#genii locorum

[geniilocorum]

War Never Changes // Fallout series

We've wanted to do a Fallout photo for this project for so, so long and we finally got everything we needed/wanted for it (including a space to set it up). The old terminal was something @hexterah had for a long while (it used to be her dad's) and more recently she found the old books and the tin in a stash of her mom's stuff and knew they'd be perfect to add in as well. :)

(Fun fact: the backspace on the terminal didn't work so typing up a RobCo hacking screen without being able to backspace was A CHALLENGE!)

If you're interested in a print of this photo or any of the other GL photos you can check out our shop or our RB (we don't have prints of this one just yet on our own shop but it's up on RB!)~

#Fallout #photography #video games #genii locorum

[redrcs]

Genii locorum

On my travels

#original photographers #imagination #genii locorum #Western Australia #artistry

[coinandcandle]

Spirits of Place - Genius Loci

Ever since I was young I always felt that the world around me was full of energy, of spirit. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized that what I was feeling exists, and there's a name for it. I’m talking about the spirits of place called Genius Loci.

This is going to be a brief guide to Genius Loci. I’ll put links throughout the post so that you can read more if you’re interested!

What does it mean?

Genius Loci is the term used most often and it is essentially a spirit of a place, often cities or towns but can be anywhere.

The name is Roman, the plural being Genii Loci, and they were sometimes depicted in art as human-like beings holding a cornucopia, a patera (libation bowl) or a snake. There would be altars set up for these Genius Loci all throughout the western Roman Empire.

The idea of a spirit of a place exists in so many cultures. In some places like Thailand there are Lak mueang (Thai: หลักเมือง)--or city pillars erected and often placed in shrines dedicated to the city's deity (or deities).

In other places, like in Southeast Asia, spirit houses are created and placed in or near businesses, shrines, and sometimes houses.

The Romans also had household spirits or deities called Di Penates as well as Lares–guardian spirits/deities.

The term Genius Loci is sometimes used in a more modern way to indicate a nonliteral version of “spirit of a place”, similar to the “vibe” or feel of a certain architecture, design, or environment of the place.

How is it different from Animism?

The short explanation of animism is that everything, animal, plant, object, the ground, etc. has a spirit or spiritual essence. The difference lies in that Genii Loci are the spiritual embodiment of a place, meaning they embody all of its vibes and don't represent only one aspect of it.

How is it different from a Tutelary deity?

As mentioned before, a Genius Loci embodies the place, whereas a Tutelary deity/spirit is the guardian or protector of that place. Tutelary deities/spirits can be Genii Loci and vice versa, but they aren’t always one in the same.

Does every place have one?

Yes! Every place can (and probably does) have a Genius Loci, some places may even have more than one. They may have different names for them depending on the culture and lore they come from, though. If you plan on interacting with them make sure to ask what they prefer to be referred to as. (See Types of Household Deities at the bottom)

How do I interact with them?

First of all: you never have to interact with them if you don’t want to. 

If you would like to interact with them, though, there are a few ways that you can achieve this:

First spend some time with them. Hang out in the area that you'd like to interact with the Genii Loci. Get to know them.

Make sure you're being respectful!

Set up a spirit house or shrine.

Leave offerings out (but make sure they are safe to leave outside and are biodegradable OR that you come retrieve the offerings later) and let them know that it's there for them specifically.

Clean up the area. No one likes when their space is dirty!

Listen. What do you hear? The spirits may just reach out to you after you've shown your willingness to hear what they have to say.

You don't have to literally hear voices, there are several different ways that you can talk with spirits and metaphysical beings. You can use divination methods like tarot, runes, oracle cards, or you can meditate and see if you get any visions/information that come to you.

Also, you don't have to wait for them to reach out, chances are they won't try and contact you first. Feel free to let them know that you'd like to speak with them and that you're open to communicating with them.

Ps: A Genius Loci likely isn't going to tell you to hurt yourself or others. If it seems like the spirit you're speaking to is being very hateful and/or aggressive it's probably best to back off. Even if it is a Genius Loci (a really mad one) you should leave them be if they are being aggressive towards you. Especially if you're pretty new with spirit work.

