#our bodies are 70% water

[selfdiscoverymedia]

YH24-12. Jacalyn Price & Hydrating Water.

Your Health is Your Choice with Sara Troy and her guest Jacalyn Price, on air from March 19th My WHY, sharing the importance of hydration, our bodies are 70% water, what water are you drinking. Think of your stomach as a positive magnet. When you drink from your tap water it has a positive charge, it enters the stomach and sits there, sloshing around, before it slowly enters the intestines and…

[bug-oc]

Hello! How is the Bug tournament art doing? Im guessing you were busy with artfight last month?

I would also like to add that I, too, think that bugs are cool.

We were, indeed, busy with Art Fight last month! We finished... 39 characters in total, 37 of which were fully painted, so we're taking a brief rest from that getting back to Bug OC painting again. Our current plot is to finish the comic we made for Pola which has been sitting on the backburner for something like a month and a half now, and then get back to work on Maria's piece, which we've already finished the design for and only need to paint.

After that... well, we planned to take a hack at sequential art for the Round 3 and Round 4 matches, since they only have two characters per, but that might depend on our stamina at the time - summer is never particularly kind to us, and while the momentum of this tournament is EXCELLENT for motivating us to keep doing art despite it, August... really takes its toll. You can probably see us puttering out around here last year, too. We don't handle heat well, unfortunately, so this time of year almost always has us a bit sluggish, and it takes some effort to stay on track after a few days of high heat do their damndest to cook our brain like an egg.

We've been working on building our ability to keep our brain on track for a while - this WILL get done, if nothing else - but it might be a little bit.

[goldenqingxin]

“dark percy this” “akhlys vs percy” that…

no.

dark jason grace.

when i was in my chemistry classes i was told that most decisions, most thoughts, most movements and most pains are caused by electrical currents going through our nerves.

i repeat.

everything your nerves do is electricity.

jason could, if he wanted to, tap into that. he could make you feel the most excruciating pain in the world without giving you a MINUTE to stop him. he could manipulate every thought you’re ever had and every movement of your body and you wouldn’t even NOTICE.

and that’s just talking about electricity and nerves. he controls wind and air too.

percy’s cool and all with his “70% of your body is made of water” but how about “i’ll take every atom of oxygen away from you and watch you rot faster than a dead body”? how about choking you despite the air being totally fine around you? taking away every bit of air in your bloodstream?

and what about air pressure? maybe i’m pushing it, but the way he saved piper in tlh speaks volumes on his control on the air around him. what if he can make your entire body implode on a whim by making the pressure around you exponentially higher?

jason has so, SO much potential.

[bee-wg]

PROLOGUE:

Our family isn’t too big. Ever since my grandparents moved to their cottage by the lake, It's just been the three of us. I don't even bring my teammates or friends home. And all the peacefulness is about to change. 

“Ahh Shit- Sorry!” the fumbling buffoon said. 

“Language, sweetheart. David! Could you help him pick it up? I'm tidying up the kitchen,” My mom replied. 

“Coming!” My dad sprints down the stairs. 

“Oh, Pumpkin, you're all grown up! Are you prepared for the semester?” Dad gestured to the culinary tools scattered across the floor. 

“Yes, of course. Sorry about the mess,” he replied. The “Pumpkin” in question is my cousin, Theo. He's about to attend a college in the city to study culinary arts… or something. And, of course, he’s sharing the room with me. Not for long, though. I have a few buddies who have invited me to share a room with them. They reek, but it's a necessary evil. 

“Jay,” my dad asked, nudging me, “Remember when you guys used to play house together every summer?” 

“Yes, then he bit me and we never talked again,” I deadpanned. 

“Oh come on, he was just a kid,” Dad retorted. 

No, he wasn't. He was a little demon that stole my pretend credit card. My hand still itches thinking about that vicious attack. 

I put down Theo’s luggage and bit back the argument. “I'll go back to the car to see what’s left.” 

“Alright bud, thanks for the help.”

“No problem.” He could probably thank me by asking what happened at football camp, but what do I know? It's not like we haven't talked about football the entire summer. We could be doing that right now, on the deck with some ice-cold beer. But the twinky little “Pumpkin” needs help, and I have the muscle for it. 

God, I wish the summer was over already.

***

“Hahahaha Exactly! I have never seen Chloé like that before.” Dad laughed.

“Right? Who knew mom had sass in her.”

Mom's competitiveness was kicked off by Theo's presence. The kitchen has basically been a war zone for the past two weeks.

Looking down at my watch, the light flashes on.

6 kilometres down, 5 more to go.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a good morning run with Dad like this one. The ocean breeze flowing past my hair and the faint rays of sunrise brought back some old memories. 

Regulating my breathing, we slowed down for a second.

“Damn, son - your stamina has gotten so much better this past year.”

“The football camp really made you put up 20 pounds of pure muscles too, I’m glad I recommended you there.” Dad beamed proudly at me.

“You’re not too bad yourself, for an aging old man.”

I still get the same rush every time he compliments me. It’s like a reassurance that I’m doing something right.

“Hahahaha, you won’t be saying that when you’re one foot in your 40s; it’s basically death by fossilization.”

Dad has always been modest with his body, but everyone who knows him either admires his body, wants him, or is jealous of him and I am the same. Ever since high school I’ve been inspired to be like him. Even with the 15 pounds of muscle I have over him, I’m still lacking in so many ways. He just has the confidence to own it.

“Want some water?”

“Oh, right, of course. Thanks.” I took over the ice-cold bottle.

“About that training camp, I should request the school board to have the team register next summer for the training course. High school kids these days don't care about sports as much no more.” Dad said

“Speaking of which, remember your friend Lancaster who got held back for two years?”

“Yeah, Avery. He used to scold me when I didn’t take the nutrition classes with him. Haven’t hung with him in a while though.”

“Well, he probably won’t scold anymore. The kid got too cocky after getting a full sports scholarship and gained 70 pounds of fat in the summer. The university probably revoked the funds. Hope he didn't take it too hard.”

“Shit, that’s awful. I didn’t expect it to be him out of anyone. He was a damn good receiver.”

We resumed the pace, avoiding some rogue cyclists on the way.

