#wise women

[lesbianlenses]

Elder women of Okinawa.

"In Okinawa, and in other places where people live to great age, scientists have remarked again and again on the way the oldest relate to those around them. They have strong social networks that persist over vast swaths of time.  

Traditionally, Okinawans are members of groups of five or so, called “moai,” who support each other from childhood on. As adults, they might meet weekly for drinks and a chat. If one member faces a disaster, financial, emotional, or otherwise, the others pitch in. The moai are a remnant of a time when insurance was unknown in the islands and villagers formed groups for mutual aid. One moai, with an average age of 102, had been meeting regularly for 97 years when author Dan Buettner met them. “If one of them does not show up,” he and a colleague wrote, “the other 4 put on their kimonos to walk across the village to check on their friend.” " Veronique Greenwood

[necarion]

One "future of Wheel of Time" fan theory I have is that within a century or two, all prospective Amyrlins will have gone through the complete training to become full Aes Sedai, Aiel Wise One, and Seafolk Windfinder.

And I wonder if there's a "hard mode" and an "easy mode" for this. All three of the groups teach a certain amount of excessive pride, but also teach a sense of self-understanding and self-control. On the negative side:

The Aes Sedai have a great (and, turns out, somewhat misplaced) sense of superiority and aloofness. The prohibition on lying is both a source of practice, but also profound limitation. While the other two organizations punish caught deceit in apprentices, they are not above flat-out lying to get their way. Their book-learning makes them believe they are of-the-world, and their sense of tradition leads to them faceplanting again and again.

The Windfinders have an arrogance and pride that may actually exceed that of the Aes Sedai. While not as manipulative (and cruel) as their ship-mistresses, they can be quite brutal, enough so that multiple apprentices tried to escape them. They were entirely willing to cast out their own in order to hide their own channeling.

The Aiel are judgmental beyond both other groups. Less than almost anyone else did the Aiel adapt to accepting other ways of doing things. Jie'e'toh is the only way, and while it has benefits, it is profoundly inflexible and limiting.

On the positives:

The Aes Sedai education is second-to-none in the world, and queens send their children to learn at the White Tower. They hoard knowledge, yes, but they also greatly prize it. They train their students as diplomats and scholars, and truly value international relations and diplomacy. They formed under a mission of keeping the world safe from the male channelers, and they have largely succeeded. The sisters took a long time to adapt to change on the scale of the series. But it should be remembered that the entire series takes place in under three years, and in that time, we have seen them completely alter their relationship to men who can channel, bonding some as warders and becoming warders to some. Their members have apprenticed to the Wise Ones and earned their approval. They have been servile to the Seafolk and to the Dragon Reborn, forsaking their pledges to the Tower in favor of truly serving the world. When no longer hampered by the Black Ajah, they will rise to be a profound force for growth and change in the world.

The Aiel have an iron-hard conviction in themselves and in the world. They have taken on apprentices from the White Tower and turned foolish Sisters into Aes Sedai who will make the world tremble. But they added to this teaching. While isolated they developed channeling techniques thought impossible before the breaking, and they have learned with astounding alacrity. In under three years, they have grown from an isolated, feuding culture into a united, international organization that is equal to the White Tower. Their skills with dreaming rivaled even the Forsaken and their thousand-year tradition and study. They have further to go to learn flexibility and humility (their key test is to see apprentices abandon prideful humility, after all), but they have already come out of a near-complete shattering of their civilization greater and wiser than before. I have no doubt that they'll achieve far greater things.

The Seafolk Windfinders have had less chance to show their adaptability to the changed world. But their entire social system is built around rising and falling and rising again. Before the series began, few Aes Sedai had ever fallen to the bottom and risen again, but that is something nearly no Windfinder will have avoided. We saw that the Windfinder culture is itself far more flexible when separated from the Mistresses of the Ships. They have an ability to negotiate second-to-none, and yet they've also shown, on multiple occasions, the flexibility to do what is necessary without payment. It is unknown what they'll do when the Age of Sail ends within two centuries, but they will certainly find it, and will be among those who lead in the world outside the structures of their own ruling class.