If you’re interested in this, you may want to check out:

Genius Loci: The Ancient Worship of Spirits of Place or Land Spirits

Animism - The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Tutelary Deity - Academic 

Lares and Penates - Encyclopedia.com 

Types of Household Deities by culture (not a complete list)List of Tutelary Deities

Edit: When first posted I wrongly wrote that the plural of Genius Loci was Genius Locorum. Since I have changed it to the true plural form Genii Loci.

Genius Locorum is a spirit that presides over multiple places.

Enjoy my posts? Consider leaving me a tip on my ko-fi!~

#genius locorum #roman mythology #tutelary deities #spirit work #paganism #pagan #witchcraft #witch #grimoire #witchblr #guardian spirit #lares #di penates #animism #genii loci #genius loci

[hopjam]

love it when a story's setting is like another character within its cast. like if you agree

#this post is mostly metaphorical but shoutouts to genii locorum too #val talks

[brightgnosis]

March Calendar Nonsense

🌊 Friday, March 1st: Lá Céadamh

Paying of the Spring Rents to the Genii Locorum, and drawing of the waters for the Spring Rites

📸 Tuesday, March 5th: Native Plant Trust Class

Nature Photography

🌿 Sunday, March 10th: Green ᴺᵉʷMoon

Liturgical New Year

Celebrates the Awakening of the Earth and the first emergence of life at Spring — especially the reawakening of The Great Queen.

💍 Wednesday, March 13th: Wedding Anniversary

9 years married!

🦋 Thursday, March 14th: Lepitera

Celebrates Butterflies and Moths as both the representatives and heralds of spring (especially those species which are endangered or at risk).

🍑 Wednesday, March 20th (through) Thursday, March 21st: Pevitnia

Celebrates the blooming of Peach Blossoms, and the beginning of the Orchard season. Also contains secondary emphasis on the Hearth and Home.

🥮 Thursday, March 21st: Tekufat Nisan

Vernal Equinox; also known as Ostara in the Wiccan Calendar, and Tekufat Nisan in the Jewish one.

🔯 Thursday, March 21st: Fast of Esther

Customary Pre-Purim Fast

🔯 Saturday, March 23rd (through) Monday, March 25: Purim

Unfamiliar with which is which, so including all 3 on the calendar; will correct once properly educated.

🌿 Monday, March 25th: Green ᶠᵘˡˡMoon

Annual Esbat and Moon Message Divination

⚰️ Hagging Out

TBD by @graveyarddirt / @msgraveyarddirt if occurring

This account is run by a Dual Faith «(Converting) Masorti Jew + Traditional NeoWiccan» & «Ancestral Folk Magic Practitioner» with 20+ years of experience as a practicing Pagan and Witch. If that bothers you, don't interact.

#Personal #2024 #A Direct Look At My Practice #Calendar Nonsense #Full Month Calendar Outline #Religion & Magic #Oklahoma #Wiccablr #Witchblr #Paganblr

[tanoraqui]

1, 4, 15, 18, 26, and 27!

[ask meme]

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out and would you do it again?

And What Came Next is barely a "fic" - there is no plot arc and maybe 5% of a character arc. It's just some scenes of varying degrees of completeness connected by what's basically just written-out headcanon, mostly fluffy, post-"canon" for my Silmarillion OC Celechwes and her family, including OC children. It's the sort of thing that usually just lives in my head and in random chats with friends. But so many people have been so eagerly supportive of Celechwes and her story, and I've been trying to lean into AO3 as an archive not just for truly polished fanworks but all fannish creations I want to save - with the guideline that if I would want to read this stuff from someone else, the collected headcanons and bullet-point fics, shouldn't I share my own? So I posted it and lo, people liked it! They exclaimed excitedly in the comments!

Moral of the story: if you're worried that what you're posting is too self-indulgent and incomplete, it's not. There is no such thing. Admittedly it helps that I'd already spent about 65k establishing the relevant characters in a fic that did have plot and character arcs.

4. What piece of media inspired you the most?

Well, obviously I was still on this Silmarillion kick for most of the year... (It's fading now, but I have some really good WIPs that I'm determined to finish.)

Ooh but my favorite new books of the year were the Heartstrikers series by Rachel Aaron! Urban fantasy ft. internecine draconic family politics, vengeful nature spirits and genii locorum, aggressively offered and maintained friendship as a problem-solving method, manipulative seers as another problem-solving method, ghost cats (and armies of undead) as yet a third option, a couple apocalypses, pest control, compelling characters with opposing agendas and vivid worldbuilding and all that good stuff! I want to reread them and then maybe write a next-gen story.

