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astroismypassion · 6 months

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Astrology observations💗💗💗

Credit goes to @astroismypassion

💗Gemini Juno people often have "a philosopher" partner. Someone who puts a lot of effort in their words, plans, but doesn't put much effort into action, making things happen. They could get frustrated how much and for how long their partner talks and preaches.

💗Libra Juno or Juno in the 7th house often points to an indecisive spouse or partner. The native is then the one making decisions where to eat or which film to watch.

💗If you have Fama in Libra, at a Libra degree (7, 19) you might be part of a well-known power couple at some point in your life. Or you could be known as "the person who dated...". Downside to this placement though, is that you might encounter that people often ask you about an ex partner of yours. They could ask questions about that person even years after you've been separated. With this placement and also with Fama in the 7th house, you might have a well-liked, well-known partner, spouse, yet the thing here is that people could also be in a partnership with you for fame that you bring. Partners could use you for attention, especially if paired with Leo Lilith that you might have in your Natal chart. So it goes vice versa.

💗Psyche (16) also talks about soulmate connections and when you feel balanced in love and beauty. And for example if you have Psyche in Virgo and you feel butterflies around your romantic interest or your nervous system is activated and working overtime girlll, this might not be a soulmate crush that you're talking to. Virgo Psyche are so sensitive and in tune with their bodies that you only feel balanced and calm around people who don't activate your nervous system negatively.

💗Check your Fama placement to see who can bring you popularity, being well-known or even get famous. If you have Taurus Fama, you need to position yourself around Taurus Sun, Moon, Rising and Venus people to get more well-known. Fame could be brought to you by people with these placements.

💗Capricorn Lilith often attract needy, clingy people who want to "break through" their more stoic, reliable, consistent nature. Weirdly, I often notice they attract a lot of Cancer Mars, Aries Moon people too, like it's a pattern.

💗When Juno is located in the 7th house these natives wish for connections that would be life long.

💗I noticed Capricorn Juno often had a bad boy/bad girl persona in the public at some point in life. Or had player vibe to them, but this is only how public percieved them. So they try to stick to a long-term partnership that is long overdue just because having a long-term partner makes them look good in the public eye and helps them get rid of "player" vibe that they might give off, even if it's not even true.

💗Capricorn, Aquarius North Node people might dislike or be against patriarchy.

💗Sagittarius Ascendants really do get the best of the both worlds. With Gemini Descendant they are able to hang with the posh, more privileged people or less. They are accepted by both. Because they can blend in and easily dress, speak like that particular group.

💗You might spend more time outside, socializing, connecting with friends and spending time in social gatherings, settings when Moon is transiting your northern hemisphere of your Natal chart, so when it goes through 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th house. And you might spend a lot of time in your home, inside, more isolated, spending time on your own when Moon is transiting your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th house, the southern hemisphere of your Natal chart.

💗 Pisces Part of Fortune receives help from others when they need it the most and when they least expect it.

💗 Sagittarius Part of Fortune in the 4th house ends up living in a huge house.

💗 Sagittarius Part of Fortune often has a very mentally stimulating job, most of their work is cerebral, the type to do the thinking for a job. They have better chance finding work abroad, via distant media or they get better money through foreign people than in their own native country.

Credit goes to @astroismypassion

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davidstortebeker · 1 year

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The Permaculture Spiral Garden - A Great Starting Point

There is probably no other structure as popular for illustrating Permaculture in practice as the Herb Spiral. Okay, I guess I could mention the lasagna sheetmulching method or also the cob oven that tends to be the first hands-on project at a typical Permie intro session. But when it comes to showing how landscape design, zones and sectors, stacking functions, and efficient use of space and water come together in one unique structure, the Spiral Garden is unbeatable.

Turning Theory into Practice

In typical Permaculture Designer Certificate courses, but even in brief intro weekends to Permaculture, there tends to be a lot of theoretical discussions. Since the numerous design principles can be applied to any climatic region, from the tropical to the subarctic, and on any scale from the humongous to the tiny, the practical aspects of the ideas can easily get lost. That's where a good hands-on application comes, where the participants get to move around rocks and dirt, while realizing how much it ties in to the concepts they've just discussed. This way the apparent "main purpose" of "building something to grow all your kitchen herbs on", becomes a neat side feature.

Adjust Your Landscape!

The first thing to realize that landscape is welcome to be modified and adjusted to bring out the best in it. Clearly, while it is important to work with what's there already, it doesn't hurt think about mounds and valleys. And before you bring out the excavators for your large-scale farm, it makes sense to start small… say on a circle of 2-5 meters (6-16 feet) diameter. In other words, the Spiral Garden is a hill with a spiral shaped surface, leading down to ground level, or further down into a water hole. It can be made out of rocks, bricks, concrete debris, or anything else you have lying around that can hold your soil.

Design According to Your Scale

Looking around for existing Herb Spirals it's easy to get confused. Some are so big you can actually climb on them (that is, you have to in order to reach what's growing on top). Others are so tiny that you may not even want to step on them. The question is: which size is the right one for you? Since this is something you will have to decide almost daily in Permaculture, it doesn't hurt starting out with this important question.

Organizing Your Spiral Garden

While there are seemingly endless types of Spiral Gardens, there are a few things they all have in common: They all start out with a region on the top, where water is bound to run off right away, leaving the soil relatively dry. This area is also the most exposed to the wind. Keep this in mind when choosing the plants that are going to live here. Ideally, the spiral should start sloping toward the East from here. Delicate plants that benefit greatly from the morning sun will appreciate this region. As the slope continues toward the South and West, it becomes more suitable for sun loving species. Finally, as the spiral reaches the ground level in the shady Northern part, it will be perfect for herbs that prefer less sun, more shade and more water, since the soil tends to be wetter here. (Note: This is for the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere North and South are reversed.) To make full use of the runoff water, many people add a small pond at the base of the spiral, where additional aquatic plants, such as watercress, can be grown.

The given illustration offers a good number of herbs for a nicely diverse kitchen. Depending on what else you want in your Herb Spiral, you can add it in the most suitable region. Mint and lemon balm love the cooler, shady part with more water. Lemongrass is great in the sunny area, and tarragon and estragon prefer the dry top of the spiral. Of course, the idea is not limited to kitchen herbs. For maximalists, the same theory can work with a mountain you might want to terraform into a spiral farm. But right now I'd prefer to stay small scale.

Plenty of Benefits (That's Why It's Permaculture)

As explained above, the main purpose of the Spiral Garden is not only to increase your gardening area by making use of the vertical, but also to create diverse climatic conditions, which do make a difference on the smallest scale. But as Permaculture tends to be, there are many other benefits to it. The structure itself offers great habitat for numerous animals, such as frogs, salamanders, lizards, but also pollinating insects, and of course others that may not directly benefit us, but by feeding on others they all add to the stability of our ecosystem. The structure itself will suppress weeds and make use of material that you're not likely to use elsewhere. Finally, depending on the size and location, it will be an ideal place to grow all your kitchen herbs right where you can access them most easily.