Crazy to think the weight could creep up on Avery Lancaster of all people. I should watch out for myself too. I have good genes from dad so it probably will never happen, but the new influx of delicious food from Theo and my mom’s little competition definitely doesn’t help. At least it keeps the brat out of my room.

“Dad, I think I’m not going to move in with Brad and the guys.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?” 

“Well first of all, as much as I love them, the guys stinks. Second of all, Theo is not as much of a blood-sucking gremlin as he was before. And I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye to you guys.”

“Plus, How can I leave when the thing with mom just got interesting.”

“Staying for the family drama, huh?” He chuckled.

“We’re happy to have you for as long as you want, Jay. Truth be told, your mom has been crying about it for weeks. We’re both not ready to say goodbye too.”

“Tell you what, Chloe and Theo probably have some fancy lasagnas waiting for us back home; let's cut through the forest and head back early to celebrate.” He said, practically drooling.

“Lasagnas for breakfast?”

“Wait, You just want the Lasagnas. Don’t you?”

“Hahaha, Maybe.”

“Well, don’t get too drawn in, or you’ll end up as Hansel in the candy house.” 

He laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.

That would be funny to imagine though, cause Dad is anything but a glutton.

Chapter 1 ->

[aliesbienish]

Hi!! I was wondering if you could please write a Paul x reader where the reader is super pregnant and is hungry all the time and eats the most random stuff and the pack teases her about it until Paul puts his foot down and tells them to back off

Thank you! I’m really enjoying the study of wolves🤍

Hi lovely anon, thank you for this sweet request - I had a lot of fun writing it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do x

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Recipe for Pack

There was no doubt who this baby belonged to, even in the womb. Since a few months into your pregnancy you’d been insatiably hungry, snacking continuously. Paul had always been the same, of course his excuse was his shifting. Unfairly that meant he got super hearing and strength while you needed to pee constantly and had nausea that rudely didn’t limit itself to the morning. So constant eating wasn’t an issue, it was the cravings that were becoming a hassle.

Paul, being a secret softie, had tried to cater to your every whim. Whether it was chocolate covered zucchini’s or melted cheese topped ice cream, he kept the judgement to a minimum. However these odd cravings did often lead to late night trips to the nearest 24 hour store located in Forks, a forty minute round trip. One particularly bad evening had him chauffeuring you 70 miles at 3am to Port Angeles, purely for a a chocolate milkshake and fries that got dipped into it. It was a miracle the machine wasn't broken.

But while Paul was nothing but accomodating, it couldn't always be said for the rest of his pack mates. Eating a hot dog with raspberry jam caused Jared to make vomiting noises. Adding leftover mash potato to a smore prompted Quil to question whether you needed a visit to a psychologist. Even sweetheart Seth made a quip that your cravings seemed like ingredients to a witches potion. Which was probably fair, as you munched on a buttered bread covered with rosemary.

But one comment, made sitting around Emily and Sam's dinning table took it too far.

Sitting with what to you seemed like a delightful combination of peanut butter and hot sauce bagels topped with orange slices, it was enough to elicit a groan.

"This seems to be getting way beyond normal now. I'm beginning to wonder if you are actually having these cravings or if you just like to make everyone else uncomfortable!" Jacob declared jokingly, but with your out of control emotions it was enough to stop you mid bite and feel shame.

"Right? I think next she'll just eat straight from the trash, it's not like she is far off!" Laughed Quil, causing laughter around the table.

Your eyes watered as you choked out "I'm sorry,"

"No, don't you dare apologise." Paul stated, gently placing his hands on your shoulders. "It's these morons who have no right to be teasing you." Turning to address the pack he gave them a hard stare. "You are all being absolute dicks. She's trying to survive extreme changes to her body, something we should be particularly understanding about, but instead your being rude and judgemental. If you all don't get your shit together and start being supportive then I will absolutely see if beating some sense into you in wolf form will help the process,"

The next evening you were all once again sitting around the dining table. The pack, showing their support, were all eating your newest and rather tame craving - chocolate covered bacon.

Sam got everyones attention and raised his fork in a toast "To our newest pack member,". The rest of the pack raised their own cutlery and echoed the sentiment.

This time the tears in your eyes were from happiness.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

[mesetacadre]

Lessons from organizing the collection and shipping of aid to the areas affected by the flash floods in Valencia

Nationalism still plays a deciding role in the subjectivity of the student body and broader population. The outpouring of popular support and individual donations eclipsed in 4 days the combined amount of attention for Palestine in a year, despite the death toll being ~10,000 times greater, and destruction orders of magnitude greater.

Periods of flux and reflux have been very heavily contrasted. The aid which reached us decreased substantially every single day. If the collection began on a Tuesday with an overwhelming amount of material, by Friday, barely a few people stopped by. This very clearly demonstrates the reactivity of the working class when it comes to facing an issue.

This reactivity also manifests in the things themselves that people donated. Valencia very quickly received tons of clothing, and by the second day, people in the ground unanimously said to stop donating clothes, and the official collection points set up by the state stopped accepting clothes. Despite this, clothes continued to be donated en-masse. In my collection point, around a tenth of all products donated was non-protective clothing. I think this is the case because of two reasons. First, because instead of buying products explicitly to donate, people emptied out their closets. Given how much clothing is just thrown away per capita each year, I think it's a safe assumption to take. Second, because instead of stopping to research what Valencia needed at the time, most people wished to donate something immediately, perhaps to feel better about having helped out, to forget about it by next week. The sharp dropoff in donations supports this.

In the organizing side of things, people are still heavily conditioned by reactivity. The collection point was at first spearheaded by two inexperienced people who by the end of the first day were already drowning in pessimism and burnout, stating that it was impossible to organize the ~50-70 people who were in some way involved at our collection point at the time. These are people with a very admirable instinct, but who lacked any tools, experience or even ideas to properly organize as was needed. This was magnified by the virtually no help given from the university's institutions.

Of the people willing to continue organizing the aid, there are some groups who stand out because of their focus on agitation to place political blame. While this is very necessary and not at all contradictory, their enthusiasm for this blame was inversely proportional to their enthusiasm for the collection of money or aid. These groups have transparently outed themselves as opportunists, grifters, and hippies.

