winged-thinged

[winged-thinged]

also if you've had a near death experience, feel free to add to this post about how that changed or reaffirmed your relationship with death!

[winged-thinged]

[winged-thinged]

I can be shaped by more than the things that hurt me

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THE WORLD IS ENDING by judas h.

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GOD'S NOT BREAD

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I can’t believe I live in a world where Donald Trump is running for president of the United States

[winged-thinged]

God isn't asleep; i cut its growling throat in the midst of its lumbering slumber. no the guards haven't yet noticed; morrow's dawn and howling trumpets are not scheduled for another 7 millennia. so come back to bed babe?

[winged-thinged]

Anti-Lent Challenge 4

If you choose to accept it (there are no consequences for declining to participate or for missing a day):

Be embodied.

This week, do something that makes you feel good in your body. If you're into sex, this might look like a solo or a partnered or a group sexual activity, and if not, this might look like a hug from a friend, an invigorating yoga session, or a gentle walk in the park. You also might try connecting with a local queer community, pursuing reproductive health care, or educating yourself on sexual health. Or just wrap yourself in a soft blanket and take a nap.

Spend some time asking yourself what the soft animal of your body needs right now, then do your best to meet that need, whatever it is.

[winged-thinged]

[winged-thinged]

What is your opinion on horoscopes?

Well, they're made up. It's fun to imagine that the position of the stars could somehow influence life on Earth, but I have yet to find a compelling reason to believe in it, other than that it would be cool if it were true. Countless studies have shown that horoscopes do no better than chance at actually coming up with accurate predictions. If they appear to be accurate from time to time, it seems like it's probably a mix of overly general or vague predictions, people consciously or subconsciously looking for patterns and connections, and the tendency to focus on the hits (or to stretch things to fit) while disregarding the misses. And it seems kind of silly and self-centered, when you think about it, to imagine that all these stars, spread out over lightyears and lightyears and lightyears of three-dimensional spacetime, all assembled themselves just so that they could line up at precisely the right angle when viewed from one tiny sliver of the cosmos so as to reflect the lives of the inhabitants of one little blue-green marble.

If I were writing a fantasy novel, I could probably come up with a mechanism to make that happen—I could probably come up with a bunch of different mechanisms, in fact—but I would just be making stuff up. It's more interesting to me to try and find out how the stars actually got to be where they are, because the real answer is mind-boggling HUGE and ancient and awe-inspiring and sublime—and it's REAL! All of those stars, that dust and gravity—it all really exists out there and we can touch just a sliver of it, through tools that seem as arcane to me as anything astrology has in its pockets. If you want a taste, I really like the youtube channel Astrum. And watching NOVA specials on PBS.

Like with many made up things, I think it's probably fine in most cases to play around with horoscopes for fun, but a bad idea to make any major life decisions based off of them. That said, I try to avoid telling people my star sign, because I do not care for it when people make unfounded assumptions about me.

My life has been shaped by the choices I've made, and by my circumstances, and by the choices of the people around me. And I get to decide what to do with it. I am myself, not a puppet or a plaything or the reflection of any star.

[winged-thinged]

actually how could you be expected to be some kind of gentle dove with no anger or boundaries that gives grace 100% of the time and has no needs of its own . it's almost as if that expectation is actually convincing you to allow yourself to be hurt and not stand up for yourself when mistreated. rage does not make you bad or unkind and you're not a manipulator for having emotions

[winged-thinged]

Man, it sucks how when the people who you spent all your formative years around were giant assholes, you just kinda end up going through life expecting everybody else to be giant assholes, too. The bright side is, you will often end up surprised, I guess? The nervous system should be easier to recalibrate.

[winged-thinged]

I've been trying to make a point lately to sit down and read a bunch of the more popular books on atheism and skepticism because that has always been really discouraged by my religious community and I want to know what they actually have to say. And as someone who is extensively educated on religion and culture and the humanities, let me tell you, the amount of whiplash I've been getting from reading a bunch of scientists talk about religion—has been severe.

One minute, they'll be making a really beautiful, insightful, true and eye-opening point about the nature of reality and superstition and the scientific process and naturalism—and the next, they will turn around and unselfconsciously say the most staggeringly ignorant thing about religion and culture, like—there's no reason at all why Muslims in America post 9-11 might have been upset about a high-profile Christian preacher publicly burning a Quran, except that they're spoiled children throwing a fit because other people won't treat their holy objects with the same reverence that they do (real example from The Happy Atheist). Or they'll make a claim that's less about pointing out the harm that religion can cause and more about getting mad that everybody in the world doesn't share the same priorities that they do, and completely fail to notice the blatant hypocrisy of that.

Gritting my teeth like, you're allowed to criticize religion and to share your perspective on why your values are worthwhile, but also you're an ass and you're criticizing religion wrong

[winged-thinged]

I've been trying to make a point lately to sit down and read a bunch of the more popular books on atheism and skepticism because that has always been really discouraged by my religious community and I want to know what they actually have to say. And as someone who is extensively educated on religion and culture and the humanities, let me tell you, the amount of whiplash I've been getting from reading a bunch of scientists talk about religion—has been severe.

One minute, they'll be making a really beautiful, insightful, true and eye-opening point about the nature of reality and superstition and the scientific process and naturalism—and the next, they will turn around and unselfconsciously say the most staggeringly ignorant thing about religion and culture, like—there's no reason at all why Muslims in America post 9-11 might have been upset about a high-profile Christian preacher publicly burning a Quran, except that they're spoiled children throwing a fit because other people won't treat their holy objects with the same reverence that they do (real example from The Happy Atheist). Or they'll make a claim that's less about pointing out the harm that religion can cause and more about getting mad that everybody in the world doesn't share the same priorities that they do, and completely fail to notice the blatant hypocrisy of that.

