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Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

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@bee-friend​

Also i dont know if you guys have ever seen medieval beekeeper garb, but:

Its the best!!!

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your fingers, hand them over

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That Chant Isn’t Gregorian

Alright, I’m gonna music nerd on you for a second because I have a lot of feelings on this. I was listening to some chant while I was washing dishes, and a couple of the songs on my playlist were titled “gregorian”. I’m going to tell you why that’s wrong and what Gregorian actually *is*. I’m also going to flex on those trad-types that don’t know this, because I’m sick of people pointing to obviously-not-gregorian chant to be Gregorian. Please note, I don’t have sources on here directly because this is what I learned in both my high school and college music theory/music history classes.

A lot of people think any chant in a romantic language is Gregorian. Which is…. alright there is a lot wrong with that idea. For one, that’s very westernized thinking. Sure, the Gregorian style was penned in Europe, but a LOT of chant was made in German. Like, a lot. The Germans were music FIENDS up until relatively recently (like, half of the composers I know of that are one of the greats are German or Austrio-Hungarian).

What Gregorian Chant Isn’t:

What Gregorian Chant IS:

I can’t embed any more videos into the post, so from here on out it will be links to other songs.

Now, I know if you haven’t studied music, or been trained in singing, you probably can’t tell the immediate difference between some of these. Which is totally fine! I understand completely. So we will take the most easily comparable ones from each group, that is the Miserere mei, Deus and the Tantum Ergo.

Now, all three of the ones that are in the “not Gregorian” category are purposefully trying to sound like Gregorian chant. And Song of Kings comes very close, but definitely only captures the spirit of what we think Gregorian sounded like nowadays.

The Miserere does have some Gregorian themes, in which they have a melodic line above pedal notes (notes that do not change and are part of a chord). But for the most part, every line is mostly moving at/near the same time to different notes in the different chords. Gregorian chant is characterized by being monotone, having only one voice(s) do the melody the entire time, and any other voices matching the pitch perfectly or else doing pedal tones in one or two chords the entire time. It does not allow for men and women to sing together (generally speaking), because the notes that are sung have to be the exact same across everyone singing. That means a tenor and a bass cannot sing together, unless the bass is just doing pedal tones, or the bass can sing high enough to sing the melody. It requires every member of the body that is singing to be able to sing the exact notes that are in the melody. If the highest note in the chant is an A4, and one of them cannot sing it, they cannot just go to an A3 (the octave lower). If you can’t tell by just watching the video (if you don’t know music), there are several lines going on, and the singers are largely moving at different times and singing different melodies, though all within the same chords of each other. I’m not going to go into it, but this is called 4-part harmony, where each “voice” has a different line. It looks like this:

Now, if we take the Tantum Ergo, you can see there is just one line of notes the entire time (though it looks different because they wrote music down a little differently prior to the 1600s). There is also only one voice doing the singing, rather than multiple, but even if there was multiple, it is just one line of music, rather than the four that you see above. This is where the Veni Creator Spiritus is a better example, since you can hear there are multiple people singing, despite them all singing the same thing.

Now this brings me Mass parts. The part that the priest sings, absolutely Gregorian, even if he is doing it in English, because Gregorian is not characterized by language, there is only one melodic line, and there is no instruments. (Did I mention that Gregorian chant predates the organ? And the organ was initially not allowed in churches because it wasn’t using the human voice?) But the parts that are normally “chanted” by the congregation? That was not, and still often is not, Gregorian.

Gregorian was the default for Mass because it was considered more reverent. When Baroque, Classical, and even sometimes Romantic composers looked at chant, they saw that it was lacking, and added instruments (even creating the organ to use in a church since harpsichords were dissallowed). And actually made is musical. But that doesn’t make it Gregorian just because it is chant and is in Latin.

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Also, mystical experiences need to be put to a test and confirmed by the Church before they can be considered valid.

Why? Because there have been cases of

a) the person claiming mystical experience was outright lying

b) it was a mystical experience but it was actually demonic

So one thing I’ve noticed about pro-homosexuality Christian posts and arguments is that the passages referring to homosexuality as a sin don’t really mean what we read.  They argue that in places like Leviticus, it’s supposed to mean two men aren’t supposed to sleep in a woman’s bed, or that the word we translate to homosexuality that Paul uses doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means.

I know there are arguments against this.  I know this isn’t much more than clutching at straws.  However, pointing out the passages where homosexuality is a sin is only half the argument.