15. Rec a fic you wrote or posted in 2023

My favorite little thing I wrote is this of Maedhros returning to what once was Himring.

18. What was the hardest fic to title?

Oh, god. "And What Comes Next" is so hopelessly generic, which I guess is appropriate given its content. I'm not really satisfied with "The Struggle of Squeamishness" (S&D Tier). "Magic Traps" was hard specifically because the whole Kate Daniels series has titles in this very specific form - Magic Binds, Magic Bleeds, Magic Triumphs, etc - and I wanted to follow it, but all the best words were already used.

26. If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

I worked really hard and for nearly a year, in bits and pieces, on The Minstrel and the Star, trying to capture this very messily nuanced but intense relationship, including an air of worship that I really don't normally go in for, and I'm still not sure I managed to express it exactly as I envision it... But one reviewer described it as "Numinous as well as luminous", which is so exactly what I intended that I must have done something right.

27. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

Er, usually I go to bed. Bedtime is the #1 effective deadline for me to grit my teeth and figure out how to write the last few lines of any given fic. Write sleep-deprived, edit sober, as they say.

#vesperaevis #my fic #ask meme

[multitudeofmuses]

RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES by Ben Aaronovitch

~~ FANCAST ~~

Beveley Brook | Genius Loci

"

Beverley Brook is the current Genius loci of the London river with the same name. Genius loci are the gods/goddesses or spirits of the rivers themselves. Beverley brook is a Genii locorum of the River Thames and its tributaries. She is the child of Mama Thames, Goddess of the Thames River in London. It is unknown if she was conceived by the magic of Mama Thames like the river Chess, or through some other method.

"

Like Peter Grant she is of West African descent. She enjoys extremely spicy food and often appears wearing fashionable clothing or t-shirts with assorted sayings printed on them. She has demonstrated an interest in cars, and and is a student at Queen Mary University reading Environmental Science. She is a confident, intelligent woman who appears as a physically attractive woman in her mid-twenties with dreadlocks.  She has an affinity for some types of people from the demi-monde, particularly Molly and Mellissa Oswald.

SUGGESTED CASTING:

ADWOA ABOAH ( 31 years old ) DEBORAH AYORINDE ( 35 years old ) NENDA NEURURER ( 28 years old ) SAVANNAH STEYN ( 27 years old ) TANYA FEAR ( 33 years old ) ADELAYO ADEDAYO ( 34 years old )

**all actresses are of african descent

#beverley brook #rivers of london #ben aaronovitch #fantasy #fc #fancast #adwoa aboah #deborah ayorinde #nenda neururer #savannah steyn #tanya fear #adelayo adedayo #british actress #british actresses #black british #black british actresses #poc fcs #poc #poc fc #rp #rpg

[birdylion]

on the metaphysics of current and old genii locorum of rivers (in Rivers of London)

With Yuletide reveals I can finally talk about the worldbuilding behind the story I wrote for my assignment. It's an E-rated smut fic about Peter, Beverley, and Old Beverley Brook. (Here's the link to my post about the story itself, so you can check it out and decide for yourself if it's something you'd want to read.)

In order to do smutty worldbuilding with these characters, I had to build a headcanon about how the connection between Beverley and Old Beverley works in general. So here are my thoughts about that.

There is some kind of connection between the current Rivers and their dead counterparts. Old Sir Tyburn has opinions about Lady Ty and vice versa, and Old Beverley Brook clearly knows (about) Peter in some capacity – after all, his first act after meeting him is to full on kiss him on the mouth. So what is this connection? The animosity between Ty and Old Tyburn suggests that they definitely aren’t the same entity. The kiss suggests that they can share information and possibly even experiences.

There are at least two ways to interpret the interaction between Peter and Old Beverley in Lies Sleeping: 1. (present-day) Beverley is acting through Old Beverley. His words („babes“, which is supposedly how Bev would call Peter) and the kiss itself seem to suggest that. 2. He is his own entity who acts on his own, which is what his knowledge about the other ghosts on that plane of existence seems to suggest.

