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easays · 10 months ago

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This Shawl, This Chair: Materiality and Worlds Beyond Number

Hi! Below is an actual play mini-essay. These are written as part of a personal writing practice of thinking critically about actual play. I hope you find this reading engaging and know that all I write reflects my own interpretations rather than as an official representation/canonization of these shows. Keep reading for thoughts on Worlds Beyond Number, an audio-only actual play show, and how it crafts a visceral, material experience.

For an audio of this mini-essay, please click this link. I'm new to audio recording, so please excuse the quality!

CONTENT WARNING: Discussions of parental death, discussion of grief (general) Minor spoilers for episode two and seventeen

Ahead of @worldsbeyondpod Arc 3, I've been thinking about what sets this show apart from so many. Charlie Hall at Polygon recently showcased that WBN leans into Dungeons and Dragons, giving them free rein in playing the show without focus on combat because once they arrive at that combat, the system is already there. I think Hall's astute observations help articulate why WBN has retained (and grown) its Patreon (and wider audience), even though it's an audio-only, every other week podcast that takes month long breaks between arcs. None of these factors are bad, but the questions of audio versus visual, pacing, content production, and audience engagement are part of every actual play's design. It takes what we think Dungeons and Dragons can be, breaks down those assumptions, and builds something better. To me, this is best seen in how its narrative crafts masterclass materiality without using visuals or minis of any kind.

WBN taps into materiality often. Materiality is a fancy term for the physical properties of an item being considered as essential or important to the significance of the item. It's something I'm constantly aware of. The show builds its world through the hyper-individual experience of these three characters, tapping into how human experience is being woven into and through each other. The world of Umora, from its earliest moments in the show, come to us through the sensory experience of a small girl, held under cloth. The listening experience can be overwhelming at times, jetting back and forth between the interiority of the characters, the setting of Umora, and the endless material pieces mediating the interior and exterior. The cast and the sound design (thanks to Taylor Moore with additional design from Michael Gelfi studios) work in tandem to stoke the audience’s minds eye towards the embodied experience of being in a world that is simultaneously only your experience and impossibly infinite. Unsurprisingly, then, is the show's ability to tap into material in new, innovative ways, even as an entirely audio medium.

Aabria Iyengar was the first person I heard use the phrase "paint me a word-picture." Whether she originated (or not) the phrase, the kenning-ness of it sticks out to me as capturing the thrill of "theatre of the mind" actual play done at the level WBN has achieved. A word-picture gestures to both the process of creation and the creation as completed, simultaneously. Word, in this instance, is the ephemeral improvisation of the performance; picture is the scene completed. Alternately, word is the inscription of that picture, already completed in the player's minds-eye, waiting to be described. The way the phrase collapses created, waiting to be created, and being created captures perfectly how materality becomes weighted and real through the lack of visuals and minis and battlesets.

My personal affinity for materiality stems from what I've always called "Southern mausoleum decorating." Like Ame, I grew up in a home filled with dressers, beds, mattresses, couches, photos, clothes, books, and other physical items connected deeply to people and sentiment. Specifically, the winding thread between myself and various dead relatives across both sides of my family often strung itself through these objects.

I hail from Missouri and Arkansas (paternally) and the Carolinas (maternally). Growing up believing this kind of home decorating was normal fit right alongside knowing it's the humidity that gets you, not the heat. Right now, the oldest thing in my home is a 90 year-old horse hair wingback chair that belonged to my great-grandmother, then my mom, and now, me (though it's been reupholstered a half dozen times). When Suvi scavenges her favorite, slightly-threadbare shawl from Grandmother Wren's cottage in episode two, I was a bit struck because Aabria Iyengar (who plays Suvi) showed perfectly how an item, carried from home-to-home, accrues meaning rather than changing. Her word-picture in that moment contained her childhood, her present grief, her home in the Citadel, as a site incongruent to said shawl, all simultaneously. Transporting that item with her to the Citadel creates a rip in time Suvi might (or might not) access later and goes beyond the momentary solace of holding a piece of her fictive kin.

Thinking of her summer at the cottage or even to the night her parents were lost, those precious last moments of being held under a different cloth, Suvi exists in multiplicity to the audience as well as to her fellow player characters. This character depth through materiality speaks, in my view, to how WBN shakes up the expectations of a Dungeons and Dragons-based show. Combat is not trotted out to make the world or more real, and there's no mini for anything, from the shawl to the Citadel. Suvi's reality and her Citadel justification machine (a self-described mechanism on Iyengar's part) is not given to us primarily through movement speed or action economy. Rather, it reveals its self methodically: a shawl, from a cottage run by a witch, carried to Port Talon and beyond, stretched across Suvi's bed*, nestled in the heart of a Wizard of the Citadel's tower, a thread jutting through space-time, signifying to us and Suvi how many ways to be "out of place" in the Citadel. Over time, I've accumulated new furniture and items that are just mine, like Suvi does in her tower, but I constantly orbit around and to that chair. Some days, I can't sit in it for too long because the black hole of grief from losing my Mom comes hurtling up through the wood, the springs, the fabric. Others, I sit in for hours, cocooned. I wonder often what other objects in Suvi's world mock or tease or beckon or enamor her.

I poke and ponder about Suvi likely because, of all the characters, I identify with her most directly. In future, I hope to write more on Erika Ishii's striking portrayal of spirituality as communal responsibility, or Lou Wilson's tender, grief-filled approach to found family, or Brennan Lee Mulligan's portrayal of the Fox as a narrative tool. But for today, three days after what would have been my Mom's 64th birthday, I sit in my chair, writing about that shawl, forging what feels like connections to a world beyond this.

*Covering the current Witch of the World's Heart, but that's another GlassHeart post for another time.

Image description: a wingback chair, with pink fabric that has gold filigree, is centered in frame, against a tall, terracotta colored wall and abstract painting

#worlds beyond number #wbn: wwwo #wbn: www #aabria iyengar #suvirin kedberiket #Erika ishii #ame #lou wilson #eursulon #brennan lee mulligan #actual play #wbn #wbn pod

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bwhitex · 1 year ago

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What is the paradox of Human Connection in a World of 8 Billion?

In a world bustling with over 8 billion souls, the paradox of human connection resonates through the corridors of our social existence. Each encounter carries the potential for a relationship, a shared story, a woven thread in the intricate tapestry of life. Yet, it's a universal truth a cognitive and emotional threshold that we simply cannot forge deep connections with everyone. This is not a tale of tragic scarcity but rather a narrative of selectivity and profound appreciation for the relationships that truly resonate with us.

Life's Tapestry and Human Bonds

Ever mourned the lack of human connection between you and a stranger? Before you let regret unfold, imagining the 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' moments that never came to be pause. What about the understanding that not every friend is destined to become a meaningful chapter in your life's story. You wouldn’t want them to all be, either. Not a human, even one who is capable of believing in infinite possibilities, would dare to say emotinal dynamics are just not logic, they defy our prefrontal cortex, it’s because they are governed admydala. Literally, nothing makes sense with the limited but profound experience of relational emotinal dynamics.

Good guys are never enough. I hate that I know that’s not true, but feel different about the odds of “good guys”, being enough. Total bummer cause I want to think it’s true. It almost feels tragic to think till you see this other perspective from my unique equation below and one realizes that feels sad but not tragic.

(Life's Tapestry + Human Bonds) - Superficial Ties + (Deep Resonance x Mutual Understanding) + (Acceptance / Judgement) + (Shared Moments of Harmony) - (The Need for Universal Approval)= Profound Connections that Last

This simple yet profound equation was developed to encapsulate the essence of human interpersonal relationships. Human life is enriched by weaving genuine bonds into our complex tapestry of experiences: subtracting superficiality and multiplying mutual understanding deepens the resonance of our connections. Acceptance is pivotal in the equation of relationships, outweighing judgment to foster profound and lasting bonds: shared moments of harmony add to the strength and substance of these ties. Ultimately, a meaningful social tapestry is woven not through the pursuit of universal approval, but through the cultivation of authentically connected relationships. It's natural only to have a select few relationships that deepen into something significant. Our emotional capacity, as suggested by Robin Dunbar (1992), is capped at about 150 meaningful relationships at a time—perhaps even over a lifetime.

Understanding Dunbar's Number

Dunbar's number, typically cited as around 150, is more than a statistic. It's a reflection of our cognitive limits to maintain stable and meaningful social relationships. This concept is grounded in the theory that the human brain has a finite capacity for managing the emotional complexities involved in our social lives (Dunbar, 1992).

Yet, the abstraction of this number contrasts starkly with the reality of our global population. In order physically manifest this, he is another equation to calculate the number of potential unique groups of 150 people out of 8 billion, we’d actually be able to chose from we're faced with a figure so large it defies comprehension. Here is my own equations for measuring that :

C(8,000,000,000, 150) = 8,000,000,000! / (150! X (8,000,000,000 - 150)!)

To summarize the expression of C(8,000,000,000, 150) \) represents the number of different ways a group of 150 people can be chosen from a larger population of 8 billion. This is a combinatorial problem, often referred to as a "combination," which calculates how many possible subsets can be formed from a larger set when the order of selection does not matter. The factorial notation (e.g., $ n! $) signifies the product of all positive integers up to $ n $, which is a key part of the formula for combinations. The result of this equation is an astronomically large number, reflecting the immense variety of potential unique groups of 150 people within the global population.

While theoretically intriguing, that’s what we think cognitively, or no to be true, through logical means. But the emotional truth teaches us that the probability of forming meaningful connections with even a fraction of these combinations is virtually nil. The vastness of potential social networks is a mathematical marvel, but the intimate realities of our emotional world are far more selective.

The Probability of Connection

The mathematical probability of any specific group of 150 people coming together is infinitesimally small. Yet, the quest for meaningful connections continues. It's not the quantity of social interactions that defines our experience but the quality of the connections we do make.

We are adventurers in a grand landscape of social possibilities, yet navigators of a much smaller, more intimate map of personal relationships. The realization that we cannot possibly connect with every potential soul we encounter can inspire a sense of longinga wistful reflection on the bonds that could have shaped our lives in other circumstances.

The Practical Realities

As we travel this world, the reality is that we will only ever engage with a finite subset of the population. You have so many options, quantity but really none very much at all. Your temperament would never permit everyone being quality. Everyone too crazy to fully optimize every single potential. There are practical limitations of time, geography, and cognitive capacity ensure that the 150 people who constitute our social world at any given time are a carefully curated ensemble a reflection of who we are and what we feel close too. It may exist in the tension between the infinite potential what think exists in of our social networks and the finite nature of our emotional connections. Our crazy saves us, our tempermant, makes us too crazy for everyone and everyone too crazy for us. We would never tolerate to such ideal level of human optimization, even if we could and there is infirmity possibility to do taht, really too. Except when feelings don’t make sense are not working on the best possibilities out there. This dichotomy is hard to integrate fully into our personal realities, we want to be liked and warm with as many as possible. We think “all”, we know it, never feel it though!

What is really at the core of the essence of that probability is this: physiological and psychological sensitivities in our social existence. There is a world of boundless possibilities for connection, yet that’s mitigated by unique personal reality of meaningful and manageable emotional experiences too.

In Conclusion

The exploration of human connection in a populous world is a journey of understanding the limits of our cognitive and emotional capacities. It's a journey that teaches us the value of each relationship we choose to cultivate and the precious nature of the finite bonds that shape our existence.

As we ponder the vast array of paths not taken, let us also celebrate the connections we have made—the ones that have become part of our unique story in a world brimming with untold billions. In the landscape of human connection, it's a common feeling to worry about the depth of our relationships with others. We live in a world where the quantity of connections—friends on social media, contacts in our phones, followers on various platforms—can often seem to overshadow the quality of those connections. But it's important to remember that not every interaction will, or even should, lead to a deep connection. And that's perfectly okay. Here's a poem I invented to that captures this sentiment of this high level analysis. It summarizes what I mean perfectly too. Took me a few hours to make it, and I hope you enjoy it:

In the tapestry of life, each thread plays its part. Some bonds are fleeting, while others bind the heart. It's in the depth, not breadth, where true connections are cast,

For in the realm of human ties, some are meant to last. Not every soul we meet will walk our path till the end,

Nor every passer-by will turn to a confidant or friend. But that's the beauty of the journey, with its ebb and flow,

We cherish those who resonate, and gracefully let others go. For in the symphony of life, not every note is key,

Some harmonies are brief, yet sweet in their brevity. And though we may strive to understand each score,

Some melodies will touch us deep, some just brush the core. So fret not if crowds don't echo your inner song. For those who truly matter will hear it clear and strong. A few profound connections can outweigh scores of shallow ties and in the hearts that truly Certainly! I'll rephrase the poem to maintain its essence while aiming for clarity and coherence:

In life's woven tapestry, each thread holds its place,Some bonds might be transient, others embrace.

It's the depth, not the range, where true ties are found, Within the vast weave of human bounds, some are profound. Not all will journey with us until our story's end,

Not every stranger will transform into a friend. Yet that's the journey's beauty, with its rise and its fall,

We treasure the resonant few, and with grace, release all.