So with all of that, which way would be the hardest to work through?

[haggishlyhagging]

The original "medicine men" in history were actually women. Briffault writes on this subject, "The connection of women with the cultivation of the soil and the search for edible vegetables and roots made them specialists in botanical knowledge, which, among primitive peoples, is extraordinarily extensive. They became acquainted with the properties of herbs, and were thus the first doctors." He adds:

The word "medicine" is derived from a root meaning "knowledge" or "wisdom" - the wisdom of the 'wise woman." The name of Medea, the medical herbalist witch, comes from the same root.... "The secret of the witch," said an Ogowe native, "is knowing the plants that produce certain effects, and knowing how to compound and use the plants in order to bring about the desired result; and this is the sum and essence of witchcraft." In the Congo it is noted that woman doctors specialise in the use of drugs and herbal pharmacy. In Ashanti the medicine women are "generally preferred for medical aid, as they possess a thorough knowledge of barks and herbs." In East Africa "there are as many women physicians as men." (The Mothers, vol. I, p. 486)

Dan McKenzie, in The Infancy of Medicine (1927), lists hundreds of ancient remedies, some of which are still in use without alteration, while others have been only slightly improved upon. Among these are substances used for their narcotic properties. A fleeting review indicates the astounding scope of these medicinal products. Useful properties were developed from acacia, alcohol, almond, asafetida, balsam, betel, caffeine, camphor, caraway, chaulmoogra oil (a leprosy remedy), digitalis, gum barley water, lavender, linseed, parsley, pepper, pine tar, pomegranate, poppy, rhubarb, senega, sugar, turpentine, wormwood, and hundreds more. These came from regions all over the globe-South America, North America, Africa, China, Europe, Egypt, etc. Not only vegetable but animal substances were made into remedies; snake venom, for example, was converted into a serum to be used for snake bites, the equivalent of today's antivenin.

According to Marston Bates, very little had been added to this remarkable ancient collection of medicine, until the discoveries of sulfa and antibiotics. "How primitive man discovered the ways of extracting, preparing and using all of these drugs, poisons and foods, remains one of the great mysteries of human prehistory," he writes (The Forest and the Sea, p. 126). But it is not so mysterious when we look in the direction of the female sex and become acquainted with the hard work, vast experience, and nimble wits of primitive womankind, preoccupied with every aspect of group survival.

Not only medicine but the rudiments of various other sciences grew up side by side with the craft and know-how of women. Childe points out that to convert flour into bread requires a knowledge of biochemistry and the use of the yeast microorganism. This substance also led to the production of fermented liquors and beer. Childe also gives credit to women for "the chemistry of potmaking, the physics of spinning, the mechanies of the loom, and the botany of flax and cotton" (What Happened in History, p. 59).

-Evelyn Reed, Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family

[momacist]

On your left... I'll be on your fucking left.

[j-august]

If magical acts are ineffective rituals employed as an alternative to sheer helplessness in the face of events, then how are we to classify the status of 'scientific' remedies, in which we place faith, but which are subsequently exposed as useless? This was the fate of Galenic medicine, which in the sixteenth century was the main rival to folk-healing. But it will also be that of much of the medicine of today. Sociologists have observed that contemporary doctors and surgeons engage in many ritual practices of a non-operative kind. Modern medicine shares an optimistic bias with the charmers and wise women and it has similar means of explaining away any failure. In many other spheres of modern life we also put our trust in activities designed to 'work' (for example, in diplomatic conferences as a means of avoiding war), when all the evidence, if we wished to consider it, suggests that they do not.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

[siamkram]

Let us keep in mind that the best cannot and must not hide. Meditation, education, all the dream analysis, all the knowledge of God's green acre is of no value if one keeps it all to oneself or one's chosen few. So come out, come out wherever you are. Leave deep footprints because you can. Be the old woman in the rocking chair who rocks the idea until it becomes young again. Be the courageous and patient woman in "The Crescent Moon Bear" who learns to see through illusion. Don't be distracted by burning matches and fantasies like the Little Match Girl.