Some Things to Keep in Mind

When building the structure, make sure it will contain the soil in a nice trough, slanting slightly inward. That way bits and pieces that fall off will roll towards the center, until contained by the main mound.

Make sure the slope is always nice and gradual, avoiding sudden drops where the water can rush down quickly, eroding the soil.

If you're going to walk on your spiral, include a separate walkway that won't compress good soil. Most importantly, it should be sturdy enough to provide stability and make access safe.

Don't forget that while the structure is important to keep the soil in place, it is the soil that you'll be growing plants in. So it should have a good depth of 20-50 cm (8-20 inches) throughout the entire spiral. This can be the trickiest part!

Apply your own observation to which plants do better in which parts of the spiral. Also, with time you will find many other plants growing in it that you didn't plant. Before removing them, consider how much they actually bother your herbs, and whether their benefits may not outweigh their drawbacks.

Go Out and Build Your Own!

I hope this brief overview got you inspired to go out and try building an Herb Spiral yourself! I would love to hear your experiences with it!

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

#permaculture #gardening #ecosystem #plants #garden #sustainability

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breelandwalker · 6 months

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Frost Moon - November 26-27, 2023

Grab your scarves and mittens, witches - it's time for the Frost Moon!

Frost Moon

The Frost Moon is the name given to the full moon which occurs in the month of November. In temperate zones in the Northern Hemisphere, November is the month during which the first frost or first hard freeze of the season is usually observed.

Like most full moon names, this is an English translation of a traditional name used by one or more North American indigenous groups, in this case the Cree and the Assiniboine. Similarly, the Anishinaabe and the Ojibwe also called this month the Freezing Moon or Freezing Over Moon respectively, as indigenous naming conventions usually refer to the entire lunar month and not just the full moon itself. Other indigenous names include Deer Rutting Moon (Dakota and Lakota), Whitefish Moon (Algonquin), Leaf Fall Moon (Catawba), and Digging (or Scratching) Moon (Tlingit). The latter refers to the habit of deer and other creatures scratching up the ground to find hidden food caches, as well as bears digging their dens for winter hibernation.

Another common name for this month's full moon is the Beaver Moon, due to the increased sightings of these busy little creatures shoring up their dams and food stores before the first hard freeze of winter. (Unfortunately, it's also a reference to the peak days of the North American fur trade, signaling the optimal hunting time for beaver pelts.)

In some modern pagan traditions, particularly those claiming Celtic lineage, the November moon is also called the Mourning Moon. This occurs when the November moon is the final full moon before the winter solstice. In 2023, the November is indeed a Mourning Moon, as the December full moon falls on the 26th, a good few days after the solstice. (I was not able to find an original source for this claim, but given the celebration of the beloved dead in October, a subsequent period of mourning and remembrance makes sense. It may also be a reference to the Catholic All Souls Day, but that's just speculation.)

This particular Frost Moon will be at peak fullness in the early hours of November 27th (4:16am EST), so the moon may appear to be full on both Sunday the 26th and Monday the 27th, depending on where you live.

What Does It Mean For Witches?

This is the month when migrations are finishing up, animals are finishing their cold weather preparations, the temperature starts to plummet, and fall descends rapidly into winter. If you haven't finished your preparations for winter, mundane or magical, this is probably your last chance to do it. (Don't forget to prioritize and delegate!)

With the days getting shorter and the nights getting colder, the temptation to hunker down and hibernate is STRONG. But we have to remember that just like the eponymous Beaver, humans have to stay active during the cold months. Start stockpiling ways to keep yourself busy and motivated, since that Seasonal Slump is on the horizon for many of us.

Consider also the beaver's dam. You've spent the whole year working towards all kinds of goals. Is there still something blocking your way? What might it be and how can you best address and remove the obstacle? Or, alternatively, is it time to stop and rest and see if that roadblock will clear itself with a little time and patience?

In keeping with the Mourning Moon moniker, this could be a good time for reflection and remembrance. Think back on what you've built this year and take time to be proud of yourself. Remember what is dear to you, take a moment to miss someone who is gone, and consider rekindling bonds that may have lapsed or grown tenuous during the hustle and bustle of daily life. It's always a good time to tell someone you love them.

On a practical note, if you have pets that regularly stay outdoors overnight, start bringing them inside or make sure they have a shelter that is properly warm, clean, and secure against human or animal intruders. If it's too chilly for you to be out without a coat, it's too chilly for the critters, fur or no fur. PLEASE do not leave your furry friends out in the cold!

What Witchy Things Can We Do?

As we prepare for winter, this is an excellent time to shore up those magical protections. Check on your longterm spells to see if they need refreshing, or just go ahead and do a quick cleanse-and-reclaim as a proactive measure. Even if everything is solid, practice your technique by shoring up points of egress or adding a new layer to the existing wards or trying a new visualization or method for personal protections. Create a new charm or talisman to carry you through the winter or make something festive and decorative that could be given as a gift.

On the subject of cleansing, this is a good time to clear out any stale or disruptive energy that might be lingering from the recent change of seasons. Solstices can be times of transformation, but change is rarely a calm or peaceful process and it brings its' own set of challenges and upheavals. If things have gotten a little more chaotic than you'd like, take a moment to put your house in order, metaphysically speaking.

If you're partial to jar spells, consider putting one together to help maintain safety and abundance through the winter months. If you're going to be traveling for the upcoming holidays, a bit of luck and protection for the journey wouldn't go amiss either.

Try a frost divination. If your area is starting to see overnight frosts, take a moment in the morning to examine the patterns that the frost leaves on the windows of your home or vehicle. Do you see any patterns or images in the ice crystals? Check the weather forecast and whisper a question into the wind when the overnight temps will drop below freezing. Then in the morning, see if there's an answer waiting for you!

Happy Frost Moon, witches! 🌕❄

Further Reading:

Additional Lunar Calendar posts

Full Moon November 2023: The Beaver Moon's Spectacular Spiritual Meaning, The Peculiar Brunette.

Beaver Moon: Full Moon in November 2023, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Beaver Full Moon in November - Buckle and Hocken, TimeAndDate.com.

Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison, Llewellyn Publications, 2004.

Image Credit - iStockPhoto.

(If you’re enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

#witchcraft #witchblr #witch community #pagan #lunar magic #moon magic #full moon #Beaver Moon #Frost Moon #lunar calendar #witchy things

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varpusvaras · 2 months

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It's a pretty afternoon on Coruscant, for once.

They are standing just at the entrance of the Jedi Temple, waiting for Wolffe to come out, and Fox is enjoying his moment of sunlight without having a barrier over his head, when there is something flying towards his head. In a snap, he has raised his hand and caught whatever it is.