We have not stopped organizing to continue to deliver aid, pivoting to the collection of money in order to buy the more expensive tools that nobody donates, such as shovels, water pumps, and more. Even as this continues, more and more people have lost all interest in helping. Valencia's most affected areas, workers' neighborhoods, still need help, and a good portion of the food that was donated will perish sooner rather than later. There has even been another flash flood, less destructive but still serious, in Málaga, and this time no official support networks have been set up.

So what can be concluded from this?

Activism is useless for any kind of defined political or social goal. Most of nothing has ever been achieved by a handful of people deciding to show up at a place and burn out in a few weeks. As things stand, we can't rely on coasting on the comings and goings of mass outcries, conditioned by that day's news cycle, and by a desire to never stray too far from one's individual behavior.

Any kind of political organization with its own goals must learn to have constant work, to set its own rhythms in periods of social calm such that burnout is avoided, but experience can still be scraped off every street, classroom and workplace. And it must also be prepared to encompass the rapid acceleration of a mass's movements, it should be ready for the limits of the organization to exceed themselves, and temporarily encompass those people willing to do temporary work within the organization's structure. This is how a social base is slowly built, and how communists can begin to demonstrate the validity of their positions properly. Not by being the most extreme voices for its own sake, or by unduly inserting ourselves into spaces without much sense, but by making whoever is willing an active participant of our own structures, methods and analyses.

[starblushh]

“What I've learned from women who are totally killing it”

Part 2

(part 1)

☁️ The secret to be the luckiest person in the room is to always think in your favour, no matter the circumstance is.

☁️ A daily routine actually makes your day easier. But the key is to have one which resonates with you.

☁️ Stop blindly following routines you see on the internet; they don't even resonate with you. Ex: Maybe you're not a gym person, but you're half heartedly going to the gym just bc of xyz routine. Instead, try to find what you actually like, such as yoga or exercises.

☁️ Never apologize for things which gives you joy and is literally hurting nobody. Trust me honey you don't wanna be 70 and live your life regretting things you could have loved and enjoyed but didn't. So go stream your ‘not so cool’ artist and enjoy that ‘boring’ hobby.

☁️ The happiness you're searching outside is within you. You will never ‘arrive’ to happiness, it's in the small things you do.

☁️ Music or the songs you listen to can actually affect how you feel all day ! When I started listening to songs with affirmations, I found myself humming those songs again and again. Similarly, when I listened to sad songs I found the same thing. Your subconscious believes what it's hearing, so be mindful of the music you listen to.

☁️ Honey, you're punishing your body if you're only using water and soap/body wash while bathing. Your body deserves to be properly cleaned and these aren't enough to remove the dead skin cells. All you need to do is use an exfoliating tool such as a washcloth, body sponge, loofah, etc. If you don't have access to these right now, then even a simple cotton napkin will work.

☁️ If you're religious and want to have stronger connection with God then the best way you can do it is by reading your religious scriptures. Whether it's the Gita, Bible or Quran, it will provide you with more knowledge than anyone else can.

☁️ “The fears we don't face become our limits” I spent a whole minute reading this quote again and again. One of the most moving quotes I've came across for sure. (I can make a whole post with all my fav quotes too!)

☁️ ‘Nature is women's best friend.’ Take some time out of your day to spend time in nature. Feeling anxious? Take a walk in the garden. Feeling like the world is cruel and everyone is against you? Go hug a tree. Trust me sweetheart, nature has the solutions to all your problems.

[soon-palestine]

Palestinian Territory - The Israeli authorities continue to enforce their ongoing arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip, refusing to allow humanitarian aid and necessities that are essential for survival—such as cleaning and personal hygiene supplies—into the Strip. This comes amid the spread of infectious diseases and on top of the precarious living conditions faced by the approximately 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave, constituting a perpetuation of Israel’s comprehensive crime of genocide, which began on 7 October 2023.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that the consequences of Israel’s intentional worsening of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, by blocking people’s access to cleaning and personal hygiene products, medical equipment, and sterilisation supplies, are dire. Nothing justifies subjecting the population to conditions that can cause widespread death, including by causing the spread of serious skin diseases and and infections, including hepatitis.

Israel continues to systematically and arbitrarily deny hygiene supplies and equipment to all Gaza Strip residents, exacerbating the catastrophic health crisis that Israel has caused there. This crisis has been made worse by the population’s forced, widespread, and repeatedly occurring displacement, as well as the lack of personal hygiene supplies and disinfectants in shelters and camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Israel continues to prevent and obstruct the entry of the most basic supplies into the Strip, creating conditions that are ripe for the spread of infectious diseases, water pollution, and the absence of sanitation services, as Israeli army forces have destroyed these facilities.

Since the beginning of the genocide nearly, Israel has arbitrarily closed crossings into the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of humanitarian supplies and the flow of food and water. These actions have resulted in a dangerous accumulation of crises that directly threaten the lives and health of the Gaza Strip’s residents, most notably due to their lack of access to food, clean water, medicines, medical supplies, sanitary tools, and cleaning supplies.

Aya Kamal Ashour Abed, a 20-year-old displaced mother of two at the Deir al-Balah Preparatory School for Girls in the central Gaza Strip, spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. “We are more than 30 people living in this classroom for about nine months,” she stated. “A few months ago, we numbered roughly 70, but after some of the displaced individuals relocated to tents outside the school, our numbers dropped somewhat.

“We only receive cleaning and personal hygiene supplies in small quantities every two or three months, despite the fact that our number is very high and we require them constantly,” Abed continued. “Sanitation supplies, like tissues, soap, and shampoo, are extremely expensive [or] even nonexistent in the markets.”

Added Abed, “A bar of soap, for instance, now costs 30 shekels (roughly nine USD) while a bottle of shampoo costs 90 shekels (roughly 25 USD). We do not have anything to eat, so how can we afford these amounts for basic hygiene?”

Abed, who was displaced from her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip following its bombing last October, said that her two sons had become afflicted with allergies and bacteria, for which she is unable to provide ointments because they are unavailable in UNRWA clinics. “I showed my son to the doctor, and he told me that his entire body is seriously infected with bacteria due to poor hygiene,” Abed told Euro-Med Monitor.

