siin

iraantlers, 2 days ago to random

jive prophet

siin, 4 days ago to random

Considering the nature of my life as it is: a series of moments, only occasionally written by the time on a clock face, but more often punctuated and defined by the urges of bodies: mealtimes, the feeding and watering and playing with of animals and children, naptimes and sexual encounters and physical touch and sometimes the settling down and reading of a book or indulgence in art or film or dancing. The ecstasy of simplicity, of doing what bodies ask of us, of doing what the land asks of us, its parched tongue caressing our worn hands. The walking of food to a neighbor, the kind of grief and acknowledgement of need and sickness and the days of our lives intertwined with the cycles of this shifting, rolling earth. The kneading of dough and the movement of water, acts of humility: contact with one another's skin and fur and feathers, with one another's sustenance and perspiration and hot breath and excretions. The breaking down of one into all, of all into many moving parts, of breezes and shadows and sunset and parasite life cycles. The rising of all like performers -- synchronous and slow -- in this grand dance of existence in all its demands and guiltless wanting, in all of its perfect splendor, in all of its grace. The setting of all simultaneously ruled by the Sun: the children to bed, the birds to roost, the dog to patrol and then to sleep, the breeze shifting and calming as though tired and making way for brilliant stars.

#Meditations #Ecstasy #RanchoDeLaLibertad

gallowswitch, 5 days ago to random

Live @Crazypedia Reaction to Bigots:

siin, 6 days ago to random

Such performative direct action so distant from one's own community and understanding is useless, applauding it and raging about its results even less so.

I'm tired.

siin, 12 days ago to random

So much of our culture inspires or at times requires us to relate to ourselves and the world around us purely through a lens of conflict:

Whose side are you on?

It insists that there is no nuance, that you are either on the right or the wrong side. It insists that the disengagement from these infinite wars will lead to certain death, that it makes you complicit, that you cannot be good unless you perpetuate the psychological warfare perpetuated against you against the very people you are supposed to be standing up for. This, it says, is the only way to truly be good.

You are constantly at war, it says, with every externality you can think of: you are at war with everyone and everything you can imagine. The price of losing is death. It tells you that they are going to kill you. It tells you that it is going to kill you.

There are no draft dodgers here: to be accepted into society you absolutely must pick a side. The people who claim allyship with you will turn around and ostracize you in an instant if you don't, and then you will have no allies, no friends, no support. The cost is isolation. There are no pacifists, we must all determine who we are in the face of never ending conflict, and who we are is defined by whose side we are on.

So whose side are you on? Huh? Are you a good person or a bad, evil person?

Have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps the only thing you really need to be fighting is your own lack of awareness? That regardless of how much you yell, or banter, or argue, or insist that you are GOOD, god damnit! you will do nothing but perpetuate the systemic failures that you claim so vehemently to be against unless you first recognize that everything is a mirror reflecting itself? And like that long, illusory hallway created by two mirrors reflecting one another, the ramifications of culture stretch from the macro to the micro, infinitely into the distance, but that it is the very same thing reflected the whole way down? That rather than believe the lie that disengagement is complicity, that you might have to recognize that engagement and perpetuating these never-ending conflicts is the complicity you fear taking accountability for?

Our culture insists we must take a side -- the easy choice. Stomping your feet at the edge of the trench and claiming you believe in the right things is much easier than getting into the trench and doing the work of doing the right things. In other words: our culture aims to absolve us of hard accountability through the perpetuation of constant psychological warfare that makes us feel better when we project it towards the next person but that leaves us ultimately unable and unwilling to look within ourselves and make critical changes where we are capable of making critical changes.

You are a victim in this unending psychological warfare that leaves you chronically stressed and stretched thin in an constantly emotionally reactive state, and yet you are also the abuser: the perpetrator of the crimes perpetrated against you, and on and on and on forever. You are a reflection of the reflection of the reflection. Just like any abuser with a trauma history that leads them to harm another, you ARE culpable for not taking the appropriate steps to recognize and reconcile your own patterns, and to find ways to cope that do no harm.

#Meditations #Culture

siin, 22 days ago to community

When you hold a lot of space and give a lot of energy, sometimes you end up finding that you're surrounded by people who require a lot of space and energy but who aren't capable (for one reason or another) or willing to hold that same space or give that same energy to you.

There is so much to community building that becomes so complicated, and everyone is unhealed in their own ways. Sometimes those ways are compatible with the ways in which you are unhealed: and you find that you are able to hold space for one another, mutually, and that the space you hold doesn't open up into wounds (or it does, but the very act of holding space becomes healing, less self-sacrifice than a pouring into one another). Sometimes, though, those spaces are incompatible, and the opening of space feels like the opening of wounds, and if not at first then after a time, as though something has rubbed you raw right down to the bone after the accumulation of each time you've let it touch you. Sometimes this is just a critical incompatibility, perhaps you aren't the right people to be in community with one another at this time. Sometimes it's the result of someone not being able to recognize the ways in which they demand. Boundary holding is so vital, but often leads to the triggering of maladaptive defenses and sometimes the ending of the relationship you were trying to preserve by setting the boundary in the first place. Some people advocate for boundary setting loudly, but are also the loudest to criticize you and claim you are abandoning or harming them when you do so.