"Nice catch!" Fox looks over to see Wolffe jogging towards them, with a small bag in his hand. He glances down at his own hand and to whatever he had just caught.

It's a fruit of some sort, round and with a very light and soft pink color.

"Souvenirs from General Koon", Wolffe says, opening the bag in his hand. "He called these Hallous and said we had to try them."

He starts to give everybody else a fruit from the bag as well. It's moments like these that Fox kind of wishes he also had a Jedi, who would call them all by their names and give out fruits and other treats. Fox isn't even sure when the last time was that he actually ate fresh food.

Everybody is taking a bite out of their fruits already, not bothering to wait until Fox gets his musings to an end. They all seem to enjoy it with smiles on their faces, so Fox takes a bite as well.

Fox hadn't thought before this that it could be possible for a food to punch him inside his mouth, but now he has to believe it. The fruit is spicy like those hot peppers in the stew that Thorn had bought in one of the first weeks of their posting, and it leaves a rough, tingling afterburn in Fox's mouth. The same afterburn follows the piece of fruit down his throat when he swallows, making him cough.

Cody, who is standing closest to him in their circle, reaches to pat him on his back.

"Don't choke", he says. "Wolffe probably doesn't want to go and tell General Koon that his fruit killed you."

Fox draws in a deep breath. He looks all of them over. Rex and Bly are still munching on on their fruits, with not one twitch in their expressions.

Fox's eyes are burning with gathering tears. He hurries to wipe them away.

Is his spice tolerance this bad? He hadn't thought so before, but...

Fox looks back at the fruit in his hands, then back at the others. They are almost done with theirs.

Fox is not going to give them any more reasons to make fun of him. They've been doing it lately more than enough, about everything they just possibly can. He takes a second bite and keeps his face still.

He's almost out of breath after the last bite, but he doesn't let it show. Thankfully nobody is pointing it out, too busy with heckling Bly at the moment because he just happened to accidentally call his General by her given name.

The burning feeling inside his mouth and throat don't leave him fully until the next day. He really, really needs to work on his spice tolerance.

---

"Oh, love", Breha is giving him a slightly concerned smile. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine", Fox manages to mumble, before he has to sneeze again. Thank Manda, he already had a tissue in his hands. His eyes and nose are burning.

Breha sighs.

"I should've made sure", she says. "You haven't really lived anywhere with this much...nature, before."

"You couldn't have known", Fox coughs. "And really, the Kaminoan's were supposed to engineer us without these kind of promblems."

"I don't think that's possible, with how many of you there are", Breha says. "Some things like this must've slipped, or happened during the gestation."

Possibly. Fox is not going to pretend that he understands anything about genetics.

Breha leaves for a moment, and Fox hears her move around the kitchenette area their living quarters have. She comes back with a steaming cup in her hands.

"The Hallous are in season in the Northern Hemisphere", she tells him, setting the cup in his hands. "They make a sweet tea blend infused with them, and it's good for your immune system."

Right. Fox guesses that something that spicy might as well burn all the nasty gunk in his airways away, so he takes a sip. He scrunches up his nose a bit from how much it burns, and Breha gives him another tissue, before getting up again.

She comes back a few minutes later with her own cup, and starts on her work while calmly sipping from it.

Fox is honestly impressed. He hadn't thought that Breha had much of a spice tolerance. Bail certainly doesn't have, and much of the traditional food of Alderaan is very mild and puts great emphasis on clean flavours. Oh, well, he learns something new every day. This all just now means that even his wife has a better spice tolerance than him by far.

He finishes his tea. It doesn't make him feel any better, as now his throat is even more scratchy than it was before. All it really does is making him even more tired, but he can't really sleep because of how hard it is to breathe.

He glances longingly out of the window. It's pretty out there, with gentle sunlight and green trees and everything in blossom, and he is allergic to all of it.

Fox grumples and closes his eyes.

---

Bail comes home the next week with a mild cold, and Fox watches him drink the tea like it's water. Alright, now this is really just embarrassing.

---

Fox tugs nervously at the collar of his suit. It's dark blue and goes together with what Breha and Bail are wearing, and he suddenly feels like he is out of his depth. Wearing the armor had given them all some sort of anonymity, even to him with his distinct paint job. It's probably going to take a while until Fox gets used to people looking at him, and looking at him without it.

It's also still strange to not be the one who is standing on guard, but to be the one who is guarded. Fox's job tonight is to stand there, look presentable, and not make a scene.

Things are still a bit...tense. There have been deglarations of peace and all that, but in many places, it still feels like one wrong move can light up everything again.

Fox can't help himself but to keep an eye out for everything that happens in the room. This is the first time after the War that Breha has travelled anywhere that is not in the Deep Core, and Fox is not going to stop himself from feeling protective of her. She is his wife, after all, and Fox has all the training necessary to keep her safe, if the situation demands it.

In the meanwhile, he tries to fullfill his primary job. Stand there, look presentable, and do not make a scene. He is still new to his position, so he is not yet expected to make some deep political statements.

Stand there, look presentable, and do not make a scene. He can do this.

Things are going well when they are served the first drinks of the evening.

"Here, Your Majesty", the server gives Breha a glass first, and then turns to Bail and Fox. "Your Highnesses. We do appreciate a lot of the same flavours as you in the Deep Core, and I think you will find this drink familiar. It's made with Hallous concentrate, to bring out the natural flavour powerfully and really make it the star of the drink."

"Thank you", Breha smiles brightly at them. "That sounds lovely."

Fox also thanks the server as he takes his glass, and does not show anything as their host gives out a speech and then a toast, and drinks with the rest of the guests. He manages to keep his face still by breathing deeply through his nose. All those years of training saving him in this moment, even if nothing what he learned while growing up was supposed to prepare him for a situation like this.

The drink is awful. Absolutely disgusting, if you ask Fox. It's so spicy that it stops tasting like anything at first, and then leaves a raw, bitter burn all the way down to his chest. His tongue feels immediately like it doesn't fit into his mouth properly anymore, pressing painfully against his back teeth. Fox really, really does not understand how every single person in the room can drink something like this and not automatically make even the slightlest of faces. Is this really just a thing he doesn't understand about people who were born into Royalty? Is it really just that much of an acquired taste, and him not liking it just shows that he really is just a nobody compared to them all?

Fox is proud of how well he managed to power through it, all of those things concidered. He tries to swallow a bit, to wash the taste out even a little, but he's barely getting his own spit down.

He sucks in a breath between his teeth. It's not reaching his lungs properly, leaving him feel weirdly unsatisfied. He tries again. It's barely getting past his lips, which feel...oddly numb. Huh. Was the spice really hitting him that bad?

Then it hits him that he can't breathe.

Fox tries to swallow again. It gets stuck somewhere at the back of his throat, the same place where all the air is getting stuck as well, and he clears his throat a bit behind his hand. It helps a little, letting him get something down to his lungs, but Fox has been choked out before and he knows when it's not enough.