In life's grand symphony, not all notes are drawn out long, Some melodies are fleeting, yet their brief echo is strong.

While we seek to decipher each life's intricate score,

Certain tunes captivate us deep, others just skim the shore. Worry not if the multitude doesn't mirror your tune,

For those who truly matter will synchronize soon. A handful of deep connections surpass many that are slight,

In hearts that truly meld, our spirits unite.

Seek to invest attention and time with whom your soul finds peace, for they show you as you are. The rare ones who with a gesture or word, can heal or lightly scar.

It's not a fault to connect with only a few, as we navigate humanity's quest,

It's simply life's design, a cycle, not a deficiency to be suppressed.

For it's among the select bonds that we find our truest selves,

In this emotional dynamic lies our temperance on life's shelves.

It's more than a place of individual emotion—it's a shared embrace,

A haven of mutual understanding, acceptance, and grace.

Among the current billions, these gems shine amidst the gravel,

The stars that pierce the night, in a vast emotional travel.

We don't bond with all, but where we do, it's emotion that ignites the spark,

Humans seek their reflection in others, in this space where they embark.

We navigate the masses by feeling first, then contemplating our reflection,

Desiring more possibilities, we adopt a cognitive direction.

This emotional dynamic is not just ours but shared in duality's dance,

It's the truth we discover when we give different perspectives a chance.

Reference:

Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 22(6), 469-493. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484(92)90081-J

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atotc-weekly · 4 months ago

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Book the Second—The Golden Thread

[X] Chapter XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

In such risings of fire and risings of sea—the firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the shore—three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life of her home.

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in.

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels.

The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good eye to see with—had long had the mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, Sardanapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blindness—but it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and “suspended,” when the last tidings came over.

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide.

As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson’s Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson’s was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to Tellson’s, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every new-comer from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson’s, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson’s was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson’s sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read.

On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time of closing.

“But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “I must still suggest to you—”

“I understand. That I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry.

“Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you.”

“My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, “you touch some of the reasons for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson’s confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson’s, after all these years, who ought to be?”

“I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud.

“Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor.”

“My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them,” he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, “that one might be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie—”

“When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. “Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day!”

“However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a smile. “It is more to the purpose that you say you are.”

“And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,” Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, “you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm’s way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson’s knows this and says this—Tellson’s, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years—because I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here!”

“How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.”

“Tut! Nonsense, sir!—And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again, “you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped.”

“And do you really go to-night?”

“I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay.”

“And do you take no one with you?”

“All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master.”

“I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness.”

“I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson’s proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old.”

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown—as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it—as if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so.

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out.

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the direction—the more quickly because it was his own right name. The address, turned into English, ran:

“Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England.”

On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should be—unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation—kept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none.

“No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found.”

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry’s desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found.

“Nephew, I believe—but in any case degenerate successor—of the polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. “Happy to say, I never knew him.”

“A craven who abandoned his post,” said another—this Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay—“some years ago.”

“Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in passing; “set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves.”

“Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D—n the fellow!”

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said:

“I know the fellow.”

“Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.”

“Why?”

“Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask, why, in these times.”

“But I do ask why?”

“Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll answer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That’s why.”

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: “You may not understand the gentleman.”

“I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” said Bully Stryver, “and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I don’t understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen,” said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, “I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you’ll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such precious protégés. No, gentlemen; he’ll always show ’em a clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away.”

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank.

“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. “You know where to deliver it?”

“I do.”

“Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time?”

“I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?”

“From here, at eight.”

“I will come back, to see you off.”

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents:

“Prison of the Abbaye, Paris.

“June 21, 1792. “Monsieur Heretofore The Marquis.

“After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed—razed to the ground.

“The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant?

“Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris!

“For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me!

“From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.

“Your afflicted,

“Gabelle.”

The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigourous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby.

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done.

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:—not without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach him for it.

But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to give—such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summer—and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now.

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris.

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle’s letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name.

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris.

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild.

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his course.

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now.

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped.

“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. “I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?”

“That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not dangerous.”

“Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.”

“What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand.

“Gabelle.”

“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?”

“Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come.’”

“Any time mentioned?”

“He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.”

“Any person mentioned?”

“No.”

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street. “My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “and take precious care of them till I come back.” Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled away.

That night—it was the fourteenth of August—he sat up late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival.

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-and-bye (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart.

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. “For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name!” was the poor prisoner’s cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock.

The end of the second book.

#a tale of two cities #atotc weekly #charles dickens #september 10 #the golden thread

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renaissanceclassics · 11 months ago

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A Tale of Two Cities - Book 2: Part 30

In 45 parts.

Drawn To the Loadstone Rock

CHAPTER XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide.

“But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “I must still suggest to you—”

“I understand. That I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry.

“Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you.”

“I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud.

“Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor.”

“When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. “Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day!”

“However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a smile. “It is more to the purpose that you say you are.”

“How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.”

“And do you really go to-night?”

“I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay.”

“And do you take no one with you?”

“I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness.”

“Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England.”

“No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found.”

“Nephew, I believe—but in any case degenerate successor—of the polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. “Happy to say, I never knew him.”

“A craven who abandoned his post,” said another—this Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay—“some years ago.”

“Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D—n the fellow!”

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said:

“I know the fellow.”

“Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.”

“Why?”

“Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask, why, in these times.”

“But I do ask why?”

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: “You may not understand the gentleman.”

“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. “You know where to deliver it?”

“I do.”

“Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time?”

“I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?”

“From here, at eight.”

“I will come back, to see you off.”

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents:

“Prison of the Abbaye, Paris.

“June 21, 1792. “Monsieur Heretofore The Marquis.

“From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service.

“Your afflicted,

“Gabelle.”

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris.

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris.

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped.

“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. “I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?”

“That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not dangerous.”

“Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.”

“What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand.

“Gabelle.”

“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?”

“Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come.’”

“Any time mentioned?”

“He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.”

“Any person mentioned?”

“No.”

The end of the second book.

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darkpoisonouslove · 4 years ago

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Ranking the Winx Club Finales

I recently finished my rewatch (and first watch of a season and a half) of Winx Club and wrote out my thoughts on all of it. However, to send off a year that was in experience a lot like watching this series - meaning, generally frustrating and downright disappointing whenever I got excited over a thing with a few highlights that actually stuck the landing - and to get out any remaining feelings over the series, I have decided to rank the finales from least to most favorite. I just have a lot of rage to spare over season 8′s finale and needed an excuse to do so. Plus, I am being thematic here goddammit! Here we go:

8. Season 8

Yeah, I really spoiled that already. To sum it up:

But let me elaborate. Like I already said, this finale enraged the living fuck out of me. I just cannot comprehend whatever possessed them to write a finale so, so... excruciatingly devastating... to a season that started out with a lot of promise and had some extremely solid decisions (except for the art style, which is just NOT IT). This finale is an absolute disaster in every way. First, there is a new plot point introduced mere minutes before the finale and it is never tied into the overall narrative of the season which doesn’t do it any favors, especially after the two halves of the season already have trouble connecting together into one overarching story. The reason they brought in the creatures from the Dark Dimension was to distract Valtor while Winx make their attempt at stealing the stars which could have very well been a role filled by Arken confronting Valtor in an opportunity to clear up all the muddy details around their partnership and bring together the two halves of the season. The Winx’ plan had potential that was completely wasted by their own interruption instead of seeing each girl (provided Layla was playing Icy, Stella - Darcy and Musa/Tecna - Stormy) doing her best to pretend to be the Trix she’s posing as to give the Trix the due role they should have had in this finale. Instead, we get an Icy that is a complete opposite of the character we’ve known her to be for seven seasons all for the sake of a wish she doesn’t even get fulfilled despite her decision to help. Her motivation is a direct contradiction to the original plan of the Trix and disrespects her character from all previous instances of her being on the show for absolutely no reason as she is left with nothing in the end and the whole backstory they invented for her out of nowhere and couldn’t fit in any way with anything previously known about her was in vain because it was never resolved. Winx essentially manage to defeat Valtor once they wish for their own power-up and are gifted powers they haven’t really earned only to be pronounced great heroes who even get their own constellation in the sky. Come again? There was no narrative tension in this episode, no big climax to resolve what is supposedly the biggest threat in the universe at the moment, and no actual emotional conclusion to the season. It can’t even be called a messy wrap when so many threads were left hanging in there. A true disaster on every front.

7. Season 6

Even if you count both 6x25 and 6x26 as the finale of season 6, the structure is still lacking big time. Acheron who is the main drive of the entire season is defeated before the end of 6x25 and the Trix who are the other main villains were also more or less neutralized at that point to leave absolutely no stakes for the last episode so they had to pull some bullshit to fill it. The Winx are useless for the entire episode, including Bloom whose battle with the Trix is an absolute joke. Like, they can’t even think of syncing their attacks so that she can’t protect herself from all three of them with her ridiculously small shield and Bloom couldn’t even bother to actually buy herself enough time to leave the Legendarium. The only saving grace of that fight is the little emotional moment it causes for Bloom but that was also not really set up at any point of the season so it was just out of the blue. Selina changing her affiliations permanently even after the imminent threat for her life was neutralized made about as much sense as her turning evil in the first place and the fact that they needed her to lock the Legendarium made everything 1000% shittier because of how convenient it was that she just decided to turn good again without any justification for her course of actions. That coupled with the lack of consequences for any of her actions (she nearly killed Flora for heaven’s sake and no one even brought that up?) plus the dreadful info dump monologue they gave her just brought the whole thing down. The wrap-up of the season was also underwhelming after they had an entire episode that was mainly free of villains in order to close the other storylines... but, of course, there were no other storylines. Pretty disastrous.

6. Season 7

Just like in season 6, Winx were pretty useless here as they really didn’t do all that much for the plot. Luckily, the fact that the Trix were brought in allowed for the villains to have a battle that was more intriguing and provided some action as for a finale. The other key elements of the season (fairy animals, Trix, wild magic, Kalshara and Brafilius and the time travel) were actually woven together pretty well to make for a pretty satisfying finish to a season that really lacked any solid plot. The mini worlds and the Tynix transformation did not have use in the last episode but that wasn’t too catastrophic. There was actually a pretty emotional moment between the fairy animals and Winx that would have been even better if their relationships had been better developed throughout the season... You’d really think that since fairy animals were the main point of the season and there was no solid plot to account for, they would have taken the time to pay attention to Winx bonding with their fairy animals but nah. I am still impressed with how touching their goodbye was given the fact that they didn’t really have all that much time to actually become close so bonus points for that. The very last scene is a little generic but what else to expect from a season that has sung all its songs already (thank god that there were no musical numbers in this because I have a feeling it would have been even worse)?

5. Season 5

Season 5 could at least pat itself on the back for dealing with the main villain of the season even if there were a couple iffy things about the whole deal. I’m taking away consistency points for a) the fact that the Throne was supposed to be activated with the seals from the Pillars of the Infinite Ocean, yet suddenly stealing a random Sirenix would do, b) Tritannus being defeated by simply having his trident taken away even though he literally grew in body mass implying that the power of the Emperor’s Throne had seeped inside of him (also confirmed by Mystery of the Abyss) and c) the mutants inexplicably turning back into people once Tritannus lost his powers even though they never turned back during his times of relapsing back into a human thanks to running out of pollution. His defeat was just ridiculously easy and Bloom got to do it even though Layla was the one with the personal connection to Tritannus and the one most directly impacted by his actions as her family fell prey to him. Instead of getting to shine in a season that focused heavily not just on her home world but on the environment from which her powers come, she got benched in favor of Bloom getting to do everything again with only mild assist from Layla’s cousin. They should have kept it in the family and left Layla and Nereus deal with Tritannus. The Trix were blasted out of the narrative extremely conveniently and the rest of Winx were saved twice by the mutants just turning their back on them instead of destroying them right then and there and then being turned back into their original form as well. There wasn’t the usual teamwork of the whole Winx unit which I am still salty about despite being sick of all the time they reached for convergence in that season. Theredor fighting alongside Winx (different from his own daughter) was a nice touch but the king and queen of Andros coming off as so helpless (and apparently the only people in the castle unless you admit that everyone else drowned) was frustrating. Where was the Andros army? We only got Tressa, Roy, four of Winx and a handful of mermaids. Is that the whole population of the Heart of All Oceans? Additionally, the finale left no time for any emotional resolution of the season’s events, especially considering the big deal that Daphne’s revival was. Instead they opted for a musical number at the end. Not the best form.

