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chibimyumi · 4 years ago

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Hey there! hope you're doing well! So I've seen a few takes from people saying that Seb lacks character developement and I wanted to ask your opinion on this? I feel like some people just want him to have some kind of "redemption arc" which sounds weird to me because by now I'd guess people would understand his character and motivations?

Dear Anon,

I am doing great, thank you very much. I hope you too ^^

Sorry for the late reply! It was not for lack of interest because yours is a very interesting question to ask. Indeed, for any other character I would say that for a main character he lacks character development. However, with Sebastian Michaelis specifically I would disagree, because there are multiple factors that dramatically change matters for him. The most important one being Sebas’ age.

Four Years vs Centuries?

Sebas is a supernatural entity that has been around and for centuries if not millennia. We know next to nothing about this demon’s past, but one of the few things we do know is that he has been around and seen quite a lot of the world thanks to his old age.

The older one is, the more fixed their personality is, meaning the less malleable it becomes. Of course nobody is too old to grow or change, but it will ultimately require more time or effort to change such a person.

In our current story Sebas has been around for barely 4 years, which to him must be an equivalent of a few hours in human life. Let’s say you are 20 years old with a certain set of beliefs, principles, personality traits, etc. Now imagine going somewhere you probably have been to before for one hour, and that in that one hour you suddenly change entirely. Not impossible, but quite unlikely.

What must happen before a person would change in such a relative short time must be the occurrence of something either exceptionally shocking, or exceptionally inspiring. In Sebas’ case, at least one did happen, namely the former.

Exceptionally Shocking

As discussed in some detail in this post, the exceptionally shocking did in fact happen to Sebas in his current contract. Canonically Sebas said that he never fought reapers before he fought Grell, and therefore we also know that Undertaker is the second reaper he ever fought seriously. Judging from Sebas’ casual and confident reaction when Grell first invited him for a fight, we know Sebas never had any reason before that time to fear for his life. I mean, look at this confident bitch (Ô_ó)p.

Even after Sebas got really hurt by Grell, he still managed to say something as cocky as: “I have never fought [a reaper] before, so I cannot tell [whether I can beat one]. But if my master tells me to win, I shall.” That is certainly NOT the same Sebas as the one we know now.

After the Campania brawl, we see very clearly how Sebas’ attitude and confidence changed entirely, exactly because for the first time ever he experienced something exceptionally shocking; his life and death was outside his own control. The English translations I have seen are not bad, but they miss a bit of the nuance in the Japanese version. In the Japanese version when Sebas says that even a demon like him cannot withstand a blow from the death scythe, there was some eye-opening realisation in his tone. He learned something new there.

And indeed, most tellingly even at the mere mention of the Undertaker or the prospect of having to run into him again, even Sebas swallows his pride in front of his master, and admits he’d really rather not.

Much later in chapter 85 when they were investigating the mourning lockets, master and servant have a moment of silence thinking about the Undertaker. While to O!Ciel the important memory is Undertaker’s “it is my treasure,” Sebas thinks about the very first thing Undertaker said to him upon deciding to let him live: “I knew you would succeed at protecting the Earl.”

As explained in this post, Sebas has come to project condescension onto Undertaker. Sebas suspects Undertaker is looking down on him, and understandably so because he has no reason to believe otherwise. “I knew you would [...]” is a phrase that reflects control in Undertaker’s hands, and Sebas really hates that. For once Sebas is the prey, and somebody else the predator.

Now here is the character development; Sebas went from over confident and cocky to a demon with PTSD.

(Exceptionally) Inspiring

Though less explicit and game-changing, I would argue that something inspiring also occurred in Sebas’ short time on Earth this time: his master. In this post I compared O!Ciel to a piece of unprocessed raw meat to Sebas, as opposed to other past masters probably being a microwave-meal equivalent. O!Ciel is young and started without power, so to Sebas one he started to see the potential of a fully self-customisable meal, he really started to feel the excitement.

Though, however excited, it would only be a small blip on Sebastian’s radar. In the same post just mentioned, I also discussed how it is very unlikely that eating O!Ciel will change Sebas’ view on humankind because it would need to alter someone’s view shaped through thousands of years.

In this same sense I also argue that though Sebas did change over the course of 4 years in the human world, he wouldn’t change dramatically. His experience in the past four years must be like one grain of sand on a banked scale.

Sebas and Redemption?

My short answer would just be: “Kuroshitsuji ain’t some religiously-laden morale story wherein even a demon must be redeemed,” but that would not be fair (and too short for my M.O.)

It’s an unpopular opinion, but a good character arc or story does not require a redemption arc to work. It just needs to work for any reason. A redemption arc in a character is not like meringue is essential in a macaron. It’s more like chocolate on bread. It can be very nice if it suits well, but please don’t put any chocolate on a salad sandwich please.

For Sebas, I would say that a redemption arc would be the chocolate on a salad sandwich. As discussed above, Sebas is VERY OLD. If he were to be “redeemed” because of 4 years, it’d be like redeeming a lifetime sinner in one hour of repentance. Imagine redeeming Hitler after he saved one puppy or said “I’m really sorry”. Yeah, no.

Besides, this then also begs the question: “does Sebastian need to be redeemed in the first place?” As discussed extensively in this post, most of Sebas’ “evils” are done under someone else’s bidding. And otherwise, because he is not human the way he is “evil” is only because he doesn’t care about human lives; much in the same way most humans don’t care about insects. “AAH a mosquito that might make me itch for a bit! SLAP IT DED!!!” Or if we step on ants while we walk, “oh well, too bad”. That’s Sebas with humans. Do most humans consider humans who eat meat or slap insects “evil that need redemption”? No.