It's not enough.

Sateen is with them, and he is standing closest to Fox and Bail, with Breha's own bodyguards standing next to her, and Fox, in his rising panic, sees him turn towards him.

"Fox?" Sateen asks, keeping his voice low as he steps closer and carefully grabs Fox by the arm. "Are you alright?"

Fox tries to say no, but then there is white static taking over his eyes and he vaguely feels himself pitching forward-

-and he wakes up with something heavy on his face and a rush of cool air, and he gulps it up desperately. It enters his lungs with a deep, sweet relief, and then makes him cough.

There is a hand on his forehead, large and warm and familiar. Fox has the mind to open his eyes.

The first thing he sees is Bail's extremely concerned face above him, and then somebody else's as they lean closer to him.

"Deep breaths", they say, and Fox obeys. The more air he is getting in, the more aware he is becoming of his surroundings, and that is when he notices that there is a lot of commotion all around him.

He tries to look back up at Bail, to ask what is going on, but the other person telling him to breathe is really insistent of him doing just that and not talking, so Fox relents just for a moment longer.

He does glance around from the corner of his eyes, though. The whole room is in absolute chaos, with people shouting and screaming in a rising cacophony, and with multiple Guards in different uniforms trying to contain it all with seemingly very, very bad results.

The people leaning over him are talking something about oxygen levels and adrenaline and blood pressure and a lot more that Fox doesn't have the capacity to understand right now, so he just breathes.

He does feel a sense of disappointment in himself. His job had literally been just to stand there, look presentable and not cause a scene.

He isn't standing, most likely doesn't look presentable while lying on the floor, and this definitely counts as a scene.

Fox presses his eyes back shut. Just his luck.

---

Rex: I can't believe that you out of all of us managed to almost cause a full blown conflict because everybody thought you were poisoned, while you were just having an allergy attack

Rex: I thought that was a thing only Skywalker and General Kenobi were able to do

Fox: Shut up

Bly: No, no, really. You really couldn't tell that you were allergic to that stuff? You've seen all of us eat them with no problems!

Fox: You guys are all a bunch of weirdos, how was I supposed to know that you all didn't just enjoy eating shit like that?

Wolffe: Next time you see us eating something without problems while you are actively choking on it because it tastes like molten lava to you, please call us a bunch of weirdos out loud. That could save the Galaxy in the future, apparently

Fox: Cody, Ponds, they are bullying me. I almost died!

Ponds: and almost caused another conflict while doing so

Cody: Stop it, everyone. We're glad that you're okay, Fox'ika

Fox: Thank you. At least somebody here still loves me

Cody: BUT, there is a saying Obi-Wan used to say-

Fox shuts down his commlink at that point. Bail gives him a sympathetic look from the chair next to Fox's bed.

"Are they making fun of you?" He asks.

"Of course they are", Fox huffs, and then resists another urge to just reach to his back and scratch. "I almost died and I'm suffering and they're making fun of me."

Bail takes his hand gently to his.

"I'm not making fun of you", he says, with humour in his voice but enough soft love in his eyes that Fox lets it be for now.

"Thank you", Fox says, squeezing Bail's hand. Partly to show back affection, partly to stop himself from giving into the urge to scratch. "How long do I have left?"

Bail looks at his chrono.

"Another hour", he says. "I'm sorry. We just want to make sure this doesn't happen again."

"It's fine", Fox sighs. "I would rather it doesn't happen again, either, but why does testing for allergens take so long?"

"That, I do not know", Bail says. He then straightens up a bit to take a look at Fox's back.

Fox sees the grimace on his face, even though Bail tries his hardest to wipe it away quickly.

"I'm karked, aren't I?" Fox asks.

"Well, I wouldn't say so", Bail tries to smile placatingly at him. "I'm sure it's completely normal for it to look like that."

He, very wisely, understands to shut up after the next look Fox gives him.

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tachimichishrine · 5 months

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Could I ask for a little Christmas special with Tachi x Fem!reader? With smut, the cherry on the cake could not be missing. Ñakañaka👀

"by the fireplace"

⫭◦⨝◦⫬

tachihara michizou x fem! reader {christmas special}

warnings: nsfw ; fingering ; cockwarming ; soft sex ; ooc tachihara bc i can ; playful cursing ; intended lowercase ; unedited as always

stupid. you are stupid.

stupid for getting so excited around the holidays. for using your day off to prepare your painfully small studio apartment with a bunch of decorations bought from the local store, anything that was cheap and shiny. you expertly coordinated the colours, the theme and the shapes, putting up zigzags of fluffy green boas on the walls of your kitchen and swirls of red streamers in your living room. you couldn't afford a christmas tree both financially and space-wise, so you took your local houseplants, covered them in random cut-out figures and makeshift ornaments, then allocated a small corner in their honour. it was cute, but there was no one to share it with.

stupid for getting your hopes up. you hadn't spoken to your boyfriend in so long, hadn't received a response to all your lovesick voice messages or texts, telling him how much you missed him and how badly you wanted him back home. chances are that the number you were contacting had gotten tossed, thrown in the garbage on a mission that was too high-risk for him to compromise your safety. it was worse when you thought about the fact that he was doing this for you; sometimes you wanted to track him down, show up to wherever he was spying and kiss him numb in front of whoever he was supposed to be infiltrating.

stupid for baking cookies. they were really good too— you picked whatever recipe online that you could find and made 2 dozen of them. you ate half, music playing on your speaker, sitting down on your sofa all alone. you wished you'd have someone to share them with.

the cold outside made this holiday season all the more unbearable, with the delicate snowflakes whisking around the frigid air outside. you were safe inside, snuggled up by the fireplace with a book and a blanket, but feeling incredibly lonely.

"you've probably tossed this burner phone by now..." you couldn't resist the temptation and pulled out your phone in order to leave him another voicemail, "but michi, baby, I miss you. I know I'm supposed to love all this me time or whatever, but... fuck, I made cookies and all I wanna do is stuff them in your beautiful face. man, I've gone crazy, haven't I? anyways... I miss you. I love you. I just hope you're safe and come home soon."

you had to get your mind off of things. you had to do something, anything to get out of your head. you were off work, but you didn't have the mind to concentrate on any activities at home by yourself, and all your friends were busy with family and loved ones.

you decided to go for a walk outside, in the freezing cold snow.

it did wonders for your head. you didn't even have your headphones in, which was odd, but instead listened to everything around. you snuggled further into your coat, told yourself that you should've worn more layers, been more prepared for the cold, but it was refreshing nonetheless. you didn't keep track of the time, instead visiting every corner of your neighborhood and just strolling around as you pleased. by the time your nose felt like it was going to freeze off, you were approaching the entrance of the building.

someone was at the door, in a familiar army-green coat with beige fur around the collar. you nearly tripped over yourself running over to the figure, excitement louder in your mind than the fear of accidentally trapping the wrong person in a bear hug.

to your surprise, you didn't hug a person at all. you were hugging a floating jacket that seemed to be carrying all its weight at four spots where small metal clips were positioned. you yanked the coat off of the clips, relishing in the faint smell of your lover, only pulled out of your happiness by a cold impact on your back.

you turned around to look at the son of a bitch who threw a snowball at you.