4. Season 3

Season 3 had a finale and then another finale. Granted, better than season 6 that had a finale and then filler but there was not a lot of glory to the ending of a story with such a strong opening and emotional moments that send you bursting into tears. The spell of the four elements was pretty decent in its first appearance in 3x25 but the way Valtor lost it all was a real let down after the climatic confrontations between him and the Winx girls throughout the rest of the season. His return was more or less a desperate last attempt at personal revenge against Winx as his goal was mostly out of reach at this point. The spell of the elements was brought down in both its use to create clones of Winx’ boyfriends and in its power as it was much easier to undo in its reappearance. The saving graces of this season’s finale are the couple emotional moments sprinkled through both 3x25 and 3x26. Bloom’s willingness to sacrifice herself for her friends and the world was the thread that the finale hangs on as she is mostly the one resolving the whole conflict which was a bit dissatisfying after the emotional damage Valtor inflicted on all of them directly or indirectly. There is a few moments left to recover from the emotional intensity of their battles against Valtor but nothing that really addresses the seriousness of the trauma they had to survive because of him. The Trix didn’t even get to have a last stand of their own in either of the last two episodes despite the position in which they started the season but that was more or less unnecessary anyway since we’d already seen they can’t hold their ground against Enchantix Winx even with a boost from Valtor. Overall, the finale is pretty weak, especially as a follow-up of the dynamic and strong experiences that the season put them all through. It was the first finale that was confined to a single episode (or rather two separate battles spanning over an episode to end the season) and there wasn’t enough tension building in the confined storyline an episode told.

3. Season 4

The season 4 finale is overall a solid conclusion that delivers both a final battle with the Wizards and enough time left to address all the other storylines left unfinished. The final battle was pretty short but there was enough intensity in the previous couple episodes to have covered the action demand that the season had already set up and it also provided the opportunity to have Winx come back together as a team after Layla split up. Not only that, but Nebula and Roxy also get to play their part while the Wizards make their last desperate attempt to regain the upper hand. It’s pretty climatic for something that length that also left about 15 minutes of the episode still to fill. Everything that had to do with the closure of the Earth fairies storyline was emotional beyond belief and gave more depth to all of them and Layla’s decision to join them. Winx had to face all of the separate responsibilities they have on their shoulders and find a way to balance them all so that they can pursue their dreams. There was a plethora of emotional moments and a deserved spotlight shined on Layla’s situation and how she’s dealing with it, plus the others’ feelings. It was a really touching finale and also an inspiring one to see Winx stand behind their dreams while still balancing their responsibilities. It seemed to achieve the initial goal of the season to have them adapting to the adult life they were shifting into.

2. Season 2

I’m gonna be honest, I had a very hard time deciding whether this would be number one or two because the season 2 finale had a lot more character moments that were very moving. It really corresponds to the season since it was more character driven than the first one and the finale suited that. However, ultimately I decided that it would take silver because of a couple minor things that bring it down. To get that out of the way, the second portal to Realix that led Winx there was imo a copout that destroyed pretty much all of the tension that the entire season spent building around the search for the Codex. It just felt so wrong for there to be another way to enter that dimension and to me it was a big disappointment. Especially since the key to activating the copy of the Codex was the color riddle that was a ridiculous panicked attempt on the writers’ part to show that Stella isn’t useless and has what to give the team but it only made her look worse in my eyes. Also, minor gripe for the fact that there wasn’t that much of a final battle since everything ended with a single convergence. Of course, there were several battles across the episode between different sides that made for good action and tension and there was magic involved in more ways than simply the convergence in order to defeat Darkar but it was still a bit of a letdown to never truly see him put his everything in battle. And the fact that Griffin and Faragonda held him off for as long as they did on their own actually hurt his credibility as a threat as well. But hey, on the plus side, remember when the teachers actually helped and did not leave the fate of the whole universe in the hands of 16-year-olds? Good times! The MegaTrix and her? their? battle with Darkar was epic. 20/10 on that concept alone, plus it really brought a great feeling of vindication after the number Darkar did on them and felt so satisfying even if they were also part of the villain team of the season. They were portrayed as three-dimensional and weren’t cast out of the narrative without care just because they were villains and that was actually probably the most solid moment that the Trix have ever had on the show (just minor gripe for the fact that they were supposed to be trapped in Realix when the dimension was sealed forever but they were later somehow brought out of there which was never explained). Sky’s speech to Bloom was actually a pretty emotional moment and the payoff from it felt earned and allowed for Bloom’s victory against the darkness to feel natural and in place. It was probably one of their best moments as a couple. Plus, the cute little interactions that we got during the celebration party to send off the season on its merry way made for a great finale. (And a shoutout to the Musa x Riven scenes both in 2x25 and 2x26 because that was some good shit and some cute shit and it was exactly what we deserved).

1. Season 1

Season 1 reigns supreme with its finale. There is just no other finale that can rise to the level of the first one that was built for about one third of the season so that the last episode could dive right into the action without wasting time on setup. This is also the only place where we truly and fully get to see each of the Winx and the Trix (well, minus Layla who hasn’t been introduced yet) showcase their powers but especially Bloom and Icy. It is the longest battle we have seen and it builds a lot of tension on top of what was already there to leave you on the edge of your seat. The exploration of magic in this episode makes it so iconic and such a great watch even on the 300th time. There isn’t really much more to say than simply “It is epic”. What makes it even better though is the fact that there is enough time left in the episode to wrap up everything else and not in a rushed way. The battleground is extended to the locations that have already suffered the previous battles to show the full extension of the action and to setup the wrap-up that comes at the end. They even find the time to let some of the minor characters have distinct and touching moments as well and thus expand the universe of Winx further than just the main characters. Speaking off, they all get their moments, too, and the Specialists aren’t left out of that (you will never catch me not fangirling over Sky and Riven fighting back to back). The finale also doesn’t forget about the overarching story about Bloom’s origin which is commendable considering the constant lack of consistency the show suffers. This is really the only finale that isn’t lacking in any of the departments and manages to provide a truly fascinating story that keeps you entertained and in suspense while at the same time does not discard the emotional payoff or the logical continuation of events. It just excels in every way.

Well, this is my analysis on the finales of Winx Club. What started out as a bitch fest actually left on on a positive and uplifting note to make for a great ending to a harsh year. Let’s see what beginnings 2021 will bring! ;)

#winx club #winx club meta #winx meta #winx analysis #analysis #winx club season 1 #winx club season 2 #winx club season 3 #winx club season 4 #winx club season 5 #winx club season 6 #winx club season 7 #winx club season 8

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im-pretending-imthere-already · 4 years ago

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By the warm current

Tw: heavy topics and mention of murder and abuse

As kids, my sister and I spent our summers near the river, often falling on our long garments. Our knees scraped and bruised by the sharp rocks that lay beside the strong, warm stream. The hot days rushed by as we spent our hours playing under the hot, blinding sun. If my sister adored anything, it was birds. Often we spent our days searching for them in the scorching heat of the summer, looking for all the wings that have been neatly crafted, threaded into shape. Our collection of feathers of all colours were kept safe, hidden to preserve their infinite beauty, kept in a wooden rustic box under our bed. The box neatly tucked away between the sheets that were perfectly stored by mother. One grim evening, one of my older siblings had found our box hidden between the worn out blankets, that night we were forced into womanhood, our childhood was stripped away from us. Our summers were no longer warm, our knees left with scars.

What is it to truly be a woman? A question I still struggle with. Reverend Michael often referred to womanhood as preparing to serve God by serving your husband, which we spent the following years doing, leaving our ambitions and dreams of independence behind. Our personalities were to be crushed under the high expectations of becoming nothing other than slaves which men used. Our days were spent caring for our younger siblings who occupied our time dirtying the floors we just scrubbed. Our womanhood, reduced to becoming mothers and leaving our aspirations for our sons. Too tall, too confident, too short, too skinny, too immodest, too fat, too lanky, too talkative, too hairy, too loud, too aggressive, our existence is nothing more than a checklist for men to choose from. Growing up, I admired adulthood. I admired the idea of growing up to serve my husband, the idea of dressing modestly and spending my time cleaning, to become a woman. But as I reached womanhood I began despising it.

My teenage years were regulated by the women of the church who made it their mission to crush my dreams, my life was to be sacrificed for god. Waking up to the screaming children of the church who demanded breakfast, my days were the same every single day. After the tedious mornings of cooking, cleaning and caring tirelessly, we met the citrus trees sprinkled with the soft dew on their delicate leaves in the community garden as we planned to prepare our annual lemon pie. Every year we were to prepare a feast full of food, including our lemon pie as the dessert for the mating party. This glamorous party was only a facade, a sweet glaze over a dark oppressive, controlled, and abusive future. This year was different however, as I was becoming a woman of age, all day I had been thinking about what was to come, the life I was forced to have, pushed into a designated role my whole life. This is it, this is the dream of the church, this is what my life was to be, what my family had planned, what the reverend had envisioned.

That day I realised I couldn't do this, after seeing all the women blatantly eyed by the men of the church, scanned from bottom to up, graded as if they were a gift to be expected, a helpless little kitten to be chosen from a shelter or rescued from a basket left on the road. My older sister stood beside me, we glared at each other exchanging the same thoughts. Our life was more than this, our dreams were not to be forgotten, hidden in the blankets of our mind. I had heard about a couple of people who had escaped before, I didn’t know how to but we had to get out. That night I decided to do the unthinkable, I had to make a plan, I had to take action, I had to escape this cage and fly away.

Reverend Michael was my father however he was never a typical father, more like a shepherd grazing his sheep, controlling us to become nothing more than slaves for his sick fantasies. He slept in the cabin house beside ours, but I knew he was going to arrive late today due to the ceremony, like every year before. It was the perfect time, as if the universe aligned for our freedom. In my nightgown I slid out as my sister was fast asleep. The night was dark, the air thick and foggy, the moon barely lit watching over me as I ran barefoot, in my white gown to the reverend's cabin. I knew where to look, under the vase he kept his spare key, which I used to unlock his door. I walk in knowing exactly where to find what I'm looking for, his diary, kept in the last drawer of his desk conveniently hidden in between his bibles. I flick through the delicate pages looking for something useful, when I stubble across the gold mine. It wrote the name of a woman named “Angela Zachery” and her cabin number''14”, suspected of breaking out “Mary Williams”. I quickly close the book, return his diary precisely into its spot and leave the same way I entered, leaving no trace behind me.

The coming night my mind was occupied with one thought, cabin 14. I couldn’t just leave, I had to make sure it was clear. It took a couple nights which felt like forever but eventually I got there. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Friday night, everyone had got to their cabins early after a hard day of work and the daily evening lecture was longer than usual. The pathways were empty, the road clear. I made my way, a little more professional than the night of the ceremony, in my brown dress and hand woven cardigan that wrapped its threads around my shoulders supporting me through my journey. If I was found by any person or even if “Angela” was a scam I would end up 6 feet deep into the ground before sunrise. I took the chance walking across the church to his cabin, no one was around, no one to be seen spying. I knocked on the door anticipating the worst, painting the images of my death. My life dissolving into nothing more than a forgotten story in the depths of my memories, an old story tale kept at the back of a dusty bookshelf. The door opened ever so slightly as I felt the fear shake through my body. She grabbed me inside so hard I stumbled inside falling to my knees in front of her as he shut the door aggressively. I introduced myself and explained my story and she sat there listening. Her eyes stared at me aggressively yet with a shadow of love. Her agreement brought me feelings, flushing my skin, red. Independence, freedom, individuality, expression, life. All books that she dusted alive within an instant. My dreams of independence and freedom rushed back through my bones to the crevices of my every thought. It was scheduled Thursday night.

The night before the escape was probably one of the hardest and most important nights of my life, I was breaking the cage and finally getting the opportunity to fly, but the thought of leaving everything and everyone I knew terrified me. I wasn’t to ever clean after my siblings, but I wasn’t ever going to see them again. I wasn’t going to have to make lemon pie for the church, but I wasn’t going to celebrate with all my family ever again. Laying in my bed I couldn’t get my eyes to shut as I laid there staring at the ceiling. The only support holding me together was the sheets I laid in and the light breathing of my sister beside me.

My bags packed, my thoughts collected, my breathing stable. This was it, this was my freedom. I get to leave and not look back. It was starting to get dark, the last evening to spend in this hell of a place. The trees rustling in the wind and air smelling of wood fire. I had kissed each of my younger siblings goodbye, hoping I would remain alive in their memories. My sister spent that evening reading, which we did often. An outlet we used to let our imagination roam free to live the lives we wish we had. As we put our coats on we stared at each other with fear, the sun had set and the sky was so empty reflecting the withdrawal we were to be hit with. We looked at each other and left, never to set foot in the cabin ever again.

Angela has sent some, waiting for us. He had a car organized outside the fence, we just had to make it outside. In the dark night, we threw our long dress off and climbed the fence gripping the holes with all our strength, looking back I could see Angela in the distance leaving. Climbing faster and faster, our bodies shaking with fear, our hearts anticipating our freedom. Hand over hand, foot over foot, we rose higher and higher. It felt like forever until we reached the top, then at the tip I stared into my sisters eyes when I heard a bang! My soul left my body for a moment from the fear as I saw my sister's body growing limp, her back falling into the fence becoming one with it. I stared into the sky for a moment, knowing I was targeted, I had no time. I had to leave my sister behind, running my way down the fence. I felt the wind brushing my cheeks, the heat irritating my skin. As I reached the last few steps I fell onto the floor, my vision blurring into two. There was no option but to get up, leaving my sister hanging on the fence and running into the truck.