The doylist explanation is probably „whatever Ben Aaronovitch needs to make the scene work“, and honestly, that was my approach too for making the sex scene work. But in-universe, I assume it works like this:

The ghosts of the old genii locorum are separate entities from the present day genii locorum. On a very basic level, the only connection they share is towards their river. The ghosts of the old rivers are images of the persons they used to be, and as such don’t have necessarily much in common with today’s Rivers. Sometimes they are lucky and have enough in common to have an amicable relationship (like I decided for Beverley), and sometimes they are unlucky and don’t really like each other (like Tyburn). That’s not to say they are enemies – they still have that connection through their river, and either Sir Tyburn was willing, or Lady Ty compelled him, to put his sword through the would-be assassin in The Hanging Tree. Luckily I didn’t need to make a decision on that, because I focused on Beverley.

I decided that there has to be a lot of fluidity in how such a connection can work. My initial idea of describing it was like looking through a window. At first the shutters are closed and you (as a modern day River spirit) perhaps don’t even realise that there’s a window. Than you realise that there is a window, and you can look through it into the other world. That’s how I imagine the connection in daily life – a window you can ignore, or look through, or even close, and depending on how much focus you put on it, it’s clear glass, or milky glass, or the window is … I don’t know, in a different place of your house depending on how much attention you pay it? The metaphor doesn’t work really well at this point, which is why I abandoned it, but my point is, I imagine there are a lot of ways the connection can work, depending on the individual character and relationship of the genii locorum involved. And, to get back to that heavy metaphor one last time, in rare cases such as Sir Tyburn’s sword and the assassin, you don’t just have a window, but can open a door and let the other one through. Or, in the case of Peter’s sacrifice to Lady Ty in her underground river, she can push him through. The same way of pushing someone else into that world is what I imagine Beverley did with Peter in my story. And how much energy it takes would depend on how well the connection usually is, so it would have a noticeable cost for Tyburn, but be easy as breathing for Beverley.

I decided that there could be some overlap in experiences and sensations, but again, not set in stone. So I decided that usually, Old Beverley doesn’t play much of a role in Beverley’s life. She has a busy life after all. Usually, the connection is more like the background radiation of everything that connects her to her river. Definitely present, but not like she talks to him or constantly feels his presence. Only when she focuses on him she would be actively in contact with him, and when she focuses on him even more and gets more into his world, she could herself immerse in it, and I stretched that so far that she can feel what it is to be in his place. But at the same time, she is in control of that, being the currently alive and powerful genius loci of her River.

For the mechanics of Peter being in that world:

There are several instances in the books when that happened. First in Whispers Underground, when he’s buried underneath the platform at Oxford station, near where the river Tyburn flows. He’s slowly running out of air, that is, he’s in the process of dying in the ‚real‘ world and Sir Tyburn draws him into his ghost world – to make it easier on him, because the sensations there are different. To distract him, give him (metaphorical) air to breathe, and perhaps out of curiosity; he says he’s been lonely there for a long time. He knows about Peter, at least his name and where he’s from. Meanwhile, Lady Ty learned about Peter’s whereabouts by, as she says, smelling him in her water. It’s unclear how much time passes in each place. (On a side note: it’s this meeting in which Sir Tyburn makes Peter aware of Punch’s wailing as he’s pinned to the bridge, and says that sooner or later Peter has to let Punch loose. Props to that bit of foreshadowing.)

I don’t quite remember any other times in between that Peter is in this world, but at the time in Lies Sleeping when Peter has his Game of Thrones episode, he’s falling from St. Paul’s bell tower towards what could well be his death, and time definitely passes differently in this other world, because in under 2 seconds, there’s a whole two chapters of stuff happening; a race through ancient London and a fight and a conversation, so there’s some time weirdness happening.

Then there’s the time when Peter makes his sacrifice to Lady Ty because he wants to ask her to send him into this world. While he’s in the world doing his things, his body is in Lady Ty’s river, I assume unconscious, and he doesn’t get out on his own but has to be saved by others. I think the implication is that being in this ghost world means that his body is unconscious or sleeping – suddenly as it comes, I imagine it’s closer to unconsciousness, but it’s not like we have any data. Peter would really have to get hooked up to an EEG to record his brain waves during sleep and during this.