"aren't you cold?" you chuckled, seeing tachihara in only his v-neck long sleeved shirt you would tease him about and say looked like that of a school girl. "taking off your coat just 'cause you're dramatic as hell."

"you're spunky for someone who left me about a million sappy voicemails in the past week," he retorted in a sassy tone. despite the words exchanged, you dropped his jacket on the snow and ran over to him like you were a housewife waiting for him to come back from war, which you might as well have been. he caught you hurling your body at him and gave you a twirl around while you giggled and peppered his face in kisses.

when he finally set you down, you had your hands wrapped around the back of his neck, his on your hips, and you pulled him in to feel his lips on yours. "you really are dramatic as hell."

"and you love me." his gloved hand balanced your chin on his curled index finger and brought you back in for another kiss. "m'sorry I was gone for so long this time."

you shook your head, holding him tighter as if he would dissipate and float away if you let go. "you're here now. that's all I care about." your grip tightened and you hopped up so that you could wrap your legs around his hips. "now carry me inside and make it up to me."

"oh, she's demanding, ain't she?" he chuckled, holding you up by your thighs. "I haven't even been back more than two seconds and I'm getting ordered 'round."

"shut up, you know you love it," you giggled, trying to climb off of him so you could walk into your home but his grip was firm and he didn't seem intent on letting you go. "baby, I was joking, you can put me down now."

"hm? if ya say so."

and he tossed you onto the ground.

you weren't expecting that, but laughed in the snow as you processed what he'd just done. in retaliation, you kicked out his ankles and he collapsed right next to you. obviously, you both knew that he could've dodged it, but he let himself fall by your side and lay his arm across your waist. he shivered, his barely covered torso coming in direct contact with the cold snow while snowflakes fluttered onto his lashes and hair. he laughed again as he rolled onto you, trapping you under his weight while you looked up at him dreamily.

"I missed you," you whispered seriously, saying those words for the thousandth time today, "a lot. I'm glad you're back."

he struggled to formulate a response, blush almost as red as the tips of his frozen ears or his hair, instead letting his body drop onto you and kiss you on the forehead. "I missed you more than you could ever imagine. almost got caught daydreamin' about you a few times on the mission."

"is that so?" you perked up a brow, amused. tachihara finally got off of you, offering his hand to help you up while the other brushed off the melting wetness on his back and knees. "what kind of daydreams?"

he pulled you up once you took his hand, leading you inside the apartment building while he shook his head to loosen the water droplets at the tips of his hair— almost like a dog. he leaned into your ear and whispered, "the kind I can't say out loud."

"how 'bout a more visual description, then?" you offered innocently, and he chuckled. once you reached the front door, you'd completely forgotten all of the loneliness you'd been feeling when you'd initially left. you barely made it inside the entrance when he had your back pressed against your decorated walls, knee slotted in between your legs and lips back on yours.

you took off your jacket and other garments, trying to toss them in the closet without breaking the kiss. only, once you'd finally kicked off your boots, you remembered his jacket.

"fuck, it's still outside, my bad," you murmured against him, "should I go back down and get it?"

"no need, just open up a window."

you did as he asked while he got settled, warming up by the fireplace and munching on the now cooled-down baked goods. the place still smelled like the sugar cookies, so he commented on how incredibly festive it all seemed. you just shrugged and said you had free time, but quickly admitted you were a little lonely lately. he noticed your frown and unconsciously mimicked it.

"anyways, are you gonna tell me why I'm opening a window when it's freezing outside?" you asked, turning towards him.

"close your eyes," he instructed. you felt a twinge of excitement as you complied.

a few moments later, you heard some clattering outside. barely resisting the urge to peek, you stole a quick look outside and saw the floating jacket, again. you rolled your eyes, placed a hand on your hip and scolded him for acting so melodramatic again. he just chuckled, but his laugh was enough to get your heart thawing out. he brought it inside and you closed the window behind it, but told him to levitate it to the closet. meanwhile, you had to drag him to the bedroom to get him to change out of his soaking wet clothes.

you watched him pull his damp shirt over his head while you got yourself comfortable on the bed. with his torso bare, you stared just a little too long at him, shamelessly, and tsked when he reached for the drawer for a replacement.

"hey, I'm still fuckin' frozen," he explained himself, but you jumped up and grabbed his wrist to stop him from putting anything on.

"we have a fireplace for that reason, love," you retorted.

that was just an excuse to get him naked for you in any way you could, and he let it happen. you cuddled with him on the sofa, his head buried in between your tits with your hands roaming all over his skin. under the covers, you got greedy and began sliding your hands under his pants. he let you take them off, but took your shirt off as well. heavy breathing into his mouth distracted you from skilled fingertips tugging off your pants next.

"I... mmm..." you hummed softly against him as you let him pull you on top of him. you sat down on him, legs parted on both sides and throbbing in between them hard to control. "haven't felt you... in so long..."

it was a request, and he knew it. your fingers couldn't do the trick, not once you had gotten used to his own, skilled and rough and so knowledgeable in understanding every spot and nook that could have you sighing on his knuckles. and he was just that; knuckle-deep in your soaking pussy as you spasmed around his fingers and felt him curl them around inside your walls.

"someone missed me a lot," he remarks with a smug grin while he looked at your eyes tightened shut and jaw slacked open as you rode his hand. you placed your hand on his neck, both steadying yourself so you could fuck yourself harder on his hand and choking him lightly so he would shut the fuck up.

you lowered your chest so you could kiss him heatedly through the fingerfucking, and whispered sweet nothings in his lips while occasionally gasping and panting for air.

"still cold?" you asked cheekily in his ear, licking around the shell and biting down on his earlobe. "or d'you want me to sit on that pretty cock of yours?"

he really was frozen; you felt his frigid skin as you pulled down his boxers and his cock sprung free, familiar pulsating as he grunted through the sensation. you lowered yourself onto him, slow and relishing in his pleasurable whimpers, and rocked into him even slower. it was just the two of you, by the fireplace, gently fucking while you smothered him in kisses.

you couldn't have asked for a better christmas present this year.

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yatima · 1 year

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Ok Tumblr it's your Elder here to remind you that yes, the Northern Hemisphere nights are dark and the cold is getting into your bones and maybe you think everything's going to keep getting worse forever and you'll just get older and older until everyone and everything you love is dead: but you're only partly right.

Because yes sure we are all gonna die but in the meantime and maybe even because of that, there's joy. Even if it's only a bird half glimpsed from a moving vehicle, even if it's only the warmth in a cup of coffee, even if it's only the memory of someone who adored you as whole-chestedly and unconditionally as you deserve to be adored, joy is real in the world.