Obtaining sanitary pads—which are pricey and hard to find in local markets—is one of her biggest challenges. “Even though my children’s diapers are completely unusable, I have to cut them into tiny pieces and use them as sanitary pads,” Abed explained. “During my period, I also have to use a single pad for the entire day, which has led to numerous infections and rashes.”

Approximately 680,000 women and girls in the Gaza Strip are of reproductive age. These individuals lack access to menstrual pads and other essentials, and also face other challenges such as inadequate access to water, toilets, various hygiene products, and privacy. Additionally, they must use contaminated or unsterilised materials, which puts them at risk of developing infections that can lead to infertility and uterine cancer.

Since Israel has cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, there is a growing risk to all residents caused by waste accumulation and sewage flooding of roads and markets due to the inability to drain it. Israel has destroyed most of the Strip’s vital infrastructure, including sewage networks, and forced over two million people—the majority of whom have been displaced more than once—into shelters and tents that lack the basic necessities of life, personal hygiene, and health care.

Forty-two-year-old Mohammed Saad Abu Haitham said that his family of eight, which resides in a tent in the Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, is severely impacted by the lack of cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and bar soap. Due to its scarcity, soap is unusually expensive and therefore difficult to purchase.

“We do not have the money to buy enough meals for our children, so we cannot buy cleaning materials and soap in light of their high prices and the lack of availability,” Abu Haitham told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “My spouse and kids’ hair has been infected with lice, and we all have skin diseases as a result of not washing and not using enough soap and shampoo.”

Food dyes are used instead of traditional dyes for making liquid soap and sterilisation products, which have not entered the Gaza Strip in months due to the Israeli closure of the crossings and the imposition of an arbitrary siege. These alternative and primitive cleaning products are made locally, are unsafe, and are generally insufficient in both quality and quantity when sold in the markets of the central and southern Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of cases of skin diseases, including eczema, have been reported to medical facilities as having cropped up in shelters and camps for displaced people living in tents. This is particularly concerning for women, as eczema often appears on the hands of people working to clean food utensils using antiquated and dangerous materials. Meanwhile, reports from the United Nations indicate that skin rashes and skin infections, especially among children, are sharply increasing in the Strip.

The Israeli authorities have placed an arbitrary and oppressive siege on the Palestinian people there, squeezing them into a tiny area with exceedingly limited resources; denying them access to food, clean water, and other necessities; and leaving them exposed to extreme heat.

The right to dignity is an internationally recognised human right that protects people from humiliation, among other forms of unethical treatment. It is meant to ensure fairness by providing the means for people to live in dignity, as well as other fundamental needs and rights, like the right to health and the right to water and sanitation. These rights are essential to maintaining human dignity and preserving the lives of the populace.

The only way to guarantee the rights of Gaza Strip residents is to put an end to Israel’s crime of genocide, lift the arbitrary siege on the Strip, and rescue what remains of the currently uninhabitable region. Delays will either cause the region to irreversibly deteriorate, or incur significant costs in terms of civilian lives and health.

The international community is required to guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including the entry of non-food essentials needed to respond to the dire circumstances faced by the Strip’s entire population. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that swift and effective action must be taken to safely deliver aid to civilians across the entire Strip, including the northern section, which is particularly isolated right now. Additionally, the international community must prioritise providing adequate supplies of personal and family hygiene products, as well as products for menstruating individuals, plus sexual and reproductive health care services to prevent and mitigate further harm to women and children in particular, and the entire Palestinian population in general. These actions are mandated by international human rights law and relevant international obligations.

Pressure needs to be put on Israel, as the occupying force, to maintain sanitation facilities and services in the Gaza Strip, as well as to guarantee the safety of the technicians charged with repairing and renovating water lines and their various sources. The main water pipelines that enter the Strip need to be restored, particularly those that enter it from the north.

In addition to ensuring the entry of enough fuel to operate the Gaza Strip’s water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalination plants, water wells, and mobile toilets, it is crucial to exert pressure on Israel to permit the entry of materials required for repair work and rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure. These services are essential to the civilian population’s survival in the Strip, and will protect them from the threat of further health disasters.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Started the day by reading this article from the NY times, and I'm frankly, disturbed.

Some highlights:

"For decades, farmers across America have been encouraged by the federal government to spread municipal sewage on millions of acres of farmland as fertilizer. It was rich in nutrients, and it helped keep the sludge out of landfills."

Which I knew, and I knew that there were concerns about contaminants from like, the medications people were on. But human waste is part of the nutrient cycle, and it always made sense to me that it should be throughly composted and returned to agricultural lands, and I assumed that people in general were taking the steps necessary to make it safe.

But here's what I didn't know:

"The 1972 Clean Water Act had required industrial plants to start sending their wastewater to treatment plants instead of releasing it into rivers and streams, which was a win for the environment but also produced vast new quantities of sludge that had to go somewhere."

Which, yay, no longer polluting bodies of water, but now that means we're applying industrial waste water to agricultural lands. And have been since 1972. Which leads to this situation, among many others, I'm sure:

"The sludge that allegedly contaminated the Colemans’ farm came from the City of Fort Worth water district, which treats sewage from more than 1.2 million people, city records show. Its facility also accepts effluent from industries including aerospace, defense, oil and gas, and auto manufacturing. Synagro takes the sludge and treats it (though not for PFAS, as it’s not required by law) then distributes it as fertilizer."

So here's what some states are doing:

"In Michigan, among the first states to investigate the chemicals in sludge fertilizer, officials shut down one farm where tests found particularly high concentrations in the soil and in cattle that grazed on the land. This year, the state prohibited the property from ever again being used for agriculture. Michigan hasn’t conducted widespread testing at other farms, partly out of concern for the economic effects on its agriculture industry.

In 2022, Maine banned the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields. It was the first state to do so and is the only state to systematically test farms for the chemicals. Investigators have found contamination on at least 68 of the more than 100 farms checked so far, with some 1,000 sites still to be tested.

“Investigating PFAS is like opening Pandora’s box,” said Nancy McBrady, deputy commissioner of Maine’s Department of Agriculture."

This is fun:

"The E.P.A. is currently studying the risks posed by PFAS in sludge fertilizer (which the industry calls biosolids) to determine if new rules are necessary.

