#CUUPs

[lokavisi]

Saturday night was my local CUUPS (Covenant of UU Pagans) chapter's Bealtaine ritual and man, was it a doozy. I was so exhausted afterwards and so busy yesterday I forgot to share photos of my outift. (Three guesses who helped me out with this ensemble.) I'm still processing a lot of the stuff that came out of that ritual and the time since then, which I'll probably post about in the next few days, but I just really wanted to show off my outfit because we had some fun putting it all together. :)

[unseeliej]

Beltane with Frederick CUUPs

This past Saturday, my Handsome Assistant and I went to celebrate the first of the fire festivals with the Congregation of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. It was a bit rainy, so outdoor bonfires were out, but they managed to make even an indoor-only Beltane a ton of fun! There was lots of food, drumming, dancing, and a maypole. When we arrived, we were asked to write a message on two pieces of…

[unes23]

Edita Vilkeviciute for Cuup SS23

[archivesrowe]

[editavilkeviciute]

EDITA VILKEVICIUTE FOR CUUP.

[puffycloud2]

less play futbol

[trubilee]

alternating between fabulous new bra and panty sprees, recommended new foundation sprees, ludicrously priced facial cream review reads and rereads and rereads, and watching minimalist budget living videos.

[101now]

Cuup, Dyson and On Running: Best online sales right now

Today, you’ll find a deal on the Vitamix One Blender, a discounted GE Profile Opal 2.0 Nugget Ice Maker and savings on the Dyson Supersonic Hair Dryer. All that and more below. Buy a bra, get 25% off underwear packs Cuup Cuup bras promise minimalist design, modern colorways and seamless fit; the brand’s mission is to “redefine the way bras look and feel.” After testing the bras ourselves,…

[ukfrislandembassy]

Ok like nobody seems to have noticed but Juliette Blevins has recently put out a case that Great Andamanese might actually have been Austroasiatic all along (to complement Jarawan possibly being an Austronesian relative). There's some stuff that's certainly suggestive, but it'll be a bit more work needed before I'm ready to accept these 32 proposed correspondences as anything more than chance, particularly after the Indo-Vasconic debacle. Still, below the cut I'm going to try and give this a fair review.

All of this is from 'Linguistic clues to Andamanese pre-history: Understanding the North-South divide', in The Language of Hunter Gatherers, edited by Tom Güldemann, Patrick McConvell and Richard Rhodes and published in 2020 (a free version of the chapter can be found on Google Scholar).

Looking through the data, it actually seems relatively rigorous as a set of comparisons; she's done a shallow reconstruction of a Proto-Great-Andamanese from wordlists (seemingly a relatively trivial exercise, though with caveats noted below) and is seemingly comparing these to reconstructions from the Mon-Khmer comparative dictionary.

Many of the correspondences are basically identical between the two reconstructions with at most minimal semantic differences, e.g. (in the order PGA~PAA respectively) *buə 'clay' ~ *buəh 'ash, powdery dust'; *muən 'pus, dirt' ~ *muən 'pimple'; *cuər 'current, flow' ~ *cuər 'flow, pour'; *cuəp 'fasten, adjoin' ~ *bcuup/bcuəp 'adjoin, adhere'. However, I wonder if the Proto-GA reconstructions here have been massaged a bit to fit the Austroasiatic correspondence more closely; in Aka-Kede for example, each of these words shows a different vowel; pua, mine, cor(ie), cup. It's not fatal by any means (in fact if the correspondences could be shown to be more complex than simple identity that would actually help the argument), but definitely annoying.

There's a couple of PGA items which are presented as having a straightforward sound correpondence in PAA where the semantics is close but doesn't quite match, but also alongside a semantic match that differs slightly in sound, e.g. by a slightly different initial consonant, e.g. *raic 'bale out' ~ *raac 'sprinkle' /*saac 'bale out'; *pila 'tusk, tooth' ~ *plaaʔ 'blade'/*mlaʔ 'tusk, ivory'; *luk 'channel' ~ *ru(u)ŋ 'channel'/*lu(u)k 'have a hole'. I think there's possibly a plausible development here, with perhaps one form taking on the other's semantics because of taboo, or maybe due to an actual semantic shift (she notes that the Andamanese use boar tusks as scrapers, which could explain a 'blade'~'tusk' correspondence in itself).

There's an item which seems dubious on the PAA side, e.g. she proposes a correspondence *wət ~ *wət for 'bat, flying fox' but I can't find a *wət reconstructed anywhere in the MKCD with that meaning, not even in Bahnaric where she claims it comes from (there is a *wət reconstructed but with a meaning 'turn, bend'). Meanwhile, *kut 'fishing net' ~ *kuut 'tie, knot' seems wrong at first, as search for *kuut by itself only brings up a reconstruction *kuut 'scrape, scratch', however there is also a reconstruction *[c]kuut which does mean 'tie, knot'.

