@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

nathanlovestrees

@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social

Someone once told me I'm too sincere to be funny.

Full-time caregiver to a disabled brother and father interested mainly in Thoreau, Zhuangzi, animism, Kings of Convenience, and drinking tea.

Master's degrees in music theory and theology (nonpracticing), classically trained and folk musician (also nonpracticing), and I once organized and helped plant over 800 trees on abandoned mine land (I do still plant trees occasionally).

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

nathanlovestrees, to random
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Got the coffee shop sweats

nathanlovestrees, (edited ) to random
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1/6 “Animacy is an overdetermined word, but so is the idea of the Divine Feminine. The reason I have begun to shy away from the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine is their unfortunate identification with gender and, more importantly, their overidentification with humans and their myopic classifications generally. Animacy is plushier. Springier. More mosslike. It seems a soft spot to rest on while I try to understand and explain how very sentient the world is to me these days.

nathanlovestrees,
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2/6 …The opposite of anthropocentrism is not any Divine Gender. The opposite of anthropocentrism is Everything. And what a tender beautiful thing it is to walk outside on a bright spring morning. Swathes of clementine light wash the pollen from the bricks of a nearby building. The robin's song is like the key turning in a lock. A handful of doves float down from the red-green cloud of a newly foliated maple tree.

nathanlovestrees,
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3/6 What a relief to realize that, unlike Adam and Eve, we haven't been severed from the Garden. The Everything still includes us.

nathanlovestrees,
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The Everything is us, but it needs something in return. It needs us to melt our ideas of sentience as a purely human property. Or as a purely animal property. Or as a purely individual property. Relationships are sentient. Anima is the inhalation, carrying molecules and spores and pheromones into our bodies from the landscape. And then we exhale, sharing cells that have chung to our deepest cells, slept inside the pith of our blood. With every exhalation we decant ourselves back into the world.

nathanlovestrees,
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5/6 …Divine Feminine just isn't big enough for all the relationships holding and constituting me these days. She thins my language into a one-to-one relationship. Even if she includes saints and "mother earth" and all women, it's easy to slip into the language of the singular. One mother. One relationship. One sacred gender expression. One temporality. One thinking animal. One species.

nathanlovestrees,
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6/6 I'm not throwing her out, the Divine Feminine. I'm throwing her in. Melting her down. Mixing her into the messier, polytemporal animacy of everything I touch, change, and become.

The animate earth is a verb. An assemblage of verbs. A mycorrhizal system sewing together a whole forest. A shared breath. A midsummer celebration where everyone is invited.”

From The Flowering Wand by Sophie Strand

nathanlovestrees,
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@iraantlers I can’t remember if this was the passage that you shared last year that got me to buy the book but once again grateful you did!

nathanlovestrees, to random
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Saw some nonhummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder 😳 too far away to see for sure, purple finch or sparrow or something?? How were they getting anything out of the feeder and I’ve never seen that before

nathanlovestrees, to random
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

once bittern, twice shy

nathanlovestrees,
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once bittern, twice shy heathwren

nathanlovestrees, to Birding
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nathanlovestrees, to random
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Neither of mother
Nor of father was I formed;
My creation was created
Out of nine elements:
From fruit, out of fruits,
From the fruit of God’s beginning;
From Primroses and gossiping flowers;
From wood and trees’ pollen;
From earth, from the soil
Was I formed;
From Nettle flowers,
From the ninth wave’s water.

Book of Taliesin, Battle of the Trees

nathanlovestrees,
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Then they took the flowers of the oak, the flowers of the broom, and the flowers of the meadowsweet—and from those they called forth the fairest and most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. She was baptised with the baptism they practiced [back] then, and [the name of] "Blodeuedd" was put upon her.

from branch four of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi

nathanlovestrees, to random
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

first rule of aurora hunting: it’s always darkest before the dawn goddess is visible

nathanlovestrees, to random
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Not as obvious to the naked eye, but the dawn goddess reveals herself to those with patience and long shutter speeds.

skinnylatte, to random
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I wish I had a Korean tea house in SF where I can have non-caffeinated jujube tea exactly like my dad makes it, at 7:45pm too. (Ye Cafe, K-town)

It has no business being so good and cool, this place.

nathanlovestrees,
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

@skinnylatte I lived in LA for a few years (2015-2018) and never thought I’d miss it… but I definitely do

nathanlovestrees, to random
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leave a broad margin in your life

nathanlovestrees,
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“There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life.”

from ‘Sounds’ in

nathanlovestrees,
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grow like corn in the night

sarahgoldcrest, to random
@sarahgoldcrest@cupoftea.social avatar

My favourite thing about spring is the ferns unfurling

A close up of a single green fern branch, the leaves at the tip are still curled tightly
Another shot similar to previous
This one is not unfurled at all, but you can see it trying!

nathanlovestrees,
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@sarahgoldcrest the unfernling!

nathanlovestrees, to random
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I am the wind on the sea;
I am the wave of the sea;
I am the stag of seven battles;
I am the eagle on the rock
I am a flash from the sun;
I am the most beautiful of plants;
I am a strong wild boar;
I am a salmon in the water;
I am a lake in the plain;
I am the word of knowledge;
I am the head of the spear in battle;
I am the god that puts fire in the head;
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests?

nathanlovestrees,
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

from the Song of Amergin trans. Lady Gregory

nathanlovestrees, to random
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The cicada and the little dove laugh at this, saying, "When we make an effort and fly up, we can get as far as the elm or the sapanwood tree, but sometimes we don't make it and just fall down on the ground. Now how is anyone going to go ninety thousand li to the south!"

nathanlovestrees,
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How do I know this is so? The morning mushroom knows nothing of twilight and dawn; the summer cicada knows nothing of spring and autumn. They are the short-lived.

From the Watson translation, chapter 1

nash, to random
@nash@labyrinth.social avatar

Pippin [answering texts from "Dark Lord" on the burner phone he found at Saruman's place]: hey what's up
Sauron: who is this
Pippin: this is Pippin! who's this? [selfie with Gandalf in the background & location on]

nathanlovestrees,
@nathanlovestrees@disabled.social avatar

@nash this was in the appendix, right?

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