And tomorrow morning as I write this, the sun will shine along the passage at Newgrange and the sun daggers will frame the petroglyph in Chaco Canyon, and that is evidence that the long slow celestial mechanics of reversion to the mean will pull us inexorably back to springtime and the first green things growing out of the earth. The elders before me built these monuments to remind me to remind you that the sun will return.

And in the meantime let's hold hands in the dark. Let's tell the bleakest jokes we can think of at funerals to try and get the bereaved to laugh. Let's hug each other to coregulate our tender nervous systems that are trying so hard to keep us safe and alive. Let's watch how fast the efficiency of solar power is overtaking that of fossil fuels (effectively free energy by 2035: let's live to see it.) Let's revel in gods like pigeons and coyotes that can learn to coexist with humans.

Let's remember that there are more ordinary people of goodwill than we can possibly imagine: people who observe stop signs and pull over to let fire engines pass and who pay their fucking taxes and never cross pocket lines: normal working people who are kind to animals and who love all children and who feel solidarity across race and class and gender lines. Let's be those people and raise our children of blood and choice to be those people, the infrastructure of the world, the sunbeams shining into the dark.

#solstice #hope #reasons to be cheerful #reasons to stay alive #love

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alienssstufff · 7 months

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idk if u talked abt it b4 but i would LOVE to know why u see autumn as 3L (and i assume LL as winter - DL as spring - LimL as summer) tho i 100% see already purely from aesthetic why thatd be the case itd be so so cool to see a more in depth opinion?? it does fit so well in with the 2 arcs being 3L into LL & DL into LimL as autumn into winter then starting as a new arc of spring into summer?? literally perfect i feel??

[ context ] nooo I never have! I'd love to!

The Life Series thematically happens cycles upon cycles within itself. Each season is like a different part of a year like seasons ending on the very climatic Limited Life as its Summer.

[AUTUMN 3RD LIFE] While there aren't many interesting biomes in 3L that give it away, it's more about the progression of the Beginning as players are taken out of the comfort of their previous lives and all social constructs are thrown out the window and into the deep end. People make pretty bases, feel hesitant to steal, and build monopolies in a world that virtually does not have a currency - all because these are things the Hermits and Empires alike have been doing prior to the Life Series. It's Autumn because it's a learning experience, a transition period as the players grow more accustomed to these new customs in preparation for the extreme.

[WINTER LAST LIFE] HONESTLY the one I'm glad we all agree on, that server is SO #wintercore with so many horror elements. Deeeep alpine forests, winding rivers, tall snowy mountains it got all of them! The perfect winter sequel to 3rd Life and the one where the players (after being a part of 3L) are put the most on edge with the levels of betrayal and distrust the season had going on with the Bogeyman mechanic. People straight up start HUNTING each other for sport it's an example of the most dire of situations and I LOVE IT!

(putting the other 2 under the cut before it gets too long)

[SPRING DOUBLE LIFE] Much kinder than Last Life congratulations you have made it through the winter. Double Life is a season centred on relationships, about all the different types of love between players - if you live in the Northern Hemisphere spring happens during valentines. New bonds like in Spring are made here and old ones resurface and/or are broken in history of the previous seasons. Double Life is kind of like 3rd Life in the sense that people's relationships, and how they go about them are in influence to things that have happened in the past (previous seasons).

[SUMMER LIMITED LIFE] The final season of the First Cycle. The server has a WARM OCEAN biome. I really do wish mojang developed their beaches or the tropics better Limited Life would have been perfect with palm trees. I built a bit on the Limited Life world HERE and HERE It's about teamwork, fun and games - the tone Limited Life has in comparison to Last Life is its polar opposite in the way people trust in each other so much. Even the whole meaning of what it means to be Bogeyman here is flipped on its head it's treated as a gift. It comes perfectly after Double Life as the soulmates made in there (eg Boatboys, Ranchers, etc) continue from here. If anything it reminds me of the summer break before everyone gets back to work (Secret Life).

Side note: Secret Life Bit of a weird one honestly. It to me is the strangest out of the 5 like yeah it COULD be spring aesthetically because of the cherry trees, but it could also be autumn (thus the new cycle), the way it is handled so far is reminiscent of how things were in 3rd Life with everyone being so careful of their lives. Waiting for more sessions to come out to build more on this :]

HWWHWH anyway hope that makes sense ty for letting me talk about the Life Seasons >w<

#ask stufff #stufff rambles #character concept stufff #life series #trafficblr #i could have explained the DL one better i feel theres more to it with spring i know in my heart

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bandiera--rossa · 6 months

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While reading the works of the medieval Arab sociologist Ibn Khaldun many years ago, I was surprised by his ideas on geography and climate, which attribute not only physical but also sociological patterns for people living in the same climatic region. In short, these ideas suggest that if someone from the extreme Northern Hemisphere moved to the extreme Southern Hemisphere, their surviving descendants would eventually have the same physical and sociological attributes as the people of the Southern Hemisphere. I was fascinated by this concept and at a loss of how anyone in this world could be a racist, knowing they could have mutated into anyone else.

Holding onto this notion and adding to it years of soul-searching, which for being born a Muslim led me to delve into Sufism, I developed the firm belief that all humans are essentially one and that all evil in the world is the result of our division. I was convinced the principal reason people in the Global North condone their armies murdering innocent civilians or the dying of children from hunger in faraway nations is that they are unable to perceive the victims as similar to them and are accordingly unable to empathize with them and feel their pain. If they did, I told myself, most evil in the world would disappear.

That is why I believe that the main objective of the arts should be to humanize those we perceive as different. Being an aspiring novelist myself, I decided that unity and the oneness of being would be the principal theme of all my work.

I can no longer adopt such beliefs and will no longer vouch for those ideas.

It is clear to me now that calling for love and unity does not fall on the oppressed but on the privileged. In the face of the hate or apathy of those who do not feel their suffering or regard them as equal, the persecuted have no choice but to embrace whatever they are persecuted for, ethnic, religious, or else, and accept the division. To vouch for love and unity is a privilege only people in the Global North can now afford. For the rest of us, it is nothing short of weakness and humiliation.

Like most people in the Global South, I am watching with horror the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and the blind, astonishing backing of the majority of governments and mainstream media outlets in the United States and Europe. Like most people in the Global South, I am opening my eyes to the hypocrisy, racism, and ugly confirmation that our lives and deaths are still not valued or regarded as equal. Like most people in the Global South, I am outraged at the narrative of condemning Hamas solely for the attack on October 7, the impudence of acting as if it were unprovoked, and the moral failure to view it in the context of 75 years of dehumanization, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, land theft, violence, torture, and rape at the hands of Israel.