The bringing together of people and the fostering of intersecting relationships requires time and effort and very careful communication and consideration, and is sometimes the rolling of a snowball gently towards the cusp of a hill: from there it flows so holistically and genuinely and easily, and these people find each other and fold each other into their nets and the shared net of the community. Sometimes it is Sisyphus rolling the ball up the hill over and over again until eventually you realize that perhaps one or more of these nodes must exist in satellite to the whole, and will not or does not desire to integrate within it.

Right now I am tired, and feeling as though critical boundaries must be held. A few of the relationships I've spent the past months fostering are crumbling for their own reasons: one because the other person is determined to remain in a power position that I refuse to engage with any further (giving the benefit of the doubt has to stop at some point, but the loss of this relationship impacts more than just me, which is hard) and the other because boundary holding is causing the other person to feel abandoned. After weeks of holding space for this person through a crisis, at the very moment I need that space held this person is pushing away and yet dragging me towards them -- unwilling to hold space but still demanding mine. And I am just tired, and wondering what patterns exist that push me to continue to forge unequal relationships in my own life, or if this is just really how most people are.

#Meditations #Community #Relationships #CommunityBuilding

siin, 23 days ago to paganism

Rancho de la Libertad, as made very photogenic by a very good photographer for a camping site we're on.

#RanchoDeLaLibertad #Chickens #Heptagram #Pagan

A 40 foot heptagram carved about six inches deep into the sand is the focus of this desert landscape photo. Sparse creosote bushes dot the background, and mountains rise up out of an impossible glow of sun over the horizon in the far back. The earth is rocky and sandy, and the colors are grays, various beige tones, greens, and odd blues.

siin, 23 days ago to random

It feels like everyone I know is experiencing their own personal death, with varying levels of awareness and readiness, and it's really quite profound to see. I'm not sure why this is the current, right now, at least in my own community, but it just seems to be that way.

siin, 1 month ago to random

The most beautiful week of love, healing, and communal self work with other beings in the midst of transformation (whom I love dearly).

Will be back sometime soon to share more, but in the meantime am preparing to welcome another friend as the others leave for a weekend of shared land work.

siin, 1 month ago to paganism

First test today with a bone needle I've made, and its result.

The shape creates a good amount of skin trauma without placing the ink exactly how I want it. I think I'll make some shaping adjustments next time, but overall I'm pleased that it worked.

#RitualTattoo #InkWork #InkWitch #BoneNeedle #Ancient #Pagan #Siin #Rituals

A very small freehand line tattoo, that wiggles and curves, accentuated with one dot on either side asymmetrically placed
The bone needle from the first image, gripped by a hand wearing a black nitrile glove.

siin, 1 month ago to climate

Some things just don't biodegrade well here, and part of it is that we're still perfecting our composting workflow and making sure our heaps don't overdry and die in our arid environment. We're getting better all the time, and it's a learning process. But in the meantime, I've been doing a lot of research on biochar. Most of the USDA fact sheets only talk about using biochar from wood or agricultural "wastes" like cornstalks, straw, etc. However, I know for a fact that in much of South America it's common to burn animal bones, manure, and more.

So, talk to me about biochar! Do you use it? What do you burn? What have your results been? Do you combine it with other soil remediation tactics (compost, compost teas, etc.)?

#BioChar #Climate #Permaculture #SoilRemediation #Soil #Regenerative #RegenerativeAgriculture #RegenerativeAg

siin, 1 month ago to random

Moment of vanity & hair growth update

#Siin

siin, 1 month ago to philosophy

I think that it's absolutely horrifying that the average person can't purchase and stock antivenom, antibiotics, steroids, epinephrine, insulin, or IV saline fluids.

The very act of saying this is radical. gasp! But we can't be trusted with such things! The lay person would give out antibiotics with abandon, fail to properly place an IV, give epinephrine when it isn't indicated! People would die!

This is what we've been taught, and it's bullshit. It doesn't take twelve years of medical school to identify anaphylaxis, especially in someone you know. Most people are concerned enough about the side effects of antibiotics to reserve them for when they're really necessary (and the average household is NOT the cause of widespread antibiotic resistant organisms: industrial livestock and our own medical establishment are). It doesn't take more than a week to learn how to properly place an IV. It doesn't take a genius to administer antivenom if someone is bit by a snake.