The agency continues to promote its use on cropland, though elsewhere it has started to take action. In April, it ordered utilities to slash PFAS levels in drinking water to near zero and designated two types of the chemical as hazardous substances that must be cleaned up by polluters. The agency now says there is no safe level of PFAS for humans...

It’s difficult to know how much fertilizer sludge is used nationwide, and E.P.A. data is incomplete. The fertilizer industry says more than 2 million dry tons were used on 4.6 million acres of farmland in 2018. And it estimates that farmers have obtained permits to use sewage sludge on nearly 70 million acres, or about a fifth of all U.S. agricultural land."

There's more, but I wanted to condense it at least a little bit. I am glad we're raising awareness, and I'm glad we're starting to regular the amount in our drinking water, and I hope that we'll find a way to actually deal with PFAS. I am so frustrated that people are exposed in the first place, and in nigh inescapable ways.

Also, to all those people who were like, oh, organic isn't at all healthier for consumers? Guess what the organic standards don't allow to be applied?

[statvette]

Help Cyan Get Through It.

Things are really difficult. The crime wave makes us live in fear, the drought makes us have hours and hours of blackouts, I’m paid the bare minimum, I’min pain, stretched thin and with nothing to my name. I’ve had to start selling things I can find around the house and I’m physically and emotionally exhausted.

For brevity I’ll list what’s going on quick and put explanations of each under read more but, if you can, please donate and share. I can’t carry on like this.

I’ve been disabled after a surgery. I’m in constant pain and my body is not the same since.

I am in the process of getting evaluated for disability, this is long and expensive,

There’s my psychiatric medications which are also, expensive.

My cat had to be admitted through emergency and then hospitalized.

Crime crisis, energy crisis, and making $400 a month make it all harder.

Please, help. More under the cut.

Disabled after surgery. I had a bilateral thoracic sympathectomy for hyperhidrosis. This is a procedure that pulverizes specific nerves, and ever since then I have no exercise tolerance, my heart beats fast and irregularly, I run out of breath while walking. I’m in constant, chronic, back pain. I can’t stay in a single position for too long regardless of if it is sitting, standing, or laying down, I need to be constantly repositioning myself. For reference, I am 26, 5’0 and 120 lbs.

The process for disability is long and expensive, it is supposedly free, but in here you have to even pay the schedulers or have someone inside to be seen. This is done by the government and they only accept assessments by doctors who work in the institution, meaning all my private testing is null for this process. There’s also the service fees. I need to be seen by a psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, neurosurgeon, pulmonologist, cardiologist and traumatologist. As well as get a new MRI, I don’t know what further testing they’ll ask of me. This is done at Los Ceibos. Even if I go through all of this, there’s no guarantee they’ll recognize me as disabled.

I have my own doctor, my psychiatrist, for a while, but an appointment with her is expensive, and so are the psychiatric medications. I’m on Venlafaxine, Methylphenidate and Bromazepam. That’s $300.

My cat Nalo, is 14, he had to be taken to veterinary emergency and then admitted. His intestines were inflamed, there were crystals in his urine that destroyed his urethra, he couldn’t hold anything down and was extremely dehydrated, one of his heart valves doesn’t work anymore. He’s doing better now but he has a strict routine, such as $70 kibble and permanent heart medication.

The crime crisis has made it so anyone can become a victim. January 2023 my father was kidnapped, June 2023 evaded a kidnapping event, January of this year made us go viral, a british millionaire got kidnapped, the sister of a friend at the university I study. We all have a story. So, if I go out and I get mugged, which there is a high chance of, and they take my phone, I become unemployed. I need it to work, and thus need a backup. There’s a drought which means we have no water in our energy dams, meaning we have blackouts for several hours a day every day, and that makes it so that sometimes I have ten hour shifts. I make $300 a month which is not uncommon here but it is not enough, I need to get accommodations for my disability, like an actual ergonomic chair, an appropriate desk.

thank you for reading.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: The Moon (pt. 2)

Earth’s Moon is thought to have formed in a tremendous collision. A massive object ― named Theia after the mythological Greek Titan who was the mother of Selene, goddess of the Moon ― smashed into Earth, flinging material into space that became the Moon.

The brightest and largest object in our night sky, the Moon makes Earth a more livable planet by moderating our home planet's wobble on its axis, leading to a relatively stable climate. It also causes tides, creating a rhythm that has guided humans for thousands of years.

The Moon was likely formed after a Mars-sized body collided with Earth several billion years ago.

Earth's only natural satellite is simply called "the Moon" because people didn't know other moons existed until Galileo Galilei discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610. In Latin, the Moon was called Luna, which is the main adjective for all things Moon-related: lunar.

The many missions that have explored the Moon have found no evidence to suggest it has its own living things. However, the Moon could be the site of future colonization by humans. The discovery that the Moon harbors water ice, and that the highest concentrations occur within darkened craters at the poles, makes the Moon a little more hospitable for future human colonists.

With a radius of about 1,080 miles (1,740 kilometers), the Moon is less than a third of the width of Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, the Moon would be about as big as a coffee bean.

The Moon is an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away. That means 30 Earth-sized planets could fit in between Earth and the Moon.

The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth, getting about an inch farther away each year.

The Moon is rotating at the same rate that it revolves around Earth (called synchronous rotation), so the same hemisphere faces Earth all the time. Some people call the far side – the hemisphere we never see from Earth – the "dark side" but that's misleading. As the Moon orbits Earth, different parts are in sunlight or darkness at different times. The changing illumination is why, from our perspective, the Moon goes through phases. During a "full moon," the hemisphere of the Moon we can see from Earth is fully illuminated by the Sun. And a "new moon" occurs when the far side of the Moon has full sunlight, and the side facing us is having its night.

The moon's near and far side.

The Moon makes a complete orbit around Earth in 27 Earth days and rotates or spins at that same rate, or in that same amount of time. Because Earth is moving as well – rotating on its axis as it orbits the Sun – from our perspective, the Moon appears to orbit us every 29 days.