We, who suffered from colonialism, understand that the only party to blame is Israel, the occupying power, simply because if there had been no occupation, there would have been no Hamas. We, who suffered from colonialism, understand that the Hamas combatants who attacked Israel on October 7 did not choose to be resistance fighters and would have had normal lives if they had not been subjected to occupation and living for almost two decades in a concentration camp where more than half of the population were struggling to afford food just before October 7. We, who suffered from colonialism, are well aware of this narrative of blaming the victims and the failure to apply the same moral principles to us.

So, for the people of conscience in the Global North who are standing with the Palestinians in any way they can, for those marching, writing, and speaking up, thank you for giving us hope in humanity in our darkest hour and not allowing us to turn into complete monsters as our enemies want us to.

And for the other ones, for those who are running this horror show in Gaza or facilitating it, for those who are murdering and collectively punishing the innocent men and women and the children of the earth, for those who know there are children trapped in darkness under the rubble of bombed buildings, who are dying of thirst and hunger and are still against a ceasefire, for those who have revealed the wickedness of their hearts and the darkness of their souls, know that we now see you for who you are. The masks have fallen, and millions of us are opening up our eyes to the realization of how much you hate and dehumanize us. Millions of us are radicalized and ready to adopt the ideas and narratives of any group, only if it will fight or oppose you. Whatever doctrine there is — Islamist, Communist, or Nihilist — millions of us are ready to espouse it only if it will take a stand against you.

Palestine now divides us.

We have hate in our hearts, and I promise you that it will remain. And I promise you we will live like this and die like this and pass on our rage and our pain. And we will remain prisoners of our hate, and you will remain prisoners of your crimes and fears, and the violence will go on, and none of us will be free, until there is fairness and until there is justice, and until Palestine is free.

Mohamed Seif El Nasr - an Egyptian writer with an academic background in history and international law.

#Palestine #genocide in gaza #genocide in palestine #colonialism #Mohamed Seif El Nasr

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lookninjas · 6 months

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Pick a Song From A Bad Description: November Edition

Because it's dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home and that's why.

I just really needed to capture the spirit of the season (and build a playlist around that Colourfield song), so this is what we're doing.

Pick a song! Any song! You have only my bad descriptions to go off, though. If you are curious about any given song, you can shoot me an ask and I will answer. At the end of voting, I will make a playlist of the songs in order from least number of votes to highest number of votes, and will reblog this poll with that playlist attached. If you want to be reminded of this poll when it's playlist time, leave a comment or put it in the tags if you reblog, and I'll write your username down and tag you when the playlist is posted.

Also, please reblog the poll! Everyone likes it when their polls break containment, even if we don't like it when anything else does. Polls are different like that.

(Also, also, I will probably blaze this one just because everyone's talking about the death of tumblr, and while I've lived through like six of those, it's a good excuse to toss them a little money while I can.)

Vote! Reblog! If you're in the northern hemisphere, try not to let the seasonal depression get you down too much. See you in a week or whenever I reblog this next.

#polls #music #playlists #bit heated about my inability to find the gif i wanted which i know should be on the site #but whatever #anyway just time to do something a bit melancholy for november is all

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natalieironside · 2 years

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As a basic bitch who loves autumn I have mixed feelings about living in a subtropical climate b/c on the one hand it's like autumn lasts all winter and it's awesome but on the other hand while the rest of the northern hemisphere is experiencing autumn we're getting a secret 5th season where it's like 90⁰ during the day and almost freezing at night

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mikkeneko · 1 year

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okay but this is exactly the sort of thing I mean when I think about "the Eden fallacy" in environmentalism and how destructive it is as a line of thinking

I don't want to deny the importance of being able to grieve for things lost or subscribe to "but the environment has changed before!" crap, but. this business of assigning a moral weight to the environment being a certain way is... it doesn't lead good places, ok? why does it matter what the biome looked like "when Rome was doing that whole conquer the med thing?" why is that, in particular, something we feel like we have to aspire to?

ten thousand years ago the northern hemisphere was covered in glaciers, and megafauna the world has never seen since abounded. now it's not. ten million years ago the globe was ten degrees hotter and the oxygen content was higher and life forms flourished then that are now found nowhere but fossils. those worlds are gone now. should someone be punished for that? were those environments morally better than the one we had five hundred years ago? fifty years ago? now? are great forests superior to deserts? are charismatic megafauna more valuable than pigeons or crayfish? why?

we need to be able to find beauty and value in the world we have around us right now, or what's the point in trying to preserve it? if everything is Corrupt and Lesser and good things are Lost Forever then why try to save them?

there's a species of butterfly that lives exclusively in the sand dunes at the end of the runway off the LAX airport. It is because the airport and flyover zone is there that the dunes can stand undisturbed, that the buckwheat can grow, and the butterflies can flourish. biodiversity grows, uncelebrated, in every abandoned lot. we have to be able to love a world where this is true.

#salty sunday

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fatehbaz · 1 year

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A thing that I love to do is to intentionally unlearn English common names for plants and animals. Ascribing of strict formal names to living things for processing through institutionalized knowledge systems is an act of capture. And I am not interested in capturing, possessing, any creature.

What do some English common names teach us about a creature? Names are powerful. These are things that I often contemplate together in relation to each other: “folk” taxonomy, animal naming conventions, erasure of local environmental knowledge, the theft and extraction of Indigenous language and knowledge, and rare and endemic species with specific microhabitat preferences.

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You might come to find that a creature, like a frog in the tropical Andes, is named for a museum curator in London who had never visited the Andes, or the frog is named after an eighteenth century plantation owner who contracted the European land surveyors to map the area.

There are so many creatures named after racists, eugenicists, violent colonizers. Of course, Linnaean taxonomic naming conventions were being established alongside the height of European maritime dominance, plantation slavery, and colonization of the American hemisphere, Australia, South Asia, the tropics.

A frog might be named after an imperial British adventurer who recorded the creature for audiences at European museums. They called “dibs” on the frog, despite the fact that local Indigenous communities may have had an ongoing relationship with the creature for centuries. So instead I’m interested in trying to learn a “folk” name for the creature, or instead I would apply a new name for an animal based on the geographic area, ecoregion, plant community, or ecocultural region that the creature was most closely associated with.

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Here’s a situation:

There is a relatively little-known salamander species. It is superlative. The terrestrial adults are enormous, and can be purple-ish in color, marked with gold speckles that seem to glow like glitter. They’re one of the only salamanders on the planet that can vocalize. They live in habitat alongside grizzly bears, mountain lion, wolverine, moose, unique lichen-eating mountain caribou, land snails, big ferns. The aquatic larvae can reach lengths of over 30 centimeters (1 foot), and they live not in still water like ponds and lakes as most other salamander larvae, but instead they swim around in fast-flowing streams.