Admittedly, it is a stretch to go from there to „being in this world means that Peter is slowly suffocating in our world“ which I used for dramatic purposes in my fanfic, so that’s definitely not worldbuilding I would extrapolate from what we know in canon. It’s an extension though, one that I don’t think contradicts canon.

Anyway, all of that was very interesting to think about, but I didn’t dare to openly talk about it lest someone connected the secret story to me xD Perhaps I was taking it too far, but I thought it would be suspicious if I was going from my usually near zero meta discussion posts to talking about this topic right when the Yuletide assignments went out.

This whole thing is very much not a meta analysis, but a meta interpretation, since I mainly thought it through in terms of „how can I write the story I want to write and I think my recipient is going to like“, so there are many arguments to be made that it can (or should) work differently if you’re following the canon closely, or want to just extrapolate instead of interpret.

#rivers of london #birdypersonal

[aspergillosis]

fun fact I have a handful of touhou OCs and I was thinking at one point of making a videogame that was basically touhou but about american genii locorum. One of the OCs is a strawberry themed girl who is always on the phone, wears big muck boots, and is really invested in ag economics. Girl who talks about produce prices the way discord guys talk about crypto speculation.

[geniilocorum]

Happy 10th Anniversary to Grand Theft Auto V! :D

Here are the two GTA V photos we've done for Genii Locorum! Both of them can be found as prints over at the shop: To My Darling and Take Me To Sandy Shores. We have a couple more ideas on our to-do list for GTA V photos (as well as some other games in the series) so keep an eye out for those as we get back into taking photos!

(For real, the past few years have been absolute junk for us so we're slowly trying to get back into all the stuff we enjoy doing and this is definitely one of those things!)

#Grand Theft Auto V #GTAV #GTA V #genii locorum #photography #Trevor Philips

[redrcs]

Genii locorum

York, Western Australia

Tatterdemalion

#original photographers #York #faded #tourist attractions #dying #genii locorum #tatterdemalion

[theohonohan]

Lara Almarcegui

In 2005 I was an architecture student at the University of East London. In a period of psychosis, I found myself wandering around the city. One thing that caught my eye was building sites: new construction rising “as if by enchantment” (to use Louis Sébastien Mercier’s phrase), other structures being demolished. The changing fortunes of different entities and institutions—genii locorum, even—seemed to be reflected in this activity. Eventually, on my walks, I gravitated towards sites where building materials were piled up, at rest. This condition seemed to exemplify what I was looking for.

The Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui’s work often takes the form of heaps of raw materials. It is frankly sensuous: a 2013 interview in Frieze magazine included the line “What do you like the look of? I like soil, mud and clay so much I want to touch them.” This emphasis on the erotics of materials informs the aesthetic strategies Almarcegui uses. (By erotics, I mean the sensuous rather than the intellectual aspects of experience.) Often her installations use materials borrowed from the construction industry for the duration of the exhibition, just piled up in a gallery space. The quantity of each material is determined by, for example, a one-to-one relationship with the constituents of the gallery building itself (in the case of her show at the Secession in Vienna). In the words of the artists NE Thing Co. (Ingrid and Iain Baxter) in 1968: “Piles are not pretentious–they are just there being beautiful and doing their thing.” 

Almarcegui’s directness in drawing attention to materiality is combined with a interest in vacant lots—what are known in urbanistic discourse as terrains vagues. She describes her younger self, growing up in the 90s in Spain, as having an interest in architecture, and, through pursuing that, having discovered a personal sentiment that there was “too much construction, too much architecture, too much design”. She decided to stand against architecture. The notion of a terrain vague has become, for her, a symbol of resistance. She has referred to Spanish architect Ignasi de Solà Morales’s 1996 text on the subject:

The relationship between the absence of use, of activity, and the sense of freedom, of expectancy, is fundamental to understanding the evocative potential of the city's terrains vagues. Void, absence, yet also promise, the space of the possible, of expectation.

Terrains vagues are within the boundaries of the city, but temporarily outside its systems of land use and circulation. This indeterminate “excluded middle” status results in the German term Stadtbrache (or brache) being used—braakliggend terrein in Dutch—which originally referred to fields left fallow.

The French expression dates back far beyond Marcel Carné's 1960 film of the same name. The earliest occurrences in French literature are to be found at the turn of the 19th Century.