The leading theory of the Moon's origin is that a Mars-sized body collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The resulting debris from both Earth and the impactor accumulated to form our natural satellite 239,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) away. The newly formed Moon was in a molten state, but within about 100 million years, most of the global "magma ocean" had crystallized, with less-dense rocks floating upward and eventually forming the lunar crust.

Earth's Moon has a core, mantle, and crust:

The Moon’s core is proportionally smaller than other terrestrial bodies' cores. The solid, iron-rich inner core is 149 miles (240 kilometers) in radius. It is surrounded by a liquid iron shell 56 miles (90 kilometers) thick. A partially molten layer with a thickness of 93 miles (150 kilometers) surrounds the iron core.

The mantle extends from the top of the partially molten layer to the bottom of the Moon's crust. It is most likely made of minerals like olivine and pyroxene, which are made up of magnesium, iron, silicon, and oxygen atoms.

The crust has a thickness of about 43 miles (70 kilometers) on the Moon’s near-side hemisphere and 93 miles (150 kilometers) on the far-side. It is made of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminum, with small amounts of titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium, and hydrogen.

Long ago the Moon had active volcanoes, but today they are all dormant and have not erupted for millions of years.

With too sparse an atmosphere to impede impacts, a steady rain of asteroids, meteoroids, and comets strikes the surface of the Moon, leaving numerous craters behind. Tycho Crater is more than 52 miles (85 kilometers) wide.

Over billions of years, these impacts have ground up the surface of the Moon into fragments ranging from huge boulders to powder. Nearly the entire Moon is covered by a rubble pile of charcoal-gray, powdery dust, and rocky debris called the lunar regolith. Beneath is a region of fractured bedrock referred to as the megaregolith.

The light areas of the Moon are known as the highlands. The dark features, called maria (Latin for seas), are impact basins that were filled with lava between 4.2 and 1.2 billion years ago. These light and dark areas represent rocks of different compositions and ages, which provide evidence for how the early crust may have crystallized from a lunar magma ocean. The craters themselves, which have been preserved for billions of years, provide an impact history for the Moon and other bodies in the inner solar system.

If you looked in the right places on the Moon, you would find pieces of equipment, American flags, and even a camera left behind by astronauts. While you were there, you'd notice that the gravity on the surface of the Moon is one-sixth of Earth's, which is why in footage of moonwalks, astronauts appear to almost bounce across the surface.

The temperature on the Moon reaches about 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 degrees Celsius) when in full Sun, but in darkness, the temperatures plummet to about -280 degrees Fahrenheit (-173 degrees Celsius).

During the initial exploration of the Moon, and the analysis of all the returned samples from the Apollo and the Luna missions, we thought that the surface of the Moon was dry.

The first definitive discovery of water was made in 2008 by the Indian mission Chandrayaan-1, which detected hydroxyl molecules spread across the lunar surface and concentrated at the poles. Missions such as Lunar Prospector, LCROSS, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, have not only shown that the surface of the Moon has global hydration but there are actually high concentrations of ice water in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles.

Scientists also found the lunar surface releases its water when the Moon is bombarded by micrometeoroids. The surface is protected by a layer, a few centimeters of dry soil that can only be breached by large micrometeoroids. When micrometeoroids impact the surface of the Moon, most of the material in the crater is vaporized. The shock wave carries enough energy to release the water that’s coating the grains of the soil. Most of that water is released into space.

In October 2020, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places. SOFIA detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon’s southern hemisphere.

The Moon has a very thin and weak atmosphere, called an exosphere. It does not provide any protection from the Sun's radiation or impacts from meteoroids.

The early Moon may have developed an internal dynamo, the mechanism for generating global magnetic fields for terrestrial planets, but today, the Moon has a very weak magnetic field. The magnetic field here on Earth is many thousands of times stronger than the Moon's magnetic field.

Earth’s Moon was born out of destruction.

Several theories about our Moon’s formation vie for dominance, but almost all share that point in common: near the time of the solar system’s formation, about 4.5 billion years ago, something ― perhaps a single object the size of Mars, perhaps a series of objects ― crashed into the young Earth and flung enough molten and vaporized debris into space to create the Moon.

Five Things We Learned from Apollo Moon Rocks

The chemical composition of Moon and Earth rocks are very similar.

The Moon was once covered in an ocean of magma.

Meteorites have shattered and melted rocks on the Moon’s surface through impacts.

Lava flowed up through cracks in the Moon’s crust and filled its impact basins.

Lunar “soil” is made of pulverized rock created by meteorite impacts.

If these writing notes helped with your poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

Writing Notes: The Moon (pt. 1) ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[foldingfittedsheets]

okay follow-up ask to the bed thing: pillows?

I like the mattress I have, it molds to my body in a good way and offers good support, but I CANNOT find the right pillow. I use 2 right now depending on if I'm sleeping on my side or back (I have chronic pain and sleep poorly, which causes a lot of reshuffling and switching from side to back to other side over and over). I hate the overly fluffy pillows, but I feel like the foam ones squish down so quickly they only last maybe a couple of months max, and even then it's not ideal.

Any suggestions? I would be so so grateful 🙏

Okay, but you have to take this with a huge massive grain of salt, because pillows are SO personal. Not only that, our bodies get used to shitty pillows and switching to good neck support can suck in a very major way.

My pillow tips are as follows:

For side sleepers, this very quickly googled image is the exact right idea. If you can, test pillows on a bed like your bed at home and have someone check your spine. (I can't actually say if every mattress sales person will be competent at this because most of the ones I worked with didn't care so bring your own person if you can)

The right pillow should fit the gap between your head and your shoulder to keep your spine level. The best ones I've found for this are solid memory foam, and not that money is everything but if it's about $70 that's usually where the good foam starts. Stay away from polyfill and down.

Back and stomach sleepers will typically want a lower pillow than side sleepers.

I personally really love my tempurpedic symphony pillow. The quality has declined over the years but it's the exact shape for me, and each side is a different shape for back or side sleeping. If you sleep warm Technogel makes a freaking amazing cooling pillow in a few heights. It's really spendy but damn it's a cool pillow.

Lastly, if you find a good pillow get a waterproof protector. Also for your bed. Waterproof protectors on all your bed shit! Nice ones breathe well and don't feel plasticy but we are creatures made of water between sweat, drool, accidents, and dust mites for the love of god get a protector on everything.

