Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
raedusoleil
raedusoleil

image

Although I just made a new door charm at the equinox, I’d been thinking of making a new one for Samhain since before my busy week, and so I did my crafting ritual. I drew an alchemic tile from a velvet bag, and okay, Mercurius you want, Mercurius you’re gonna get.

The sunflower is still drying after being picked from the backyard on the 1st, I didn’t ever think a sunflower would become a door charm, but I get how that plays into the magickal mechanics now that it’s happened.

Fresh-cut rosemary, protection and remembrance. Dried mullein blossoms for the lower crossing lines, a pair of unlit hag’s tapers.  The U of rosemary tucked right into the string holding the sunflower on the back.  It was tricky to find a couple stems long enough, but freshly-cut they bent just enough.  I wanted to use the blooming rosemary and not the non-blooming shrub, which has slimmer, more bendy branches, and so I accepted a certain amount of woody stem cracking.

Ideally, the sunflower will hold together long enough to be an offering to the birds at Yule, and I’ll make the next one then.  Hmm, clearly last year’s quarterly schedule just stepped up to every turn.  Not surprising really.

fireproofphoenix
theguardian.com

The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

When a group of schoolboys were marooned on an island in 1965, it turned out very differently to William Golding’s bestseller, writes Rutger Bregman
Rutger Bregman
sophiamcdougall

Spoiler: they made a pact never to argue and took self-imposed time-outs when they lapsed. One broke his leg and they cared for him so well it healed perfectly. They planted a vegetable garden and kept their spirits up singing along to a guitar they fashioned from driftwood and a coconut shell.

(Article is weirdly focused on the white guy who rescued them, though.)

jenniferrpovey

The point of Lord of the Flies is not “Humans do terrible things without laws”

It’s “We’re raising our boys to be little terrors, why don’t we stop.”

jaxtronaut

Most works of fiction like Lord of the Flies, Heart of Darkness, Far Cry 3, etc. are misinterpreted to mean “human beings are intrinsically evil and will go wild without the laws of society to keep them in check” when the real message is more along the lines of “privileged white men are out of touch and often have unresolved anger issues, so when they are removed from their comfortable ‘civilized’ world, they turn into helpless, emotionally stunted animals ruled entirely by their id”

inquisitivelostwanderer
ed-longshanks

important psa

soundlessdragon

Awh, I always thought they were so pretty and had no idea they could be harmful

christianmarvel

Can someone transcribe this? The water is really loud.

petit-bon-homme

“Hey everybody! Here we are in the southern Appalachian mountains. We have a pristine Montane stream ecosystem, as you can see all around us here. I thought I’d make an educational video this morning. It involves this practice right here [gestures to rock pile]. As our national parks and national forests fall victim to human pressure, more than ever, this is something we’re seeing more and more of. Hopefully we can make this video go viral. This stream, as you can see around us right here, is a breeding ground for North America’s largest salamander, the Eastern hellbender. They can get up to 2.5-3 feet long. It’s part of our natural heritage in the eastern United States. When people do this right here - what they consider to be art - they’re actually destroying the breeding ground for the Eastern hellbender salamander. The Eastern hellbender will use flat rocks such as these to make nesting sites in these streams. So here’s what I would like everybody to do. If you care about our Montane stream freshwater ecosystems like this one around us here, when you see something like this, this is what I recommend doing: [kicks down rock pile]. Take the rocks, throw them back into the stream. The Eastern hellbender utilizes rocks like this. It actually feels pretty good to do this! [walks to other pile] This is not actually art, okay? This is destruction of our freshwater ecosystems. So I would like to encourage everyone: when you see this [gestures to second rock pile], do this! [kicks pile] I’d like to return our streams to their natural state for the organisms that live here. Thanks, and have a good day.”

gendernewtral

also! don’t do this on beaches! https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/people-are-stacking-too-many-stones/amp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wideopenspaces.com/rock-stacking-natural-graffitti-ecological-impact/amp/

https://www.ausableriver.org/blog/leaving-no-trace-rock-stacking

thesearchforbluejello

Fantastic! Yes! They're very harmful to many ecosystems and should never be considered art!

BUT

If you see one of these rock piles on an established trail, do NOT for the love of god kick it over. In places where a trail forks or moves over features like talus fields, trail crews sometimes build cairns to mark the trail where spray painted blazes can't be used or would be easily missed (e.g. on rocks that commonly become wet, painted blazes are harder to see).

There are multiple takeaways here:

1) Making cairns yourself is BAD. Don't do it.

2) Cairns are not ever properly used in rivers.

3) If you see a cairn on a trail, LEAVE IT. If it does need to be removed, the trail crews working for the National Forest Service/NPS/AMC/whatever or Rangers will remove it when they do trail work.

If you only ever read one post of mine, please make it this one. YESTERDAY my mom and I were hiking in the Pemigewasset Wilderness of New Hampshire, and on the trail we hiked there was a fork with half marked by a cairn so hikers knew to go the right way to pick up the blazed trail. If someone had removed that we probably would have been fine because there was an old logging road on the other side eventually leading to the road going through the notch, but elsewhere that could have killed us. It's very easy to get lost in wilderness, and no matter how prepared or experienced you are it can prove fatal.

TL;DR, please note this statement by the National Park Service.

image

(I am aware this statement specifically is from NPS, but this goes for your National Forests, State Forests, etc as well.)

Photo tax:

image

A good cairn, built by a trail crew to mark the trail ascent over open face granite on the Baldface Loop over North and South Baldface in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I took this when we summited in 2018.

sneakyfeets

Yeah for real cairns are necessary on trails

elodieunderglass

Oh god yes I was so amused to see the video that FOR A MOMENT I forgot that some cairns are on maps

Thanks @thesearchforbluejello