As fast as my life gained sweetness it got bitter again. I stayed in a home with many people, I had food and clothing. But life without my sister was hard, the image of her murder remaining drilled into my head. I saw the soul leave her body, I saw her life end. I often wonder how different things would have turned out if I never left, if I was caught, if we moved a metre to the right, if we left on Friday?

My favourite place grew to become the beach, reminding me of the warm river my sister and I loved ever so dearly, connecting our dreams to every nook of the world. As I sit here today, on the warm sand, I often find myself looking beside me to find my sister's spirit constantly gifting me with feathers. Today I have the privilege of sitting on this beach, feeling the wind through my hair, the cool breeze on my shoulders and my sister's feathers can be forever stored, kept safe and loved, not to be a secret but to be a memory of resilience.

- all feedback is appreciated <3

#religious trauama #creative piece #creative writiting #shortstory #creativestory #sisters #creative #writing #truama

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markiafc · 4 years ago

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so, a thought about how the star wars fandom tackles sw & buddhism.

people love making meta on this with zero focalization, which results in meta that’s shallow, insubstantial, and unproductive.

buddhism is an ancient giant of a religion, it’s massive and old and incredibly diverse. there are two (or three, or four, depending who you ask) main branches of buddhism, hundreds of sects under each, numbers of subsects under said sects. then throw in the many buddhist movements throughout history, and we get an extraordinary amount of buddhist schools. naturally, their beliefs and practices would be distinct to one another, fusing with the region’s pre-existing ideologies, developing to accommodate their own societal and cultural matters, changing across long histories as the locals undergo their own struggles.

if meta is to be made, isn’t it natural that awareness should be given to what the term ‘buddhism’ even means in your meta?

like, star wars canon itself is pretty ambiguous on this too. it’s true. there’s no official mention detailing where and what was borrowed over. but we do know star wars was inspired off japanese films featuring samurai, so there’s reason to believe sw canon works off bushido / 武士道, which also indicates zen buddhism. which also also indicates mahayana buddhism / 大乘. (it also also also indicates daoism, confucianism and more but we’re only talking about buddhism here.) and there. that’s a designated playing field with infinite potential.

you don’t need to be hyper-specific. you can, of course, generalize things. but if your sources are cursory, then meaningful insight is a pipe dream.

eg. let’s talk about 法印 / dharmamudra / dharma seals

from this sole concept of dharma seals, we have:

三法印 / the three dharma seals

derived from the text:《大智度论》/ the treatise on the great perfection of wisdom

the three seals being:

诸行无常

“all 行 / sankhara / formations are impermanent”

诸法无我

“all 法 / dharma / buddhist ways have no self”

涅槃寂静

“nirvana is calm / quiet / peace”

三法印 / the three marks of existence

tmk this is the non-mahayana version

derived from a different text + is grounded in a different buddhist school of thought (possibly theravada...?)

lies outside of my area of expertise orz

so taken from the wiki, it states

sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā

"all saṅkhāras (conditioned things) are impermanent”

sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā

"all saṅkhāras are unsatisfactory”

sabbe dhammā anattā

"all dharmas (conditioned or unconditioned things) are not self"

四法印 / the four dharma seals

is basically a re-interpretation slash alternative of 三法印 / the three dharma seals where a fourth seal is added

derived from the text:《增一阿含经》卷18 / ekottaragama sutra, section 18

the quote: “ 一切诸行无常，是谓初法本末，如来之所说；一切诸行苦，是谓第二法本末，如来之所说；一切诸行无我，是谓第三法本末，如来之所说；涅槃为永寂，是谓第四法本末，如来之所说。是谓，诸贤，四法本末，如来之所说“

and for short:

一切行无常

“every 行 / sankhara / formations is impermanent”

一切行苦

“every 行 / sankhara / formations is suffering”

一切法无我

“every 法 / dharma / buddhist way has no self”

涅槃寂静

“nirvana is to surpass / go beyond everything”

五法印 / the five dharma seals

this is also outside of my expertise, there’s only a handful things i know about it but nothing in depth

is another re-interpretation slash alternative of 四法印 / the four dharma seals where a fifth seal is added

it tacks on the idea of emptiness, that gets expounded in the《维摩诘所说经》/ vimalakirtinirdesa sutra

the five seals being:

诸行无常

“all 行 / sankhara / formations are impermanent”

诸法无我

“all 法 / dharma / buddhist ways have no self”

色即是空

“the 色 / rupa / physical / external / tangible is empty”

寂静涅盘

“nirvana is calm / quiet / peace”

真空妙有

it’s something along the lines of “true emptiness is...” (?)

another thing i’m not familiar with so i’m unable to translate

this is not an exhaustive or educational list on 法印 / dharmamudra / dharma seals, of course. but from this alone, it’s evident there are a number of versions for just this (1) concept. the same seal with the exact same phrasing of “涅槃寂静” can be understood as “nirvana is calm / quiet / peace” or “nirvana is to surpass / go beyond everything”. all versions of the dharma seals share similar and repeated ideas, such as “诸行无常; all 行 / sankhara / formations are impermanent”, but that does not make all these versions the same. even the two different forms of 三法印 / the three dharma seals mentioned share very similar ideas and the exact same title, but they still differ greatly depending on the branches of buddhism it exists under.

none of them listed can be mistaken for the other. they each came about and continue to exist for their own intents and purposes, and are used in practice in various ways too. this is in spite of how similar the lines stated may seem, repeated or no.

if you want to comment or dig into anything, you have to be aware of what a dharma seal is and which interpretation of the seals you’re thinking of and why this? there are so many different and nuanced understandings of the dharma seals, why would you look into three dharma seals instead of the five dharma seals? because the five dharma seals re-contextualizes it all with a greater focus on emptiness? now how would that change the lines repeated in both variants? simply picking out what in star wars resembles a dharma seal will bring you nowhere.

a lot of buddhism works this way, where it’s essentially the same thing echoed all over the place. but so much of it is at the same time distinct, and different. because what matters is the interpretations and the applications. the why of why this variant exists, how is it used, what makes it different will be what brings forth insight and meaningful conclusions.

the tens of thousands of meta love throwing around 八正道 / the eightfold path and 四圣谛 / the four noble truths in their observations, while providing a blanket definition, a surface explanation to the vague one-liners. but without a focus and the full context of the concept at hand, it’ll never be anything more than saying x = y. you’ll never be able to go beyond one for one comparisons and parallels. and for an american franchise made by and for americans, a one for one parallel between star wars and actual buddhism simply does. not. exist. the entire resulting meta would be worthless because it is wrong.

examples of a lack of focalisation leading to meta that says nothing includes this tumblr post and this twitter thread (what’s the point of telling me dooku’s name equates to duhkha that means suffering, it’s an observation that goes nowhere and is unproductive. what is the point.)

examples also include the dharma of star wars by matthew bortolin, where he makes simple comparisons, takes a general buddhist concept and slaps it with a selected aspect of star wars. and then explains how it is the same while giving zero insight to anything star wars or irl buddhism.

like at one point, he brings up the concept of 蕴 / skandha / aggregates?

Buddhists further subdivide mental elements, bringing the total number of aggregates that comprise a sentient being to five: (1) physical form or body, (2) feeling, (3) perception, (4) mental formations, and (5) consciousness.

and goes down the list to explain each, while using a star wars analogy (which is already demeaning and weird to do, because why would you use an american and appropriating franchise as a case study for anything buddhist, especially so when your purpose is to be a primer for buddhist philosophies first).

but alongside the concept of 五蕴 / five aggregates, he never makes a peep about 十二处 / twelve ayatana or 十八界 / eighteen dhatavah, which are concepts that come hand in hand with the five aggregates.

why. just why? when these concepts, in practice and when discussed by actual buddhists, are so tightly woven together, they are a package deal! they literally belong in one big web, as you can see below.

the five aggregates, inclusive of twelve ayatana, inclusive of eighteen dhatavah. there's so much overlap and interweaving connections. the combination is the full idea, is the full picture, is the complete purpose of 五蕴 / five aggregates concept.

matthew bortolin also has a major issue with terminology.

at many occasions, he straight up uses the phrases & words star wars made up for their fictional universe to explain buddhism. it’s terms lifted right out of the movie lines like yoda’s “fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” and he proceeds to adopt the structure and progression described in that line to teach buddhism as well. or he uses the term “dark side” to explain buddhist concepts of suffering when the “dark side” does not exist in buddhism, it is not a buddhist concept at all. he uses terms a white man made up for his white man movie to directly explain buddhism, a religion that exists in real life. which is very, very, very strange at best. deeply problematic and disgusting ignorance at worst.

and sometimes he just says things like this:

Buddhist philosophers describe three types of desire that, when grasped or rejected, cause suffering. The three types are desire for things that are pleasant to experience, desire for something to not be the way it is, and the desire to have more or to be more.

which includes no terminology, as far as i can tell. i have no idea what he’s talking about. is he referring to the three types of 贪爱 / tanha / desire? is he talking about the 三毒 / the three poisons? i will never know. what he references is too vague, too general, too meaningless.

but tying this back to the original point: he introduces a buddhism that has no focalisation, and no awareness for the thousands of different interpretations.

matthew himself is a part of 十四項正念修習 / thich nhat hanh’s order of interbeing, a buddhist school under 禅宗 / zen buddhism. and they have their own main beliefs and concepts called the fourteen mindfulness trainings. but funnily enough, these fourteen ideals never make an appearance in his book.

what does make it into the book are generic buddhist terms like nirvana, dharma, karma, samsara. the sanskrit terms suggesting he’s either referring to buddhism in its most broad and non-specific form, or theravada canon (whereas using the chinese terms would have signaled to me straight away that he’s tackling mahayana buddhism).

he describes mindfulness and meditation, but that is yet again an all-inclusive buddhist trait. it indicates nothing. he also goes on to mention 八正道 / the eightfold path and 四圣谛 / the four noble truths, as well as 四正勤 / four right exertions, and gives a general textbook explanation with no nuance or meaningful wisdom. he does mention 二谛 / the two truths which was the only thing that was recognizably mahayana focused, but even then it went nowhere.

the use of sanskrit terms, plus the mess of vague buddhist concepts and explanations and the sudden (1) mention of a mahayana concept is... confusing. the buddhism he presents is scattered all over the place. it jumps from one big umbrella to another. i have no idea if he’s aware that clear distinctions exist within buddhism. it’s as if anything goes as long as it’s under the universal label of buddhism. which is, of course, exactly the case. the answer to ‘why this?’ is simply because it is buddhist.

he presents an incredibly blurred image where nothing substantial can be made out. though nothing he says in his book is wrong (other than the afterword where he proceeds to rationalise how a strictly non-violent religion like buddhism can sometimes allow murder and violence, yes, buddhists can have a little murder if they think it’s right, as a treat), nothing about it is right either. there’s simply no substance to it, so it falls in the grey area where no judgement can be placed upon it. nothing can be said about it, it sparks no discussion. it is very simply, utterly nothing.

thanks for nothing, matthew.

and everyone else who has proudly made buddhist & sw meta that serve no other purpose but to stroke your own ego.

#star wars #sw #tcw #the clone wars #the dharma of star wars #meta #text #me is mark #everything i know about buddhism is in cn #orz #i am incredibly rusty and out of the loop on buddhist eng terminology #so i hope this makes sense

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ascendantgb · 4 years ago

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Your individual grace with CEO branding

Image is everything in this modern world. People don’t remember your skills, caliber to match new milestones but what you say in a crowd matters a most. CEO branding works on that enduring aspect of positive image. Few years ago, only minimum magazines and newspapers used to enjoy international popularity but now numbers has reached to infinite direction any one single negative remark affect the popularity of a leader of a company. Such new realization has given birth to PR firms are establishing daily in the market to help our business icons in achieving adorable fame for them. Today an individual leader is given immense importance. The rest marketing and tapping domain for your company is secondary factor to stay in the market.

Write a new story comprising good traits from traditional style

A new wave has come in the market. The style of doing business has transmitted from offline show-rooms, outlets to online presence and such a drastic change has added much flair in the personality of leaders of companies. The authoritative persons have understood that just producing good products is not enough to stay in the market; a thread has to be woven to connect with all groups of society. They indulge in social work, donate to the NGOs and establish schools for impoverished families. The real idea behind all this social service is gathering a new trust for their brand.

Sports opportunities for children of impoverished families

The companies have come down from the frame of accumulating wealth to provide new sports opportunities to children of impoverished families. Many companies are now collaborating with sports institutions and sports clubs to sponsor their events on grand level. It fulfills two purposes with striking one single arrow. Children of impoverished families gets chance to show their talent at large platform and companies get their recognition for doing welfare to the society. Our market gurus never mark this beginning a selfish act; they believe achievement for one can turn bliss for other one. No one progress alone in the market.

