#about connecting in profound ways that feel only accessible in a place where humans are exceptions and not the rule

[landwriter]

2!

Hounds of Love by The Futureheads. Oh! What a gem!! I first loved this song when I was a wee bab and rediscovered it this past summer. It, along with all my top songs, was on a summer driving playlist which is why it is so insanely high haha. There's a sort of lovely pastoral wildness to this and I think that suits our lads so well.

An outdoorsy AU with competence kink out the wazoo, where Dream is a bird specialist at a wildlife rehabilitative centre, who becomes a minor TikTok celebrity (much to his enormous apathy) when the centre starts doing interpretive meet-birds events and the internet falls in love with this dour hottie who only smiles when he's talking about birds (Matthew, naturally, runs the account). Hob is a hunter - bow, mostly - who is regrettably very on TikTok, very on all social media - he hates the term but he is unquestionably an 'influencer'. He just likes sharing his knowledge and passion, alright? And the gear sponsorships are nice.

He sees Dream, and sees, mostly, a really great collab opportunity, so he messages him, and Dream (who is Matthew, and just shouted HOB FUCKING GADLING? IN MY DMs? at his phone when he got the message, immediately sets up a meeting at the centre. Then he breaks the news to Dream, specifically when Dream is holding Jessamy, so he can't be murdered.)

Dream, of course, expects Hob to be some like, swaggering font of red-blooded machismo talking points, and suspects Hob is only popular because he looks like an advertisement in Outdoor Living. (Matthew showed him pictures.) He disregards Matthew, who says Hob is actually super cool, because Matthew has terrible taste and would be the first to admit it. But his interest is piqued when Lucienne also knows who Hob is. It turns out Hob is deeply involved in nature and wildlife conservancy. Gives talks at schools. Gets involved with land protection initiatives. Teaches orienteering to youth. But everyone seems to expect him to hate Hob, which he would find faintly insulting except that he also expects himself to hate Hob. He doesn't. Not that much. Even when he shows up in a plaid shirt that is made of 'technical' fabric, because he's smart and excited to talk to Dream about birds, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of falconry, and most importantly, Jessamy takes to him immediately.

They run into each other again at a renaissance fair, another thing Dream hates but has been strong-armed into doing, and so they are both dressed in very silly clothes when it happens: the first time Hob watches Dream demonstrate falconry, the first time Dream watches Hob use a longbow made from a yew tree he fell himself, the first time they go from a wary sort of respect for one another to a wanting.

Dream, who has a recurring fantasy about running away from it all, listens to Hob tell tracking stories and thinks, If I went into the woods, you would find me. But he doesn't want to run from Hob - except sometimes, when he sees Hob chew on his lip consideringly before giving a thoughtful answer about the guiding industry, or when Hob grins wildly at the crowd after his archery demonstration, and most of all, when Hob phones him out of the blue one day - he doesn't text, he phones - sounding a little breathless with excitement, and asks Dream if he wants to come with him for a week in the mountains, on "probably a wild goose chase" and promises "all sorts of birds if nothing else." (Hob had meant to only share the news with Dream. Fuck, he thinks. I am so fucked.)

He says yes, for the birds, of course, and tells Matthew the next time he's at the centre.

"So what's the wild goose chase?" asks Matthew.

Dream plumbs his memory of the phone call and says, "Hob told me he received a bighorn sheep tag." Matthew gapes at him.

"Holy shit," says Matthew. "He's in love with you."

"He is certainly not."

"Uh, no, respectfully boss, he 'certainly' is. Lucienne!" he shouts, "Hob invited Dream to come out on his Dall sheep tag. What the fuck, right?"

Lucienne comes in and raises her eyebrows. "Oh dear," she says. She's smiling.

"What," says Dream. "It's a sheep. I don't understand."

Lucienne and Matthew exchange a glance.

"Him. I cannot believe Hob chose him," says Matthew.

"Love works in mysterious ways," says Lucienne.

"I am right here," says Dream.

Matthew turns to him, "Have fun in Alberta," he says.

this would ft. nights of wild stars, rugged terrain, type ii fun, sexual tension around a campfire, homoerotic form checks, tent sharing, dream glassing beautiful birds with hob's $3000 binoculars while hob stares at him in abject adoration, dream watching hob strip off his clothes and jump into an alpine lake, and refusing to join him out of pretended prudishness when it's really because he's suddenly so hard it hurts, camp coffee, confessions about themselves instead of confessions about their feelings for each other, sore muscles for a VARIETY of reasons, and lots of allegories about wildness and taming and running away from things, and SO MUCH COMPETENCE KINK, friends. so much. i would probably write it like - act one them leading their separate lives, their desires and aches etc., act two - meetcute and circling one another, act three - The Trip. this one has a very happy ending i can tell

#the sandman #dreamling #'this one won't be more than a few paragraphs' i say #stopping myself NOW ha ha #another AU I Would Write for suuuure #luring you in with the promise brokeback mountain style pastoral yearning #then leaping onto my soapbox and waxing poetic abt our relationship with meat and nature and nonhuman life #about hunting trips and multiday outdoor trips in general as a way of enriching relationships with others #about connecting in profound ways that feel only accessible in a place where humans are exceptions and not the rule #where our endemically lonely society and all the guardedness is stripped away before the beauty and the ache of the suck #wild spaces making room for wild emotions #for humanity #in a way cities and towns do not #ANYWAYS #shout out to the person reading this who understands the significance of a bighorn sheep tag as a feelings confession lol #(hucks this post onto my teetering want-to-make-this-a-WIP pile) #spotify wrapped prompt #my writing

[posletsvet]

Satoru Gojo and the Infinity That Sets Him Apart

Throught the flashback arc that opens JJK'S second season, the story goes to great lengths to make us sympathize with Geto. We are privy to the inner workings of his mind when he faces personal catastrophes of his youth, and it grants us a profound insight into how his mental/emotional state deteriorates in response to a painful realization that later comes to define his entire life. Gege found a way to turn Geto's tendency to internalize his experiences into a narrative tool, the mechanics of his Cursed Technique becoming an apt metaphor for it, and that's one truly astonishing writing.

But what about Gojo? After all, it's his memories that play out before our eye as he daydreams, and Geto is no longer an active force in the narrative, so the arc should be introduced in the first place to shed some light on Satoru's character and highlight certain aspects of it. However, while the narrative goes out of its way to humanize Geto by exposing his interiority to the audience, it seems to bit by bit deny readers access to Gojo's mind until Satoru is entirely closed off emotionally at the end of Hidden Inventory Arc. From that point on, any reading of his words and actions can be as good as the other since personal interpretation is all that is left to us to try and understand what lies behind the appearances (I guess that's precisely why there are so many widely different, conflicting interpretations of Gojo out there). What process Gojo's character undergoes throughout his past arc is, essentially, dehumanization.

Let's take a look at Gojo as he is in the main, present timeline. Pretty much as any other person in Gojo's vicinity, the audience can only observe him from the outside, always held at an arm's length away from his interior thoughts and emotions. Whenever we do get an insight into his mind, it's mostly for a solely practical purpose of keeping the readers informed about the direction which the fight is about to take, with Satoru's internal monologues consisting almost completely of him dryly strategizing against his opponents.

Even Gojo's design is set to dehumanize him, teasing the audience with how much it conceals and how little it allows us to derive from what we see. Plain black clothes, long sleeves, long trousers, high collar. Barely any skin exposed, scarce detail, completely colourless expression. To crown it all, his blindfold -- we do not get to see his eyes. Eyes mirror the soul, they communicate emotion which our words fail to. Eye contact is a primal tool of non-verbal communication because of how much our eyes alone can give away about our feelings. With Gojo's eyes perpetually hidden under his ever-present blindfold, there's an additional layer of protection, another hindrance to our understanding of his state of mind. A simple piece of cloth adds to the distance preventing access to Gojo's direct perspective, as impenetrable as trying to look through a blindfold would be for anyone but Gojo himself. The same could be applied even to his height: people around him are required to reach up with their gaze in order to look him in the face. Once again, this choice in his design strives to communicate one thing: you cannot meet him at his level, there is a palpable distance between where he stands and where you are. Everything about Gojo feels almost impersonal, evasive, further increasing the extent of his alienation.

There's an interesting connection found between Gojo's technique, his need to cover his eyes and the narrative distance that does not allow us to get any closer to his character. It's precisely when Gojo puts his mind to perfecting his usage of the Limitless that an unbreachable impediment settles between him and the people around, resulting in him and Geto from that point on being forever unable to get through to each other. With his technique taking a toll on his body by becoming more overwhelming to use after such a rapid increase in power, it's also when Gojo starts to wear his shades all the time. And whereas before we were allowed to look past the tanned spectacles and see his eyes, read the emotion in them, now we're denied even that much. It's probably a short after Geto's defection when Satoru switches to a blindfold, indicating how he completely shuts off emotionally. Just as Geto's Curse Manipulation stands as a metaphor for him repressing his feelings till the breaking point, Gojo's mental state is reflected through the physical appearance, too. Him physically distancing himself from everything within the world around him with his Limitless technique sustaining an uncrossable invisible barrier around him and his blindfold hiding his eyes from the viewer is also how his emotional detachment is established on the meta level of the narrative.

Since Geto's defection, Gojo's defenses are breached in the main timeline just once, and that is during Shibuya Incident Arc. It's barely a coincidence that, as the Limitless falls short and the ever-present physical distance is crossed sharply with the Prison Realm reaching Gojo, the emotional distance is immeadiately eliminated, too.

All defenses down and the memories of his youth flooding through the cracks, Gojo suddenly isn't numb to all the hurt of his past mistakes and what it cost him and the people around him; all the ache of losing his best friend not once but twice and being utterly unable to do anything about it still weighs on him. Neither is numb to all of it the reader, not anymore. The narrative 'catches up' to Gojo at this moment. It was an alienating, almost inhumane experience to never get a sight of Gojo's emotions when it mattered the most, at the pivotal events of his life which come to shape him as a character and as a person. We were simply denied that intimacy. But with Satoru's physical body made within reach and his mind suddenly transparent, laid bare, the delayed heartbreak is alive and present as ever. The weakness of his human heart is exposed, but it required crossing the Infinity to get to his heart.

The physical distance is only breached because the emotional one is eliminated beforehand. However, we finally get to catch a glimpse of Gojo's true feelings because something within the world was able to reach him physically, penetrating through his Limitless technique. The two are the sides of the one coin, they go hand in hand within the narrative, ultimately rendered inseperable by it. At the end of the day, the body is the soul and the soul is the body.

I've started writing all this well before the spoilers for the last chapter came out, but what we see in it, at least how I personally take it, speaks in favour of pretty much everything I've been talking about above. It's somewhat notorious how little emotional impact Gojo's fight against Sukuna lands. Until now. Until Gojo's Infinity utterly fails to prevent his body from taking the damage. Once again we gain insight into his interiority the instance he's physically exposed to the world. With Gojo's invulnerability ultimately overcome, the narrative grants us access to his inner feelings and thoughts one last time. Satoru's heart is an aching wound split open one last time.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk analysis #jjk meta #gojo satoru #geto suguru #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jjk manga spoilers #alright i'm posting it just to get it over with #i'm so exhausted and overwhelmed with what we saw in the spoilers this week #emotionally stunted head in my hands you know the drill #god i wish i never got into this manga #not when something like this makes so much sense narrative-wise #it's unbearable #the implications i was trying to pull off here is probably incomprehensible #but i don't have it in me right now to care

[cellarspider]

I have a thesis to share on Elden Ring, because I can’t stop thinking about this game. In summary: With an approachable, pantheon-driven mythology hiding the incredibly far-reaching substrata of the setting, Elden Ring has the capacity to become just as psychological as Dark Souls, and provide a different sort of cosmic horror. And through this, gameplay and story echo each other on a profound level. This piece assumes you’ve finished Elden Ring’s story or are familiar with it through other means, and also contains major spoilers for Bloodborne and Dark Souls.

I connected very quickly with Elden Ring's story of the earthly gods, because their role to me felt less like the metaphorical figures that Dark Souls prefers, and more like a mythology based around stories of a pantheon. Big, messy families cobbled together by cultures that traded with, absorbed, or conquered each other, creating something unique and strange and very human in its cosmology.

Dark Souls has a thesis that’s very rooted in Buddhist ideas of how the world cycles through suffering, and focusing your energy on extending the existence of that cycle is against the better interests of all. While deities play a definite role in its implementation, Buddhism places a very strong emphasis on this core thesis. The gods are standing against the philosophical underpinnings of the world, and this dooms them to failure and all suffer further as a result of their hubris, thinking that they can find perfection by existing forever within the world.

While Elden Ring is still definitely flavored by all of this, Elden Ring’s immediately accessible pantheon feels like a blending of Buddhist philosophy overlaid on something more like Shintoism, or Egyptian, Norse, Celtic and Greek mythology. These aren’t pantheons where there’s an explicitly stated grand thesis to their existence, beyond their place as a reflection of the culture that made them. In the context of those pantheons, things like Godfrey's WWE Smackdown fit--A Hercules or Thor or Cú Chulainn or Susanoo would absolutely pull a wacky, prideful, underhanded move like that. Though I'll admit, I still laughed.

Given the fact that most of those pantheons describe a strata of primordial reality completely unlike our own should have clued me in on the fact that something more deeply alien was coming, but it caught me completely off-guard. Every new item description or otherworldly bit of environmental design completely rearranged my sense of what the world was, over and over again.

The fact that I found so many of these things before I reached the points where they'd become evident made it all the more revelatory. The two moments that hit the hardest were finding out that these massive insects in the deep caves were "malformed stars", and falling down the roots of the Erdtree to find an incantation that said the Greater Will sent down a golden beast to become the Elden Ring.

And so it left me asking more questions--Buddhism provides a framework for Dark Souls and how to put the world to rest: the world churns through cycles of inequity, with only the final abandonment of the cycle bringing about peace and enlightenment. But when even the fundamental tenets of reality are defined not by universal truths but by vast beings with their own agendas, it becomes harder to see a compassionate path forward.

In that way, the cosmic horror of it all felt more profound than Bloodborne. I’ll admit, I was spoiled by the demo of Bloodborne we received before its release: In that, the Lesser Amygdalas were visible by default. If I’d gone in thinking it was just a game about werewolves in a jacked up Victoriana goth setting, then maybe I’d feel differently.

The Great Ones in Bloodborne have their own agendas, yes, and great power. But many of them still have limits or small-scale ways they interact with the world. You can beat the Moon Presence to death with a big hammer. Oedon reshapes Yharnam through his fundamental connection to blood ministration, but all we see coming of that is an attempt to create children. They profoundly twist the world in ways inescapable to those that fall under their influence, but I never got the same sense of vastness that the Outer Gods in Elden Ring produced for me, once I realized they were even there.

That's how Elden Ring really got me, and how gameplay and story mirrored each other in my experience. The deliberate accessibility of the game in both story and mechanics eventually culminated in something altogether transformed, and more difficult to wrestle with. That's why it's my favorite out of all the games FromSoft's given us.

#elden ring #spider rambles far too much #elden ring spoilers #bloodborne spoilers #dark souls spoilers #I will admit that if I grew up in a buddhist culture then the thesis of dark souls might be more immediately accessible to me #but I don't know that for certain #given that these games are all so open to personal interpretation

[shinycreatoravenue]

Meditations on The Blue Lantern Oath

I love the Blue Lantern Corps. I know that there have been mixed reviews of the Corps over the years from comic book fans - most of the criticisms I've seen are related to their lackluster powers (mostly that the ring can only access its coolest powers when near a Green Lantern Ring, because hope requires will to reach its full potential).

Accepting those criticisms, I'd argue that the Power of Hope is one of the most important superpowers in all the universe. Without hope, I'd argue the human person withers - whether we put our hope in a divinity, that tomorrow will be different than the darkness of today, or even in the ability for people to choose the good over the bad, people without hope enter a dark place. We need hope - and we need the Blue Lantern ring.