[martiandmichelle]

So this time it's Emily writing and it's also me in the photo. What do you think seeing me dressed like this? I'm a bit of a jeans and t-shirt gal so catching me in an outfit like this is unusual. But a client wanted to see me in such a getup so here I am trying to put on a sexy look.

And now confession time: in my heart of hearts I am purely lesbian, but my job - that I love to death - requires me to do some "escort" jobs with - yes - men. When I first started doing this with Marti and Studio M (now Mountain Media) a few years ago, I was VERY uncomfortable when I needed to do straight sex. I've grown into it since and have come to enjoy it. And, guess what - I actually do more "escort jobs" than any of the other ladies. They're reasons for that, of course. Marti is priced out of range for all but the richest clients. Maria has been our #2 escort girl, but she is also much more expensive than me and has a two night minimum. Willow is very picky. The other ladies are up and coming. And one little secret: I'm the only one our owners allow to do hourly escort! I don't do it very often but it's fun when I do. (I suspect Michelle will blow everybody else out of the water in terms of profit from escort in 2025 so I'm talking about 2024.)

So as my job as an escort - which I do feel is the second part of my job behind doing photo sessions and movies - it took me quite a while to grown into it, but as I did I began to discover who I was and what I preferred in straight sex. In doing so, I developed preferences much different from the other ladies. First and foremost: I developed a preference for older men: 50's, 60's, 70's. (I'm 36 as of this writing.) That's probably fortunate since it's mostly guys of that age that can afford Mountain Media and me. (It's important to understand that our owners set prices, not us.)

And here's another thing that's unusual about me and my sexual services (all the ladies say I'm weird so I guess this fits): I'm no size queen, like, say, Michelle. I honesty don't care how big a guy's cock is. Small is fine, maybe better. And my favorite thing is turning a soft cock into a hard one. I like to make a man cum quickly then spend time with his limp cock and empty balls in my mouth (maybe all together!) and work it over good until it's hard again. Kinda different, huh?

Oh, and YES, I love having guys enjoy my body. Like Marti, my favorite thing is watching and feeling someone (or someones) suck my nipples and play with my boobs. (Maybe that comes from me being a natural lesbian?)

One last thing and I'll quit rambling. And that's what was going through my mind the first time I had two guys at the same time or even being in the center of a gang bang. The first thing I thought was "What the FUCK am I doing?" But, I have to admit, being in the middle of two (or more) very horny guys is, well, interesting to say the least. I decided if I was going to be getting fucked by guys whether in a video or in my escort business then I think the more the better, right?!

Love you guys and sorry for making you read all this bullshit.

Emily

[granulesofsand]

It’s okay if you can’t shower. Doesn’t matter why, it’s alright. Hygiene is great to maintain for health and comfort, but it’s also one of the first things to go when shit happens.

There are lots of times sponge baths don’t work. Mobility, pain, trauma, and so on. Depending on what it is, here’s a few things we’ve done to skirt negative the side effects of not showering:

Acne pads: the nonalcoholic off brand is less than $5 for 70+ little wipes, gets rid of body oil or makeup if you were wearing any (good for decreasing smell and greasy feel, no water required)

Room spray: lasts longer than perfumes on clothes, oil based sprays don’t stain unless dumped on (good for hiding smell, no water)

Spray bottle: ours is for cleaners, but we fill it with water and sometimes add soap (good for oily hair or dirt, ideal for rainy season)

Laundry: cleaning clothes and bedding more often (good for smell and acne from oil)

Swimsuit: refuse to take off clothes, bring clothes into the shower (only helpful for not seeing body)

Rain: stand outside for a few minutes and get wet (good for oily hair, no movement required)

Hand sanitizer: for small areas like wounds or hands that can’t stay as dirty (good for low expectation sterilization)

Wet wipes: infrequent use, same as acne wipes

Showering can be hard. Depending on your needs, there may be creative solutions. Reducing discomfort is usually our priority, but some of these helped for interviews or meetings we needed to pretty up for. Best of luck, whatever is causing you difficulties.

[twofrontteethstillcrooked]

deancas first kiss, s12 au. For @deancaskiss, belatedly 🎂🎉

When Cas came back into the cabin with their bags, Dean was fiddling with a radio on a bedside table. An energetic fiddle reel disintegrated into static which was replaced with a loud voice proclaiming that many, many fine and upstanding cars were on sale for low, low, bottom basement prices--

"Enough of that," Dean said, and snapped off the radio.

"Has something happened?" Cas dropped the bags on the rather well used couch and tuned all his attention to Dean.

"No, no. I'm fine and dandy." Dean wiped his eyes, which Cas was horrified to see were a little red, a little wet.

"Are you sure?" Cas crossed the small room and laid a hand in the crook of Dean's arm. 

Dean went still, looking back at him, before taking a breath. "Just a sad old country song on the radio." His voice sounded funny and it made Cas's chest ache. 

"Okay." Cas pulled back his hand. 

"I'm really fine." Dean's expression brightened as he looked past Cas to the window. "I think there's enough time for a walk before it's completely dark out. Wanna go with?"

"Of course," Cas said sincerely. 

Dean went still again, like he was surprised at Cas's agreeing to accompany him. He broke the eye contact with a small laugh, as though he was embarrassed about something. There was a light flush across the tops of his cheeks. It was incredibly attractive, and that, Cas knew, was not something that was to be mentioned.

"Sam says he and Mary should arrive in another hour," Cas told Dean a while later, after his phone had buzzed in his pocket. 

Dean nodded and kept staring out over the little lake behind the cabins. They'd taken the pebble trail that ringed the lake like a dirty pearl necklace and were seated on a big rock roughly the shape of horseshoe. Cas wished for a bit more cushioning and a less sharp breeze, but otherwise felt content. If he concentrated he could sense the warmth of Dean's body; he tried not to lean over towards it like a flower seeking sunlight.

The actual sun had drooped behind a bank of scraggly cypress and maples not yet in full leaf, their springtime samaras an almost purple hue in the fading daylight. The choppy water of the lake made clickety, whispery noises. A nuthatch in a nearby oak was either despondent or desirous, or both, and Cas felt a kinship.