An experience of fame for a corporate leader automatically brings new wide recognition for the company. More production means more laborers on the front so better chances of getting jobs in the market.

Experienced writer are directors of this script

The experienced writers and event managers of PR firms are the real directors of the whole game to experience positive image in the corporate market. They know the nerve of people. An acute attack in guise of words creates assurance for further success in the market. They use different content in different channels of marketing. Every word is reviewed again and again till the professionals are assured of its wide impact among the masses. Every day new competitor is entering in the market so it is necessary to come on the top using accurate tools of recognition. CEO branding is the perfect tool to cover zigzag on the road to get success for your company.

#ceo branding #ceo brand strategy #ceo branding strategy #ceo personal branding

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hungry-dahmer · 7 years ago

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About a girl...

I know a girl who holds the universe together.

Her kindness flows like the wind, uninterrupted, invisible, and with a graceful touch to anyone lucky enough to stand in the path of that moment. She spreads contentment. A loving presence that turns down the noise. She intercepts the blaring static of the world that penetrates into those sensitive enough to be to be pierced by the icy tendrils of over stimulation that we drink from like the breast of god. She turns that static still, solidified, and powerless and unable to twist the lives of those this monstrous channel between stations preys upon. She reminds me to quiet myself, and listen.

I know a girl who moves between.

She deep dives into the labyrinthian halls of her mind and into the recesses of human consciousness to a deep place that most of us never even consider more than what bubbles to the surface from the place that our subconscious minds slumber. Her unquenchable thirst for knowledge and experience out pace anyone who dares to sit and day dream for too long. She reminds me to chase the person I want to become.

I know a girl who is resplendent.

Her spark burns brighter than any star in the sky. Brighter than the piercing sting of checking a phone mid sleep. Her spark burns with an intensity not made for this universe. A ember at the center of who she is was that was not meant for this ugly world. A thousand mistakes in the universe brought that ember here. In another world, another time, another dimension that spark would radiate with such intensity that she becomes the center of that universe, warm loving, and bringing solace to the lost like a god. A billion accidents sprang into existence the millions of fail safe protocols designed to keep something so precious from slipping through the spacial fabrics of an infinite number of higher realities. Her spark tumbled through infinite back-doors and glitches that were overlooked when these layers and systems were assembled by some fundamental principal of the Universe that we will never understand. Her spark fell into her beautiful, melancholy, powerful, and vulnerable form. In order to adapt she has hidden that spark, but if you know how to look you can see it. You can see the light that has been devoured from every star dancing with every black hole in every reality of all existence. That light all gobbled and condensed spills into our world in a light too impossible to exist; and in the a form that doesn’t understand why it has come to rest in our fabric. She reminds me to look at the world with wonder.

I know a girl who is fractured.

Her heart has been broken into the trace dust of fragments, of shards of porcelain, of the division of something too important to be broken. Defeasance rains malediction upon the heart to magical for this world. This universe has weaved pain into her life like iniquitous threads into a beautiful tapestry woven into all the things that make this world beautiful. Pandora would weep at the calamity that has fallen upon her. Cruelty blows in this careless rain. It blows from those not able to understand her singular importance in this world. The giants can be heard coming for her. They blow and they curse and they try to extinguish her ember with words, ignorance, vile corruptions, and violations that will be remembered by this universe. She is hurt. She needs her space. She needs her time. She will get those from me. She reminds me that two people can heal each other.

I know a girl who I love.

I love how her eyes can tell me so many different things. I love her cheeks when she smiles. I love the green dot that tells me that she was near. I love the pitch in her voice when she says my name. I love the way her hair flows like a flame on a waterfall as it dips to it’s final length. I love the way she makes me laugh. I love the way she makes me think about the future. I love that the phantoms of her that live in my mind make me cry every time I tap this reservoir of love that I carry for her to spill upon ghostly fabric and white A3 watercolor paper. I love the way she huddles with me under my umbrella as I try to keep the storm away. I love the way she takes care of those around her. I love the way her smile can make all problems vanish from my mind. I love the way her heart flows her from her like waves that I wade and float in. I love the way she squeezes her hand when she shows affection. I love her syllables, her vowels, and her consonants. I love the construction of her thoughts. I love the way she makes me laugh. I love the way the light reflects from her eyes. I love her pictures. I love her Jersey. I love her Staton.I love how there are not enough stars in the sky to equate to the ways I love her. I love her clothes, her shows, and her music. I love her plush. I love how I just talked to her. I love how she sounds so full of love and freedom. I love Goose. I love Chaos Mountain. I love her Nina. I love her Pal. She reminds me that I can be whole for the first time.

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tipsycad147 · 5 years ago

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SPIDERS AS SPIRITUAL GUIDES

Posted on September 11, 2017 by Crooked Bear Creek Organic Herbs

I know many are saying “Ewww”. Autumn is a great time to learn about spiders as many are attempting to come inside before the weather becomes too cold for them to survive.

Last night my daughter and I had flashlight’s in hand searching around our house and the apartment complex we manage looking for the many types of arachnid that dwell among our corners, eaves and under a rock. To say the least our neighbours and tenants think we are beyond crazy! My favourite as long as I can remember is the cat spiders.

Here is a unique aspect of our eight-legged friends.

Spiders in Druidry:

As we all know, Druidry is a spiritual path based on Nature. The knowledge we have can be found everywhere. In Druidry, the Spider represents The Bard, the Ovate and the Druid. As a Bard it produces works of art as depicted in the many kinds of webs it can produce; as an Ovate seer, to determine the best spot for the web or hideout for the hunt, and the lessons the animal teaches us shows us the Druid side of Spider lore, or as some call it, Spider Medicine.

The Spider is the guardian of the ancient languages and alphabets. Every society has had myths about how the different languages and alphabets were formed. One example is the Ogham. The Ogham can be found in the Web of a Spider. This is why the Spider is considered the teacher of language and the magic of writing. Those who weave magic with the written word probably have a Spider as a guide.

I have found that we can learn much more from the webs and their makers, the Spider. According to Scottish Legend, King Robert the Bruce of Scotland hid in a cave where he saw a persistent Spider weaving her web.The story about Robert the Bruce, the cave and the Spider is well known to all English or Scottish school pupils. However, outside the Isles it may not be this well known, so here is the story.

King Robert the Bruce I was born at Lochmaben Castle in 1274. He was Knight and Overlord of Annandale. In 1306 he was crowned King of Scotland and henceforth tried to free Scotland from the English enemy.

After being defeated at a battle, Bruce escaped and found a hideout in a cave. Hiding in a cave for three months, Bruce was at the lowest point of his life. He thought about leaving the country and never coming back. While waiting, he watched a Spider building a web in the cave’s entrance. The Spider fell down time after time, but finally he succeeded with his web. So Bruce decided also to retry his fight and told his men: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again’.

Old legend as told

The lesson the spider is teaching here is persistence. King Robert the Bruce of Scotland and his army had this strong persistence and determination until they finally beat the English at the Battle of Bannockburn. And this is an important yet simple thing a Spider can teach us.

The Spider as an animal is a spiritual teacher in its own right. For example, the Spider’s web is a constant reminder of the eight festivals. This is easily seen in the wheel webs some Spiders weave. The strands of the web, like the spokes of a wheel, are straight from the edge to the middle and do form the eight fold wheel. That same web also shows the pentagram and the levels of spirituality known in Druidry as Annwn, Abred, Gwynvyd, and Keugant.

The Spider is The Bard, the Ovate and the Druid rolled into one. Let’s take a look at the lessons from the Druid Spider by contemplating its web.

Seeing the Spider weaving the web, it signals to us that we must weave our own lives. The Spider as a guide (or totem, familiar, etc…) serves as a reminder that our choices construct our lives. When the Spider appears to us, it is a message to be mindful of the choices we are making. Then ask yourself:

How are my choices affecting my life?

How can my choices improve my life?

How are my choices affecting others in my life?

Spiders and their webs draw attention to our life choices, but that is not all. They also show us how we can manipulate our thinking so we can construct the life we want to live.

Spiders make us aware of the amazing construction of their webs. They are fully functional, practical, and perfect in design. Spider webs serve as homes, food storage, egg incubators and are almost limitless in their functionality. When we take a good look at this diversity, we can also look at the web-like construct of our own lives. How do we get the most effective life?

We can derive even more Spider symbol meaning when we consider certain subtle characteristics that represent ancient symbols of infinity. When we take a look at the Spider itself and consider most Spiders have eight eyes and all have eight legs, we can see that the Spider also shows the meaning of the number eight, which involves cycles, the passage of time, evolution and, as mentioned before, the eight fold path of the year.

Spiders are also found to be connected to Halloween or Samhain. This is because Spiders are related to death because of the venom they carry. This venom is of course also used as a basis for the antidote, connecting the Spider both to death and rebirth and thus she stands for the completion of the circle.

The Spider teaches us to maintain a balance – between past and future, physical and spiritual, male and female. The Spider also teaches us that everything we now do is weaving what we will encounter in the future. In the tarot deck is a card – The Wheel of Fortune. This is a card that has to do with rhythms – the rise and fall, the flow and flux. It is linked to the energies of honor and fame, and the sensitivities necessary to place ourselves within the rhythm of Nature. Meditation upon this card would be beneficial for anyone with the Spider as a guide.

The Spider, because of its characteristics, has come to be associated with magic and the energy of creation. It is a symbol of creative power, reflected in its ability to spin a silken web. It is also associated with keeping the feminine energies of creation alive and strong. This has ties to the characteristics of some Spiders, i.e. the female black widow, which will kill and eat the male after mating has exhausted it.

The Spider is also associated with its spiral energy, the links with the past and the future. The spiral of the web, converging at a central point, is something to be meditated upon by those with Spiders as a guide. Are you moving toward a central goal or are you scattered and going in multiple directions? Is everything staying focused? Are you becoming too involved and/or self-absorbed? Are you focusing on others’ accomplishments and not on your own? Are you developing resentment because of it – for yourself or them?

If a Spider is a guide in your life, ask yourself some important questions. Are you weaving your dreams and imaginings into reality? Are you using your creative opportunities? Are you feeling closed in or stuck, as if in a web? Do you need to pay attention to your balance and where you are walking in life? Are others out of balance around you? Do you need to write? Are you inspired to write or draw and not following through? Remember that the Spider is the keeper of knowledge and of the primordial alphabet. The Spider can teach how to use the written language with power and creativity so that your words weave the web around those who would read them.

Spiders in Druidry are linked with the Goddess, some Gods, the wheel of the year, spinning, weaving, each individual human, the world, creations, and creation.

Spiders in other cultures:

Spiders are very delicate creatures that play an important role in the myths and lore of many peoples as the teacher of balance between the past and future, the physical and spiritual. To the Native Americans, Spider is Grandmother, the link to the past and future. In India, it’s associated with Maya, the weaver of illusions. With its gentle strength, Spider spins together the threads of life with intricate webs. Spider knows the past affects the future and visa versa. It calls us to make use of our creativity and weave our dreams into our destiny. If you want to make a deeper connection with your Animal Totem, fill your environment with images of the animal to let the animal know it is welcome in your space.

Among the various Native American traditions, spider medicine has been known to represent creativity. Her eight legs represent the four winds of change and the four directions on the medicine wheel, while her body is in the shape of the infinity symbol, which represents infinite possibilities. Spider was said to have woven the alphabet, creating the means for people to communicate and record their history through language. Just like the Greek myth of the Fates, three women who weave the tapestry of life, spiders are said to weave the creative forces that bring forth the intricately symmetrical patterns of our lives.

Of course, I must not forget the Greek myth of the maiden Arachne and the Goddess Athena. In the myth, Arachne claimed that she was a better weaver than the Goddess Athena. After winning from Athena, she was turned into a Spider and she and her offspring became the best weavers in existence. Nor must I forget to mention the West African and Caribbean trickster spirit Anansi, also known as Ananse, Kwaku Ananse, and Anancy whose story is like the tricksters Coyote, Raven or Iktomi found in many Native American cultures and Loki found in Norse mythology. Anansi literally means spider. These tales show spider teaching skill and wisdom in speech, slave resistance, and survival as well as teaching mankind the techniques of agriculture and so we see again a kinship in spider’s lessons reaching many cultures in a profound way.

Practicum

This practicum is designed to get to know the spider a little better.

Perform this while in your Sacred Grove after performing your Light Body exercise or in a state of meditation or visualisation.

In your mind, you see an open place with one exit. From that exit, you see a small garden Spider approaching. You follow the Spider and you see that she walks to a tree. In that tree, she starts to weave a web blocking the exit. The spider weaves her web so steadily that fascinates you and soon you realise that the weaving itself is a meditation. With that weaving, you imagine her as a creator weaving the whole universe and you also imagine her as a dream catcher weaving the net to manifest our deepest desires. When the Spider is finished weaving, she sits in the middle of the web and she starts her teaching to you. She ends her teachings by telling you that she weaves a new web every day. She tells you that she takes down the web when it is ruined and begins again every day and she never has to think about it, she just spins her web with great care.