When I am in a dark place, where my hope is wearing thin, I like to ponder the Blue Lantern Oath - the words a ring wearer says as they charge up their ring with emotional energy. While not as profound as poetry or scriptures - it is a four stanzas written for mass market comic books - there is something valuable in considering its words, and how we can find the hope in us:

"In fearful day, in raging night" A simple admission of the condition of consciousness, at least as we understand it. There will be nights where the storms never cease, and proverbial beasts pound at the door. Nights devoid of sleep, filled with agonizing hours. And those nights are set against a daytime that is fearful - because sometimes the light of day does nothing but let us see the beasts that raged against the door. This is a shared human experience - we all experience the fearful day and the raging night. That is where the oath begins - and we need to remember that this state we find ourselves in is also a beginning of sorts.

"With strong hearts full, our souls ignite." Hope requires a strong heart. It even requires, I'd argue, a foolish heart. After all, when faced with the terrors of the universe we live in - with the ambivalent mass of Earth's natural world, the cruelty in the hearts of humans, and the fact that this awfulness is a refuge of a void that both screams and is silent - hope seems like a fool's errand. It takes strength to say to your despair and nihilism "What you say about the universe is true - but there is more than what you say." It is tremendously difficult to look at the grim darkness of the storm and say "I choose for the flickering candle to matter." But when you do, hope will change you - it will light fire your soul and will help you find meaning.

"When all seems lost in the War of Light" This one takes a little abstraction - it's specifically a reference to the events leading up to DC's Blackest Night crossover event, but it just as easily can be understood as a "war of emotions." After all, the many colored rings associated with the Green Lantern franchise are all associated to part of the "emotional spectrum." "The War of Light" is a war that we all fight within - a war of our feelings, and which ones to follow. And we all know what happens when the negative emotions are winning - that's hopelessness, "when all seems lost." Again, this is a state we can know that we all have lived through in one way or another.

"Look to the stars, for hope burns bright!" Hope calls us to look up, look out, look beyond. Hope is something we can have in ourselves, but it requires us to connect with something beyond the self. This can be divine, or it can be mundane - belief that people will choose the good, that tomorrow the darkness will look different, just as much as belief in a God who will set things to right. Hope requires us to not stay within the dark places in our hearts, but to look up - to move forward into the light.

To believe in hope. To choose for it to matter. To let it burn bright...and to let it be the superpower that saves us.

#comics #blue lantern #musings

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: “It’s a New Day”: THR Drama Actress Roundtable

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Gillian Anderson had been dreading this. A tripod had arrived at her home in the U.K., along with a mess of lights and, really, just the thought of having to sit through an hour-plus on Zoom had her practically reeling. But then the woman who stuns as Margaret Thatcher in the most recent season of Netflix’s The Crown got talking — about pigeonholing and pay equity, about grieving and giving oneself over — and soon she didn’t want to stop talking. And neither did anyone else — The Queen’s Gambit‘s Anya Taylor-Joy, Pose‘s Mj Rodriguez, Genius: Aretha‘s Cynthia Erivo, WandaVision’s Elizabeth Olsen and Ratched‘s Sarah Paulson — at THR’s annual (virtual) Drama Actress Roundtable.

Let’s start easy. Complete this sentence: On set, I’m the one who is most likely to be …

GILLIAN ANDERSON Hiding in a corner. (Laughter.)

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY Pacing whilst moving my hands like this (waving above) trying to figure out what it is that I’m doing.

SARAH PAULSON Bossing everyone around.

ELIZABETH OLSEN Probably trying to make the crew laugh.

At the same time, you’re also inhabiting characters for long stretches and often they require you to go to dark or heavy places. What happens when a director yells, “Cut”? Do they come home with you?

MJ RODRIGUEZ I try to separate myself from Blanca as much as possible, especially [because we’re] dealing with immense trauma. So, when I go home, it’s Michaela Jaé going home, and I bring Blanca to the set. It’s easier that way because it can weigh on you otherwise and wash off on your family.

TAYLOR-JOY I wish I had as much control over it. For me, there are some characters that you can very easily snap in and out of and then there are other ones like Beth in The Queen’s Gambit. I’d worked back-to-back on two projects with one day off in between, so by the time I got to filming the show, I was exhausted and there was no energy to create a barrier. And that was potentially the toughest thing about the show, because it was a wonderful experience as an actor to be able to not have to reach for any emotion, but then you also have to go through the psychological warfare of figuring out, “Why do I feel so awful in the morning?” Like, “What is happening?” And then you go, “Oh, it’s not my feelings,” but I have to sit in them all day and I have to be aware enough to go, “You are not depressed, the character is depressed, and at some point that will leave you.” But I do think a bath every single night — being able to have the visual representation of washing yourself clean of something — helps.

OLSEN Regardless of what exactly the day requires of you, emotionally, you’re just tired. And so you try to be patient and professional and kind, and then when you go home, that’s when your fuse is just … smaller. (Laughter.)

TAYLOR-JOY You should date us, we’re fabulous.

CYNTHIA ERIVO I did, it was a real ugly cry. After playing [Harriet Tubman in the 2019 film], I went straight to see my mother in London and I don’t know what happened, but I just broke. You know the visual representation of shattering glass? That was what was happening to me. All the stuff I had to dig through to play her, all that heartbreaking stuff didn’t leave me when I finished, and it took time to just dissipate. And it was the same with Aretha — unfortunately, the pandemic hit when we were in the middle of shooting, so I couldn’t completely get rid of her during the six-month hiatus, and then I had to go right back into playing her. And it’s little things, like mannerisms, that stick with you. The lilt in her voice when she’s speaking to people. Like, that’s not me but I was stuck with that for a bit. And I was recording an album at the same time, so there was no space between one and the other. It took me a while before I could listen to an Aretha song again.

ANDERSON I certainly had that experience doing X-Files for nine seasons. I had a good couple of mini breakdowns during that, and at the end, could not talk about it, could not see it, could not see pictures, could not. I needed to immerse immediately in theater in another country. And then after a while, I was able to embrace it again, but when I started to embrace it, it was almost like I separated myself so much that I was looking at the image as if it was another person. When you immerse yourself so entirely as we can and we do for such long periods of time, there’s not going to be no consequence to that. Of course, there’s going to be consequence to that.

TAYLOR-JOY May I pose a question to the group?

Please do.

TAYLOR-JOY It’s so wonderful hearing you two talk about this, because I’ve always felt really crazy for the depressions that you go into after you leave a character and not being able to necessarily connect with yourself. And I’m really curious to hear what your relationship is with something being seen. Because when I first started working, I convinced myself that filmmaking was a very private practice with a private group of people and that no one was ever going to see it. And I thought I’d grow out of that, and I haven’t. Every project I have to sit myself down about two months after it’s finished and go, “People are going to see this and have access to it whenever they want.” How do you guys work [handle that]? Because for Queen’s Gambit, I had to go through a grieving period. It was grief, genuinely, to think, “Oh goodness, this thing that I loved so much is not mine anymore.”

ANDERSON I had that experience after doing Blanche in Streetcar [Named Desire] here in the U.K. and then in New York.

OLSEN I saw your last performance in New York. You were fabulous.

PAULSON Fucking phenomenal.

ANDERSON I felt like I’d lost my best friend. I was grieving. Some friends of mine in New York had a brunch for me the weekend after [I finished my run], and I arrived like a complete wreck. It was so profound. I also knew it was unlikely I was going to do it again because I knew that I’d probably lose my mind. I got really close. Like, I’d survived by the skin of my teeth and if I did it again out of ego or attachment or not wanting to let her go, there would be consequences. So I knew it was the end, and it was so sad.

ERIVO Do you know what’s so crazy? I listen to you and I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s what was happening to me during The Color Purple.” It was the last show and I started grieving in the show, knowing that it was coming to an end. There’s one last song and I couldn’t get through it. And then the show ends and I buckled under the sadness of it. But there was no way I could have continued playing Celie on that stage. It [had been] 14 months and I had to let her go. The line between me and her had disappeared. But to answer your question, Anya, I’ve never had an issue with people seeing things. I usually have an issue seeing it after it’s done.

PAULSON This happened when I did Marcia Clark [for The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story]. I felt a profound connection to her and I felt protective of her, and the experience had been so tectonic plate-shifting for me, both as a performer and as a human, and I thought, “If I watch it, I’m going to pick apart everything.” She was left-handed, so every time I use my right hand, I’m going to think, “God damn it, why did they use that?” So, the only way to protect myself from that is to detach from what the world will experience with it. And I’ve maintained that for a long time now — I really don’t watch [things I’m in] because I don’t have the strength, first of all, to bear the sight of my face and, also, I find it really confronting. The preciousness of the thing you were creating with these other people is what I want to be the indelible thing for me and not how it was edited.

TAYLOR-JOY Mm-hmm.

PAULSON All that does is make me furious because I don’t have the power to go in and go, “Hi, um, could you choose take six? It’s infinitely better.” (Laughter.) And when you don’t have that ability and you’re at the mercy of someone else’s opinion of what is the finest work that you’ve done, which doesn’t always line up with what you feel, it’s really jarring and you feel so powerless to do anything about it. So, I have to just sage it all out and let my experience be the only thing that governs the way I feel about it.

RODRIGUEZ When the first two seasons of Pose came out, I didn’t watch them at first because I was just so nervous about how the world would receive it. It was a story that a lot of people haven’t gotten to see, and it was a whole bunch of trans women of color finally getting their shot. It’s a lot of responsibility. And on top of that, it’s a story that’s filled with trauma and things that a lot of us trans women have gone through, so it was hard for me to watch all of those things back.

Gillian, in your career you’ve also been a champion for pay equity. But even as you were promoting a book you co-authored on female empowerment a few years ago, you acknowledged that you were nervous speaking up about being paid less than your male co-star. What do you think you were scared of, and how have the conversations for you changed since?

ANDERSON I just need to point out that I first fought for pay equity way back when it was audacious by anybody’s standards, because I was a nobody when we started to do that series. But when I really spoke up about it was when it happened again, four or five years ago, after the career I’d already had post-X-Files. We were going back to do another season and Fox came to me to offer, I don’t know, a 10th of what my co-star [David Duchovny] was being offered. That was the point where I was like, “Fuck this. I’m actually going to talk about this [publicly].” And since then, it hasn’t really come up. I mean, I haven’t worked with a lot of men, so that hasn’t been an issue. (Laughs.) I’m certainly tuned to it, and were it something now, I’d address it. But I have so much admiration for anyone who stands up for their right either to be paid or to be hired, period. And look, they weren’t going to fire me on The X-Files. The stakes weren’t that high. I put my foot down, not because the stakes weren’t high, but if they were going to fire me, some people were going to have some things to say about that. It’s very different for a young woman going into a job situation with a boss who’s overbearing and asking for a pay raise.

Sure, you had leverage.

ANDERSON Yeah.

For the rest of you, when have you spoken up in your careers?

ERIVO I mean, the obvious is I’m a Black woman, and that has a lot to do with how you’re paid, how you’re hired, if you’re hired, the way you’re hired — it affects everything. I’m lucky enough to have a team behind me that is brave enough to ask the questions I’d like asked: What I’m being paid compared to the leading man in the show, or if I’m being paid a lot less, whether or not they are willing to come up so it becomes equal. And about little things in my contract that just make it easier to exist on a set. For me, it’s about having the guts to stick with it and to keep asking and keep fighting. And there are definitely times where you’re like, “I am so exhausted from asking the same thing.” Like, if we could please have this makeup artist with me because usually there are no Black makeup artists on a set and you’re the only one who needs one, and I’ve had to have that fight every single time I’ve gone onto a set: “I need to hire these two people because they are the only people that understand how to do my face or my hair.” It isn’t about vanity, it’s about making sure that whoever I’m playing is represented in the right way because they understand how to work with my skin tone and my hair. But you keep sticking with it because it’s not just me having my way, it’s me being able to employ two other people. And then maybe I’m asking, “Can we have a DP who understands lighting that works on my skin tone?” So it’s constantly being OK with asking the questions. And there is a bit of fear, like, “Am I going to be seen as difficult?” And yes, there are times where I’ve had someone say they’ve heard I was difficult, but usually, it’s because I’ve asked a question that will make for a better surrounding or a better show. And if I keep asking the questions and if other ladies like myself keep asking the questions, and we keep trying to better our spaces, it just becomes the norm — because at some point it has to just become the norm.

Elizabeth, I believe you had a saying in your house growing up, “No is a full sentence.” When do you find you use it?

OLSEN I use it a lot. (Laughs.) I use it when I’m on set. I mean, I want to be a part of every department when I’m on set. I want to understand the schedule. I want to understand everything. I produced a TV show [Sorry for Your Loss] that didn’t get too much light of day because it was on Facebook, which, whatever … but as a producer on it, it was really important for me to be a voice of everything you’re saying, Cynthia, and have heads of departments feel like and look like the freakin’ world. And just from having a taste of that for two seasons, I can’t [go back]. So when I go to do Dr. Strange 2 in England, I guess I use it when I just can’t shake it even though [the production is] so much bigger than me. I don’t know, my opinions are vast and everyone hears them, from the first AD to the EP. I think I’m like a representative of anyone having a hard time on set. … (Laughs.)

PAULSON You’re the Equity rep, I love it.

OLSEN Oh my God. (Laughter.)

When you think about your careers, is there someone else’s that you look at and go, “Ooh, yeah, I’d love that”?

OLSEN Gillian’s, Sarah’s …

ERIVO Yeah, Sarah, you’re that for me. You’re fucking incredible.

PAULSON You saying that to me makes me want to cry because sometimes you feel like you’re doing this in a bubble and you don’t even know if anything you’re doing ever has any meaning or impact to anyone.

ERIVO It does. From my heart, it does. And I hope I get to work with you one day.

PAULSON I’d give my eyeteeth. (Laughs.) For me, it’s Gillian — somebody being on a TV program for a long time that’s wildly successful and then retreats to another country to be onstage, to reconnect yourself to the very things that inspired you and made you want to be a part of this. It all gets very confusing in terms of how to navigate [this business]because you do want to make a living, but you also want to follow your heart. And there does come a time where you can become quite depleted from the constant output without any input. And if you’re a woman of a certain age, which I certainly am, I feel like I’ve got one foot on one window frame and I’ve got the other one over here and I’m just trying to insist that they stay open for as long as possible. And some of that is beyond my control, but when I look at Gillian’s career I just go, “Well, I want that.”

ANDERSON Thank you for saying that. On the one hand, I feel like there is some degree of design, but I’ve also never really gone after things. And when I finished with X-Files, I didn’t know if I wanted to be on a set again ever. So aside from having grown up in the U.K. and wanting to go back, I knew it would take time before I could, if I was going to. And in London, you could move between theater and TV, and that was always my dream. But every actor has the thing that they’d want more than the thing that they have, and I’m a cinephile, and so I [wonder], “Why do I keep doing TV? All I want to do is do film.” And I’m still doing TV. (Laughs.) But I’ve had such amazing opportunities that, coming from Scully, I even questioned people, like, “Why are you offering this to me? What makes you think that I can do this?” I’ll also say that as soon as you have kids, kids are the priority. So, I say to people, “I’m gonna be such a pain in the ass for you to hire. But if you think I’m this person, I’m gonna need to work during this period of time and then have time with my kids. And it’s going to be expensive for you. If you are willing to do that, then I’m your girl, and if you’re not, you need to find somebody else.”

Anya, Queen’s Gambit became a global juggernaut. How have your opportunities and choices changed? Is there pressure to strike while the iron is hot?

TAYLOR-JOY I think I’ve always followed character and only recently did I start following directors as well, but it’s always been about, “Do I feel like I’m the right person to tell this story? Do I think I can tell this story correctly?” And if you look at something like Queen’s Gambit, it was not supposed to be the white-hot show; it’s a show about a girl that plays chess for seven hours, but I felt so compelled to tell that story. So, it sounds cheesy, but I really just keep following my heart. OK, wait, I take that back. Something I’m also learning is that you give yourself to this person for three to six months, and I never used to think about this before, but now I start thinking, “Am I ready to give up my life for this person? Do I need to tell this story so badly that I’m going to do that?” I try not to think about what other people will think, because it’s your life at the end of the day. And as we all know, you’re that [character] every hour of the day, and when you go home it’s difficult to let go of them, so you have to really love them.

Mj, you’ve talked about how significant this show was for you and for the visibility of the trans community. How have the opportunities being presented to you post-Pose changed?

