#the root of our longing

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Himalayas from space

(Science and Astronomy)

* * * *

"The Earth listens and it hears; it has language; it has a soul. We are all part of its song of life. If we give thanks, if we allow ourselves to be human, if we attune to the Real, all creation will respond."

"At this present time there is a hunger for direct inner experience, a need to reclaim our spiritual heritage. While our materialistic culture tries to keep our attention firmly in the physical world of the senses, many of us sense a longing to know this hidden mystery of what it means to be human. And so we are able to turn to the teachings and traditions that have been given to us, whether in yoga, Buddhist meditation, Sufi dhikr or other spiritual practices.

It is important to recognize the root of our longing, that we are no longer prepared to live in a purely physical world, but need the living presence of the spiritual. We need to know and be nourished by the invisible world that is within us and all around us. We need to reclaim the mystery and magic of being fully alive."

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

(Ian Sanders)

[simplydnp]

totally normal about the 'wedding?' response continuing to evolve even though it's only been 5 shows. at this point i'm convinced the grand plan behind tit is to convince dan via exposure therapy that he's allowed to want to get married

[ouatpancakes]

[silkjade-archived]

“woven in the fabric of your tapestry / cover me in honeysuckle memories”

[isa-ah]

making a fursona is fun but getting to retire an old traumatized time capsule of yourself and make a new, happy, grown version of yourself is so fuckin nice.

[squishosaur]

hey man. i'm just saying. why would we put inexperienced teenagers with over-inflated egos and obvious emotional issues into combat classes and make them claw their way to the top of their dorms and expect things to just run smoothly. who actually thought this

[izloveshorses]

everyone stop posting !!!! and look at a peeta mellark. carry on <3 peace joy love <33

[badolmen]

Bloody Sunday Massacre anniversary is tomorrow. My dad grew up hearing from ill informed Americans about how it was an ‘age old religious conflict’ (those Protestants and Catholics never get alone). How the violence in the north, the arrests and raids and terrorizing was justified (they had to stop those awful carbombing IRA terrorists!). How it was impossible, the country had been conquered for centuries (why would they see freedom now? they lost the war. let it rest).

And of course, it isn’t completely free and perfect. This year I’ve seen the “Irish Unification of 2024” Star Trek meme a dozen times. It’s heartening to think that such a thing could be possible, by chance to coincide with a scifi show’s alternate history.

(But all I think of is Palestine. The lies and misinformation and the propaganda machine oiled in innocent blood.)

Even today you cannot publically display the names of the killers of the Bloody Sunday Massacre in the UK. The families of the murdered have yet to see justice. Some doubt they ever will.

(I think of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starving, grinding animal feed for flour in a manufactured famine.)

The Choctaw and Cherokee nations sent donations during An Ghorta Mor. The Sultan sent ships of food and aid only for the British to turn most away.

(I also think of the thousands of Gaeltacht after the language was pushed to the brink of extinction. I think of the homes built on ancestral land, no more landlords or laws prohibiting Irish claims. I think of the music and laughter and dance of my family who once fled as refugees of a manufactured famine - we call our cousins across the sea and sing Come Out Ye Black and Tans over choppy phone connections.

I think of a free Palestine, and I see it - because I can see a free Ireland, more free than she’s been in centuries, closer to unity than she’s ever been. It won’t be easy or pretty - it won’t end over night, or over a few years. But that never stopped the spirit of a people dedicated to their own liberation. I know because I’ve seen it, I’ve lived among the fruits of freedom.

We can hold their hand and say, we know your pain. We see your struggle. We understand the injustice your face. We are proof that it is possible to overcome these horrors and see days filled with peace and joy. We will walk with you.)

[quasi-normalcy]

.

[anghraine]

I was thinking about a genuinely refreshing post I saw a few days ago, but it also got me thinking about something else that I always end up coming back to.

I feel like a lot of people believe (consciously or not) that the problem with punitive justice is that we could be mistaken about guilt. The idea that we should be identifying and punishing wrongdoers remains. And I also feel like even this is smaller than the broader underlying assumption that determining guilt from innocence is essential to moral judgment of human beings' responses to one another.