After giving her lessons to you, she takes down her web blocking the exit and leaves. By doing so she is signalling that it is time to end your meditation or visualisation.

Eisteddfod Grandmother Spider Steals the Fire. A Mississippi Choctaw Legend

The Choctaw People say that when the People first came up out of the ground, People were encased in cocoons, their eyes closed, their limbs folded tightly to their bodies. And this was true of all People, the Bird People, the Animal People, the Insect People, and the Human People. The Great Spirit took pity on them and sent down someone to unfold their limbs, dry them off, and open their eyes. But the opened eyes saw nothing because the world was dark, no sun, no moon, not even any stars. All the People moved around by touch, and if they found something that didn’t eat them first, they ate it raw, for they had no fire to cook it.

All the People met in a great powwow, with the Animal and Bird People taking the lead, and the Human People hanging back. The Animal and Bird People decided that life was not good, but cold and miserable. A solution must be found! Someone spoke from the dark,

‘I have heard that the people in the East have the fire.’ This caused a stir of wonder, ‘What could fire be?’ There was a general discussion, and it was decided that if, as rumour had it, the fire was warm and gave light, they should have it too. Another voice said, ‘But the people of the East are too greedy to share with us.’ So it was decided that the Bird and Animal People should steal what they needed, the fire!

But, who should have the honour? Grandmother Spider volunteered, ‘I can do it! Let me try!’ But at the same time, Opossum began to speak. ‘I, Opossum, am a great chief of the animals. I will go to the East and since I am a great hunter, I will take the fire and hide it in the bushy hair on my tail.’ It was well known that Opossum had the furriest tail of all the animals, so he was selected.

When Opossum came to the East, he soon found the beautiful, red fire, jealously guarded by the people of the East. But Opossum got closer and closer until he picked up a small piece of burning wood, and stuck it in the hair of his tail, which promptly began to smoke, then flame. The people of the East said, ‘Look, that Opossum has stolen our fire!’ They took it and put it back where it came from and drove Opossum away. Poor Opossum! Every bit of hair had burned from his tail, and to this day, opossums have no hair at all on their tails.

Once again, the powwow had to find a volunteer chief. Grandmother Spider again said, ‘Let em go! I can do it!’ But this time a bird was elected, Buzzard. Buzzard was very proud. ‘I can succeed where Opossum has failed. I will fly to the East on my great wings, then hide the stolen fire in the beautiful long feathers on my head.’ The birds and animals still did not understand the nature of fire. So Buzzard flew to the East on his powerful wings, swooped past those defending the fire, picked up a small piece of burning ember, and hid it in his head feathers. Buzzard’s head began to smoke and flame even faster! The people of the East said, ‘Look! Buzzard has stolen the fire!’ And they took it and put it back where it came from.

Poor Buzzard! His head was now bare of feathers, red and blistered looking. And to this day, buzzards have naked heads that are bright red and blistered.

The powwow now sent Crow to look the situation over, for Crow was very clever. Crow at that time was pure white and had the sweetest singing voice of all the birds. But he took so long standing over the fire, trying to find the perfect piece to steal that his white feathers were smoked black. And he breathed so much smoke that when he tried to sing, out came to a harsh, ‘Caw! Caw!’

The Council said, ‘Opossum has failed. Buzzard and Crow have failed. Who shall we send?’

Tiny Grandmother Spider shouted with all her might, ‘LET ME TRY IT PLEASE!’ Though the council members thought Grandmother Spider had little chance of success, it was agreed that she should have her turn. Grandmother Spider looked then like she looks now, she had a small torso suspended by two sets of legs that turned the other way. She walked on all of her wonderful legs toward a stream where she had found clay. With those legs, she made a tiny clay container and a lid that fit perfectly with a tiny notch for air in the corner of the lid. Then she put the container on her back, spun a web all the way to the East, and walked tiptoe until she came to the fire. She was so small, the people from the East took no notice. She took a tiny piece of fire, put it in the container, and covered it with the lid. Then she walked back on tiptoe along the web until she came to the People. Since they couldn’t see any fire, they said, ‘Grandmother Spider has failed.’

‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I have the fire!’ She lifted the pot from her back, and the lid from the pot and the fire flamed up into its friend, the air. All the Birds and Animal People began to decide who would get this wonderful warmth. Bear said, ‘I’ll take it!’ but then he burned his paws on it and decided fire was not for animals, for look what happened to Opossum!

The Birds wanted no part of it, as Buzzard and Crow were still nursing their wounds. The insects thought it was pretty, but they, too, stayed far away from the fire.

Then a small voice said, ‘We will take it if Grandmother Spider will help.’ The timid humans, whom none of the animals or birds thought much of, were volunteering!

So Grandmother Spider taught the Human People how to feed the fire sticks and wood to keep it from dying, how to keep the fire safe in a circle of stone so it couldn’t escape and hurt them or their homes. While she was at it, she taught the humans about pottery made of clay and fire, and about weaving and spinning, at which Grandmother Spider was an expert.

The Choctaw remember. They made a beautiful design to decorate their homes, a picture of Grandmother Spider, two sets of legs up, two down, with a fire symbol on her back. This is so their children never forget to honour Grandmother Spider, Fire bringer!

https://goodwitcheshomestead.com/2017/09/11/spiders-as-spiritual-guides/

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maxmollon · 6 years ago

Photo

(via Book Review: Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble – The Chart)

“Think we must! We must think!” — Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss1

It has never been clearer than now that we must “stay with the trouble” and actively seek possibilities for recuperation even as we are anxiously learning the great depths of the trouble we face. This is a book concerned with exactly that, with teasing out effective methodologies for moving forward in contemporary times through invention, collaboration, exploration, play, and a willingness to take on the risky business of “follow[ing] the threads where they lead.”2

Donna Haraway, radical thinker of A Cyborg Manifesto fame3, envisions the Anthropocene — along with its aptly named partners the Capitalocene4 and the Plantationocene5 — as a (brief) geologic boundary event, and encourages us to think of a bigger name encompassing all “the dynamic ongoing sym-chthonic forces and powers of which people are a part, within which ongoingness is at stake”.6 She terms this era the Chthulucene. Having nothing to do with Lovecraft’s “misogynist racial, nightmare monster” Chtulu, this Chthulucene (note spelling) is an era of multi-species worlding and “sym-poietic” thinking and making together. Anthropologist, multispecies feminist theorist, environmentalist, and distinguished professor emerita in the History of Consciousness department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Haraway proffers the action of reaching out and “making kin” as a way to establish new lines of “response-ability” between living beings. She draws actively on new thinking in the sciences and arts to present possible methodologies for inhabiting our world at present.

Already, you’ll see I’ve run through a handful of knotty neologisms; Haraway delights in language, bumping colloquialisms against high theory, breeding slang with scientific taxonomy — part of the pleasure of reading this text is her “bumptious” linguistic methodology: experimental, creative, rich, chewy, and rhythmically vital — thinking new worlds demands thinking new language. If you’re like me, you’ll want to follow and participate in these new inventions as you enter and occupy this terran text. Using the tools of what she terms “SF” — speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, science fiction, science fact, string figures, so far — Haraway imagines and invents new ways of “living and dying” in our multispecies world. Messy and imperfect, and actively generative, this co-fashioning methodology invites new perspectives on the depths of our connections to each other, our notions of independence, and the inseparable threads we must follow and affirm in perilous times.

Haraway delights in language, bumping colloquialisms against high theory, breeding slang with scientific taxonomy — part of the pleasure of reading this text is her “bumptious” linguistic methodology: experimental, creative, rich, chewy and rhythmically vital — thinking new worlds demands thinking new language.

For we are utterly and hopelessly entangled in this story. The first chapter looks at multispecies storytelling through the lens of string figures as metaphor and engaged games of giving and receiving, and at practices of recuperation via the possibilities of making something together (“sympoiesis”). String figures — the games of making patterns with loops of string between players — enact a rich history of storytelling through physical thinking enacted between two people. Haraway recognizes the complexities of this tool and the possibilities of failure — of dropping a thread, of getting caught in a story that doesn’t function — in the “risky comaking” practices of SF. Deeply challenging our ideas of individuality, the Chthulucene demands we engage sympoiesis, making together, rather than autopoiesis, self-making. Throughout the book, she investigates the work of interdisciplinary artists and scientists who are inventing new ways of working together and with other species, and who are developing new sensitivities and means to fostering collective response-ability.

For example, Haraway introduces her reader to PigeonBlog, the work of artist Beatriz da Costa, her students, and the racing pigeons that flew as part of a Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory at the University of California Irvine and in electronic arts festivals in San Jose, California. Homing pigeons, with their fanciers, artists, and engineers, were engaged to “collect and distribute information about air quality conditions to the general public.”7 Through the informed, careful, and pigeon-loving practices of their fanciers and interested others, a small data collection backpack was created for the pigeons that allowed the gathering of data in order to generate “further imaginative and knowing action” in multiple disciplines and beings. Da Costa “took seriously questions about the cosmopolitics and material-semiotics of collaboration for animals in art, politics, or science. Who renders whom capable of what, and at what price, borne by whom? But she asked ‘Is human-animal work as part of political [and art] action less legitimate than the same type of activity when framed under the umbrella of science?'”8 The project made visible the limited government collection data that focused its attention away from known pollution sources and thus pollution levels, often in working-class communities, near to the ground at the level where humans and other species live and breath.

In a later chapter, Haraway investigates the utter entanglement and disturbing truths regarding both the need of and the production methods for DES and Premarin: hormones for the changing female animal body, human and other “critters”. DES, now a known poisonous synthesized cancer-producing hormone marked unsafe for humankind is prescribed for her aging companion dog. And Premarin, a hormone she once took, is produced by the labor of countless pregnant mares (don’t ask what happens to the foals) via the “animal-industrial complex” and currently relied on by many menopausal women to ease the difficult passage through declining levels of estrogen. In each case, Haraway’s investigation navigates the webbed network of relationships between humans and other “critters” and refuses to turn away from the troubling implications, positive opportunities, and seeming infinite intersections infecting multiple beings. This lack of innocence might inspire new means to multispecies recuperation, she says. “Call that utopia; call that inhabiting the despised places; call that touch; call that the rapidly mutating virus of hope; or call that the less rapidly changing commitment to staying with the trouble.”9

In the times of “The Dithering,”10 this is a call to arms: the many tentacular arms of the octopus and spider, the chthonic sea creatures, and the webbed, interconnecting rhizomic roots of mycelium. The Chthonic beings of the Chthulucene are beings of the Earth whose living and dying are all very much “at stake” together. “Coral and lichen symbionts11 also bring us richly into the storied tissues of the thickly present Chthulucene, where it remains possible — just barely — to play a much better SF game, in nonarrogant collaboration with all those in the muddle,”12 she notes. This collaboration demands we join forces and make kin in order to rejuvenate refuges that allow species continuance and possible flourishing. Haraway draws on the “science art worldings” of new Inupiat story making practices, Navajo weaving at Black Mesa, Arizona, and the Crochet Coral Reef project coordinated by the Institute for Figuring, among others, to seek new models for staying with the trouble and recuperating spaces of refuge. Her call to “Make kin, not babies!” is a call to extend the web of connections beyond those ties of ancestry or genealogy in order to invoke and practice a deep responsibility to many others; she reminds us, “all earthlings are kin in the deepest sense.”13

Haraway’s investigation navigates the webbed network of relationships between humans and other “critters” and refuses to turn away from the troubling implications, positive opportunities, and seeming infinite intersections infecting multiple beings.

“What happens when human exceptionalism and the utilitarian individualism of classical political economics become unthinkable in the best sciences across the disciplines and interdisciplines? Seriously unthinkable: not available to think with.”14 Throughout the book, Haraway urges us to think. Referring to the work of social anthropologist Marilyn Strathern she notes, “it matters what ideas we use to think other ideas with.”15 We need new ideas and new ways of thinking, new kinds of stories to think with, because the old ones are failing us as is evidenced not only by the inequities and mania of our resource extracting current economies, the Great Acceleration, and radically increasing human population numbers16, but also made visible within the day-to-day laboratory models of contemporary scientific practices that no longer sufficiently address contemporary conditions. Haraway affirms that speculative fabulation, speculative feminism, and science fiction help us think anew.

The final section of Staying With the Trouble entails a work of feminist speculative fiction, created together with filmmaker Fabrizio Terranova and science philosopher Vinciane Despret, concerning a human-butterfly symbiont. The task entertained by the text is to think ahead five generations, something you immediately sense the gravity of as our predicted event horizons for ice-cap melting, sea-level rise, and species extinctions continue to shrink. In this work, SF inventions are woven into the fabric of a story that imagines our reality based from within current knowledge and experience, culling potential from our current stories to create new ones in stark contrast to the excesses of neo-colonial resource extraction methodologies on a shrinking planet. Cobbled together, and eschewing notions of easy futurist saviors or various head-in-the-sand technofixes — “we cannot denounce the world in the name of an ideal world”17 — Haraway’s inventions take a functional, sited, materialist viewpoint on future possibilities based on working intently with the present moment.