But you know what this access would do? Save people. From death, from severe disability, from tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills that make them wish they'd just died in the first place.

These skills could be taught to 8th graders in school. It isn't complicated. First aid, wilderness medicine, and basic life support training needs to go beyond "call for help when you identify x, y, and z". Medical care, especially emergency medical care, should be a basic human right, and by this I mean we should have the right to administer it to ourselves and our community without barriers.

Reserve the hospital for true surgical emergencies. I don't want to take out my child's appendix, for example, without an OR and anesthetics. But there is an extremely wide range of mild to moderate ailments and even real emergencies that could be treated better and more immediately IN PLACE if the average person had access to the right equipment and the most basic accessible training that could easily be passed on to other community members.

#Healthcare #Anarchist #CommunitySovereignty #Sovereignty #Medical

siin, 1 month ago to paganism

I've been seeing this scorpion for some time now, and needed to make it exist.

The scrawling sketch obviously doesn't 100% match the vision, but it's a close approximation.

#OccultArt #Siin #Sketchbook #Graphite #ArtistsOnMastodon #Pagan

Cat_LeFey, 1 month ago to random

There's an old folk saying in the U.S. Midwest that says "Spring will come when it snows on the robin's tail three times."

I've been sorta testing this out for the past four years, noting when I see the first robin redbreast back and then counting the snows that "stick" after that.

It seems accurate enough, on average, it's been anywhere from 2 to 4. Just saw my first robin last weekend and we're on our second snow, so it's not long now.

siin, 1 month ago to random

I'm only about 60 pages into this next book, but I'd dare say this is also probably required reading for... everyone.

After so many books about the subjugation and weakness of his ancestors (even from the most seemingly progressive sources), my partner was extremely excited to find this and we've been really enjoying discussing it. It doesn't sugarcoat the atrocities of the imperial colonists, but it also doesn't downplay the very real power held within Indigenous nations in North America throughout the entire period of "conquest". This is a side of our history I've never read, and I'd guess most of you are in the same boat.

#IndigenousContinent #IndigenousHistory
#BookRecommendation #Decolonize

siin, 1 month ago to magick

I finished reading "John Dee and the Empire of Angels" by Jason Louv, and wow. This book took me in a direction I did not expect, and contextualized Western occultism in a really coherent and important way.

There are actually three books within this volume. The first examines the life of John Dee and his political contributions to England in the early 1500s, as well as the overall cultural and political context within which he existed. The second examines and summarizes the angelic conversations themselves, and provides some analysis that links them to the overall apocalyptic eschatology that was described in the introduction and first book. The third book examines Dee's contemporaries and influences, including the Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and Crowley & Parsons, and analyzes especially the latter two's relative roles within this overall cosmology and influence in Western occultism.

Overall, this creates an historical narrative that deeply contextualizes a significant amount of modern Wicca, witchcraft, neopaganism, and Western occultism. It doesn't aim to define these, of course, but it explains the steps through which our modern view of spirituality and its practice were shaped. While at first I thought I might be reading an interesting and yet somewhat distant and irrelevant historical narrative of this interesting occultist from the Rennaisance, I found myself instead reading of the events and people that shaped the "modern" esoteric schools, as well as dominant Christian eschatology in America and how that influences our politics.

Louv does a great job of playing fair with historical figures: contextualizing them in a nuanced way, outlining their faults and being critical of the cults of personality they've built over the decades while not disregarding their important role or influence over history.

I would dare say (and I wouldn't say this about many things) that most neopagans or self-proclaimed occultists should absolutely add this to their reading list and try to read and comprehend the entire tome.

#BookReview #OccultBooks #JohnDee #AngelicMagic #OperativeMagic #Magick #Paganism

Cat_LeFey, 1 month ago to random

Overheard conversation at the hospital:

Nurse: “Could you be pregnant?”
Patient: “No.”
“You've had a tubal ligation?”
“No.”
“Oh, so you could be pregnant?”
“No, my husband has a vasectomy.”
“Those aren't always 100%”
“Well, I haven't had sex since November, when I got sick.”
“When was your last period?”
“A couple weeks ago.”
“Okay, we're gonna go ahead and give you a pregnancy test, just to be sure.”

What kind of christofascist hellscape are we living in?

Crazypedia, 1 month ago to random

Does food from the 1950s have a weird reputation because we were transitioning from an agrarian to an industrialized and mass production Society as industrialization caught up with the food supply chain?

This post brought to you by food history YouTube

Cat_LeFey, 1 month ago to paganism

Today as I was turning the clocks, it really felt like a ritual.
Since this is always a disruption, I wanted to incorporate it into ritual by making offerings to the Dagda. He is a god of time in the Welsh/Celtic pantheon, who restores balance to the seasons by playing his harp. It felt right after all the unseasonal weather.

#Polytheism