laden with my card of the day, Ten of Swords! Here’s a quote:

“In Greek Orthodox iconography, as also in early Christian iconography, the gesture of the blessing hand actually shapes the letters IC XC, an abbreviation for the Greek words Jesus (IHCOYC) Christ (XPICTOC) which includes the first and last letter of each word. The hand that blesses reproduces, with gestures, the Name of Jesus, the “Name above every name.

In addition to shaping letters, the gesture of blessing made by Christ also conveys doctrinal truths. The three fingers used to spell the I and X also represent the Trinity, the Unity of One God in three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Bringing the thumb and the ring finger together to touch not only forms the letter C, but also symbolizes (sic) the Incarnation, the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ.” [Tetragrammaton is not cited in the Bible, at least, it’s unknown to me. Please feel free to drop me a verse if you’ve got one!]

Continuing the idea of a ‘Trinity’, and a bit closer to home for me, one only needs to look at the wealth of Celtic culture from Pre-history - the Fall of Rome, where literally everything from Ireland to Wales, and all of Gaul was written in Triads. The power of three isn’t lost on anyone in myth.

Does this hand gesture hold any significant meaning for you? Does the trinity (in any capacity, not just a ‘Christian’ application}?

Seed Thoughts

What is that hand gesture telling us about the man, laying on the beach? That the person so afflicted by circumstance or the actions of others, is a person of great import {You are]? Or that you are just and right in your actions that led to this moment? Merely seeds for thought, one certainly does not need to analyze every detail in a card to convey it’s meaning.

The Swords are a suit of Air. Conveying the thoughts and ideas of the situation. What can we learn looking back at the IX of Swords? What lesson can we learn from the transition of that moment, to this one?

According to Brigit Esselmont of Biddy Tarot:

“Tens are the completion, end of a cycle and renewal. 10 can also become 1 (1+0 = 1) and therefore the tens represent the same things as the Aces but on a higher level.”

(Her book is excellent for leveraging the every day human advice of Tarot cards! It’s linked below). If we subscribe to this for a moment, what can this tell us about the card itself? That in finality there is a new beginning? Or that perhaps in that Yellow horizon, and calm see we can assume that even though this hurts in the most visceral of ways, that it was ultimately for the best and our future is only just now beginning?

References & Sources

Raider Waite-Smith deck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite_tarot_deck

Light reading on Julius Caesar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar

Hand of Benediction [Medical]: Source 1, Source 2

Hand of Benediction [Art]: Hand image is Public Domain

Additional Articles on Iconography: Source 1, Source 2

Brigit Esselmont: www.biddytarot.com

Biddy’s Ultimate Guide to Tarot: Sold Here

#ten of swords #tarot #card of the day #iconography #legend tarot

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