We need new ideas and new ways of thinking, new kinds of stories to think with, because the old ones are failing us.

This is a book that focuses on processes, on possibilities, and on methodology as a commitment to “ongoingness”. It also focuses on situated imaginative revisions to working within the present: staying with the trouble. Outcomes are unknowable; the story is not yet written. This is praxis: engaged “tentacular” thinking; working together with an understanding that it is all unwritten. Embracing our collective conditional futures — our multi-species futures — and thinking together towards something that seeks possibilities for recuperation and rejuvenation, a process of living and dying together in a deeply stressed system evidencing massive extinction events and cascading systemic environmental break downs — is of utmost urgency. This is a text that embraces presence and alert attention to this moment — sticking it out in the here and now to trouble the waters of entrenched capitalist models that collectively contribute to ongoing destruction of the very systems that sustain us in all their rich and challenging complexity.

Inspiring, to say the least. And we are in deep need of it.

Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, by Donna J Haraway. Duke University Press, 2016, 296 pages, paper, $26.95, ISBN# 978-0-8223-6224-1

Used throughout the book, via Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane Despret (Women Who Make a Fuss), via Virginia Woolf (Three Guineas) and through Maria Puig de la Bellasca, (“Politiques féministes et construction des savories)

Staying With the Trouble, pg 3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cyborg_Manifesto

Some feel it is more apt to call our era the Capitalocene rather than the Anthropocene, calling into attention an “historical era shaped by relations privileging the endless accumulation of capital.” (John Merrick, http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2360-jason-w-moore-anthropocene-or-capitalocene)

A term for the “devastating transformation of diverse kinds of human-tended farms, pastures, and forests into extractive and enclosed plantations, relying on slave labor and other forms of exploited, alienated, and usually spatially transported labor.” Scott Gilbert, https://studylib.net/doc/13485101/anthropocene–capitalocene–plantationocene–chthulucene-…

Staying With the Trouble, pg 101

Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble; Making Kin in the Chthulucene(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016), 21.

Haraway, Trouble, 23.

Haraway, Trouble, 114.

Haraway, Trouble, 102. A term introduced by Kim Stanley Robinson in his book, 2312 in 2012.

symbiotic interpenetrating ecological assemblages

Haraway, Trouble, 56.

Haraway, Trouble, 103.

Haraway, Trouble, 57.

Haraway, Trouble, 12.

Human population (currently 7.3 billion) predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100 by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in 2015. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html

Haraway, Trouble, 12.

#philosphy #Anthropocene #theory

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delhi-architect2 · 4 years ago

Text

Journal - One Drawing Challenge 2020: The 100 Finalists (Part 3)

Explore a further 25 extraordinary architectural drawings, each one a Finalist in the 2020 One Drawing Challenge. Let us know which are your favorites on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #OneDrawingChallenge!

← Previous 25 Drawings Next 25 Drawings →

“House by the sea” by Kees Fritschy, Atelier Fritschy

“As a recent graduate during this unusual times, I start my architectural career different than expected.

The worldwide lockdown made people more bound to their houses than ever before. In a post pandemic situation people might ask for a home that includes different qualities. My painting investigates an atmosphere in which the inhabitants can experience a peaceful surrounding. A healthy environment where inside and outside space merge. Natural elements such as the sky, water and the views are decomposed to form a balanced composition with the architecture and inhabitant. The surroundings play an active role in the experience of the space.

I got inspired by architects such as Luis Barragan and Mies van der Rohe. The use of color is limited to a few tones as a statement of reduction. Nevertheless the colors are more or less necessary to increase the sensation of the place.”

“Stacking Collectives” by Mark Heinrichs, University of Toronto

“The dearth of affordable in many contemporary city’s is an issue many urbanites are uncomfortably familiar with. The problem is ubiquitous, and solutions are similarly scarce. Possibly through implementing a novel development strategy, programmatic amalgamation and unorthodox site selection, a potential solution may emerge: a stacking of collectives. This drawing visually summarizes a theoretical typology that would combine communal living, collaborative design, and collective financing and allow for a number of distinct groups of individuals to occupy a single, co-owned mid-rise tower.

These groups (those present in this drawing ranging from frat-boys to a covenant of nuns) would be present from the beginning of the design process and would contribute both financially and aesthetically to their portion of the building. This would allow for flexible layouts depending on desired function and a greater sense of ownership over the resulting building. An urban mid-rise becomes a stacking of collectives.”

“Turnme” by Jono Yoo, The University of Auckland

“As Banham walks into the battlefield of car exchange, the Turnme market, he hears vigorous interactions between the motorists of Auckland sharing values over the automobiles.

A rusty 1970s Ford calls out his name, peaking at him amongst the chaos of battling, bidding, and negotiation between sellers and buyers. Drawn by the life story of the Ford, Banham purchases the dear loved car so that he can mend him back to health to put to good use.

First of all, the title, Turnme is a compound word of Turners and Trademe, the two most predominant second-hand car markets of New Zealand. The reason for this wordplay is to highlight the unexpected autonomy and free expression advocated in the interactions held during the trading of used cars which includes, the display of cars, negotiation, bidding and most importantly the exchange of sign-value…”

“Incarceration Alchemy” by Kathryn Cybulski, University of Waterloo

“The time an inmate spends at the facility is under their control, no matter the crime committed, but under one condition: they must reach the top of the structure.

In order to do so, there are 50 levels the inmate must unlock, each level containing an important skill that must be learned and mastered, a fun activity, or something needed for survival. At the bottom of the structure is a massive library that contains the knowledge needed to follow a path to the top.

The exploration of new ideas, a new mindset, a new perspective and the possibility of a new life is rooted in the imagination. This system keeps the mind and imagination of inmates engaged, as they are always working towards a goal. Inmates have to earn their release and in the process of doing so, are able to gain valuable life skills and rehabilitate themselves.”

“Mechanized habitable vertical farm for a COVID generation” by Ian Lai, University of Pennsylvania

“Everyone is working from home during the COVID pandemic. How is office space rethought to integrate with the housing typology and its integrated systems? Is sustainability inherently tied to conservative building schemes and forms?

This project addresses the growing need for buildings in Philadelphia to be repurposed and reused in spite of increasing unemployment and the crisis of housing shortage during the coronavirus. Despite the rising numbers of unemployment and people’s needs to spend money simply on rent, food and water.

The use of vertical space, access to views an sunlight should not only be reserved for the upper class but any low-income population as well. By taking and extruding a volume of 600sqft from the site FAR and twisting it to account for wind forces as well as sunlight in angles round the building and pixelating the facade to increase surface area for rainwater catchment, the resulting form is achieved.”

“Making of a Place” by Abin Chaudhuri, Abin Design Studio

Conceived to introduce a peri-urban context to the viewer, this illustration aims to convey a sense of scale, lifestyle and spatial demographic of Bengal’s countryside within which numerous projects of Abin Design Studio are situated.

Dominated by a Temple complex and dotted with small lakes and open fields, the graphic highlights the insertion of the studio’s works in the region that introduced an entire community to the impact of design and the ability of architecture to expand beyond its footprint.

The illustration was meticulously created using various software such as Sketchup, AutoCAD, Illustrator and Photoshop.”

“A CITY OF NOWHERE” by Haoyu Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“This drawing represents a notion of displacement in contemporary society by illustrating a fictional city that infinitely grows without a ground of belongingness.

While the world increasingly connects by technology, our lives and social existence are detaching from fixed places or communities. The pandemic of COVID-19 switches our work-live routines to virtual substitutes. On the other hand, social media raises the voices of migrants, refugees, and urban nomads on their identity crisis in constant resettling.

Can we translate displacements into architectural imagination? In A CITY OF NOWHERE, an infrastructural framework stretches three-dimensionally with interconnected mobility systems representing the force of technology. In contrast, the properties built upon the framework are independent of their neighbors in typology, culture, and social identity. This city nourishes a society where people enjoy optimized freedom of traveling and exploring while losing the materialized sense of home or community.”

“Smash Palace” by Jono Yoo, A12

“The next place that Banham visits is one that most cars of Autopia have been through, the Mechanical Theatre of Smash Palace; a place where his Ford finally transforms to become Banham’s unique counterpart. Banham trudges along the entrance, passing the oath stone of Mechanical Theatre stated by Karl Benz, that all Mechanics are devoutly tied by to clear their mind.

Inside, another scene unfolds. Mechanics at the surgical rooms diagnosing each car carefully, understanding that the car is an extension of the owner’s body, where above there is a showcase laid out for people to display and boast their modified car’s new look and performance.”

“Architecture without architects, a slum made out of stories” by Yennifer Johana Machado Londoño, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín

“It’s an everyday place in a nondescript slum in the outskirts of Medellín, but the longer you watch, the more you let yourself get unraveled in the stories that make the societal networks that, as if a tapestry, have been woven thread by thread by every humble Colombian family in the pursuit of a better life. It’s architecture without architects that, against violence and scarcity, stays on its feet as it hosts a community that makes its spaces their own and, little by little, rewrites its history. Its magic resides in the spontaneity, the ingenuity, the cooperation and the tight-knit urban relations that have been maintained and upheld even in the quarantine of 2020.”

“Unobtainable Cities” by Joanne Ho and Emily May

“Let’s face it: modes of production are being more efficient by the minute and we can’t stop it. We’ve developed 6-axis robotic arms that can 3-D print walls of a home. We’re surrounded by embedded smart sensors and intelligent systems that use our behavioral data to tell us what to conserve and when. Frankly, who isn’t speculating about the future of the infrastructure built by AI architects?

Through the use of Generative Adversarial Models (GAN), we have collected and trained over 500 images of architectural renderings and drawings. This drawing is a collage of images produced by the machine itself, and our personal stitching of an AI-built future entwined with nature.

“Unobtainable Cities” captures the atmosphere of the overwhelming enormity of a future where our lives are increasingly being designed for us, engulfing us in the thought of creating a superior intelligent entity, which ultimately writes our own fate.”

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life” by Tzu-Jung Huang, The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life is capable of generating over 1300 litres of water per day, tremendously ameliorating the inefficiency of water collection, as well as creating ever-changing landscape formed by the glistening, translucent waxed linen. Also, the spiral structure amplifies the abundance of religious and natural power in this area, providing a place beneath it for people to worship the blue sky and celebrate the harvest of water. The plaza space can be highly flexible, used for meeting, food preparation, mediation and festive activities and so forth.

The stone floor radiates out from the well with a series of bamboo columns, reinforcing the notion of community, enhancing the transition from sacredness to openness and re-integrating the stunning surroundings. Thus, going to the community centre becomes a delightful and spiritual journey which one can experience personal and social transformation and celebrate the importance of local traditions, communal gatherings and Mother Earth.”

“Perpetual Home” by Kate Korotayeva, Ryerson University

“In order to survive as a species, today, we have to stay at home. In the last few months, the limits of home became a battleground for our work selves, social selves, sexual selves, creative selves, and other ways we choose to manifest our humanity. This perspective of an imaginary and perpetually changing home emerges as a monstrous amalgamation of our hugely expanded bodies, technology, and built form.

The tumor-like forms encroach into the territory of the former clearly defined domesticities and transform the image of what was once a home into the image of a new programmatic anomaly – a place that does everything. After years of socially distanced existence, this home has illegitimately transformed itself into a monster, constantly changing to meet professional, sexual, aesthetic, creative, and other needs of its confined owner.”

“The Illusion of Boundary” by Maira Waqar, Khan Office of Design

“What is reality? What if we can manipulate all the existential data and create a new world or maybe a new dimension? One that focuses on generating experiences by using various architectural elements as a means of informing space.

They exist in numerous forms in buildings where their use may be superficial or functional. However, they have astronomical potential to dominate space and make their presence felt. The architecture, like a well written chronicle stands in all its glory. The romance among the abstract structures, the chemistry can only be discovered by experience.

Welcome to a mixed reality space where it navigates between the physical and virtual realms. While the physical exists as a ground condition, the virtual constructs enclosures and thresholds that are at both permanent and ephemeral.

They collide and transcend the boundaries of the real world, elevating it into a new reality. New possibilities with no horizons.”

The Melting Archive by Thomas Riddell-Webster, University of Westminster

“Based on sensitive speculation, this drawing proposes a temporary architecture to soften Hanoi city, amid a rapidly developing urban context. Hanoi’s 1000 year old tradition of kite flying provides a vehicle for the creation of temporary spaces that will facilitate Hanoi’s street culture, a culture that relies on permeability to provoke spontaneous interaction.

This drawing questions the path of Hanoi’s development towards a western city and proposes an alternative technology, in reference to Hanoi’s past, that provides the tools for the organic social reconstruction of the present and the future.