For Almarcegui, the significance of terrains vagues can be summed up by the word “possibility”. Her evocation of this condition is unfussy—the piles she presents are unagitated, in repose. One might compare Pierre Huyghe’s contribution to dOCUMENTA (13), Untilled, which involved an overgrown vacant lot. The limits of the Huyghe’s artwork were deliberately left unclear, but it included artistically hyperactive elements such as a thin white dog called “human” with one front leg coloured pink. In contrast, in her work Almarcegui rejects overplanning of any kind. She resists the imposition of intentions beyond her own resonant concept. While her work may refer to predecessors such as Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta-Clark or Lynda Benglis, it is, at the same time, simple.

The artist’s rejection of the totally designed, administered environment is not, however, moralistic. Although avowedly opposed to overconsumption, she is at pains to make clear that she is not trying to present her practice or her life as a model of environmental awareness. Indeed, her installations can be expensive. A gallery floor might need special reinforcement to carry the weight of tonnes of crushed materials; transport of the borrowed materials to and from builder’s yards results in CO2 emissions. For Almarcegui, these permanent impacts are justifiable in the process of achieving the aesthetic function of her work. In other respects, her process is self-sufficient: she typically takes her own documentary photographs of the ephemeral installations in situ, rather than delegating the process to a photographer. She is, in that respect, a believer in the conventional individualistic, contemplative ideal of art.

[mi4016samringwood]

urban fantasy

what is urban fantasy? well according to google its a “ a type of fantasy fiction in which the narrative is set in a city. “ but It can also be summated as a story with fantasy elements set in the modern day. I believe my animation idea has a lot in common with this sub genre of fantasy. there are two books I specifically like from this genre and believe they are relevant to where my project is heading. Both of these I have listened to on audiobook due to my dyslexia. the first one I want to talk about is Aaronovitch, B. (2011) rivers of London available from: https://www.audible.co.uk/ (redownloded: 9th march 2023)

rivers of London is a police urban fantasy set in London following Peter Grant a police officer who after having a ghost experience is paired with a man named inspector knighting gale. a wizard police officer who introduces Peter to a new side of London full of supernatural beings. one sect of these beings are called    “Genii Locorum” otherwise known as river gods . they look like people but draw their magic form a local aria, such as a river. this idea would fit perfectly into my Ouseburn animation. there are images of kids playing in the Ouseburn river and my ideas is that the river wanted to play with them back so it took the form of a small Victorian girl but nowadays she still searches for a companion.

(kids playing in Ouseburn river) image available at: https://www.ouseburntrust.org.uk/news/ouseburn-then-and-now

in one of my previous posts I mentioned the roomers back in the day that pigs would eat the freshly interred corpses at Ballast hill. this gave me the idea that perhaps the pigs soul itself still remains trying to satiate its permanent hunger. this idea seems conceptually linked to a creature from the Gaiman, N. (1996) Neverwhere  available from: https://www.audible.co.uk/ (redowloaded 9th march 2023). this creature resides at the deepest depths of London's sewers in a place called the labyrinth. the labyrinth is composed of all the lost places in London, the places that once existed but no longer do. the creature is known as “The beast of London”. it is a giant boar that was supposedly came to being when “back in the first king Charlies day, before the fire and the plague this was, there was a butcher. lived down by the fleet ditch and he had some poor creature he was gonna fatten up for Christmas. one night in December the beast ran away  into the ditch and vanished, and it fed on swage and it grew and it grew. it got meaner and nastier.” this is said by the character Old Baily. when asked if it had died he said “things like that their to vicious to die to old and big and nasty”. the beast of London  and my hog of ballast hill have similarities, notably they are both pigs or boars. I also believe the thematic idea of a creature that's gorged so much death and decay that it would in some way have an immunity to their own mortality, is a connection between these creatures. however my idea is still linked to the history of the area and i want to peruse depicting this creature.

overall drawing inspiration from the Urban Fantasy genre has given me new ideas and added depth to the ideas i already had.

[serpentstole]

This was discussed very briefly in the discord server I’m a part of, but I realized that people outside of it might not be aware of the detail either, and wish to know.