RODRIGUEZ In the middle of the third season, I started figuring out my worth, and it’s scary. I was nervous. I didn’t expect to actually book my next job after Pose.

ERIVO I did.

PAULSON We all did.

RODRIGUEZ And see, that’s my insecurity and that’s something I have to fix. I didn’t think it was possible. To get an opportunity like Pose and have myself centered in the story and to end it with hope, and then to get another opportunity with an iconic actress [an Apple TV+ comedy co-starring Maya Rudolph] was surreal. But if I’m still feeling the need for protection as far as my Blackness, my Latina-ness and my trans-ness go, that means there is more work to be done.

Are there doors still not open to the rest of you? Parts you’d love to play if only Hollywood would see you that way?

PAULSON No one has asked me to do a comedy, and I’m a little frustrated about that.

ERIVO And you’re funny as fuck.

PAULSON I spend a lot of time in these worlds where I’m either running or crying or screaming or playing a real person and trying to get their physicality, and I’d really like to do a nice road picture with me and a couple of chicks.

ANDERSON Ooh, I’ll go with you!

PAULSON How about all of us just in a road movie — like, get a Winnebago and let’s go?

ERIVO I’m down.

RODRIGUEZ Yeah, count me in.

ANDERSON I’m 53, Sarah, and I’ve really only been offered comedy in the last three years of my life, and I don’t think that’s because I’m any funnier than I used to be. I think a lot of it is that people just couldn’t fathom it, whether it was that Scully was still in their minds or it was someone else, because I’ve played a lot of dark characters, too. And so they just weren’t coming. And then came [Netflix comedy] Sex Education — and I passed when it first came to me because I didn’t think it was right. It was my partner who proverbially dug it out of the trash.

ERIVO I’ve yet to see a Call Me by Your Name for a Black woman, I have yet to see a piece that allows a woman of color to be sensual and soft and loving and be loved. I’ve just not seen it, and I desperately want to experience that, just because I want to be able to be in that space of vulnerability and lilt. I really want to do that. And that hasn’t come my way. A comedy hasn’t come my way either.

RODRIGUEZ Same. It’s been so hard when it comes to trans women being loved in a sensual way, and I’d love to do something like that.

Elizabeth and Anya, to Sarah’s point, Hollywood likes to keep actors in a lane. How have you avoided that kind of pigeonholing in your careers to date?

TAYLOR-JOY I’ve been saved from a lot of things in my life from pure innocence and naivete, genuinely. My first movie was called The Witch, I got a script immediately afterward that was about, you guessed it, a witch, and I figured, “Wow, why do they want to see me do this again?” So, I was immediately like, “Can I not do anymore witch movies, please?” And my agent was like, “OK. Sure, whatever you say.” I wonder how many people agree with me here because I certainly want to please, but in order to please, I don’t have to give up myself, and actually it’s more important to please myself than it is to please anybody else. I’m giving my heart, my body, my soul, everything to this character, I’m not going to do something because somebody wants me to do it. That doesn’t make any sense and, also, it makes me miserable and then I can’t do my best work. And so if I feel the opportunities that are being given to me aren’t the right ones, then I have to stick my neck out and go, “Hey, I think I could maybe do this, if you’ll give me the opportunity to try.”

How about you, Elizabeth?

OLSEN [In the beginning,] I was just trying so hard to not be put in a box that that’s what was guiding my choices. I knew that I didn’t want to be an actor who was thought of as “youthful and beautiful” and whatever that attachment people like to put onto young women, and so I did everything in my power not [to be seen as] that. But I didn’t have my own pillars of why I wanted to do things beyond just the character. That started to solidify only in the last five years. So I made a lot of odd decisions [after theater school at NYU] because I didn’t know enough about film and the machine of it. Right, Sarah? You were there for that time. We were in Martha Marcy May Marlene, and I remember someone asked me, “You had Sarah Paulson with you, didn’t you know it could be a film people saw?” And I was like …

PAULSON You were like, “Who the fuck is Sarah Paulson?” (Laughter.)

OLSEN No, but independent cinema to me was just, like, going to Quad Cinema in New York and seeing a movie. The theater world is all I understood. So I feel like a moron for going back to theater only once in 10 years. And this conversation with Gillian right now is inspiring.

In light of Elizabeth’s concern about the trap of being perceived as “youthful and beautiful,” how would you all complete this sentence: I wish our male counterparts also had to …

OLSEN Deal with lighting and hair and makeup before doing press. I don’t know what I’m doing.

ERIVO Deal with people believing that you’ve lost your sexuality after the age of 30.

TAYLOR-JOY Had an understanding of what it was like to walk into a room and sometimes have to enforce yourself for people to take you seriously. That ability to just walk into a room and go, “I am valid, I own my space and everybody respects me” — it would be good if they knew what it was like to not have that.

ERIVO And on the flip side, to not have to deal with walking into the room and trying to make sure people aren’t scared of you when you get there.

What do you all know now that you wish you could have told yourself at the beginning of your career?

PAULSON I would like to have told myself that I didn’t need to excise myself from the experience. I was very focused on looking at other actors who had careers that I admired when I was first starting out and wondering what it was about them that made it possible for them to be chosen or employed and I’d often try, in an audition or a social setting, to mimic what I imagined was the desired effect, taking me out of the scenario. And there’s this beautiful Martha Graham-to-Agnes de Mille letter that I used to keep in a dressing room any time I was doing a play, about how there is only one you in all of time and space and that what you see and how you experience things is unique to you. And if you block it, the world will not have it. And as a young person, I thought, “Mute me, mute my opinions, my thoughts, my assessments and try to fill it with other things,” and now I think it’s the exact opposite, so I wish I had known that earlier. But I’ll take knowing it now [over] never knowing it at all.

RODRIGUEZ I would have told my younger self that my existence is worth it. When I was younger, I tried to fit into this mold of what a woman should do — you know, keep your legs crossed, always bow down to a man. But we don’t have to live in that world anymore. It’s a new day.

It is, and that’s a good place to end. Thank you all for sharing your time and your stories.

ERIVO I know we’re supposed to finish, but do you know what’s occurred to me as I’ve listened to every one of you? I remember where I was when I watched every single one of you — and I remember what I was dealing with or going through. I was watching you, Sarah, when I was shooting Aretha. I was watching you, Elizabeth, when I was in London on my own, and you, Anya, when I was in Atlanta. Mj, I remember watching a season of Pose while I was shooting The Outsider. And Gillian, I watched you when I was in a hotel with my partner outside of London. And I remember what happened. And so your performances aren’t just brilliant, your performances get to be Post-its in all of our lives, and so I thank you for that.

PAULSON That’s a very beautiful way to put it …

ANDERSON It also brings us back full circle to what Anya said at the beginning, which is, “Oh my God, I have to keep reminding myself that people are going to watch this.” But actually, thank God that people are watching it, because we’ve touched each other’s lives and numerous other people’s lives just by focusing on the thing that we love most.

TAYLOR-JOY And the importance of these conversations is the honesty, because it’s very easy for us to get locked into our own heads of this as an individual experience — “There’s something wrong with me,” or “Everybody else is doing really great and nobody else grieves their characters,” or whatever your version of that is in whatever industry you’re in. But having honest conversations with people who are willing to be vulnerable just makes me feel so much less alone.

PAULSON The next time you feel that way, text me. I’ll remind you. I’d also like to say that there’s this [perception] of women being pitted against one another and not being there for one another, and this conversation is diametrically opposed, in that what we are actually saying is that each of us has been buoyed by and inspired by the work of everyone here. So, I may not watch anything I do, but I sure as hell am watching all of you.

Press: “It’s a New Day”: THR Drama Actress Roundtable was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla

[aurora-daily]

Runaway with AURORA: we meet the songwriting sprite to talk about music old + new

'We simply have to survive. And that is enough'

Interview by Blossom Caldarone for gigwise (July 8th, 2021). 

A textbook empath and considerate soul, Norway’s AURORA has an endearing air of childlike sensitivity. Comfortably seated in her mother’s French dress, we caught up over Zoom amid the frenzied #runawayaurora trend and the singer’s monumental TikTok rise.

AURORA’s 2016 single ‘Runaway’ is now the dainty accompaniament to millions of short videos on the increasingly influential TikTok. Predominantly featuring suburban teenagers, the trend has encouraged people to find the charm in their otherwise mundane corners of the world. “Seeing the beauty in the small things is something we all lost on the way” she says. Whether users film lakeside days out, pose elegantly or capture early morning sun beams, the trend's theme is strikingly on brand for AURORA: “It’s nice that people have created a wholesome vibe to it - you never know with the trends! I’m happy it’s not anything horrible.”

Momentarily gazing at the mountains outside her Bergen window, it’s clear to see AURORA isn’t fazed by the numbers that currently skirt her name. “It’s a very abstract thing for me and therefore I don’t spend time trying to understand it. I’ve just been home, doing my normal things, cooking my dinner, reading my books and being in the studio. I’m very grateful that people are letting my song into their hearts” she softly explains.

Written when she was only 11, the song platforms a prematurely advanced AURORA grapple with the concept of running away from the people we love when we are in pain. “Just like a dog that goes out and dies alone in the forest, we do the same. We struggle so much in talking about these very mutual, normal feelings but can’t deal with them when we are going through them ourselves.”

It’s a universal reality that stumps any age or decade, and her philosophy on the song’s ability to resonate is profound: “Music, unlike us, has no age. If it’s good or relatable, or if it has nerve, it will never die and it will always make sense to someone.”

She’s embarked on a week of interviews, and I’m her last before the weekend. Conscious she may not want to wax lyrical about Runaway any longer, I turn the discussion to the things that make AURORA tick. “My biggest muse is Mother Earth and nature. It always has been and always will be” she gushes. “It grounds me, it opens me up. It humbles and strengthens me.”

Her Nordic roots affording her the luxury of stunning outdoor access, she talks effusively of its importance, and how life’s increasingly high tempo is detrimental. Astutely describing being human as an “extreme sport”, she accredits success to ending up in her own bed at the end of the day. “The world is way too demanding in every area. It’s almost impossible” she laments. Her approach to living is one of simplicity; where surviving is the only necessity and anything else a mere plus. “It’s a matter of life or death, we simply have to survive. And that is enough.”

With last year’s lockdown allowing her to fully immerse herself in her artistry, AURORA found herself revelling in the desolate streets and empty shops, whilst finding ultimate inspiration in the silence. Her introverted intentions thrived whilst she empathised with the struggling extroverts in the world: “Silence is so rare and I love it. I try to be in silence as much as I can”. AURORA famously doesn’t listen to much music apart from fellow celestial Enya: “I’m afraid I’ll miss out on an idea if I’m listening to something else. And I don’t want to be effected by other melodies. It contaminates me” she explains. A theory shared with anything but pretence, AURORA evidently has an ability to hone in on the nuances within the quiet; a skill that requires patience and devotion to creative processes.  

Her timely mid-pandemic single ‘Exist For Love’ is a song that prioritises the fundamental importance of love. A delicate step away from previous AURORA releases, its traditional tendencies embody the timeless essence of a '50s love song, a trait only enhanced by its cinematic Isabel Waller-Bridge arranged strings: “I just felt like we needed a divine love song. I truly believe that when we understand love - unselfish pure love - we understand why we exist” she plainly explains, again finding a way to strip down concepts that feel hard to define.

“When I write, I think a lot about what the world will need. I wish to make something that will be good for people.” Often writing selflessly, boundaries are key; being an empath can be exhausting. “I can’t really read the newspapers. I have to learn things through discussion, and then dive into matters if I want to educate myself more. I spend little time on social media because it makes us sad, but it also makes me sad to see so many sad people on social media.” Surrounding herself with others who also tend to give more than they receive, AURORA ensures her good intentions are not misplaced.

As for her fans, they are at the forefront: “I think a lot about them. It’s all for them.” But it will come as no surprise to learn that she doesn’t like the more vacuous side of the industry, and finds getting recognised slightly unsettling. “It’s good to know it’s all worth it. As long as you can say something that means something, you can use the music as a tool to support people out there” she justifies.

Her new single ‘Cure For Me’, out now, is another example of AURORA’s altruistic approach to songwriting. A playful tune that will surprise fans with its cheekiness, it debunks the idea that humans should ever need to be cured, and that anything other than who we are is abnormal. “People are very self-critical and it doesn’t take much for us to assume that something is wrong because we look different, or act different, instead of just accepting that we are different. We are all biologically designed to be unique” she explains. We go on to discuss how we’re led to believe that we’re crazy for being emotional or sensitive: “That’s what inspired me to make this song, as an anti-gaslighting song where you just celebrate that it’s fine, and you’re going to be fine, and I don’t need a ‘Cure For Me' because I’m perfectly ok as I am.”

The song’s juxtaposed setup is a peek into what’s to come: “It’s fun for me to be less serious about things. It’s very new for me. I am often very serious in all my music. I really feel like we need a bit of light right now, everything has been so intense.”

Heading into a newfound artistic side, AURORA is considering how the new sound should be consumed too. With her mystical ability to sonify nature and art, AURORA’s eclectic and ethereal world has always captured feeling in a visual way. “I love to be able to shape how people see my music, even if just a little bit. For many people, it’s easier to understand the whole thing when they can see it as well.” She is currently painting an “intimidating” canvas and studying Egyptian history, alongside Greek and Roman mythology. Finding inspiration in their bohemian attitudes towards female roles, AURORA is focussing on the old, the new and repeated behaviours in between: “Everything we’ve done in history, both good and horrible, has sometimes taught us to be better and sometimes not. Our patterns of behaviour are very interesting.”

So with ‘Cure For Me’ here and a well-researched new artistic process in full flow, AURORA is peacefully going about her business and prioritising the small things that make her feel truly content. Currently, she's filling her home with flowers: “It makes me more happy every day than I could ever imagine.” Her intentions are in the most authentic place; a space that prioritises connection and understanding, and one that prioritises the heart in a world where its complexities are so often dismissed. “As long as we remember to take care of the mind and the heart, we’ll have the capacity to care for others as well” she finally assures me.

#aurora #aurora aksnes #interviews #cure for me #new album

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Do you think they would actually enjoy the modern world? Or would they want to stay in their current time period?

Hm, well, I think that may vary depending on each suitor if I’m honest! (I’ll be excluding Sebastian from this one, only because he is a modern man and I wager he would want to stay in the mansion in order to finish his thesis) 

Under a cut bc it’s a long boi:

I think for people like Arthur and Theo, for instance--who always seem to live in the fast lane--it might not really prove much of a problem. They would continue enjoying the night life and move with their busy schedules. Tl;dr: (For them? Same shit, different day)

Vincent would likely be doing just fine given how Theo often provides assistance in places where he struggles; to promote his art, to spark intrigue in the general public and benefactors. He might be a little overwhelmed by the influx of stimuli that comes with the modern era, constant noise and interaction and movement--perhaps worry that people are losing their ability to live in the moment. (Not to mention what’s being done to the environment...) There might be a learning curve/adjustment, but I think Theo would help him ease in. Plus, it would be a little easier to promote his art given the less stringent restrictions on public exhibitions. He’d still have to work for his fame, but at least the van Goghs wouldn’t have to live in constant unease in the proximity of the cutthroat academy.  Tl;dr: (Mixed feelings, but tries to stay positive about modern times)

Dazai is more familiar with this kind of life of quick turmoil and breakneck speed, if anything he falls back into his old coping mechanisms--hello writing, drinking, and smoking. An overwhelming influx of information and suffering would probably be hard for him to manage, despite how expertly he hides it. I think I would be worried he would lose himself in the dismal reality of diminished connection with other people. Yes I’m shoving him into therapy, I want him to start living for himself and taking care of himself ffs

That isn’t to say there aren’t happy possibilities for him, just that I think he really needs to heal first. I could see him very happy in a kind of writer’s circle with people he loves and trusts; less expending his energy in a desperate attempt to fill the void and please others, more cultivating his own happiness... Tl;dr: (Positive potential, but honestly part of me thinks the past quieter/simple/rural life suits him better...he still loves meme culture tho, he finds it so expansive and creative)

Isaac is in a similar boat as Dazai, I think! He has wonderful potential as a mentor and professor, and living in a world that has a little more patience and respect for genius might help encourage him to put himself out there. That being said, I think the pace of life would exhaust him though--he is very much the kind of person that prefers to keep to himself and just puzzle and tinker. Baby boy just wants to do equations, build little inventions, and read up on the recent discoveries in astrophysics (BRUH WHEN THE IMAGE OF THE BLACK HOLE CAME OUT HE FORGOT HOW TO B R E A T H E) Napoleon is the only reason he eats anything healthy or on any kind of regular schedule s m h. Tl;dr: (Not a lot changes, honestly? He was reclusive then, he still is now--he just has more toys/academic resources. If anything he might get a little too lost in his work because of it, somebody please make sure he’s eating/sleeping/socializing;;;)

Poor Jeanne is SUFFERING. Please release him from this nightmare he is begging. Jk jk, I don’t think it would be too bad for him--but I do think that he would have the aforementioned problem of too many stimuli and too much interaction. I think he would ease into it a little with Mozart’s help; he would just be awkward and wooden until he got the hang of it. Most people just find him quirky in an amusing way, and don’t think too hard about it. I’d wager he’d probably become literate at this point because of the abundance of resources and necessity to read/write (okay but imagine this baby with a little kid workbook iM GONNA CRY!!! TAKE ALL MY CRAYONS JEANNE). 

