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Just potentially started a new romantic relationship so…in honor of that I made Aphrodite a shine by my bedside 🌸💕

#altar #shrine #aphrodite

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aaron bushnell knew exactly what he was doing. he states his intentions with total lucidity and sense of purpose. he knows what he's about to do is extreme--he says so. he speaks calmly, but he's clearly terrified. he takes a deep breath after pouring the accelerant over himself. he has to psyche himself up to light the flame. he struggles with the lighter. he says "free palestine" normally once before he starts to scream it. even through his agony he manages to say it one last time before he stops being able to speak at all. this is a man with total conviction. he wanted to help people, in any way possible. this action was a moral one, and any news outlet painting this as simply a mental health issue is a disservice to his memory. he knew what he was doing when he burned himself in uniform. he knew that there was a chance that sacrificing his own life could go on to save many others. this was the ultimate act of selflessness, and it should be treated as such. may he rest in peace.

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Thich Nhat Hanh on self-immolation

“Before the Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself alive in 1963, he meditated for several weeks and then wrote very loving letters to his government, his church, and his fellow monks and nuns explaining why he had reached that decision. When you are motivated by love and the willingness to help others attain understanding, even self-immolation can be a compassionate act. When Jesus allowed himself to be crucified, He was acting in the same way, motivated by the desire to wake people up, to restore understanding and compassion, and to save people. … When you read Thich Quang Duc’s letters, you know very clearly that he was not motivated by the wish to oppose or destroy but by the desire to communicate. When you are caught in a war in which the great powers have huge weapons and complete control of the mass media, you have to do something extraordinary to make yourself heard. Without access to radio, television, or the press, you have to create new ways to help the world understand the situation you are in. Self-immolation can be such a means. If you do it out of love, you act very much like Jesus did on the cross…”

- Vietnamese monk and Zen master Thich Naht Hanh (1926-2022) in Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995)

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Image Description: tweet from MsShaniqueLee says "Black Lives Matter even if they do resist arrest. Black Lives Matter even if they did commit a crime. Black Lives Matter even if they disrespect a cop. Black Lives do not matter conditionally. Black Lives Matter, period. All of them.

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-fae

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microdosing on catabasis by taking the subway

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Yesterday, Today, and Forever

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Meilichios

I sing praises of Meilichios, The gentle God, Whose hands take mine when I despair, Whose feet tread lightly upon the earth. You take my heartache, My aches, my pains, And tuck them away when I ask. May sweet sprigs of lavender adorn You, Woven throughout Your dark hair, And may wine forever fill Your offering cup!

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Day 106. Don't look away.

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saying “be safe” like a spell that’ll protect them

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David Redefined 🏳️‍⚧️

Screen Print I made for my printmaking class!

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Eos in Etruria, Mask, The Art of Mask

Etruria, the land of the pre-Roman Etruscans, later became Tuscany. Eos is the goddess of sunrise, and here she's dawning over the Tuscan landscape.

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“The Prophetess” or “The Rising Moon”, from Andrea Zanatelli’s embroidery series

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The Gods are not trans allies.

The Gods are not trans-friendly.

The Gods do not ‘support’ queer people.

The Gods ARE trans. The Gods ARE queer.

The Gods are transgender, They are transsexual. ‘Trans’ means ‘beyond, across’.

The Gods are beyond gender. Beyond sex. Beyond flesh. Beyond normality and norms— thus, They are queer. They are trans. They are on the other side of gender, of sex— on the side we cannot even begin to understand.

The Gods are transsexual and transgender and queer not (only) within our human understanding of transness— They are not trans in the way we humans are trans.

But They are still trans. They are the original transness. The ultimate transsexuality.

Transness as a transition from a state to another state, from a form to another form— from Their divine form to one we humans can behold without being consumed by Their inherent queerness. From Their divinity to words we humans can attempt to understand and think of without being utterly lost in the enormity and infinity of the divine.

Transness as a journey, a constant state of evolution within the world— evolution of the world itself, for the Gods are the world, are beyond time, beyond space, yet constantly changing.

The Gods do not love trans worshippers despite their transness, despite their queerness. The Gods love trans worshippers for their transness. They love us because we are trans. Because we are queer.

As we defy norms, we become closer to Them— trans people are humans, mortals, but I firmly believe that there is something inherently holy in transition. To change yourself, to think the limits of the body and to alter your own flesh is to create, is to destroy. To understand how limitless the world is— how flesh and sex and gender are human things, social things, that are made by us and can be expended and transgressed— is to take a step towards the Gods.

The Gods love you. You are made in Their image. Or maybe— you make yourself in Their image. And that is beautiful.

(reminder that this is my vision of divinity, not a definite fact, even if i think there are a lot of things (in multiple cultures/religions) that point to the divine being beyond gender)

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☀️Happy Yule!🐐