Gritting my teeth like, you're allowed to criticize religion and to share your perspective on why your values are worthwhile, but also you're an ass and you're criticizing religion wrong

[winged-thinged]

sorry for being weird and evasive. i was raised to believe that having wants and needs was a moral failing

[winged-thinged]

yo i saw you mentioned "stations of the cross" in your tags and i've never heard of that before, i'm curious what it is!

- @unexplainable-kairos

Ah, Stations of the Cross is a very Catholic thing, I’m not sure how much other denominations do it? It’s similar to the resurrection egg idea, but more somber and with more walking involved usually (and generally aimed at people of all ages, not kids specifically).

Basically, it’s a structured meditation on Jesus’s suffering and death. People usually do it during Lent, but you don't have to. It’s comprised of 14 “Stations” or key events in the story of Jesus’s journey to the cross. These are usually represented by some kind of icon—like a series of statues or little grottos or images along the wall of the church. You usually walk along from station to station in order, stopping to meditate at each one. Typically, you might stop, kneel, say a prayer, maybe read the relevant Bible passage, and reflect for a few minutes on the suffering of Jesus.

The list of stations goes:

Jesus is condemned to death

Jesus takes up his Cross

Jesus falls the first time

Jesus meets his Mother

Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross

St. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus

Jesus falls for the second time

Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

Jesus falls for the third time

Jesus is stripped of his garments

Jesus is nailed to the Cross

Jesus dies on the Cross

Jesus is taken down from the Cross

Jesus is laid in the tomb

Growing up, a lot of churches around me also did a “Living Stations of the Cross” sometime during Lent, as like a pageant, where the teens dressed up and acted out each station. My childhood parish got a little more elaborate (we had a pretty large, white, mostly affluent congregation who really went in for this kind of thing) so we did a whole Passion Play where the kids in the confirmation class acted out Christ's passion, starting with Jesus's entrance into Jerusalem (complete with parade of waving palm fronds) and going through Jesus’s death, ending with an image of the Pieta with everybody eerily singing 

Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and wait. Watch and wait.

The Stations of the Cross were done as a series of shadow puppets—I don’t remember off the top of my head if it was during the Garden of Gethsemane scene, or during the whipping scene (where they took the kid playing Jesus offstage, played realistic whipping sounds over the sound system for an uncomfortably long time, and then brought him back in covered in fake blood). I think it was during Gethsemane, with the implication that Jesus was having a vision of the suffering he was about to face? And people were encouraged to bring young kids to this, especially if their older siblings were in the play.

Anyway, the point of all of the above is that it was supposed to make Jesus’s suffering feel very real and immediate and personal to the viewer. You are often encouraged to imagine the scene in great detail, sometimes “as though you were there,” and to meditate on Jesus’s suffering, to feel repentant for your sins and grateful for his sacrifice on your behalf.

It, uh, worked.

[winged-thinged]

How does one contract scurvy from eating too many homemade pickles? And how many is too many?

when i first moved out and started cooking for myself i had a very poor diet. i think @lizardho has a picture of my fridge at one point, it was just various kinds of pickled things, and cured meats.

fast forward after like, three or four months of this, and i was at the dentist, getting my teeth cleaned, when the hygenist went ah, babs, your gums are bleeding. u need to floss more.

and i went i floss like, three times a day, and it always bleeds, and im always gentle, and you are lying bastard gum torturers. u can do what u need to, but dont stab my mouth and blame me when it bleeds.

the hygenist took exception to that. we didn't really shout at each other, but it was a tense exchange and i was just much more crabby than normal. eventually he left to get the dentist to sort things out.

cue the dentist coming back. he checked out my gums, gave me a lookover, then said hey. babs. are your joints kind of achey?

and i went yeah, i'm kind of hoping for another growth spurt, i'm 5'11 and it would be nice to finally hit the ol' 6'

and he went yeah, but you're 21, so that's not gonna happen. got any rashes? weird bruises?

and i had some decent bruises, and a weird rash on my leg, and he looked at them and we yeah you are quite vitamin c deficient. thats not easy to do in arizona. how much fresh fruit or vegetables have you had in your diet recently?

and i went does pickled count?

and that was his lightbulb moment. apparently pickling breaks down the vitamin c in things really well. he told me that i should just like, eat one or two raw bell peppers a day for a week and call him if that worked.

it did. my gums stopped bleeding, and my knees stopped hurting at night and my skin just felt smoother and nicer and i got a lot less crabby. no more mouthing off at dental hygenists.

i called him when the week was done, and i was embarrassed that i'd given myself scurvy like it was still the 18th century, and he said naw, not scurvy, but like. noticable deficiency. he said that it was a weird problem, but he'd run into it before - mostly with college students fresh out of the house. people trying to live off peanut butter and ramen for a few months at a time.

i took a multivitamin after that, but i also made an effort to try and eat like a normal human being. i failed occasionally but the effort made me feel a lot better.

my time in cross country gave me this sort of gnostic-feeling about my body. like it was a weak thing that i needed to overcome through will, and not like. me. at least not actually me. i think this was my first big wake up call that no, the body is not my enemy, i am my body, i am a physical object in this world, and if i don't take care of myself i am going to be worse at everything, including moral tasks, like not being a dick to the dental hygenist.

so. yeah. tldr, please don't spend months trying to live off pickles and salami. :/