Can you imagine this mofo at a Starbucks??? Tall and stoic, dark and debonair (EVERYONE IS S W O O N I N G), and he just asks in a light tenor “can I have a mocha with eight shots of expresso” with a completely straight face. “Sir, that could kill you” “Don’t worry, I’ve been dead a long time” And he just moves to wait for his order. 11/10 cryptid I could watch an entire show just about his daily adventures

He works with Napoleon a lot given their similar skillsets. They coach kids at high schools that have fencing teams (it’s really REALLY cute bc if they’re on the younger side, Jeanne will very dramatically lose bc he wants to encourage them and the kids are delighted--but the parents are INCHES from laughing so hard they’re in tears). Otherwise, he mostly takes up gigs as a security worker/bodyguard, only really works for the money. He prefers to spend his time in ways that feel meaningful if he can, so don’t be surprised if you see him in foster homes and in social working spaces. He has an uncanny understanding about him, a kind of silence/patience that doesn’t stifle; it makes the kids/teens calm down in milliseconds. They really listen when he does talk, and he sets good and clear boundaries--he knows how to be firm when it’s required. He gives them the structure and placid grounding they’ve never had, and really pays attention to what’s important to them. Brings them little things he notices; brings flowers to the one that likes to draw, brings CDs (he is bad with technology, but they usually only have access to older/outdated stuff anyway) to the one the one that struggles to write with white noise in the house, brings little plushies to the ones that lose theirs. He’s simple but solid, and he finds a lot of meaning in helping kids overcome the similar kind of struggles he faced.  Tl;dr: (Steep learning curve, but he just sees it as all the same really--just more work to be done with the literacy requirement and adjustment to technology. Will be resistant at first, but when he gets accustomed and starts finding people who are important to him, he wouldn’t want to change anything/go back. But will admit there are some days he just wants to go to the most remote place he can access and just live there for a month with no human interaction whatsoever; people are inefficient and insufferable sometimes)

Mozart’s life honestly doesn’t change much? I feel like he would easily be able to keep composing and continue releasing his work as per usual. Given his quick capacity to schmooze and say what people want to hear when he must, he’d be more than able to network his way into success. I think the only thing he might struggle with now and again is inspiration, given the world operates on a very surface level in the modern era sometimes. Profound insight and depth are not quite as cultivated in many ways, and he can struggle to find something that just sparks motivation/novelty in his mind, makes him start composing at breakneck speed. He reads a lot and watches some TV shows/movies when he’s at really low inspiration levels, the kind of guy that sneers at Game of Thrones--but finds things like BBC’s Sherlock more passable (wants intrigue and complexity, doesn’t much enjoy the sensationalized drivel). When Arthur finds out he loves ATLA he about falls off his seat. “It’s a children’s show.” “Yes it is, with a remarkable level of depth and craftsmanship, what are you trying to say?” He begins to find a kind of rhythm in his composing, and Jeanne and Dazai often drop by with so many crazy stories he finds himself filled with music anyway LMAO Tl;dr: (Same as Isaac, really just keeps doing his thing without being impeded, and he enjoys the luxuries/conveniences of the modern era. Will be slightly resistant at first because of how alien some of the changes are, but will fall into the habits/customs slowly and surely. Fine with it, will whine a bit at the growing pains tho)

Leonardo actually canonically owns a bar, and does that really surprise anyone? He really enjoys the excitement of meeting new people and hearing about their myriad histories, the influx of cultures/languages/experiences. It’s a nice but lowkey place, people stop for a drink, listen to some good music--chat amiably and relax after a long day’s work--before heading out. There are regulars and people that just stop for that single day; tourists, vacationers, so on and so forth.

When asked, many people note a sleek black cat with sharp eyes that led them to the bar... Tl;dr: (Don’t Let the Existential Dread Set-in: The Prequel, adapts well to the modern era because of centuries of experience but also...he’s so tired...somebody please hold him I can’t watch him live like this, lord jesus)

Optimally, I see Comte filling his time with myriad pursuits; ranging from philanthropy, indulging in art/music/theatre (often a benefactor as well), and keeping track of his chirren (they may exist more independently now, but he still worries about them ;-;). Otherwise nothing much changes for him, still goes to galas and fancy gatherings, still enjoys fashion and spoiling people, still seeks to occupy himself with social interaction and care-taking--if he doesn’t have a family of his own. He’s basically just that meme that’s like DON’T LET THE EXISTENTIAL DREAD SET-IN. DON’T LET IT SET-IN!!!!!!!!! Tl;dr: (Not to repeat myself but also Don’t Let the Existential Dread Set-in: The Sequel, literally just desperately trying to fill the void please somebody help him he also just needs to be held fuck’s sake, I’m going to drag him kicking and screaming into happiness--but otherwise has no great trouble adjusting to the modern era. I feel like he would have a more minor form of what Dazai struggles with, maybe a lack of personable connection that he once had; fewer chances to be himself and relax. Also probably worried about the increasing unhappiness and turmoil building in the world in general...)

Napoleon is similar to Comte in that he often checks up on Isaac and Jeanne from time to time, and does the aforementioned fencing lessons with kids. He also takes a lot of basic security positions--for venues, concerts, museums--you name it. He dislikes the idea of sitting behind a desk a lot, so he prefers to do a lot of different things; he even cooks from time to time at the restaurants  that know him very well. One gig he particularly enjoys is battle choreography for movies/theatre! He tends to stay away from anything too historically close to his era of origin, but he has fun coming up with realistic (smaller scale) hand-to-hand combat scenarios and duels. Tl;dr: (This era doesn’t feel like too much of a change. It’s a little more intensive in terms of pace, but he manages to keep up pretty well, it just exhausts him from time to time--and he usually goes on trips or hikes to unwind when he needs to like Jeanne LOL they do not go to their happy place, they go to their high lonesome place).

Shakespeare also continues to do his drama thing, organizes troupes on tons of different levels--from community level to more intense, skilled groups that re-enact his own work. His life doesn’t change all that much beyond a new form of theatre logistics, and he adjusts to the technology fairly easily out of necessity. He’ll stop by Vincent’s place from time to time to show him recordings of his latest shows, but otherwise is almost always on the move. Tl;dr: (So long as he can keep following his greatest passion, he doesn’t really mind the changes in how theatre happens--he doesn’t have any sizable issues with the modern era.)

Ability with technology (phones mostly):

Arthur: more than capable, well-versed, loves to do everything on his phone no prob--maybe lives a little too much on his phone (Vine/TikTok/Youtube can kill his productivity RIP) also yes he has a fidget spinner on his desk, no I will not be taking any constructive criticism at this time

Theo: yes but with a lot of cursing at first, had to do it for work and now looks down on anyone that can’t keep up with him (except for Vincent)

Vincent: knows the basics, taking and sending pictures, writing things in notes for later, texting (tho sending emails is a little harder for him); he does his best but he can be slow. Really really enjoys the paint programs on his iPad for when he’s on public transit, but he starts setting alarms after he gets the hang of it (he’s missed his stops before because of it LMAO)

Leonardo: what kind of stupid question? Man knows how to pick them apart and put ‘em back together for crying out loud, uses it like a pro--comes to him naturally, and he’s the guy that keeps coming up with ways to jailbreak Apple products and thwart their money-grubbing tactics. Catch him playing Minish Cap on his emulator on the way to work, brah

Comte: just vibing, keeps up with the times easily since he’s been doing it for so long, much like Theo uses it to keep in touch with the people around him--he’s the “prefers to call instead of text” sorta guy though, he worries about losing emotional subtleties and he likes to hear people’s voices. Doesn’t do anything special on phones, more just a tool; will read/listen to podcasts/does have emulators (courtesy of Leo) and enjoys playing Pokemon when he’s bored

Jeanne: types one finger at a time, it will take a while--but he’ll get there (deleted all his contacts by accident once and Mozart was just. HOW.) He barely knows how to use a phone, and it’s a steep learning curve for him

Mozart: purely functional when it comes to his phone, refuses to rely on it beyond the necessities that only tech can do (for instance, sending emails or reading articles or uploading compositions) he still writes his music before making more polished digital copies. He will sometimes listen to pieces digitally, but prefers to play them in-person; he feels that a lot of the soul in a piece is lost despite the convenience

Dazai: you absolute fools. you baboons. why would you ever give him this kind of power. it is 3AM and he has been on a wikipedia trail spanning hours, started with Cleopatra being the seventh in her line with that name all the way to cotton candy being called “daddy’s beard” in French. please help him he hasn’t slept in years. Also probably binges anime and manga lbr. He’s the one making vine references every other second, always up to date on the memes^TM

Isaac: also mostly uses it as a tool for research and calculations; it’s a way to keep track of information. He also likes to play background music while he’s working, so he finds the device nice and convenient--plus less having to go around pestering people in-person. he does start to get interested in coding and tinkering with apps/programs eventually, too

Shakespeare: finds it a delightful little contraption, so useful because it lets him jot down ideas as they come to him quickly, and he can edit his texts much more easily with digital interfaces. also likes that performances can be recorded, because now he can analyze his staging more efficiently--it gives him a good sense of what needs to be adjusted, and encourages him to keep streamlining/try new concepts

Napoleon: likes it because he can keep in touch with people more easily, the kind of guy to drop a line before checking on a friend. he really likes to look up recipes and find out more about cooking techniques he’s never encountered before. Isaac starts making an Instagram account just to show Napoleon’s impeccable plating, and Napo gets quite the following without knowing for a while

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp headcanons #ikevamp napoleon #ikevamp leonardo #ikevamp mozart #ikevamp arthur #ikevamp vincent #ikevamp isaac #ikevamp theodorus #ikevamp theo #ikevamp jeanne #ikevamp jean #ikevamp shakespeare #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp dazai #aight so like idk why the format became headcannony but i hope you enjoy this response nonetheless?? #my head has been full of rocks this week no spoons only simp

[couplesinstitutecounseling]

When You Love Someone With Complex PTSD

This article gives a brief overview of some basics about Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and what you can do to support yourself as well as nurture your relationship when you love someone with Complex PTSD. You may be wondering if reading this article will be helpful to you.

If your partner experienced significant trauma during childhood and you find yourself in awe of all that they are in spite of what they have been through, yet uncertain at times about how to provide the right kind of support, then this article is for you.

If you recognize the wisdom within your partner that is derived from their experiences, but struggle to access your own wisdom when you see your partner suffering then this article is for you.

Lastly, if you sometimes see your partner as someone who would benefit from healing work but, are not sure of the right place to start then this article is for you.

This article is about how to bring your best self to your relationship by forging one that is defined by security, consistency, and honesty as well as understanding the importance of your own self-care in cultivating these bonds.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) can occur when a person experiences multiple or prolonged traumatic experiences (Complex Trauma) over the course of a lifetime. Oftentimes, the traumas are relational in nature which means that the events occur within relationships during developmental periods such as childhood. For example, periods of childabuse or neglect and/or multiple ruptures or transitions with primary caregivers; such as multiple foster placements in which attachment bonds are ruptured or substance abuse or dependence by a primary caregiver.

There are two areas of human development that are impacted by Complex Trauma. When these areas are impacted it can result in CPTSD. They are:

Attachment: the ways in which a person learns to have relationships with others

Self-Regulation: the way in which a person handles self soothing in the face of stress.

Let’s look at both more closely.

In terms of Attachment, a child who experienced multiple adverse experiences such as abuse, domestic violence, neglect or community violence is likely to, as an adult, experience frequent mistrust, fear of abandonment, and difficulty feeling secure in their intimate relationships. The reason for this is that the template that was formed early on about how to have relationships was developed under the pretense that “those who love me either hurt me, or leave.” These recurring experiences often cause the belief that people are not safe to trust; leading to the lived experience of, “I’m hurt when you stay and I’m hurt when you leave:a double edged sword.”

Self-Regulation is a set of skills that are learned by internalizing the soothing actions of our caregivers when we are hurt, scared, hungry, sad etc. The capacity by which we are able to do this for ourselves as adults is largely made possible by the quality and quantity of that which was given to us. The opportunities to learn from and observe adults practicing self regulation in ways that are healthy and nourishing for children with Complex Trauma often are minimal. Instead, the stress response system, the internal regulation system that is in charge of keeping us safe in the face of stressors, becomes overloaded due to a lack of opportunities to return to a calm state. In CPTSD this results in an elevated baseline and a stress response system that is overly sensitive to stressors. Thus the system responds by vacillating between extreme states of hyperarousal to hypoarousal (dissociation) rather than remaining within an ideal, more balanced “window of tolerance.” People who have not experienced trauma typically remain in this window within their normal day to day lives. This might account for why your partner may appear to have seemingly disproportionate reactions to stimuli that doesn’t impact you as severely: their system’s degree of sensitivity and reactivity is such that a smaller event can cause them great distress and dysregulation.

The hopeful news is that the medicine for CPTSD can be found within the healing power of relationships and within our brains’ incredible ability to create new templates for relationships by a process called neuroplasticity, our brain’s ability to make new neural connections throughout our lifetime. The incredible healing power of relationships as they relate to Complex Trauma has been well documented by neuroscientists such as Dr. Bruce Perry1, who specializes in the impacts of childhood trauma and neglect and its impact on neurodevelopment, and Dr. Daniel Siegel2 who has also well documented the process of neurodevelopment. What this means is that you and your partner have the ability to form a secure attachment in adulthood EVEN IF your partner has not yet experienced that in their life3 -VERY EXCITING!!! But where do you begin? It is important to know the following:

You can not erase existing templates but you can create new ones.

Your efforts should be patterned and repetitive, as these templates live in lower, less “plastic” ie. not as easily changed, parts of the brain that are only accessed and changed through doing things over and over again.

You don’t need to figure this out on your own. Finding a couples therapist educated about Complex Trauma is recommended and can help facilitate the healing process.

Here are some other ideas you’ll want to consider:

Be Consistent, be predictable: Repetition is the key to building a secure attachment. It also facilitates the ability to trust. For example, calling your partner every night before bed to say goodnight, this may seem simple, but it can have a profound effect on shaping a new, loving, and secure template of what a relationship can be in your partner’s brain.

Know your boundaries: This is a big one and related back again to being consistent and predictable. What is and what is not in your control? If your partner is struggling with mood symptoms including anxiety or depression and struggling with self regulation, it is not your job to fix that, but you can encourage your partner to establish a relationship with a therapist or make an appointment with an existing one. It can be powerful to validate your partner’s suffering while simultaneously acknowledging that you do not have the power to make it all better. In all relationships it is important for each partner to own their own struggles and work on them independently from the relationship.

Establish and keep up with your own self care plan: When we fall in love it is so easy to give and give and then one day we wake up and we realize, “Oops! I have given to everyone except me!” You have got to fill your own bucket. Keeping up with a routine that nourishes you and keeps you connected to yourself and those in your support system is crucial. You are modeling for your partner that it is okay to practice self care and encouraging the process called differentiation (an ongoing process of self-defining within the context of the relationship that is a key developmental milestone within relationship and is that which sets the stage for further development and deeper intimacy as your relationship progresses).