It’s an endemic species. It lives in just a few small rivers’ watersheds, mostly in small, fast-flowing, cold, clear mountain streams in temperate rainforest ecosystems in the Columbia Mountains of the Northern Rockies, almost entirely within the arbitrary political borders of the US state of “Idaho,” on the traditional land of Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people and Schitsu’umsh (Skitswish/Coeur d’Alene) people.

And it’s official common name: “Idaho giant salamander.” Not cool. Does the salamander have a meaningful reciprocal relationship with a political entity less than 200 years old, or does the salamander have a relationship with the ancient cedars of the rainforest? Which has existed longer: the arbitrary political entity of Idaho, or the Nimiipuu people? What do some English common names teach us about a creature? Names are powerful. Is the salamander named after the streams, the source of its life? Is it named after the temperate rainforest ecoregion, this safe harbor of fertile vegetation? Does its name refer to the endemic tailed frogs or other aquatic creatures that it relies on for food? Does the name reference the Nimiipuu, who have known the amphibian for centuries? Even the region’s name (”Columbia Mountains”) is a reference to one of history’s most notorious celebrities.

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Here’s something from Robin Wall Kimmerer:

In the English language, if we want to speak of that sugar maple or that salamander, the only grammar that we have to do so is to call those beings an “it.” [...] In Potawatomi, the cases that we have are animate and inanimate, and it is impossible in our language to speak of other living beings as “it”s. [...] [W]hen we name something, often with a scientific name, this name becomes almost an end to inquiry. We sort of say, well, we know it now. We’re able to systematize it […]. It’s such a mechanical, wooden representation of what a plant really is. And we reduce them tremendously if we just think about them [solely] as physical elements of the ecosystem. […] This comes back to what I think of as the innocent or childlike way of knowing. Actually, that’s a terrible thing to call it. We say it’s an innocent way of knowing, and, in fact, it’s a very worldly and wise way of knowing. That kind of deep attention that we pay as children is something that I cherish, that I think we all can cherish and reclaim, because attention is that doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity.

Words of Robin Wall Kimmerer. Interviewed by Krista Tippett. “On Being with Krista Tippett - Robin Wall Kimmerer: The Intelligence in All Kinds of Life.” February 2016.

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It’s also important to me to clarify that, when referencing an Indigenous name or term for landmarks, places, plants, animals, etc. I only really feel comfortable doing so if the name is explicitly used by and/or confirmed to be accurate by speakers, researchers, knowledge-holders, etc. from that Indigenous community. And I also don’t want to use/share a name/term if the name/term was “collected” (appropriated, extracted) by a chauvinistic white academic or paternalistic Euro-American “ethnologist” or reproduced in a 1950s ethnobotany book or something. I especially don’t like relying on the testimony of, like, Euro-American missionaries or “traders’ who recorded terms in their personal journal in the 1750s or something.

How were those terms encountered?

How were they “extracted”?

Under duress?

Were these names, this environmental knowledge, willingly shared?

What ethical implications are there, of accepting secondhand information from an invading “pioneer”?

Many times, I’ll be reading a paper, maybe a “contempoary” paper from the past 10 years, and see references to a cool-sounding place-name or alternative name for a creature, and I’ve thought “wow, the connotations of the name sound really interesting, I wonder where this was learned,” and I’ll check the bibliography, and the “Indigenous name” was taken from a 1965 academic article, which itself was taken from a 1922 ethnology article sponsored by the F0rd Motor Company in pursuit of stealing local plant knowledge and land titles for rubber plantations or something, and that info itself was taken from an 1874 report from settler-colonial surveyors interviewing “locals” while traveling in company with an ex-government employee “cowboy” who had previously murdered at least 5 of the “locals.” So that, often in Euro-American “Knowledge” or “Science”, when trying to determine the Source Of A Fact, there is this blatant lineage of theft and violence and roundabout superficial self-referencing.

Even in relatively modern academic journals. Let’s say, in the 1990s, a European academic does “field research” in Amazonia. Maybe they record an “accurate” term, and I read about it in a paper. The academic says that they have a “profound respect” for “the culture”. Does this make it OK to “take” their terms? Does this make it more acceptable to “extract” a language as if it were a resource, a possession? Does it change the fact that the sponsoring academic institution or the publishing journal are both entangled with corporate extraction and ongoing (neo)colonial financialization, dispossession, debt, etc.?

So (1) you’re presented with names/terms which are probably inaccurate and which you have no way of confirming because of the convoluted way the term was passed down through settler-colonial knowledge-systematization institutions; and/or (2) more importantly, you’re presented with names/terms stolen, often at threat of violence; or (3) even in “good” scenarios with an accurate term and a so-called self-professed “respectful observer”, you’re presented with names/terms which have great power, connected to a specific culture and landscape, which should be treated with reverence and deep care, but which can easily be stolen and appropriated by popular media, wielding the power of the name in contexts where it doesn’t belong, a betrayal to the people, place, and/or creature.

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Names imply or explicitly reveal the life of a creature or place, and also imply the connections between the creature/place being named, and the other worlds and relationships it influences and interacts with.

If i am not from the community that conceived the term/language, (1) it doesn’t feel honorable appropriating their language for myself, especially if I don’t have ongoing personal connection to people, places; (2) it doesn’t feel honorable, or all that reliable, to accept at face value the accuracy of a language/term if it’s being reported secondhand by a Euro-American academic intermediary, especially if that language was recorded during periods when Euro-American observers were actively engaged in colonization; and (3) it doesn’t feel honorable to use what might even be accurate Indigenous language/terminology if it was recorded/learned/stolen/promoted by Euro-American observers, unless there is explicit permission from native speakers to use the word, or unless native speakers actively encourage the acknowledgement of the words, maybe for purposes like language revitalization.

There is power and knowledge in a name. using a name involves serious responsibility. i feel that some names aren’t for me to invoke.

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I think that maybe no name can do justice to the entire rich existence of a creature, but we can really do better than some English common names, especially in those cases when an animal is named after a lone individual human. And so, in naming, there might be a difficult decision to make. Do you name a creature for its behavior, its location, its appearance, its season of activity, its prefered habitat, its companion species? Maybe you have your own, personal, relationship with the creature. A living thing has so many interweaved relationships with others. Maybe its “meaning” changes with context or season or emotional state of the human observer. Maybe I will sometimes call the “Idaho giant salamander” something more fitting. Maybe I’ll call it “the cedar salamander” or the “guardian of the waterfall pools” or “the giant of the stream” or “moss dragon” or whatever. Depends on the mood, context, whatever.

We are all of us, salamander and human, more rich and complex than associations with mere behavior, appearance, habitat preference, or the surveyors that try to capture and catalogue us. And sometimes, I’m uncomfortable enclosing us with a singular denomination, with a strict name. I don’t assume that I know enough about a living thing to possess it through formal naming conventions.

#this is all just copy pasted and slightly edited from older posts of mine on this site #but the naming conventions of the frogs in Ecaudorian tropical Andes had me thinking about this #abolition #interspecies #ecology

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