I’ve seen the plural of genius loci spelled a few ways, but the correct version is genii locorum for spirits of places. You could use genius locorum for a spirit of a multiple places or genii loci for the many spirits of one specific place, but as an overall plural of locational spirits as a concept, that’s the one.

#genius loci #genii locorum #genii loci #animism #witchblr

[brightgnosis]

Hagging Out 🧹 I Came As A Cat — Or, At Least ... I Tried To.

I've been looking forward to my dual celebration of Walpurgisnacht and Maifest since I put them on the calendar last year- though they have slightly different intents in my tradition not altogether unlike their traditional forms. Just a little to the left, as is typical with the way I like to do things.

🔮 Walpurgisnacht is the Oneiric celebration of the Witch Spirit: The great connection to the Wellspring Eternal which makes my magic flow, and ties me to the Ancestors of the Work.

🌸 Maifest celebrates the local Genii Locorum by greeting their fully awakened forms in Spring. But more importantly, it uses water gathered all the way back in March at Lá Céadamh to tie my space (my Garden) to my magical place of Power and Pilgrimage and the specific Spirits over there.

As time grew closer, though, I started to panic a little; I had a bunch of stuff planned, but I overworked myself leading up to the day- plus time just got away from me and I wound up with less time to prepare than I meant to leave myself.

I wound up making a few concessions and compromises- like not making herbed Sima like I'd originally wanted to, and instead just purchasing a couple shooters of Moonshine instead (one 'Java Mountain' for Walpurgisnacht, and a 'White Chocolate Strawberry Cream' for Maifest). I did manage to make a couple Incenses, however, which I was really proud of.

🔮 Walpurgisnacht ⤖ Mugwort leaf ⬩ «homegrown» Periwinkle blossoms ❴Vinca Major + V. Minor❵ ⬩ A Special «locally grown» Something ⬩ Fennel seed ⬩ «homegrown» Sage leaf ❴Salvia Officinalis + S. Leucophylla❵ ⬩ «homegrown» Rue leaf ⬩ «homegrown» Rosemary leaf ⬩ «locally foraged» Austrian Pine resin ⬩ Benzoin resin ⬩ crystalized Linden Honey

🌸 Maifest ⤖ «homegrown» Japanese Honeysuckle blossom ⬩ «homegrown» Eastern Redbud blossom ⬩ «homegrown» Apple blossom ⬩ Jasmine blossom ⬩ Rose petals ⬩ «homegrown» Korean Lilac blossom ⬩ «homegrown» French Marigold blossom ⬩ «locally foraged» Austrian Pine resin ⬩ Myrrh resin ⬩ crystalized Linden Honey

I spent the whole day on Walpurgisnacht in the Garden cleaning, repotting a few things, and getting the rest of the seeds planted so that I could do everything the next two days would entail; the whole weekend had been busy, actually- spent between the Garden and socializing with a childhood friend I was reconnecting with. Plus I'd been fighting a Migraine from several days of rain.

In a full blow Fibro flair by that point, finally done, I went in and started getting everything together for the rites later in the night. Then my phone decided to take its own break and do a system update, which put a giant pause on my prep and forced me to wait because I couldn't take any photos while it was going.

When it was finally finished I took a couple hour long soak in a mixture of my usual blend of ½ my ’Chronic Pain and Fatigue’ and ½ my ’Joint Health’ Bath Salts- plus the last remaining dredges of my Lustral Water I made for cleansing ages ago.

💧 Lustral Water ⤖ Rosemary, Jasmine, Bay Leaf, Kosher Sea Salt, Spring Water

After it was sufficiently dark-ish I finally dressed in my outfit for the night (consisting of the nightgown my mother wore on her Wedding Night with my Father all the way back in the 1980's, a black lacey-armed and ample-tittied Boudoir Robe I picked up from a Vintage shop but have never bothered to date, and a Bob Mackie Barbie Brooch from the 1990's) and hauled my box of supplies outside to the Garden.

Unfortunately I never actually achieved anything significant during my Walpurgisnacht rite, thanks to the fact I live cattycorner to one giant, obnoxious doufus our household calls Jr, who, for some reason, decided to have every equally annoying friend of his over that night. And instead of staying inside where they would be less noticeable at 10 o'clock at night ... They decided to proceed to loudly play musical cars in the driveway, the street, and even their yard for three solid hours straight.