Every time advice is given for a godly marriage, it’s given to wives and husbands.  Consider Corinthians and Ephesians.  “A wife must not separate from her husband.  A husband must not divorce his wife.  Wives submit to your husbands.  Husbands, love your wives.  This idea is reiterated in 1 Peter.  The marriage advice given out leaves little room for any other kind of marriage beyond one man and one woman.  If homosexual relationships were accepted by the new church as some have suggested, wouldn’t it stand to reason that Paul and Peter would have worded their letters so that such relationships are included?  Instead, it’s rather exclusive.

Furthermore, the relationship between Christ and the Church is described as a marriage.  Christ is the groom and the Church is a bride.  What would the point of this analogy be if all kinds of marriages are recognized and accepted by God?  Wouldn’t it have been better to say that the relationship was like a marriage and leave it at that?  Because within even a cultural standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be room to show acceptance for another kind of marriage.  It’s exclusionary from the start.  And Christianity was radical from the beginning; they did many counter-cultural things.  Accepting a homosexual marriage if it was really God’s plan would not have been an issue for them.  Instead, when marriage is talked about it, whether by advice or analogy, it is a heterosexual and a heterosexual marriage only.

Not only does the Bible state homosexuality a sin, but when talking about marriage, it excludes any other possibility.

In the end, however, the issue goes much deeper than this.  The deeper seated issue is one of pride.  I haven’t experienced same sex attraction nor will I pretend that I have.  I do know, however, what it’s like to struggle with pride.  It’s the pride that makes people throw doubt on what passages really mean in the Bible.  It’s pride that says to stubbornly stick to a sin and feel attacked when the sin isn’t accepted as okay.  It’s pride that refuses to even bring the problem to God and instead insist that it’s okay.  It’s pride that doesn’t want to admit wrong.  It’s all pride.  And to let go of the defensiveness surrounding making homosexuality would require one to lay down their pride.  From experience, letting go of pride is extremely difficult.  But God makes it possible.

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Crack AU where Anakin can all of a sudden hear the background music that we all hear. Those pleasant chats with Palpy become a lot more ominous. Though Anakin admits that the fights have become a lot more epic. Thoughts?

Hahahahaha. Love it!

And okay, my first though was “and the galaxy was saved because even Anakin Skywalker would struggle to keep trusting Palpatine with that music playing in the background”

Anakin think he’s gone COMPLETELY insane (maybe he’s finally been electrocuted too many times and its fried his brain). He doesn’t tell anyone though because he can still fight just fine just… everything is a lot more musical. He doesn’t want to be thought crazy and taken off the front lines.

Once he figures out what the various musical cues mean he actually finds them useful in figuring out how dangerous a situation is. Also battles are so much cooler now and boring landscapes are slightly less boring because at least now they have mood music. Yep, he can live with this.

(Although he is always confused why the ominousness that is The Imperial March starts playing at some of his decisions)

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if you see someone being interrupted in a conversation, acknowledge them, don’t let them be pushed to the side. if you see someone lagging behind, walk beside them. if someone is being ignored, take the step to include them. always remind people of their worth. it hurts when it feels like you’re being forgotten. that small gesture can mean a lot.

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Just wrap me in your arms, in your arms

I don't wanna be nowhere else

Take me from the dark, from the dark

I ain't gonna make it myself

Put your arms around me

Let your love surround me

I am lost

If I ain't got you here

If I ain't got you, I ain't got nothing at all

Listen to the song here

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I don’t think a lot of people really understand that ecosystems in North America were purposefully maintained and altered by Native people.

Like, we used to purposefully set fires in order to clear underbrush in forests, and to inhibit the growth of trees on the prairies. This land hasn’t existed in some primeval state for thousands of years. What Europeans saw when they came here was the result of -work-

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Dear Women Who Have Had an Abortion,

You are not evil.

You are not a monster.

You are not a horrible person.

You might be in pain.

You might feel sad.

You might regret what you have done.

But you are human.

You are forgiven.

You are loved.

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Christianity does not support witchcraft/spellcasting/divination/what have you. It goes against God. It’s not a “different way to worship” or harmless; it is a sin that opens you up to ungodly forces. It is terrifying how many believe this is ok and I was one of those people. I have felt the darkness from just being around practitioners. It’s scary. Please don’t go down that route, please don’t “dabble”; it is scary. And please respect God and not use His word or anything associated with Christianity to “practice”.

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Oh how I yearn for a simpler time, when a young man would simply give his paramour an intricately crafted wooden spoon to show his affection and ability to provide for their future family, especially if they ever ran out of spoons

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Yaoyao Ma Van As on Instagram

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got this lovely character yesterday and just had to draw them!