Don’t try to explain, instead “connect and redirect”: Emotions are not logical, yet it is our tendency to try to explain our way through them. When your partner is in an emotional state of activation, remember, first connect by reflecting back what you hear them say, including their feelings. Listen and mirror without the intention of problem solving. Once your partner has expressed to you that they are feeling heard, ask them if they want support in problem solving (re-direct). Once you check for their interest, you may find that you have already helped enough!

Do find out what is soothing to your partner: People who have experienced complex trauma are often well aware of what they do and do not like. Ask them their preferences, you may find out that your partner can not tolerate massage but loves a warm bath. If so, draw them a bath and draw it often! Remember: repetition, consistency, predictability.

Practice consent in intimacy and beyond: Trauma is defined as an extreme loss of control to a perceived threat or life threatening situation. Healing for trauma survivors always includes establishing a sense of safety. A way to safety is though experienced control– practicing consent is a powerful vessel for this. This means asking permission before and during intimate encounters as well as throughout your day-to-day interactions, for example, “Is it okay if I move your things while I clean this room?”

Anticipate events that could cause anxiety for your partner: Work together to create a safety plan. For example, if your partner feels anxious in social settings like big events such as a wedding, decide ahead of time where to sit during the ceremony and have a signal that you can give to one another if your partner needs a break. This can be a good opportunity to step outside and get a breather, check in about how you are both doing, and make adjustments to your plan as necessary.

Don’t take it personally: Your partner has been through a lot. It is likely that if your partner has a reaction to something that you do or say that it has less to do with you than you think and more to do with what that thing reminds them of. When this happens take a deep breath and do your own physiological self soothing, then when you feel regulated check back in, try to think of these moments as opportunities to learn more about what your partner’s triggers are so that you can work with them in a thoughtful and meaningful way.

Remember, it all goes back to the incredible healing power of relationships and the bonds that are formed when we are present and available for one another. Even as therapists we can get stuck in the trap of thinking that we should be able to fix it all right then and there and we jump too quickly to problem solving. Yet it is always meaningful to take a step back and remember that the key to building a secure relationship is not in your ability to offer a quick fix. Rather, it lies within your ability to take your time, be consistent, and show your commitment to being there again and again. If past trauma is impacting you or your relationships and you need help, reach out to us, establishing a relationship with a therapist can be the first step in creating a path to healing that can seem overwhelming and uncertain, more clear, manageable, and supportive.

#love #ptsd #relationships

[sugar-petals]

Please do a tarot reading on bts personality? Thank you

if we’re talking personality, it’s time for the big guns. i promised i’d use this deck to an anon, today we’re doing a shaman soul reading. 

Jungkook: THE RAINBOW

A sign that the end of the storm is near. This card is truly blessed and imbued with great innocence because that’s exactly what Jungkook is. It’s the “everything is alright” signal: The rainbow symbolizes completion of the soul in the Himalayan region where shamans consider rainbows a bridge to the afterlife. Believe it or not: What we see as JK is the last incarnation of his line. His journey is basically complete (!), it is whole. He’s found what we will all find and the end which is a state of profound happiness. There’s a reason why he brings so much ease, fun, and talent everywhere he goes. That sense of lightness and positivity is deeply embedded in him. Brightness, bubbliness, fleeting moods but always optimistic. His personality is all about joy and the feeling of soaring high. It’s not a farce we see on camera, he really is like that. What I noticed is. Since we see a colorful bird dashing forward on a ray of light, I believe JK is headed somewhere blissful, and he’s headed there fast. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, pretty much. Not just the shamans in Nepal consider the rainbow as an arch, Norse ones do, too. The Bifröst bridge connects Midgard to the Æsir. Jungkook has a sort of divine connection going on. That’s why his personality is dignified. Bifröst is translated to ‘shimmering path’, that he got famous was destined from the beginning.

Hoseok: THE SWEAT LODGE

Hey, Mama. I am not surprised that this card is all about a connection to mother earth and all things maternal. The hut — and the ritual that is behind it — is essentially an image for the womb. Hoseok is looking for that warm and cozy feeling in his life. That tells you a whole lot about the personality we rarely see on stage, it’s a much calmer state. The act of sweating disperses old habits and bad thoughts, this is precisely what he seeks. That blissful, protected place/state of being attracts him, or rather, draws him back into his past. His character is so youthful and cheery because he longs for a space like the sweat lodge that leaves you relaxed, drained from the weight of the world, and without sorrows. What he longs for is purity. He’s let go of demons and phases in his life he’s grown out of. His goal is to feel renewed and being without baggage. Note also that the sweat lodge is a community place. He is deeply social, it’s not an act. Hoseok aspires to be a nurturing figure in the future, and peace is very important to him.

Jin: TAMING THE WIND

Think about it: Something as dynamic as air representing Jin makes a lot of sense. He might be a fire sign, but air is nonetheless strong in him. He is a person who is self-directed and cannot be grasped at any time. Air does what it wants, and few other forces can stop it. On top of that, wind is malleable. It can be completely still, gently blowing, come on strong, or be a flat out hurricane. The different levels of intensity are all present in Jin’s character. As in, he can be the introvert of all introverts only to turn into extroversion embodied. The card tells us about just how versatile he can be. That he will achieve more consistency in the future is represented by the act of taming: Yes, he will settle. Visually, the feather is the most important part of this card. It symbolizes a holy dedication to life and distributes smoke during shaman rituals. It can also be interpreted as a pointer when you’re in alignment. So, I’d describe Jin’s character as something that dispels the old to bring about harmony. Thus, he is wild and tame alike. Very interesting duality.

Namjoon: THUNDER

Next to Jimin’s card, this is the most powerful one I pulled. If you’re familiar with The Tower in tarot, THUNDER is similar. Especially in its spiritual weight. Thunder always hails of new things coming. Namjoon is that kind of vanguard. Even his voice booms like thunder man, that’s no coincidence. That he’s the leader of one of the most famous boy groups on this planet means something dramatic and big coming our way. At his core, he is revolutionary. Namjoon is Namjoon because of his message that’s loud, terrifying to great many a hater, and a call to awakening. I am certain he is on his way to enlightenment, I’m not kidding. Because think about, thunder comes first, then: lightning. It describes his personality progression well: Namjoon did a full 180° in the last years. He did all of his shadow work. This card always says a person is about to fulfill their purpose, so he’s currently at the very brink. He is scared to the core but knows that he’s destined for great things. Like buffalos storming ahead, he is unstoppable just like that. It’s because of him that the game changes 😊

Yoongi: THE PRESENT

Beside the literal interpretation of Yoongi being a present to this world which truly is the case, this card also means unconditional offering in a general sense. You’d think it’s his wonderful music that he has gifted us. The meaning of the card says otherwise, things go deeper, it’s about something that is not material in nature. Only true love and true feelings can fully belong to a person and they can give them as a present. I think this is what Yoongi’s personality at its deepest level is about. He is a generous man. Who is more giving than someone so dedicated and full of tender emotions. The card is also a signifier of gratitude, and I think Yoongi truly is thankful. The winged woman shown on the card lifts up the sun, which tells me Yoongi wants to uphold joy and that he was sent to us as an angelic, radiant being. Lil’ cherub he is. The card is colored in such a bright yellow and orange way, I think he could be a kind of light worker, even, if you’re familiar with this concept. What Yoongi’s aim is at its most basic level is to gain access to the happiness of life. And he wishes so dearly we experience it, too. I need a moment.

Jimin: THE INCA CROSS

Ooof. Oh shit. This card is a massive fucking deal. I’m stunned every time I see it. It has a huge wtf factor. A simple but overarching symbol. To shamans, the Inca Cross symbolizes all directions and dimensions coming together. It even connects the Underworld with the Gods themselves. It also has a hole in the middle, allowing us to travel to a different perspective. It tells me Jimin is the one holding everything around him together with his personality. He is that cross, a compass basically. He has access to greater wisdom. The Inca Cross is a big leap, this is what Jimin essentially is. What he exudes propels us forward and unites us. He can make people change their mind and direction in life. He is only halfway aware of that skill. I wouldn’t mess with him either way, he is the true axis of Bangtan. The crucial (=cross-like!) one, even Namjoon said that. Now what’s also important is not just the cross itself but also the color. It is made of solid gold, a very warm tone. His charm and soothing character is innate to Jimin, and that is a regal feat. It’s very important that he knows his worth, that is the crux —cross— of the matter. Now this is where it gets really metaphysical: That the Inca Cross bridges the lower, middle (Human), and upper realm to shamans in Peru is no coincidence. It tells us Jimin was sent from a place that is not this, aka the middle world. I think even people who are not into spirituality can feel that. He is either a saved soul from the Underworld so this is his first incarnation after a long time or he was sent from the Gods. Because the cross connects all worlds, it could even be both at the same time. And since the Inca Cross allows dimension and time travel (!)… maybe he can do even that. This card is telling me the wildest shit.

Taehyung: HEART OF SKY

During the last tarot readings I drew The Empress for him several times, the energy is no different here. This card has Queen of the Night type of imagery. It’s a very dreamy, whimsical woman immersed in melancholy, dressed in lavish garments. It’s not hard to see the parallel to Taehyung’s character. He is just as nostalgic and concerned with all things that bring more beauty to this planet. That is his purpose. I repeat: Taehyung is here to spread the fine things in life to bring us sophistication and wholesomeness. The Heart of Sky is quite possibly the card most connected to creativity and love. It encourages the one receiving it to paint. We know he’s already an artist at heart, the shaman cards know it, too. Heart of Sky means to pour out your emotions. And to show all your talents in a gorgeous way. The card is just… spot on. Nighttime plays an important role in this illustration, Tae is more Moon than Sun in personality. He’s in tune not just with his divine masculine, but also feminine. Perfect balance. The Heart of Sky carries with it a strong ethical component also, that means Taehyung is figuring out his intent very often. He’s a benevolent person, a creator. A good person, a benevolent heart. He wants the best for everyone, you and me, anybody.

Bangtan: THE SUN 

I also pulled a card for the personality of the group as a sum. THE SUN is pretty straightforward: BTS are luminaries, a figurative giant. A super-star. Shamans connect the sun to male energy so the allegory fits, there’s a bright and positive masculine quality in their work. BTS are a hot topic and the energy is high. Sometimes even overpowered because their solar pizzazz is so ardent — burning out is the #1 danger here. That’s why the members connected to the moon and night (Joon, Tae, Yoongi, to some extent Jimin) are so important to balance everything. Passion, humor, creativity, playfulness are always around when BTS is near. The sun is at the center or the universe and widely seen, the group indeed takes that center spot right now. Many other life forms depend on the sun, revolve around it, BTS and their light are needed. If they fall, a system collapses. The card tells us they are currently at their zenith, truly radiant now, soaring like the winged spirit on the card. Also, to state the obvious: Come on, who’s the sun of BTS? Hobi’s personality sticks out the most, reflects back to the group dynamic. This is his card and time to shine. He makes or breaks the deal and the cards know it. He sets the tone.

bighit: THE JAGUAR

I wanted to see what the personality of bighit as a whole is, too. Unsurprisingly — what came out is an animal who’s a roaring force to be reckoned with. The energy is a lot more competitive and serious compared to The Sun. I find it convincing and see why these cards came out: Lighthearted group, big business company. Now, the Jaguar has a dark side as well as extreme advantages. He sure doesn’t look like the scariest animal ever, but being on top of the food chain allows him to do whatever he pleases: He’ll never be prey. On the other hand, he is protected because he’s so strong. Bighit does have that quality of being untouchable. Much like the jaguar, it’s an undertaking that operated in the shadows for long. We know that Bang PD claims to have the secret success formula and isn’t as public as say Lee Soo Man and JYP. There is a component of mystery, and the other companies are careful because of it. On the light side, BTS certainly have powerful and rational guidance. To give an analogy from the jungle book: Bighit is like Bagheera, the voice of reason, infusing BTS with strength and knowledge.

if you like my readings, support your local tiger on ko-fi 🐅

#holy moly jimin's card #bts #bts tarot #bts shaman reading #tarot #anon #bts oracle cards #bts oracle reading #cub mail 🐅

[ill-will-editions]

FEVER DREAMING IN THE NEW GENERAL ANTAGONISM 

Neal Miller 

March 22, 2020

We are living in the political fever dreams of COVID-19. Fredric Jameson’s oft-cited quip – “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism” – is obsolete.[1]  Having spread across the globe, the coronavirus has become the background phenomenon and concern of every passing moment. And along with it has come the imagination of an end of capitalism. However contagious and deadly COVID-19 is as a virus, its existence as the virtual object of the world’s attention and inattention has proven far more viral in its capacity to change society – mostly by cancelling our sensibility for realism. The dull weight of the everyday has lifted to unleash nightmares and dreamscapes that have magnetized the attention of our species with a measure of universality thought to be obsolete in our post-hegemonic world.

The continuous streams of news and commentary can hardly keep up with the latest collapse of everyday life. They give us the mise en scène in which to play the endangered protagonist of a canned Hollywood disaster flic and yet we’re told to stay home, keep calm, and practice good hygiene. Stories like the one about the recent missile strikes in Iraq are quickly phone-scrolled into oblivion by the latest notifications about the disease. And so we find ourselves reawakening with disbelief to the same new reality each day. 

Following Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish, one might say that we live our reality as though caught between two fever dreams, which alternate depending on the nature of the immune response to the virtual presence of the virus. On the one hand, there is the suffocating nightmare of the global “plague city,” of governments securing human “life” by identifying all bodily movement and contact with disorder and death. The dream of governments today is to “return” us to a new normal in which they have won surpluses of legitimacy and control. The other dream is a dream of upheaval that won’t let go of all the vital signs of freedom amidst the pandemic. It wants to make irreversible all of the revived forms of class war, mutual aid, and social welfare, along with all of the autonomous means of survival not yet invented. 

The general antagonism today is the war on COVID-19. And whether we like it or not, we have been enlisted to the immune systems of global humanity. Yet the politics of today concerns the decision before us. Will our collective immune response intensify our cynicism about our dependency on governments? Or will we experiment with novel forms of relief and this newfound disbelief in the black magic of the economy? Will we dare to play in the festival-dream of new forms of collective life and reliance upon one another? 

The Nightmare of Governmental Realism

Today, quarantine lockdown extends from the “non-essential” flows of commuters to the fluids and gestures of our bodies, which have become paranoid colonial-style occupations of themselves. My body experiences itself as if on the other side of a gulf of unhygienic habits cracked open by the virtual omnipresence of COVID-19: I catch myself touching my face, I catalog the surfaces I’ve recently touched, and my proximity to others spontaneously triggers a quantitative calculation (“was it a distance of six feet or ten that was recommended?”). The new universal phenomenon is the object of a panicked consciousness immersed in a world that has been reduced to the medium for a disease vector. 

As for the engineers of the new order, China and Israel represent the nightmare line toward the most grim extreme of plague politics. Both have employed the metadata of people’s smart-phones to track their movements and all points of social contact. Each new case is a profile whose recent social history is rounded up for quarantine. The horizon here would be something like Chris Marker’s film La jetée (or Terry Gilliam’s remake, 12 Monkeys): humanity survives, but at the cost of complete imprisonment and dependency upon a specialized medical government.

We glimpse this suffocating nightmare in the undecidable decision facing governments with respect to their incarcerated populations: do they relieve themselves of having to manage and care for their masses of concentrated and confined bodies? Or, do they give the prison guards and wardens a blank check to administer order by any means necessary? Whereas Iran temporarily released 54,000 prisoners on March 4th, two weeks later Massachusetts prisoners lost the right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment when a moratorium was announced on all disciplinary measures for prison staff. The undecidability here is no doubt due to the intensification of what Foucault called the carceral continuum, or the fact that the “inside” of the prison extends “outside” into the racialized ghettos of urban metropolises. The quarantine regime of social distancing and “shelter in place” lockdowns has turned the “outside” into a vast space of confinement, however gilded. 