There's an interesting set of correspondences where PGA has a final schwa that's absent from the proposed PAA cognates, e.g. *lakə 'digging stick' ~ *lak 'hoe (v.)'; *ɲipə 'sandfly' ~ *jɔɔp 'horsefly'; *loŋə 'neck' ~ *tlu(u)ŋ 'throat'.

More generally, a substantial proportion of the proposed correspondences are nouns in Great Andamanese but verbs/adjective (stative verbs) in Austroasiatic, some of which are above, but also including e.g. *cuiɲ 'odour' ~ *ɟhuuɲ/ɟʔuuɲ 'smell, sniff'; *raic 'juice' ~ *raac 'sprinkle' (a separate correspondence to 'bale out' above); *mulə 'egg' ~ *muul 'round'; *ciəp 'belt, band' ~ *cuup/cuəp/ciəp 'wear, put on'. This also doesn't seem too much of an issue, given the general word-class flexibility in that part of the world, though there don't seem to be any correspondences going the other way, which could perhaps be a sign of loaning/relexification instead.

I mentioned that a lot of these seem to be exact matches, but of course what you really want to indicate relatedness are non-indentical but regular correspondences, and here is where I can see the issues probably starting to really arise. We've already noted some of the vowel issues, but we also have some messiness with some of the consonants, though at the very least the POA matches pretty much every time (including reasonable caveats like sibilants patterning with palatals and the like). However, that still leaves us with some messes.

The liquids and coronals especially are misaligned a fair bit in ways which could do with more correspondences to flesh out. Here's a list of the correspondences found in initial position in the examples given.

*l ~ *l: *lat ~ *[c]laat 'fear', *lakə 'digging stick' ~ *lak 'hoe'

*l ~ *r: *lap ~ *rap 'count' (*luk 'channel' ~ *ru(u)ŋ 'have a hole'/*lu(u)k 'channel' could be in either of these)

*r ~ *r: *raic 'juice' ~ *raac 'sprinkle'

*r ~ *ɗ: *rok ~ *ɗuk 'canoe'

*t ~ *ɗ: *tapə 'blind' ~ [ɟ]ɗaap 'pass hand along'

*t ~ *t: *ar-təm ~ *triəm 'old' (suggested that metathesis occurred, though to me there probably would need to be some reanalysis as well to make this work)

I invite any of my mutuals more experienced with the comparative method to have a look for yourselves and see what you make of the proposal as it currently stands. It would certainly be an interesting development if more actual correspondences could be set up, though I do have to wonder if more work would also be needed on Austroasiatic to double-check these reconstructions as well.

[unes23]

Edita Vilkeviciute for Cuup SS23

[archivesrowe]

[editavilkeviciute]

EDITA VILKEVICIUTE FOR CUUP.

[fiantacleasai]

So, are folk witch covens a thing? Really I just mean, offline small social circles of folk witches. I know they have to be, but I can’t even find any covens in my city - much less a folk magic centered one. Nor any pagan communities outside of CUUPs. I must be looking in the wrong places.

[magicaguajiro]

Hello!! I am not from Florida or an Espiritista but I am a Mexican bruja! And wondered how can someone get into Espiritismo who has no experience or close connections to anyone who also has that practice? I saw that it’s always best to work with someone so they can guide you in the practice. But wondered if you have any tips or advice for someone getting started on the path.

Hey dude!!

So you can totally start working with basic espiritismo while searching for community. I would first recommend setting up a bovedá! I have some posts and my resource guide has videos and creators who go over all the ins and outs of it, but its a great place to start because your spirits can end up guiding you to community! Id also recommend reading the books on Spiritism and Mediumship by alan kardec, and the book Espiritismo by Hector Silva to get an idea of what classic and folk espiritismo can both look like. Ultimately though, your goal should be finding a mentor.

So my second piece of advice is always get connected to someone local! If you go on google or apple maps and look up Spiritualist Temple, Centri Espiritual, Templo Espiritista, or CUUPS Churches you will find a wide range of different groups in your area! Some will lean more traditional, some more folk, some more catholic/christian. Some are DANGEROUS or CULTY. Always be careful and talk over the phone or through messaging before going in person if possible , letting people into your spiritual world makes you vulnerable.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to send another ask or a message if you have any other questions!!

Luz y Progreso 🕯️

[pint-o-beans]

also not to advertise products but I got some CUUP bras a couple weeks ago and I've never loved any bras more. I know the mesh ones have longevity issues but they're cute, and the modal plunge basically immediately became my daily driver, good support, cute, comfy, I could use more flex in the underworld but everything else slaps

[ivyandbone]

My group's picnic with the pagans meets at 1 instead of 3 today and I don't have any of the material ready that I was going to for possible discussion because I've been Neopets brained for 2 weeks jgjfxh

I'm supposed to be making like, a comparison list for helping decide if we should continue being a CUUPs group or just be a group of 'pagans' with a presence at our church