Hold out till you find the ones you belong to like the Ugly Duckling. Clear the creative river so La Llorona can find what belongs to her. Like the Handless Maiden, let the enduring heart lead you through the forest. Like La Loba, collect the bones of lost Valuables and sing them back to life. Forgive as much as you can, forget a little, and create a lot. What you do today influences your matrilineal lines in the future. The daughters of your daughters of Your daughters are likely to remember you, and most importantly, follow in your tracks.

-Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves

[scripture-pictures]

[the-myrna-loy-blog]

Happy Birthday Dear Myrna!

BOTD - 2 August 1905

“I’m a Democrat. I don’t know what I am anymore! I’m a radical. As I get older I get more radical.”

—

Myrna Loy at age 67

______________________

[rosielindy]

A few times in my life I’ve been able to look back over several years of activity and decision points that seemed meaningless at the time, then suddenly culminate into a major shift. 

This week is one of those times. Still processing and waiting to see what’s next. So many intersectional points, all of it exactly what I’ve said I want for 10+ years.

At a stage of life when some folks are thinking about retirement, I’m channeling my inner RBG, taking it to the next level. I’m an old soul and a late bloomer.

[magdalene-spirit]

Series Part 2/3

————————————————

What is the organising principle that you regulate yourself by?

Is it the man-made laws/rules given to you by a false paradigm?

Or do you govern yourself, how you feel and how you act in the world according to the inherent natural laws that ever-permeate time and space? The laws of the one ancient Mother?

These laws or forces are personified as the virtues or muses or goddesses— one could say fundamental essences or Shakti’s or forces that flow underneath everything.

The 𝓦𝓲𝓽𝓬𝓱 is the one who knows these names of the spirits of Mother that operate and uphold things that are to happen in the world.

Tune in to presence and vibration of the ever-present forces that flow through events and things.

Shift your centre from the false to the true—

And you will step into YOU, living your Divine driven Will/purpose for your life within time.

And you will feel real and substantial, taking your space as existence here and now.

And looking onto the world you will have returned to your 𝓦𝓲𝓽𝓬𝓱 capacity to 𝓚𝓷𝓸𝔀 things, to commune with the forces, the trees, the clouds and the stones around you.

When you know your own presence/essence/beingness you will know it in the other in a sacred union of the moment of your contact, your touching of the world you and the other become one.

#witch #wisewomen #mothernature #matriarchy #shakti #presence #magic

[anglerflsh]

the brightest student of the Magic Academy

[portiascottgriffith]

sometimes a girl is actually a bunch of girls. and thats ok. all of her is awesome. shes multiple girls. a wom&n, if you will

this post is about being a system (but i dont mind if you reblog it about something else). also its inclusive of all system origins

[vos0q]

Dominique de Sade 🥀

[mcbride]

#reasons are everywhere [insp. by DawnGlen] DARYL DIXON - THE BOOK OF CAROL 1.01 L'ame Perdue // 2.04 Le Paradis Pour Toi

[blackkcandyy]

[got-brainrot]

when i watched HotD (with no knowledge of the book) i was like, ok this is a bit cringey they’re obviously trying to make a pro women narrative and it’s turning out a bit cringe but whatever; and the more i learn abt the actual book the more i’m like, not whatever actually! why is this shit so cringe when you could’ve had much more powerful womens stories if u just stuck to the fucking book plot lines. in trying to make a “feminist retelling” they have just, stripped? most of the female character of most of their personalities??? I can see where they’re coming from w certain ideas, like having Helaena chose her daughter over her son could work in certain stories, but learning abt the book and how important Maelor was to that story it’s just, weird af that they did that? it feels LESS feminist to take away a huge part of Helaena’s story for this like middle school level lesson that daughters r infact just as important as their princely brothers and u probably shouldn’t sacrifice them to kidnappers, like thanks i think we all knew that actually,,,

tired of men trying to make feminist movies with their 3rd grade level understanding of feminism