The Festival Dream of Relief

Against this new confinement, efforts at self-organization are cropping up all over in food distribution networks, rent strikes, requisitions of abandoned housing, and calls for debt jubilees. Such earnest efforts at organized care finds its parodic inversion in the devil-may-care attitudes of Spring Breakers migrating South, as well as paranoid social media speculation about riots breaking out amidst mass hoarding. All of it tracks with what Foucault called the “whole literary fiction of the festival [that] grew up around the plague.”[2] 

Things we struggled for only weeks ago have been given outright – and much more besides. In the U.S., conservative food stamp policies have been lifted, unemployment safety nets reinforced, moratoriums on various costs of living instituted, and political parties are fighting not over whether to give UBI, but how much. Those immunized in their home-bubbles are offered an increasing amount of freely circulating intellectual property, while, in Chicago, parking has been made free, evictions courts are on hold, and utility companies are giving away electricity.

The black magic of the economy has revealed itself in its very withdrawal from our lives, tempering our panic and fear with a small modicum of relief. As Dan Kois recently argued, this relief has shown just how much of American society and its ‘death on the installment plan’ is a sham.[3] The mask has come off and the wand behind the conjurations now appears in the simple arbitrariness of its operations. Why don’t all of the other ways we get sick, fear hunger, or struggle to stay afloat count as reasons for having free access to high-quality food, health-care, and shelter? If all it took was a wand waving to put a stop to bills, evictions, and the like, does this not make all of our sufferings and hardships under normal circumstances seem meaningless?  

Just as we let out our sighs, however, the nightmare visions from abroad come closer and remind us that the only continuity between what was once normal and the current state of exception is the power of governments based on our dependency. We feel this dependency whether we panic or not, whether we trust their assurances and injunctions not to hoard or whether the sight of emptied shelves floods our heads with visions of the broken supply chains and interrupted logistics that we rely on to eat. As Chuang rightly noted, the arrival of COVID-19 in Wuhan induced a paradoxical form of general strike: there is a profound work stoppage, but it is hollowed out and devoid of any subject of history. The subject of history: not even the coronavirus can assume this mantle. Our continued dependency makes the strike false.

Yet one cannot help but read the ‘New Deal’ on offer as a symptom of faltering government legitimacy and the fits of market confidence. In the U.S., the government is betting that an avalanche of compromises with Democrats will cover over the truther-response of the Trump administration and the stock sell-offs of Senate Republicans. As belief in the forces of order goes into convulsions, one thinks, ‘If they cannot guarantee our survival, all bets are off.’ As we take all these “gifts” coming down from on high, we ought to remember that the social welfare state of the 1930s New Deal was a warfare state. And what will become of our newfound alleviation without the invisible enemy that has, with its own magic, cancelled society?

A New Universal? 

On the brighter side of things, it’s worth observing that we have been given a hint to the riddle handed down from the failures of 20th century revolutionaries. For one fundamental limit of all struggles since the 1960s has been their scale. It has been a very long time since we’ve been able to think what might connect struggles happening all across the world. Despite being geographically dislocated from one another, the revolts of 2019 showed promise simply in their synchronic co-existence and their ability to repeat each others’ tactics under the maxim “Be water.” Yet not only were the problems at the heart of these struggles locally particular (despite their many commonalities), they were never able to flow together in a global strategy.

Against such a backdrop, COVID-19 portends a new universal frame of war. For however uneven the experience of vulnerability may be, the global spread of the coronavirus amounts to the generalization of the new antagonism. When was the last time we were able to share our experience of dependency on the world of governments as a crisis? The multi-generational time-scale of the climate catastrophe has so far prevented it from mobilizing all of the humanity that it dooms. Yet whether it is glowing from our screens or hanging in the ambient disquiet while we distract ourselves in quarantine, the new reality for everyone is that reality has fallen apart. 

In these fever dreams where trust in the authorities is in shorter supply than food and the means of punishment alternate between melting into air and locking down hard, it is perhaps possible to take the wand from the magician and begin conjuring a reality of our own. What is frightening about COVID-19 is how little we know about it. But just as uncertain is how governments will react to us amidst this legitimacy crisis and how peoples will respond when the repression of governments comes down too hard. 

How can we flee our dependency on the old world while “sheltering in place”? If the world is cancelled, what are all these bills, digital parking meters, and universities but the fossils and tombs of a dead world? What new uses can we still invent for what stands idle and unused around us – what role can they play in the new dream? How can we breathe new life into existing spaces of immunity, like vehicles and homes? And what new immunity spaces remain to be invented? What new forms of action at a distance are called for? We are already venturing tentative answers to these questions. We try to flow like water where we still can. However, against a virus that fills our lungs with fluid and against governments seeking to return us to the earth of realism, perhaps we should consider the element of breath, levity, relief, and jubilation: air. 

[1] Jameson, Fredric. “Future City.” New Left Review, 21, May-June 2003, 65-79.

[2] Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage, 1995, 197.

[3] Kois, Dan. “America Is a Sham.” Slate, March 14, 2020. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/coronavirus-tsa-liquid-purell-paid-leave-rules.html  

#covid19 #Coronavirus #biopolitics #war #immunity

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.” ― Donald A. Norman

Game Changers | Series Seven Reflection For Series Six, we turned our attention to Flourishing Future: Designing for a better normal as we attempted to unpack the provocation How do we in schools keep challenging binary thinking for designing a better normal? In Series Seven of the Game Changers Podcast, we once again have eleven remarkable educators – a financial literacy guru, an immersive learning designer, a Director of Student Opportunity & Careers Education, a global citizenship educational leader, an inclusive education champion, a foundational Principal, an Imagine If explorer, a Principal of marginalised youth in society, an entrepreneurial education superstar and two visionaries of the transition from high school to life. Each challenged our binary thinking and inspired us with their version of intentionally designing a better normal – all Game Changers who continue to light the torch for us and show us the way to build schools (and even society) differently. 

Each Series Seven Game Changers guest reminded us that those school leaders and educational sectors that understand potential futures, and what each might mean for them, and have the courage to plan ahead, will be the best prepared to support young people to succeed and flourish in the obvious reality of our new tomorrow. That we need to re-examine the purpose of schooling for our times and ensure that it is based on the facts and best predictions about the impact of this relentless change. It means realising that our decision on our vision today will lead to consequences in the future that we may or may not live to see, but others will, especially our COVID Children and the generations that follow.

Our Series Seven Game Changers helped us explore the key ingredients for designing a better normal, so that each young person in a school might begin to flourish in their today and into their future. We started Series Seven with Founder of Money School, Lacey Filipich. 

Episode One | Lacey Filipich Key learnings – I first met the effervescent Lacey at s p a c e in 2019. I was instantly drawn to her infectious smiles, smarts and optimistic concept of money and its real human value. Our conversation in Series Seven highlighted the value of flipping the ‘time poor’ narrative, this deficit thinking economics, to the concept of being time rich, a half glass full story line, when viewing financial management, an important literacy for all learners, that focuses on lifting up, from a conversation around limiting waste and liberating hope.

Episode Two | Mond Qu Key learnings – Encounters that evoke feelings of awe often lead to new relationships with self, place and the other. These moments of awe give us a profound sense of hope and the ability to see the bigger picture. Each teaches us that there might be something magical in beauty of everyday life, that we can be forever grateful for. Working in research, practice, and teaching internationally, Mond challenges all educators and learners to iterate in this space of encounter and embrace the challenges of the 21st century. In this episode, he discusses why we all should adopt a designer mindset in a world that needs us to be more curious, more creative, more diverse than ever before, through being open to exploring the power of habits and intentionality immersive encounters of wonder and awe. 

Episode Three | Samantha Jean McFetridge Key learnings – Outstanding organisations like Foundations for Young Australians (FYA) have illustrated to us, through extensive reports that there is a new work order, that career pathways aren’t as linear as they used to be with young people expected to have 17 jobs across 5 careers in their lifetime. Our conversation with Samantha reminded us that entrepreneurial-minded learners achieve success by applying knowledge, creatively and resourcefully; be it in STEM, business, creative arts, trade, social enterprise, professional or any other type of knowledge. And that this ability is recognised globally as critical to 21st century learning and active citizenship. Understanding that this is not just about building a business but empowering all learners to build their own future through discovering possibilities available to them, via a comprehensive career’s education framework.

Episode Four | Hamish Curry Key learnings – Our chat with Hamish reminded me of the significance of place. This thinking is centred around the notion that learning can take place anywhere, anytime. Where young people can access knowledge at a touch of a button. Therefore, schools need to commit to creating authentic learning experiences that enable learners to connect deeper with self, place and especially the other. This more personal exchange with real-world contexts and in-country immersions allows all learners to consider the social change, dialogue and bridge building needed to better connect to local and global communities. It allows for all learners to construct global perspectives and their own meaning not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom and outside of school. And we cannot ignore that virtual reality ensures that the entire world is the new classroom.

Episode Five | Tanya Sheckley Key learnings – The rise and rise and rise of personalised learning. Alongside our changing notions of what constitutes a classroom, Tanya reminded us that our ideas about the way teaching is delivered must also be reshaped. That the old ‘one size fits all’ model is outdated and has no place in the agenda for today’s schooling, for today’s tomorrow. As a result, teachers will need to develop individualised learning plans for students, each home to a unique life, which will enable each student to access curriculum and learning designed at a pace that best suits their abilities and divergent needs, that allows them to engage with knowledge, skills, and wisdom, that are most beneficial to them.

Episode Six | Scott Donohoe Key learnings – True vulnerability is waking up each day and choosing courage over comfort. School leaders have a responsibility to shepherd all in their learning community to a post pandemic next, new, or better normal. Scott is one of those school leaders that has a capacity of tuning in and outward and being brave enough to anticipate evolution and opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge and flipped to opportunity and hope. He realises that courage is about overcoming all obstacles when most of the society are frozen in an old reality. He realises that courage is to not be afraid to become and reveal who you really are, for self and the places and people you serve and lead.

Episode Seven | Loni Bergqvist Key learnings – Imagine If students have more opportunities to learn at different times in different places. With anytime, anywhere learning becoming the better normal for our students. Where online tools facilitate opportunities for a more highly personalised learning experience of individually targeted stretch and challenge tasks. One that is self-paced, self-determined and incorporates relevant and real-world inquiry-based learning. Resulting in all classrooms being flipped, meaning the knowledge and skills part is learned outside the classroom, at home. Where on campus class time becomes one of character appreciation, deep collaboration, teamwork and the practical application or transfer of knowledge and understanding, of real-life issues. Where taking tests will be replaced by students’ growth and achievement through creative and collaboration projects to problem solve wicked and relevant real-world questions. Well, this exits via Loni and her team at Imagine If.

Episode Eight | Sally Lasslett Key learnings – Our encounter with Sally animated what truly matters in education, people. Sally and the brilliant staff at The Hestor Hornbrook Academy understand that their vocation is being an important champion to their students, many of which have had an adverse childhood or experienced significant trauma. And why do these educators do what they do - well, from my perspective they get that every person in our schools is home to a unique life. This learning community isn’t about a handout, but a hand forward and up, where each feels seen, respected, safe, valued and understood. Sally reminded me of my why, and the profoundness of why I will forever be a teacher. The greatest vocation in the world.

Special Series | Nicole Dyson and Will Stubley & Saxon Phipps Key learnings – Phil’s chats with Nicole, Will and Saxon reminded me of crowdsourced classes, entrepreneurship or self-directed learning is almost certainly at the core of the future of learning. To not allow learners to ‘play’ with information, platforms, and ideas is to ignore them access to the tools and patterns of 21st Century life. And that in a progressive learning environment, students should constantly be generating original ideas from multiple sources of information–and be doing so guided by teachers, mentors, and communities, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and self-created meaning and creativity. Highlighting the role of teaching becomes much more about coaching and guiding students to not only build their knowledge, skills, and attributes, but to also make better sense of what they are learning, to fully flourish in life.

From each of our Series Seven Game Changers we learnt the significance for learning communities to be deeply tuned into the sign of times, this new world we live in. That we have a responsibility to shepherd all in our learning communities as they emerge from the pandemic towards designing a better normal in doing school. That this is about anticipating the opportunity born from moments of real struggle and challenge. And about planning and executing an incremental and unstoppable evolution towards better outcomes for all learners. While overcoming all obstacles when many in society are still frozen in an old reality. 

Thank you to Lacey, Mond, Samantha, Hamish, Tanya, Scott, Loni, Sally, Nicole, Will and Saxon for sharing your story and passion. And thank for reminding us all that each person in our learning communities is home to a life. It is as simple and complex as that. Born from the construct of love – of self, for place and the other.

Listen to our Series Seven: Epilogue via streaming platforms - SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Play.

[trad-masculine]

Posture, poise, carriage, *Yawning* & a missing understanding in Western fitness concepts.

While this might seem pedantic, I'll try to keep it from feeling that way.

We conceptualize posture wrong in every single linguistic usage I've seen. It's perhaps a failing of the English language grammatically more than a failure of understanding in the Canon, as I've seen the correct concept described in various places both eastern & western. But never the words themselves accurately modeling the correct understanding of posture.

*Proper posture is the absence of carriage.* The body moves according to itself without an imposed or held sense of correct movement or posture.

Observable poise, the ephemeral elegance of movement found so desired, is likewise an absence of constraint to the body, a liquid form of self embodiment. Poise without poise.

Empty posture is best posture.

*

This concept is far more accessible & vibrant in the eastern physical tradition. Bruce Lee's famous, "be water, my friend." Makes a good example.

[The eastern words also, at least in translation, tend to have these very bizarre anti-concepts throughout. Like Buddhist Anatta or Anatman, no-self. Inspired by this, maybe terms like Anaposture (or Antiposture) are needed.]

*

The correct way to think this through is; your body is a tapastry upon which you put movement. It knows how to live & be, there is no need for you to hold it together. For you to force it to behave, to control it. So, let go of body image.

We were not born to look at ourselves in mirrors, physical or digital.

"Suck in your stomach."

"shoulders back."

"sit up straight."

There are many cues we are told or tell ourselves in the mirror; it's possible some can be helpful in rediscovering the natural state of empty posture. Most aren't. Moreover, putting the cues into your posture is not the correct goal. The correct goal is, literally, catharsis. To empty or rediscover empty posture. To release yourself from holding a posture altogether.

The place in movement to place emphasis is the process of relaxation, not of building tension. The eccentric of the exercise. Controlled lengthening under load. This is where the most muscle building, strength, explosiveness & even tendon injury healing occurs. In the process of lengthening the muscle, relaxation.

Often we flop into a "relaxed" posture. Giving up on the actual process of relaxation before it even truly begins. To move again we must force & pull ourselves together. "Relaxation" synonymous with collapse, proper posture synonymous with pulling a collapsed body together, to maintain the illusion it works as it should.

True Relaxation is a slow & careful process, involving a willingness to enter vulnerability, facing trauma & pain. It's not a letting go exactly, but a gradual releasing of tension. A warm glow of comfort & deeper sense of Being, within one's body. True posture a rediscovering of balance & unity of the body.

*

I don't believe in stretching. I don't mean in the idea of lengthening muscles, of relaxing; but the sensation of pulling on muscles, felt while "stretching." I've never seen an animal do this, or a child do it gladly, except as a demonstration of prideful flexibility. It's not the natural process the body is evolved for, instead I believe in Pandiculation. The *stretching* yawn you might feel in the morning that almost involuntarily sends your arms overhead and contorts & releases your bodies tension along with immense sensation of well being & peace.

Watch a cat get up from a nap, it stretches, or really it pandiculates through several poses, a *ouf* Downward Dog, a *arrgh* sort of Cobra/Upward Facing Dog & a *ahhh* sort of Warrior 3 hind leg extension stretch. In essence, Sun Salutation as an embedded, instinctive physiological & embodied routine.

We too have this same embodied instinct. It starts with a yawn, which is followed by an urge to move in a certain pattern to [realign the muscles of] the body. A posture reset. A process for return to empty posture.

A somatic process of healing.

*

The original Sun Salutation was an encoding of this process. While the normal practice is sure to have some benefit, learning to embody the yawn, to feel the moves innately, is the correct approach. This means abandoning the structure of the poses, & listening to the way your body wants you to move it.

Open yourself to your Antiposture. Following the cue of your body will lead to strange & contorted movements as you first unlock the proper sensation & follow it. Don't force it. Healing in this manner still takes time to progress. Changing the underlying coordination of your body is no trivial feat. It will take successive unwindings & remapping of your brains sense of body to reach an equilibrium of emptiness. Empty posture, Anaposture.