Pectin, Cellulose and Chitosan, extracted from kite production, combine to form bio-polymer building components that contribute to temporary spaces, designed to melt back into earth’s ecosystem after several years. Unlike architecture as we know it, each decay provides the opportunity for redesign thereby allowing a sustainable and affordable infrastructure to evolve across the city, in harmony with contemporary social requirements.”

“The Duckpit” by Jakob Jakubowski, Academy of fine Arts Vienna

“The Duckpit project is a critical interface for a collaborative reaction on a borderline of virtual and “real”, an architectural speculative device for re[dis]covering economical and social glitches in political propaganda. An old ruin in the alternative Sava-Mala district was scanned and so digitally preserved before it’s demolition for the Belgrade Waterfront development, a giant ambiguous housing and commerce implant to the heart of the city.

Through a fictional transformation of this ruin into a digital-underground art gallery, people are asked to use their voice (click) for a new kind of protest against the capitalist savage sign, Belgrade Waterfront. With the help of an elucidated website this project becomes a digital art installation itself, the subject of a parasite-sabotage from within a structure is introduced and growing with every voice to a governing manipulating virus, which transforms the construction site and so gives the city back to its habitants.”

“A Tribute to My Grandmother : Her Real Battles with Dementia” by Ker Xin Lee, Loughborough University

“This drawing is my architectural interpretation of my grandmother’s daily struggles with dementia. As a young girl growing up with her, I witnessed how her dementia progressed as she aged. The drawing illustrates her journey with dementia and encapsulates a glimpse of her confusing memories.

It depicts her vivid childhood memories of China as a young girl before she fled, her struggles to find her way home when she got lost in our neighborhood, her hallucinations and delusions, and finally, her last few weeks in the hospital due to failure in parts of her brain, inhibiting her feelings of hunger or thirst.

Dementia causes the brain to deteriorate and can be disorientating to the patient. I wish to raise awareness about Dementia and hope to someday be able to design purpose built architecture, which helps slow the deterioration process and improve the quality of life for those with dementia.”

“The Unity Center” by Joana Benin, Ryerson University

“In a future communist society, humans must be taught how to interact with one another in a world that fosters equality and stability. To avoid conflict and live peacefully, the Unity Center is youth’s first exposure to volatile emotion and social interaction. The center aims to provide spaces where youth can experience different types of emotion within a safe environment to build an emotional tolerance to conflict and distress.

The movement through the building is a ride that conforms to the idea that the physical nature of the Unity Center no longer needs to be restricted by traditional design standards, allowing for molding of the architecture purely for user experience. The structure is a membrane that shapes according to the youth’s emotional capacity, becoming ’a womb;’ from which a new understanding of emotion emerges. The four main spaces exhibit the most commonly encountered emotions: frustration, fear, melancholy and joy.”

“VIRTUAL | REALITY” by Giangtien Nguyen, Afreen Ali, Aziz Alshayeb and Erik H Kusakariba, INVI LLC

“When our streets became empty and we are isolated in our own homes, humans will feel the need to connect through our digital infrastructure. As our reality becomes more physically unconnected, while our virtual city strengthens in connectivity, it creates a juxtaposition visually between our crowded virtual city and our empty reality.”

“Hemp Tech Garden” by Umar Mahmood, University of Pennsylvania

“The drawing is a top view of a new market designed in Callowhill district of Philadelphia. The market provides facilities of Hemp products. It is designed by building, carving and rebuilding reliefs from defamiliarized neighborhood artifacts. The market is serving the city with sustainable, environmentally friendly and ethical products. It carves its identity in the city as the density of ubiquitous elements while having unique courtyards of rare figures.

The market has five quadrants, each has a mat density of crisscross Cartesian elements which break their own limits and intersect with elements in adjacent quadrant. The main difference between each quadrant are the unique figural artifacts. Functionally, the market operates on four sections. The retail space, industrial section, harvesting area and public gardens. Each program operates on different level. The market has an industrial and synthetic programmatic interaction with the city. Moreover, it inhabits nature by providing urban farming platform.”

“Phantasmagoria: A Cautionary Tale” by Rawan AlWazna, School of The Art Institute of Chicago

“As the world pauses at this moment in time amid a pandemic that, more than ever, has been exposing various aspects of deception, image-making and defactualization in existing structures and systems of powers, we confront ideas about our built environment; a manifestation of the habitat or the inhabitant? The structure or the institution?

Phantasmagoria is a meditation on such struggle, fear and censorship in storytelling, an invitation to extend our perception beyond the physical appearance, and ultimately, a statement about the right to narrate our own stories.

Structures transform into active protagonists in this rig-like city which disguises gruesome truths through its festive facade. The “All-seeing-eye Tower” stands tall, higher than everything else, making sure other characters like the “Injustice Police”, a character of arbitrary detention, and the “Instant Oases”, a character of constant displacement, do their job well. These carnivalesque machines are the characters that make up this city.”

“after work” by Yoonsoo Kim and Christoph Schmollinger, TU München

“Many people predict that in the future automated systems will replace our work. There will be countless unemployed people, who will receive universal basic income(UBI). Then, where should we go and what can we do?

Hannah Arendt classified human behavior into three different categories. “labour” is obligatory behavior for survive, “work” is useful behavior for production. Through “Action”, we can express our identity. And “action” cannot be replaced by automated systems.

The underground space in this drawing is a space for “action”. The more you go down, the more powerful, social and communal action takes place. Hannah Arendt subdivided the action into three further. Accordingly, we structured the underground dome-shaped space. In the space of “Willing” at the top, individual actions are drawn, in the space of “Judgement” at the bottom, collective actions are drawn, and in the space of “Thinking” at the middle, the process between them is drawn.”

“Archicov19” by Angela Ruiz Plaza, Polytechnic University

“The new Archicov-19 system is invading the world. It can solidify sand, or float amid clouds, parasite old cities or dive into the sea. It is a living organism made out of fungi, bacteria and nature, in symbiosis and behaving like an ecosystem. Earth can finally breathe, and we live happy and healthy in its bubbles.

When it grows in the desert it uses Bacillus Pasteurii bacteria to solidify sand so it is an artificial oasis in the dunes. When in the sea it makes shell structures with microalgae diatoms, and using the oxygen it produces. When it floats, it uses Helio in the bubbles of the architectural skin. When it parasites an old city, it uses garbage to grow, recycling materials. Life has changed so much since 2020, and now we live in peace, in this bioarchitecture, living according to our soul, in ecological balance with the whole nature.”

“Pinnacle at White Hill” by Philip O’Brien, Johnson Roberts Associates Inc

“‘Pinnacle at White Hill’ illustrates a self-contained, covered city at time when the Earth’s atmosphere has been degraded to the point that life in the natural environment is no longer sustainable. The caramel sky and red-brown earth visible beyond the protective film of the city cover tells the story of an environmental disaster out of control.

The central portion of the city is free from vertical supports with the exception of the Pinnacle. The Pinnacle is at once the center support for the dome’s superstructure, the focal point of the city, and the seat of city governance and management. Planning and zoning is evident in the layout of the public ways, parks, artificial waterways, and building limits. Green space dominates the city and is used as the organizing principal in the layout of White Hill, where recycling and reuse — including air, food and water — is required to survive.”

“Redwood” by Gregory Klosowski, Pappageorge Haymes Partners

Dubbed “Redwood”, this series of sketches are pure architectural escapism, testing exceedingly optimistic visions of possible futures, assuming the resolution of base societal issues through exotic approaches (limitless fusion energy, asteroid harvesting for raw materials, robotic assembly techniques). Intentionally fantastical, the intent is to spark imaginative thinking outside of practical constraints of current structural technologies.

In this iteration, towering structures drop into place, akin to redwoods falling in a forest, allowing new structures to shoot upward from the carcass, pulling cabling and piping upward, forming swaths of elevated fields, suspended transit systems stringing between the towering forms, and an endless array of habitats, blurring construction and organics.

While arguably irresponsible to brush aside big problems, its worth exploring, given decades of apocalyptic visions are have not proven persuasive. Taking an alternate approach, encouraging and positive visions might better spark the imagination and inspire consideration for wider timescales and broader solutions.

“Apartment #5, a Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial Memories” by Clement Laurencio

“In this frightening period of the pandemic, travel has become unsafe and restricted. The future bears uncertainty, if and when we may travel to experience new places, and re-visit places of our past. Places which once drew people are now “indefinitely” and “temporarily closed”, with no certain opening date. We are isolated in our homes…left with our memories of those faraway places. Locked in our dwellings, we long to be able to escape to a past before the lockdown, to places far away from here.

Residing in London, the dwelling curates spatial experiences from a recent voyage to India. Set both in real space and imaginary space, the project seeks to re-create those atmospheres and spatial conditions of the places remembered through memories.

The memories are rekindled, by manipulating scale, forced perspective and atmospheric phenomena of the places. However, they may become embellished, corrupted, re-imagined; a labyrinth of memories…”

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generouslynervousdinosaur-blog · 8 years ago

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Wonder Games Confirms VR Goals

What You Must Do To Learn About marvel contest of champions Before You are Put Aside

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marketstreat · 8 years ago

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Threads of Traditions – Crewel Embroidery

I love Embroidery! Whether it is my grandmother’s hand embroidered pillow which I used for many years or my mom’s various cross stiched wall decor….I have treasured them all. I have always been fascinated by the subtlety conveyed in these pieces. A lightness of stitch combined with exemplary technical technique creates a truly unique vision. Crewel is one such special kind of embroidery done with a hook commonly used for drapery and upholstery. In this embroidery, rows of chain stitches are done with hook from solid patterns, usually rotating from centre. As a result of it an embossed effect is created which adds richness to the textile.

Crewel embroidery usually carries floral and creeper designs. The designs are available in assortment of colours ranging from a single colour to multi colour embroidery. Its price of course varies according to the amount of embroidery done on the material.

Also known as wool embroidery, Crewel has been around for centuries. The word crewel in fact is derived from an old Welsh term meaning wool. The word referred to the wool yarn used for stitching and not the style of embroidery. Traditionally, heavy wools were used for this type of embroidery. Today we can choose from a wide variety of yarns and threads to get the desired effect.

Crewel is one of the most difficult stitchery technique to master universally, aand is considered ideal for pillows, curtains, clothing, and wall hangings. The use of tightly-woven fabrics enables stitchers to create an infinite variety of shapes. There are a great number of stitches which is employed in crewel embroidery. These stitches add texture and depth to the finished piece.

The History of Crewel Embroidery

It is difficult to narrow down the origins of crewel to a specific region. Fragments have been found in North Mongolia showing a face of a nomad warrior, dating back to 1st century BC. There are biblical references of similar embroidery on curtains, altar clothes, and other hangings. These were embellished with wool embroidery that decorated Jewish tabernacles. Crewel was popular in England from 400 AD to 1400 AD. To sum up it seems wool embroidery has been around for centuries. However, the word crewel or cruell referred to the wool yarn and not the style of embroidery.

It wasn’t until the reign of James I, the first quarter of the 17th Century, that much of the exotic designs we know today were created and refined. Some evidence shows this was caused by the increase in trade between East India company of India and England.

The Art Of Creating Crewel Embroidery

The crewel embroidery is similar to stain stitch which is done in the embossed pattern in mostly floral designs. White coloured fabric is used traditionally for this embroidery. The fabric is first washed and ironed to get an even surface on the fabric and also to avoid any shrinkage in future. The design for embroidery needs to be printed on the fabric before starting any needle work. The design is screen printed on the fabric and many other stencil printing techniques are also developed. The temporary printing on the fabric can also be done with a pricking method where the dotted outline is formed by pricking through the design printed on the paper. Once the design is fixed, the crewel embroidery is carried out from centre to the outline to form velvet like finish. A special needle is used for crewel embroidery.

Most of these chain stitch tasks are carried out with the help of hook which is also known as “ari”. The frame or hoop is the prime requirement for this kind of embroidery as it tightens the fabric. This embroidery requires the use of both hands and hence a large rectangular frame is used for large piece of work.

Kashmiri Crewel Embroidery

Crewel or hook embroidery locally known as Zalakadozi, is one of the specialized form of embroidery practiced in Kashmir. Several articles are made using this embroidery. The base cloth is same for these items and that determines what the product will be used for and what manner of decoration will be done. The design range from Persian to French , from Chinar leaf(Chinar is an important tree in the valley and its leaf is amply used for embroidery), to Shikargarh(Hunting Scenes)etc. The base color of the fabric is generally cream or white or similar pastel shades. The design are traced into the fabric by the professional and then embroider works with the hook needle.The design appear as a chain stitch on the surface.

Kashmir embroidery and shawls are well known for the beauty of colour, texture and design. The wool embroidery of Kashmir is universally famous especially the shawls and woolen garments.

I have immense admiration for the beauty of “Tradition Textiles’ intricately embroidered crewel furnishings. I think of the many hands of expertise that are involved in the creation of those products as well as the legacy of the embroidery itself. I hope by sharing my knowledge of this experience with the customers that we can be more aware of the artisan community.

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