Why? I have no idea. But it meant I was stuck very firmly in my body the entire time I was out there, no matter what substance I imbibed to aid my travel: Aminata Oil, Moonshine, Delta-8 THC "Tincture" (really an Oil) and Gummy both, Mugwort and Wormwood Leaf, CBD Oil, and even inhaling the incense I made. Because Out-of-Bodying About is hard enough for me as is without any kind of distractions- and it becomes outright impossible for me with them.

Though there was finally a 30 minute period where they were quiet enough I nearly made it while kneading my Cat Skull, it just wasn't quite enough to make it.

Eventually I gave up, snuffed everything out, packed my stuff up, and went inside ... Only to be repeatedly awoken throughout the night by our youngest Cat- Echo- using me as a launching bad / spring board for her Zoomies 🤦‍♀️ It's really just what I get for trying to "Go As A Cat", I guess.

The next morning I woke to my body in full out rebellion and I seriously considered not finishing the celebrations at all. But after another bath- and a solid round of Tylenol Extra Strength, Excedrin Extra Strength, and a Ketorolac- I decided to force myself out into the garden to finish it anyways; I'd already started it, and I was already in a flair regardless, so I figured I should get it done. So I gathered up my stuff and got dressed again (this time in a brightly floral patterned "80's does 60's" wrap dress that's honestly way too large for me)

The second (Maifest) rite went a lot smoother and faster than the first- mostly because the neighborhood actually stayed quiet and largely distraction free; I was able to bless all of the garden statues I had (save for my 1950's style Lawn Flamingo), and use the water gathered from my Place of Power to bless all of the garden beds and plants I currently have growing (save for the new Nasturtiums I plan on planting soon). Then I sat and meditated in a cloud of the Maifest incense with my Deer Leg Bone for a bit.

Eventually my Brother in Law came home and I had to quickly snuff everything out and put it all away before he saw what I was up to; my Garden's unfortunately very visible from the driveway and the road both, and I'm technically utilizing a couple of loopholes to do any of my stuff while living here. I don't want Questions™, and frankly it's none of their business what I do, anyways (especially if I'm not technically breaking the agreed-upon rules).

Overall, it really wasn't that bad all things considering. there's certainly some kinks that need to be worked out. But for what it was (a spontaneous, un-circled set of intuitive rituals), and for what I'm capable of putting together here with the limitations I have? It went better than expected. And honestly, given how my Madrona ritual went (or, rather, didn't go at all) after all the planning and work I put into it last year? It could've been a lot worse.

Obligatory ping for @graveyarddirt / @msgraveyarddirt

#REBLOG SAFE #Hagging Out #Original Content #Original Community Content #Personal #2023 #Religion & Magic #Calendar Nonsense #A Direct Look At My Practice #Gardening 2023 #Gardening #Scent & Senses #Verderer #Green Witch #Green Witchcraft #Oklahoma #Witchy Gardening #Witches Garden

[sixth-light]

You know which bit of recent demimonde history I’d love to hear about in a future RoL book? Exactly what happened between Mama Thames and Lea when Mama Thames took over the tidal Thames. Obviously by ~2012 Lea is part of the family, but how did they interact in 1960-whatever? What did that feel like for both of them? Did Lea give Mama Thames genius loci tips and/or introduce her to people? What was Lea’s relationship with the upper Thames family like before and after that? How do they think of their relationship - the rest of the tidal Thames family are Mama Thames’ daughters, do they consider themselves as friends or sisters or cousins or...? How did Mama Thames introduce Lea to her nursing friends? 

Also, why did Lea become part of Mama Thames’ family and Walbrook didn’t? Obviously Walbrook has a lot of painful history about family, but I wonder if there was ever a point or opportunity where they could have connected, and it didn’t happen. And, leading on from that, Walbrook’s been a genius loci for about forever, she’s about the same age as or older than Father Thames (it’s interesting that Beverley says ‘nobody’s that old’ when Peter asks if Walbrook could be older, when Miss Tefeidiad is older and Bev’s spent time with her). We know she doesn’t get on with Mama Thames and her daughters, but I wonder what her relationship was like with Father Thames and male!Beverley, William of Tyburn, etc, or if it was the same as it is now, and they just didn’t speak. 

#rivers of london #the Rivers #genii locorum #lea #walbrook #mama thames