*

With some grasp of the yawn-sensation-movement process, it's very possible to incorporate the process of following sensation within a Yoga, Pilates or other movement routine. Sun Salutation being perhaps the ideal example. When I move this way, it's very loud, with lots of groaning & moaning. It feel *right* in a way that's rather profound. Completely unrepressed movement.

In pursuit of deeper embodiment, this is perhaps the best concept I've ever encountered in terms of value after incorporation. Catching the sensation that impulses movement in tandem with the instinct to move in the process of pandiculation lasts usually only a few seconds, perhaps up to a minute. It can be reignited again after exhalation & a new yawn & breath in, it's intimately woven into breath.

My avatar claims a quote: "Civilize the Mind, Make Savage the Body."

In that sense, this is exactly my conception of a Savage body. A wild body, an animal body. For the body to be in its natural state, ready at a moments notice for action.

*

It's shocking & a frustration to me that most of this understanding I've relayed here is my own concoction. This has never been succinctly depicted is any media of health, wellness, fitness or life. I've collected many, many bits & pieces together to develop this understanding. What I've described is at the very core of mind-body connection. The yawn-sensation-movement process of pandiculation, should be the opening chapter of every fitness book published.

Cats do this when they begin to move. So do children when they wake up, before life Traumatizes them into physical confusion. We know what a yawn is, & the feeling that follows it, of relaxation & some vague anxiety prodding us to move. Well, this is what that anxious prodding is about; to move such that your body recalibrates itself.

Yet this is never properly communicated or described in any physical manual I've read.

The closest I've seen is in Thomas Hanna's book Somatics, & the subsequent derivitive works. They, (the field of Somatics) approach the subsystem of engage-relax that at least memics part of the real thing of Yawn - Sensation - Movement - Relaxation - Exhalation. They get the cues of movement - relaxation - breathing close to right. They also correctly understand what they are memicing is related to what movements the cat does.

But the broader concept of empty posture, or coordinating a yawn with sensation into movement is missing entirely, from what I can tell.

*

The entire concept space is alien, & its at the absolute core of being human, having a body & caring for that body.

Yet this is something with almost a taboo around it. The yawn is completely divorced from the movement pattern that naturally issues from it. It shouldn't be. Don't let it be. Become your yawn when it comes to you.

Embody your breath.

#Fitness #Weightlifting #Healing #Health #Somatics #Thomas Hanna #Workout #Fitblr #masculine #masculinity #feminine #femininity #Breath #Yoga #yogapractice #posture #body posititivity

[thetapestryoftime]

Above is the chart for the moment of beginning this journal. How nice that Spica is in the 10th house. Does that portend some kind of success? Who knows? Who cares!

Mercury has been in a key position in my chart since yesterday… or about two days ago. With astrology it’s always hard to tell. When is a position not in a key position? No one day or one moment is more important than the rest… they’re all one and the same! Here! And! Now! Each holds something special - the boredom, the pain, the joy, the ecstasy, the separation or conuinctio. Every experience is unique and never to be repeated again.

Anyhow, Mercury truly is in a very important place in my chart. Here is the chart of the moment on top of my Natal chart.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He is parting from a conjunction with Mars, yes… and over the past week I had predicted that this conjunction would lead to me finally taking action in expressing my self through writing, which I have not done for a long time. I have been in silence. And everything I have written so far, though much of it had been inspired, came from a different space than the one I currently embody. What’s curious about that statement is that… I could write it at any given moment and it would always be true. Language is tricky, but I will attempt at precision as I develop over the course of time.

Beyond the conjunction of Mars, there is a Grand Cross that exists between Mars, Chiron (not pictured above, I just realized… he rests at 10 degrees of Libra, conjunct NN), Jupiter, Saturn & the nodes. I actually have no real concept of how this chart pattern materializes in my life. This is partly the reason for these reflections. I would like to understand my self through a careful study of the divine timing of my life, tracked through the graces of the cosmic clock that is astrology. This journal, though I have no idea if it will ever come to fruition of any kind, is an attempt at profound self understanding… one of the things I’m finding comical as I type is that I get quite wordy in writing whereas the moments of illumination arrive quite spontaneously as a whole package of quantum information. Will this be digestible? Let’s see.

So, primarily, I’ll speak on Mercury today as he (I suppose she, in Cancer) has been endlessly nudging me today to write this entry. I will point out I am heavily predisposed towards fixity by nature of placements in my nativity & consistently find reasons not to start something that requires considerable shift from my habit loop. So I resisted Mercury until 6:50PM according to the time signature above :D

Here are several observations I’ve made…

First, since his approach towards Mars I started overthinking all of a sudden. I could not get out of my mind the upset I have towards certain family members who continuously question my way of life & make a point to mention things they find faulty every time I have a conversation with them (Mars in Cancer - separation with family, trauma with relatives, distance from my roots… more on this later. I am a very interesting case study for this Mars placement). I was processing tremendous amounts of rage. I was imagining situations where I am punishing them, where I point out their own glaring blindspots & make them angry or sad, finding every excuse to defend my identity over their criticisms. It’s not even an active thing - I generally avoid these family members & don’t spend much time thinking about them. But in this transit… oh boy. It’s notable primarily because I have cultivated deep sense of self & inner peace over the last months… feeling incredibly connected to the present moment, to my body, to the everlasting here and now, with rushes of bliss entering my reality each day as I sink into my self. But of course, the moment I open up to greater realities, darling universe only gives me so long to marinade in the sweetness before offering up the next challenge. I am grateful for that. I want to go all the way DAMMIT.

And so I started to understand this aspect of the Grand Cross… the Mercury side of it. And what was most poignant for me is that Mercury is by far the most accessible planet in terms of transits. As in - Mercury’s transits are easily perceptible due to the fact they deal with our thoughts, our conversations, communications, dealings & so on. Any interface with reality that requires mind will somehow be colored by Mercury. Therefore, his transits are the ones that offer greatest potential for self-comprehension. There’s a bit of a trick, however - there are all the other planets doing things at the same time, so who can say what’s what?

So I thought… or in fact, a thought thought it self into my viewfinder… as each planet transits key points in the chart, a very specific type of activation will present it self to reveal a perspective on that part of the nativity. Sun will be a spotlight, Mercury a set of thoughts, Mars a battle, Venus a success & so on. The slower the planets, the more meaningful the transit as it will reveal far more of the nature of that part of the chart.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I had to leave the home and stay at my aunt’s today because mold is being cleared out from our current residence. Do you see the significance? Mars = separation, Mercury = trade, Cancer = home. I would say that mold has to do with Sun trining Neptune today - the less rosy & more disturbing, invisible aspects of life are spotlit.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I went shopping & bought a ton of fruits & vegetables & juices from the farmer’s market & the bio store. Mars = activity, Mercury = buy/sell, Cancer = mom/provisions/abundance.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer approaching square to natal Saturn… I was HELLA moody today. I was unable to get into my body after waking up for a long while & thus did not communicate to my mom I did not actually want to go shopping at all… I just want to go home & lay and feel into my body slowly. Which led to a very long and powerful conversation. We spoke about our shared trauma, her lack of access to her emotions, the way we have the exact same trauma response to relationships (our charts have many eery similarities… more on this another time). We are basically carbon copies of each other in our own unique ways. I do not doubt most children have this kind of relationship with their parents. In any case, it was basically a battle except she shuts down while I ignite so it’s rather one sided… but we ended up on steady ground making some (or maybe none? who ever knows) progress together. Interestingly enough, the conversation lasted an hour and a half (or so) and the entire time Mercury was transiting the 8th house. Can’t make this shit up ! The conversation broadly addressed our individual belief systems & the Sun was in the 9th house for a good portion of it. Mmmmhmmmm.

Mercury in Cancer… At a collective level, I made on particular observation that I found quite peculiar. In the past few days, four people I follow & admire showed up in video format on Instagram quite… frazzled. All four of them were going through some shit. & I could sense they were really off their game which I had not seen in such sequence prior. Cancer is a cardinal water sign & to me signals part evolution part devolution… revisiting the past to move forward. Back to Earth. Water slowly dripping down to feed the roots. A moment of destabilization that actually initiates the next level of embodiment, or NOT! It’s an expression of vulnerability, a soft & tender communication that invited me to de-pedestal them (because I am apt to crown humans when I admire some quality of theirs… & thus feel less-than them) and see their lovely humanity. Maybe it’s pathetic but I celebrated seeing them weak. Because it reminded me that everybody falls, nobody is perfect, we are all simply human, and I can show up however I am. As much as I wish it were possible, I don’t think I can ever be quite “there.”

Mercury’s ingress into Cancer has also invited me into a cascade of speaking whereas before I was preferring silence (still do…) simply due to circumstance and changing tides of energy. As I’ve been studying transits nearly daily, I am absolved of any illusion that I have control over any aspect of Being in the world. I am, as we are all, at the behest of shifting sands of time that determine what exactly will be brought to attention on any given day. Astrology is the ‘divine timing’ we all speak of that gives us PROFOUND insight into the energetics of each moment, as well as the energetics of our own existence.

There’s so much more… but that’s it for today!

#astrology #cancer #mars #mercury #saturn #zodiac #journal

[so-od]

all i can say without a single shadow of a doubt and not upon inference of suggestion, is that every one. every where, should take acid and experience the absolute deflation of all things physical.

i dropped acid last night. it wasn't the first time that i did it but it was the first time that i opened myself up completely to let what i needed emotionally come to me with a force so strong.

i'm writing about it in the hopes that any person who i know experienced the same thing (on a personal level, but deeply spiritual nonetheless) will spread the word and invite others.

anybody reading this that might have previous experiences in your head with taking lsd and having a more mild trip; good visuals, euphoria, etc...i had that experience once before and it meant nothing at the time and it meant nothing afterwards.

this experience was utterly profound.

i found myself in the middle of my consciousness. sometimes i didn't like what was coming into my realization but it also struck me that those were subconcious worries that i carry with me every single day.

what a heavy burden to bear.

stuck in a constant state of conducting myself appropriately to appease other people, coming right down to what i look like when i am just breathing.

as if my existence in a room is so inconvenient and as if i exist even to be presentable to anybody who might happen to look at me at any moment?

it isn't just a female thing, i thought that.

it wasn't just because i was tripping with my boyfriend and we haven't been together too long, i thought that as well.

it is a constant nag in the back of my head that my presence anywhere will go noticed at any moment, and that person will abruptly decide within themselves that they do not like the feeling of me being here.

for any reason.

and i won't know if they feel that way and that to me is absolutely terrifying.

i kept saying to myself, "i am enough. what about me? i matter, i matter"

and i do.

i, and what i want for my life matters.

where do i see myself happy? how do i know that i am actually feeling what i am feeling when it feels good, or if i just think i feel that way because i feel accepted?

all of this happened in the same room with somebody that i love who is fighting his own inner battles as well. i heard bits and peices of it last night but that isn't my business to tell.

and if i'm being honest, i understand things about this man and his emotions that i never would have known had he continued to speak from a more worldly and conditioned place of emotion and thought.

but he was connected with himself and i was connected with myself and so i connected with him. and whether or not he had the same experience (he's still sleeping from the morning after), it doesn't matter.

i felt it.

human consciousness but deeper because it existed with love that was already decided upon and established.

at one point, i was in the bed and i was listening to a song and i started crying because, i feel that, i feel that, i feel it it's all emotion.

he came up to me with a cat toy and just dropped it in my lap. not to be funny. not to distract me. but it was his way in telling me that he feels it too. and we don't have to speak. we belong to ourselves in that moment, but we were also together.

and it's like that with any of us really. only we found more appropriate ways to actually verbalize that we relate with each other.

conditioned.

is it wrong? who knows. all i know is that i felt a feeling last night and it doesn't matter what else because it made me wake up today and want to do better. be better for my spirit. do this again. face myself. fight my demons.

anybody who hasn't experienced an lsd trip that was completely opening and full of awareness, i suggest you trip alone and talk to yourself.

figure out what you're hiding from yourself. you'll see it. and it won't necessarily be pretty or enjoyable the entire time but it's all you. it's all what you see and there is nothing else important.

don't let anybody tell you what you should be feeling or experiencing. just be open.

to close, here are the notes i took during the intense part of the comedown last night:

"keep running around. too good, too powerful.

much too powerful. who cares?

thought process; we have access to this at all times. i can feel this at any moment.

it's the feeling. the feeling we crave. i want this always. i have it but it's trapped.

that feeling is inside.

connection, we all feel it.

it's vibe but is it happy? what about me? i matter.

my mind. no control but it's beautiful.

the cat and all.

the mental process is divided but we know we are still here."

#lsd #acid #acid trip #ego dissolution #spilled words #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #consciousness #lsd experience #spiritual #personal #love #couple #connection

[idontfindyouthatinteresting]

Death Stranding: A Love Letter

Death Stranding, we’ve been waiting for you for a long time and to be honest there were times where we thought, we’re never getting this game, it just isn’t going to happen. I had this game on pre-order for over 2 years. 2 YEARS! The expectation level was obviously very high, and from my perspective it firmly... delivers. 

WARNING - SPOILER ALERT - This is a review/breakdown by someone who’s finished the game, for people who have finished the game. You have been warned!

Death Stranding revels in it’s cinematic credentials constantly and with intense consistency. From panoramic mountainous vistas which you can control, to dazzling close ups of it’s digitally recreated stars, to just watching Sam go to his Private Room. It’s stunning and a testament to Kojima's cinematic knowledge with every shot. 

Not only does Death Stranding handle this beauty, and intricate world building and story telling with ease and grace; it’s concepts and emotional ideas (which I’ll go into more later) are translated so strongly that you can’t help but get swept up in it. This is the sort of experience that I’m used to getting from films, who embed this framework within their narratives so deeply, in a way it’s expected. Death Stranding hits you like a freight train. Through the power of the performances, the narrative and the fresh nature of the ideas it’s portraying. 

Death Stranding’s emotive credentials are set firmly in 2 scales, the more typical big stuff, saving the world, stopping the extinction, well trodden video game territory. But where it truly sets itself apart, embodied so perfectly when Sam walks away from Die-Hardman’s Inauguration speech, and sets to surprise is in how it handles what could be argued to be the smaller scale stuff. 

Sam’s emotional world is rich and powerful, from his Aphenphosmphobia to the fact that we see him openly weep and break down holding a crying child. This is a male lead in a video game, and as a woman I loved seeing Sam being so vulnerable, to the point where he’s physically naked in those shots (ssshhh, there are academic reasons too.) It’s fresh and poignant, and as a woman it gives me access to media rejecting the male gaze so completely. 

On the notion of the Male Gaze, there is some stuff to unpick about the game’s female characters, as much as I would have loved to have seen more, with some ethnic diversity also, it doesn’t subject it’s women to typical video game stereotypes. The creators of the network (whatever it’s true intentions) are all women, Amelie found the path through the country to place the terminals, with the hardware and software created by Mama and Lockne respectively. This network is recognized as the saviour of humanity, the only male input is Sam connecting the terminals with the Q-pid, a Q-pid created by Mama and Lockne. Fragile is the only character powerful enough to get Sam and all the other characters to where they need to go through her DOOMs. I think the shows opinion on Male Gaze is shown in the story, when Fragile is using Sam’s shower, and Sam moves to the glass, his intention is to see her timefall damaged skin, but Sam is punished for it by Fragile as he questions her motives, she’s aggressive and she puts him thoroughly in his place for it. I love love love the physical powerplay in this scene between them. 

Sam is reluctant, profoundly unhappy, arguably suicidal, and is convinced to do all of this purely to help save his friend. Sam is a constant reminder that there is so much more at play here, drilled home every time he flinches away or holds Lou in his hands. Although there is a world to save, it can be for nothing unless you save yourself too. Sam and Fragile’s final discussion brings this home. Before leaving to stop Amelie Sam is full of hope, but in losing Lou, he does a 180, he’s just a man getting to the next sun rise. Something I’m sure a lot of people can identify with. 