And yes, sometimes it is one essential part of a larger picture. But I think the fixation on guilt vs innocence obscures such basic nuance as "some things are not right to do to anyone, no matter what that person is like." Someone being guilty of wrongdoing does not justify any and all responses to that wrongdoing. You can be on the "right side" in a general sense and still behave unconscionably towards your opponents, and so can larger bodies like communities and states. Human rights should exist, actually!

This idea that someone can be genuinely guilty and it's still not morally tolerable to do anything you want to them seems very basic on paper. But I see arguments essentially assuming the opposite across a lot of different contexts and I always find it really disturbing.

[sinlizards]

Hi Lizard, Elliot here! I am so excited to see you got into the AA women’s zine as a guest, congrats! I hope your art comes easier and the zine is an amazing experience while you’re doing it! I can’t wait to see your piece, I know it’s going to be amazing!

late to answering this but thank u sm elliot!!! im super excited for the zine so I'm hoping I can get back into the swing of things by working on some larger illustrations ^_^

[sskk-manifesto]

Atsushi's back in the game!!! ۶( ˆ o ˆ )

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

there's something so fascinating about the delusion you exist under during the creative process where you're like 'people are going to LOVE THIS!!!!' and then you share what you created and it's like '......... oh'

[yardsards]

can i ask about your experience as a quaker (or growing up as one? i just saw you mention bein one in some tags)

i jus don't know much about them

so i was not raised quaker, i was raised baptist. which was. 0/10, do not recommend. all the guilt of catholicism with none of the stained glass lmaooo

like, i did resinate with the idea of there being some sort of higher power and i liked the idea of getting together with other believers to discuss spiritual matters but as i got older and started thinking for myself i realized i really didn't like a lot of things about the church. i hated the bigoted beliefs of its members. i hated the emphasis on blind obedience to authority. i didn't believe that the whole literal truth could be found within one book, specifically one group's interpretation of said book. and the idea that people were born inherently bad and sinful and that a supposedly kind and just god would condemn people to eternal suffering just for not believing the "right" things just did not sit well with me at all

when i went off to college i decided to try out a few different churches around town. i ended up settling on a progressive presbyterian church. the community was great and very accepting of queer people. i had some minor qualms with the theology but it wasn't like with my parents' church where every sermon made me feel increasingly nauseous, and i generally felt *good* during and after the services

and then covid hit and while they did stream their sermons, i lost that sense of community and just kinda... fell away

throughout all this i was researching different faiths online, both christian and non-christian. and one faith that kept popping up a lot that i liked the sound of was quakerism. like at one point i remember taking some online quiz of like "what religion do your values most align with" and quakerism was very in the lead. (before this, i'd only really been exposed to quakerism in history textbooks and assumed the religion died out alongside puritanism)

in the end what got me really interested was actually a video by a youtuber i liked, a queer/disability advocate and historical fashion enjoyer who also happened to be quaker

and after looking more into it, i decided to try attending a quaker meeting. which was easier due to covid cuz i could find a church online (located physically hundreds of miles from me) that did their sunday services over zoom

and so i attended and the people there were great and were doing actual good in their communities. and the way services were run, and their beliefs about what god *was* and all of that just hit me with an intense feeling of like. holy shit this is what i've always wanted from religion.

the video explains the sort of core beliefs and practices of quakerism better than i can but the main belief is that like. every person is godly. as such, it's our job to treat all living people as equally and kindly as possible. additionally, since we all have god inside of us, we need to look inwards and come to our own conclusions about our own religious beliefs and practices (and generally respect other people's religious beliefs even if they differ from our own, so long as they're not causing real tangible harm)

i haven't attended any meetings in a while, due to that group going back to semi in person (they still stream it out but it feels more like being a spectator than a member) and there being no quaker meetinghouses in the tiny town i currently live in, coinciding with me being too depressed to regularly attend anything. but i'm planning to start attending quaker meetings again once i move to a real city

[nolanhattrick]

sorry sorry sorry thinking about seattle sports culture again. fuck i'm. anyway

[silverislander]

working here is making me a little bit nuts abt antibullying again <3