"What was the song about?" he decided to ask.

Dean smiled, briefly. "Home."

"Oh." Cas waited.

"Nope, that's it, nothing else to it." Dean elbowed him. "Song just caught me the wrong way."

"The lyrics," Cas guessed.

"Yeah." Dean gave him a rueful look. "Guess I'm a little homesick too. Which is silly."

"I don't think so," Cas said. "These last couple of cases -- well, it's been nearly two weeks since we were back at the bunker."

Dean shook his head. "Sometimes home isn't so much a place-- Though I do miss our washing machine and dryer and the water pressure in the showers." He cleared his throat. "But that's not the point."

"A feeling of home," Cas started to work out. "It's about who you're with when you're there, I suppose."

"Exactly." Dean looked away. "And the thing is, I've been with my family these last two weeks. So that's been great."

"Except for the beatings," Cas posited. "And the beheadings."

Dean snorted. "Except for those."

"Despite those," Cas said, "I've enjoyed spending time with you and Sam and Mary."

"I'm glad you've been with us." Dean looked out over the water again and shivered. "I'm glad you're coming home with us too," he said quietly.

Something heavy and thorned curled in Cas's throat, for reasons he couldn't quite explain; it took him a moment to respond. "Well. So am I." His phone buzzed twice, sounding even more startled than he felt. He thumbed open the screen display and squinted at the text. "Sam says they had to detour off of I-70 and there's a bad storm moving in. They're going to try to find a room and hunker down for the night. Mary has a lead on another werewolf pack, if we want to meet them near Wamego tomorrow."

"That'd work," Dean said.

Cas sent a couple of texts and Sam sent back a thumbs up emoji.

Dean shivered again and hunched into his jacket a bit.

"We should go back to the cabin." Cas stood up and stretched while his lower back applauded his efforts. "Get you warmed up."

He hadn't meant to say something provocative; but Dean's eyes had gone dark as he watched him. 

"You stash a tropical beach in one of our bags when I wasn't looking?" Dean asked, his expression changing to one of amusement so quickly Cas almost blinked.

You've been imagining things, Cas told himself. Wishful thinking isn't reality. The weight in his throat widened, scratched.

"No," he managed to say. "But I'm sure the cabin has blankets…" He trailed off as the humor in Dean's face faded to something soft and steady, that earlier stillness concentrated, giving off its own heat.

Cas found himself corralled into the v of Dean's legs, Dean holding him at the hip with his hand as he traced the outline of Cas's lower lip with his thumb. Cas didn't need to take a breath except yes he did; and either way, Dean was standing and then his mouth was on Cas's and Cas realized how lonely starvingly cold both of them had been, how chilled by the breeze and the nightfall and the years of distance that suddenly, thankfully, no longer existed between their bodies.

The first kiss became the second became the third. There would be more and more, Cas thought, dazed at the sound of Dean's gentle groan as he let Dean slip inside. It was so much better, kissing Dean, than Cas had ever let himself picture or pretend it could be. When they finally paused, for a minute, they leaned against each other and took shaky breaths and smiled, tentative and hushed. They walked back to the cabin and locked themselves in for the night. They made good use of the blankets and the rather well used couch. 

"Is this what people mean by 'making themselves at home'?" Cas asked once, and Dean grinned and pulled him back into bed.

[anemoiashifts]

how to stop shifting misinformation from holding you back.

let’s look at early shiftok, (because that’s the most common example & where people’s brain goes when they think of this concept) & the advice that was shared. on tiktok, shifting was a new concept. a lot of people were hearing about it & trying to figure it out for themselves. we all need to remember shifting is a deeply personal journey & what works for one person, may not work for another. applying this to the example of “you need to clean your room before you shift”: not everyone needs to clean their room before they shift but some people feel better going into their shifting attempts with a clean room. because of that persons better performance & possible success through doing something that helped them, sharing it with the intention to help others may cross someone’s mind. some things are needed to be done for some to succeed in the heads of many. some people fell they need to make their bed first thing in the morning to have a productive day. for example, i feel like i have to shower before i try & shift, more specifically at night. i also fall into the category of needing to clean my bedroom since i physically feel lighter & less stressed when my space is neat. i know i don’t have to do those things, but i believe that impacts my performance ability & if somebody asked me for my personal shifting tips / routine id share those things.

also there is some logic behind some of the “misinformation” that went around:

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ speaking positive words to your water before you drink it has been shown to form pretty, symmetrical, snowflakes. considering our bodies are made up of 60-70% water, i suppose it could follow the same logic as “be kind & speak nicely to yourself” thus improving your self confidence which plays on our ability to do something.

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ cleaning your bedroom / work space before preforming a task has been shown to improve productivity.

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ i can’t remember where ive heard this so take it with a grain of salt but i remember reading laying on your back has been said to improve the success / performance of astral projection, while laying on your side may help you become lucid easier when sleeping.

so when you understand (some) of the misinformation was people finding a brand new concept & trying to understand it, then trying to help others understand it based on what helps them, it starts to make sense for the time.

im not saying you need to do any of these things. im not saying they’ll 100% help you. what I’m saying is everyone is different. people share shifting tips all the time on here & not every piece of advice will resonate with you & we don’t gather pitchforks to crucify those. the reason why misinformation is lingering in the minds of people is because it’s much harder to unlearn wrong information & later go back & try to correct it.

this may be unpopular, but i don’t really believe in misinformation. there will be pieces of information that help people & there will be some that may set people back. if a painting technique doesn’t help you, it’s not wrong, it’s just something that doesn’t strengthen you as an artist. others will go onto share that technique while you just disregard it & do it your own way. the shifting community is largely based on theory. even if someone thinks shifting is astral projection, if that’s how they understand it better & it makes them shift easier, then that belief isn’t harming anyone & is helping them. there is so much we don’t know & since there is no definite step by step guide or rule book, we get to make our own rules in the form of routine or lack of. it’s something personal & if someone restorations with the thought i have to do “xyz” to succeed in my shifting journey that’s fine. sharing that information shouldn’t harm you & make you feel like you need to follow their every movement to succeed. success is measured so differently amongst people within the shifting community or not. a mini shift could be a marker of someone’s success & it could also be the very thing that demotivates another.