This narrative nuance is reflected in Cliff. Through the memories we’re shown a man just trying to save his child, not the world, not willing to sacrifice his child to be made into the activation code for a city, no matter the cause. He just wants to be a father and that is his driving force. Mads Mikkelsen was my gateway into this particular world, safe to say I have an intense soft spot for him. I can go on all damn day about how talented he is. He’s the best in the business, no one does what he can, no one else can give a performance that is so real and so raw but so full of fight. Mads can take the your most profound story line, otherworldly in it’s extreme, and he embeds it so firmly in the human experience, you’ll never be able to untangle that web. That is why his ability to do what he does can almost never be questioned. You let him get to the heart of your story and that is what he’ll do to it and that is why it works. Mads Mikkelsen could easily have been Higgs, based on early trailers we suspected he was Higgs, but he isn’t. Could not be further from it. 

Death Stranding’s narrative dichotomy in this way is resembled perfectly in the games two ‘Boss’ characters, Cliff and Higgs. Higgs represents the greater plan, the end of the world stuff, and Cliff the smaller scale human to human emotion. Sam must overcome both. 

Death Stranding has an even wider scope, an even wider message. Kojima hasn’t been shy about his message of connection being prominent and poignant in the current political climate, being from the UK I feel this so keenly, but the same is present in the US as well. Humanity driven further apart, through legislation, walls and boarders. You can see the potence of the message being translated through a video game, when alternate reality, video game violence and social media is being blamed for these things. It’s fighting back in a way. Death Stranding’s gameplay is full of positivity, from the signs that other players can leave you that replenish your stamina, make your BB happy, to the fact that if you knock a MULE out in water they have a neck float so they don’t drown and die. 

The lack of violence in this way and use of ‘non-lethal’ guns, which are described as such, were again refreshing. I’m not a first person shooter gamer, never have been, could not be less appealing to me if it tried. But Death Stranding doesn’t just have a gun aversion, to me it is explicitly anti-gun. Again another important message, particularly when the game is set in the US. One of my favourite moments in the whole game is Sam listening to Die-Hardman’s grovelling apology for his actions, his thoughts and his prayers, only for Sam to shove the gun Die-Hardman brought to the Beach back at him, warning him with disgust at his actions, by passing on the message, “that gun won’t work here” and walking away. I completed a video game without taking a single human life. It rejects the notion so fully and completely. You stop the extinction, save humanity, not with a gun but by hugging Amelie, reminding her about how valuable human life is, every human life. It’s not to be thrown away, you need to give it a chance to bloom.

In Death Stranding humanity is left cowering underground, separated by an invisible enemy in the form of BT’s, it has to learn to fight back, with literal blood, sweat and tears. If you couple the notion of the invisible enemy with Bring Me the Horizon’s ‘Ludens’ Lyrics:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but soon the sting will pass But names can dig so many graves, you won't know where to stand

I love this line. (BMTH wrote that song in 5 days to get it into the game in time, by the way!) As children we’re taught that names shouldn’t hurt us, but actually they do. In a time where the effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, all of this “name calling” are putting people in their actual graves, these lyrics should be heard more keenly. Political leaders put people in their graves with their words, through direct or indirect means. These words are the BTs of our world, invisible hands which destroy people.

Some of the criticisms of the game are based on elements of game play, like the deliveries you need to make, as slow and tiresome. Higgs himself addresses this asking whether you’re tired of the grind, begging for a “game over”? 

The game is not only acutely aware that perhaps trudging all over the US with vast cargo loads isn’t what you want to be doing, but it knows it’s what you need to do. And truly, in what way is that different from shooting your way through levels and scenarios to get to the end? Death Stranding makes you feel the sacrifice Sam is making and you experience that with him, every time you fall and drop your cargo, every time you stumble down a mountain side, every time you wreck your stamina bar climbing an incline. Video games can’t really make you feel what it’s like to kill an enemy soldier with an air strike, but hell it can make you feel frustrated at having to climb another mountain with a boat load of heavy gear. 

Death Stranding rejects the idea of a ‘game over’ and other video game staples in other ways, it mockingly calls Higgs and Cliffs narrative end “Boss fights” and when Deadman says that wiping Lou’s memories, her connection with Sam in order to make her work better than a piece of equipment is just a ‘do-over’ a reset, normal, Sam rejects that it’s not that simple and Norman’s performance brings that home acutely. It’s not just a game. 

From style, to message, to performance, to rejection of the Male Gaze, Death Stranding is an intense and beautiful game. It managed to hook me so thoroughly (as I’m sure you’ve been able to tell from my live tweeting/blogging) and I don’t imagine I’ll get the hook out of my heart for a while. It speaks to something higher and I love it for it.

Keep On Keeping On.

#Death Stranding #Hideo Kojima #Norman Reedus #Mads Mikkelsen #Sam Porter Bridges #Clifford Unger #mine #OPINION ALERT #long post

[revlyncox]

Cultivate a Brighter Future

As stewardship season begins, we commit to a growth mindset for ourselves and our community. This talk was delivered to the Washington Ethical Society, March 7, 2021. 

The end of last year’s growing season was less organized than I had hoped. That’s actually true every year. When I read my colleague Theresa Honey Youngblood’s reflection on the dying garden in late October, I identified strongly with her experience. I, too, could look around and see “evidence of our months of enthusiasm, but also horticultural ineptitude.” Like Theresa, transitions in the season bring my attention to things I could have done better, to mistakes of focus and mistakes of skill. And this is why her conclusion was so meaningful to me: Life still thrives in the garden of imperfection, sometimes because of the imperfection.

Psychologist Carol Dweck speaks about a “growth mindset,” a belief that a person’s capacities and talents can be improved over time. This is contrasted with a “fixed mindset,” the belief that people just are how they are, and that success comes down to innate talent or other factors outside our control. When we are able to cultivate a growth mindset, we can frame setbacks and mistakes as opportunities to learn, not as signals that we are inadequate or that failure is inevitable.

Certainly, there are factors beyond our control that impact the range of our choices. In my garden, I know that I need to plan my planting and harvesting according to the  predictions of Zone 7a. It would be inadvisable to plant tomatoes in the ground outdoors before Mother’s Day, no matter how much fun the bloggers in Texas and California seem to be having in April. Some factors create a landscape for us to work within. Yet if we consider those landscape factors to be starting points and not destiny, if we focus on the things we can leverage and learn, if we seek out the people we can team up with so that we can approach challenges together with complementary skills, more things are possible. I could, with effort and research, figure out what and when to plant given the sunlight and growing season I have, even if my garden will never look like the rows of produce in the full sun that I see in the catalogues. Life can thrive in the garden of imperfection.

Re-reading Theresa’s reflection this spring, as the snow melts and reveals all of the work ahead for the coming growing season, I am also reminded of some of the challenges of the last year. Some among us had to keep on doing during the pandemic what they had been doing, especially caregivers and frontline workers, though with more risk. For some of us, our daily lives changed drastically. For many of us, it has been a year of grief and struggle, with lost lives and lost jobs and lost opportunities. We are also contending with the continuing impact of murder committed by police, white supremacist violence, efforts at voter suppression, and an economic system that lets billionaires profit from disaster while the most vulnerable among us have resources pulled out from under them. There is a lot to process. And there is hope that we might, with time and perseverance, as our organized movements keep up the pressure, find recovery and change.

Though it’s too soon to say for sure what the New Normal will look like, we can start grieving, and we can take stock of the thawing ground around us. We can assess the landscape for the repairs that need to be made. We can begin turning over the remains of what has gone before. We can prepare the ground for what might yet be. A growth mindset tells us that, even as the trauma and the sadness and the frustration of the last year are real, another future is possible. The losses and the setbacks we have experienced are facts, but they are not destiny. The beauty of our memories and the beauty that has persisted are also real, and we can grow them with our attention.

Though many of us are working as hard as ever, it may seem on the surface that there is not much to show for it. Capitalism tells us we should be using every moment productively, that we should all have learned how to make bread from scratch and sing sea shanties while also working 110% at our jobs behind plexiglass or over Zoom. I would suggest that a growth mindset should also allow for a composting mindset, permission to not be at our most productive when a hard frost has swept across our collective lives. In the circle of life, there are rhythms of letting go and adapting. If we are not where we hoped to be by now, we are here, and here is a good place to start.

A growth mindset helps us to begin where we are, to plant seeds at the right time and not pressure them to grow beyond the pace and the season and the fruitfulness that is reasonable for them. For some of us, the landscape of our lives may seem stark as we assess the impact of the last year. There may be the emotional equivalent of mushy collards and pumpkins frozen before maturity that need to be surrendered to the compost pile. The gardens of our lives or our communities may not look like much in this moment, but there is still room for possibility. If you don’t feel like the last year was productive, perhaps there was transformation working under the surface, where the humus of the past makes way for the seeds of what has not yet been planted.

So much can start with a seed. From a bit that might be the size of a grain of rice or at most a baby’s hand comes beauty or food or some other living thing that produces oxygen. Our lives can begin to change in small ways, eventually growing into abundance.

This brings me to the metaphorical garden of the WES community. You have not only coped with the impact of the pandemic, but also with a Senior Leader transition, and with the long-term impact of several transitions in education. Our interim time together has unfolded differently so far than it might have if we had been able to meet in person, yet perhaps this is the perfect time to enter into a transition, when all the world is adapting to different ways of being together and of understanding community.

There are visible signs of transformation and growth in mission at WES. The Board has been working on policy improvements with regard to safety. We have a new Employee Handbook that helps clarify expectations and will help improve stability on staff. We have a revitalized youth program, which mixes online activities with socially distanced, outdoor activities, giving our middle and high school youth a chance to gather with peers in a Humanist community. Members were incredibly generous with the Connect Campaign, which helped us sustain the community through the surprises of this year. You have welcomed new and returning members who are able to access this community like never before, now that we have committed resources and attention to meaningful online programming. These are signs of growth and maturity in your mission as a community, and I hope you are proud. Beauty persists, and that is real.

Yet I believe that the transformation under the surface is even more profound. This past year has allowed the whole community to see WES from a different perspective. Your willingness to experiment and to accommodate each other can be seeds for growth for years to come, long into the New Normal. Stepping back from the way things have always been done has allowed fermentation under the surface, a chance to turn experience into wisdom, a chance to make room for human beings -- who are always works in progress. Life still thrives in the garden of imperfection.

So, the question becomes, what will we do with all of the generativity that composting our experience of the last year might bring us? What seeds will we plant, and how will we live to align with the forces that create and uphold life? It’s OK if you don’t have an answer in this moment. Though a change in seasons is on the way, it is still technically winter, there is literally still a pandemic, and many people are still struggling. Some of us may need to rest before it’s possible to generate new ideas. Those who are looking to the horizon will hold a place for you. If you are ready, what seeds are you planting? In your personal life, did you learn something this year about who is precious to you, and how you want to be in relationship with them? What practices do you want to keep and what do you want to try? If you’ve learned a new skill, either as a way to channel your locked down energy or because you needed to learn something for survival, how will you use that skill going forward? Who are the people and organizations you want to spend time with as you build toward the world you dreamed about in the last year? What seeds are you planting for your own self-care?

WES is also thinking about planting seeds. Some of these will have implications far into the future; there are ideas with perennial impact. You have learned a lot in the last year about different ways to be a community, and I have heard excitement about how to take what you’ve learned into a post-COVID future. The ideas you have shared with me are starting to take form in the draft budget and in this year’s pledge campaign.

In case you are new to WES, I want to explain what the pledge campaign is, and reassure you that we’re not asking visitors to make a lifetime commitment today. A pledge is a financial commitment that members and friends make for the coming fiscal year; that is, July 2021 through June of 2022. Pledges from members and friends help us anticipate the gifts that WES will have to work with in the coming year, which in turn helps WES make and honor its commitments to our staff, our interfaith partners, our national affiliates, our renters, and all of the people we relate to as an institution. Being able to anticipate the community’s financial situation means that WES can, as a collective whole, make and maintain reliable and ethical commitments. Without the promises that members and friends make to WES, WES as a whole cannot make or keep promises to anyone else.

Furthermore, a pledge is a declaration of a continuing commitment to be part of this community, it is a re-establishment of the bonds that hold us together. It’s not the only thing holding the community together, but it is one practice that reminds members and friends of their connection. WES understands itself to be interdependent with other communities; we are part of systems larger than ourselves, yet the responsibility for the wellbeing of this community falls to the members. If members collectively were to allow other entities to take over the majority of the financial responsibility for WES, they would also lose the ability to ensure that WES’s mission and vision remain rooted in the values of its members. A pledge is a commitment to continuing to work through WES to make shared values manifest in the world.

And, so, each year in the early spring, members and friends are invited to renew their commitments during the pledge drive, also called the Stewardship Campaign. Business Administrator Tom Hutton and I have been assisting the volunteers on the Stewardship Team with getting ready for this season of celebration, reflection, and hope. If WES is your home-- a place you turn to for companionship, community, inspiration, and context for practicing your values-- I hope you will participate enthusiastically in this year’s campaign.

This year, we’re planting seeds to “Cultivate a Brighter Future.” We’re taking what WES has experienced in the past and learned from the past, and turning those things into nourishment for new and continuing ways to implement WES’s mission. The most important part of growing into the community that WES can become is your relationships with each other, and that’s why the main activity of this year’s campaign is a series of “Pledge Parties” on Zoom. The Stewardship Team and I are hoping that you can hear from each other about what you love about WES, what inspires you in this community, and how you plan to help plant the seeds for WES’s future. At the Pledge Parties, you can strengthen the community and your ability to carry the mission forward. Members received an email on Friday, and you can sign up for a Pledge Party any time in the next three weeks by visiting http://tiny.cc/wespledgeparty

The draft budget that is guiding this campaign plants seeds for the future in a few ways. Of course, this budget also includes some of the continuing commitments that are important to members, such as keeping up good relationships with our national affiliates at the American Ethical Union and the Unitarian Universalist Association, treasured programs like Coming of Age, and maintaining the meeting house. In addition, there are four priorities to help cultivate a brighter future:

With this version of the budget, WES members would provide funding and attention for the Senior Leader search. Not only do you want to fully fund the search process itself, you also want to demonstrate with this budget that WES members are committed to your mission and to your future, that WES as an employer is committed to fair compensation, and that WES funds programs that are interesting for potential new members as well as candidates for Senior Leader. Applicants for the Senior Leader position will be looking carefully at the 2021-2022 budget for clues that WES might be a good match for them. Therefore, this is a pivotal year for your generosity.

With this budget, WES moves closer to fair compensation standards and professional development for current staff. Fair compensation and professional development would demonstrate that WES is an institution that lives its values. Progress in this area would improve staff retention. The experience and education that staff could gather with improvement in this area would bring returns far into the future, as people on staff apply their skills to help members implement the mission.

With this budget, WES restores some of the vacant staff positions, particularly in education and music. Bringing WES closer to being fully staffed would mean a greater ability to imagine what programming could look like in the post-COVID future. It would mean more collaboration, and increased ability to channel volunteer energy into the programs with some of the highest member involvement. I believe that the kinds of programs members will need in the New Normal will not be the same as they were before the pandemic. Education will look different. Music will look different. The ways we relate to each other will be different. We need staff who can help members explore that future.

This leads me to the fourth priority, which is planning for a hybrid future. In the Cottage Meetings this past fall, and throughout the Connect Campaign, members told me how much they value the increased accessibility and inclusion that WES has found by dedicating resources and attention to online programs. We have new and returning and continuing members from Delaware, West Virginia, California, and Europe. The WES of the future could be a home for Humanists wherever they find themselves in the world. We’re going to need to be flexible about the way we do some things so that we can continue to be inclusive, so that our long distance members can participate in a meaningful way. To accomplish this, we are going to maintain the staffing and the software subscriptions that we have needed in the past year for online programs, and we’ll need new equipment like computers and cables and cameras for making the at-home experience of Platform better than ever.

You will have a chance to discuss these exciting ideas at the Pledge Parties, and throughout this month of celebration and commitment.

Whether we are talking about our individual lives or our community life, may we approach the future with a growth mindset. The challenges and the successes of the past can nourish the soil for new growth in the future. We need not be constrained by the way things have always been done, or by the things we have not yet learned, or by the look of things on the surface of a freshly turned garden bed. Our capacities, our skills, our talents, our imagination can increase over time. Let’s cultivate a brighter future by applying love and attention to the people and communities we value.

May it be so.