So for Sebas’ or demon standards, he is probably not even that bad. He just wants his food and payment for his hard work.

I hope this had been interesting!

What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? Philosophy

If humans are insects, then what to Sebas are “humans”?

O!Ciel being a game-changing meal?

PTSD Sebas I

PTSD Sebas II

#Sebastian Michaelis #Character analysis #Character development #Character arc #Undertaker #PTSD #Evil #Redemption

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subtext-rapidly-becoming-text · 7 years ago

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The Ethical Quandary of Choosing a Hat; or How Westworld Was the Real “Bad Place” All Along

On the surface, the dystopian drama of HBO’s Westworld couldn’t be further from the heartwarming comedy of NBC’s The Good Place. However, the two concurrently airing series both deal with the same epistemological imperative: “Know thyself.” Consequently, they grapple with the same philosophical question: “Who am I?” The issue of the “self” has been at the root of most, if not all, philosophical thought, and it is an issue that is inextricably bound up in the very fabric of ethics.

As conceived in modern Western thought, the self is a contained entity that interacts with the world around it and may leave an impact or be impacted, but is ultimately a coherent whole that exists independent of all that is Other. It wields free will as its only weapon - a weapon in which it has had no training. The connection between this self and ethics has been widely explored. From Socrates to Descartes, Kierkegaard to Nietzsche, examination of the self seems always to lead to questions of morality. Is a person inherently good or evil, or is it a choice? Do we really have free will if we’re the product of our environment, including our physiological makeup? Can we trust our senses, our view of the world, our “selves” to give us access to that which is Real? What does it mean to be one’s authentic self and why should one bother? Is the self a justification to be selfish? Or can the responsibility of self-determination create its own moral framework?

Let’s pause there. In fact, all of these questions have already been raised in both series - both of which are only on their 2nd season. And while both series are exploring the issues in complex and interesting ways, my project is not to decipher their messages. Rather, I am fascinated by the overlapping of the approaches both fictional worlds have taken. Both narratives are located inside a non-linear, and often recursive, time. While initially, Westworld’s hosts are the only ones experiencing this queer temporality, by the end of the first season, there is no mistaking that the audience, too, has been dragged into a time outside of time. Like the hosts, we are unclear on what is happening when - and this is the series’ primary method of mystery-building. On a more narrative level, the hosts’ eventual attainment of consciousness, of personhood, of the self, rests almost entirely on their ability to retrieve lost memories. Unable to control or parse through the temporalities of their memories, the hosts are jolted out of their programmed non-selves.

The Good Place takes up this same queer temporality angle by “rebooting” its characters, starting with Janet. By the third episode of season 2, our four protagonists have had their memories erased over eight hundred times. Much of the character development in this season depends on the recovery of those lost memories. Though the audience has seen a season’s worth of interactions between the protagonists, the characters themselves are only aware of having interacted for a few weeks. Chidi and Eleanor’s relationship is jump-started by the discovery of a videotape and the brilliant Mindy St Claire’s bored retellings of their prior encounters. Tahani and Jason’s relationship is disrupted by Janet’s unprocessed and unremembered love for Jason. And Michael’s cold, evil heart (probably not a heart, maybe a marble) is softened by what at this point may be years of watching the humans grow and care about each other. One might say that he knows them better than they know themselves.

Part of what makes queer temporality queer is that it depends on one’s relationality to others. Queer is in so many ways opposed to the “normal” or more accurately, the accepted default. But if there is no queer, no other, no different, then there can be no normal. Normality desperately needs the queer. Likewise, if there is no Other to compare one’s experience of time against, there can be no “normal” or “straight” time either. The disrupted and disruptive time warps that pull the narrative strings of both series depend entirely on the characters interactions with one another - and so do the characters’ moral choices.

Perhaps the most interesting theme the shows share, however, is that of trauma. The Good Place somehow manages to approach the idea of eternal torture and damnation in a lighthearted way. Shitty Eleanor Shelstrop is motivated by fear of torture to enlist Chidi for help, and Good Eleanor is born. Over and over again. The premise of Michael’s architectural plan is simply that Hell is Other People. His diabolical scheme is simply to put four very different people together and wait for them to torture each other. And they do - but only because they care. Only because they are trying to be good. In Westworld, on the other hand, the apparent lead characters - both white, powerful, and male - and literal showrunners of the park, are the Man in Black and Ford, and though they are often pitted against each other, they seem to have the same deeply disturbing goal. They want to torture the hosts to self-awareness. The basic, underlying premise of the show is that conscience, and hence personhood, is attained through suffering. By that logic, both William and Ford could be seen as the good guys. They’re just trying to grant the hosts free will! Self-determination! Autonomy. Except that they’re clearly not.

The implications of torture and suffering on identity formation are certainly complex, and I’m not sure yet where the stories are going or how they will end. But both narratives seem to grapple with trauma on a deeper level, as a catalyst or the spark of life. There is plenty of evidence, both scientific and anecdotal, of the disruptive effect severe trauma can have on memories, and by extension one’s sense of time. The only PTSD symptom more common than flashbacks is missing or fragmented memories of the traumatic event. The traumatic past is either painfully absent or eternally present. The temporal acrobatics performed by Westworld and the Good Place are as tied into trauma as they are into ethics.

I’m not really going anywhere with this, but I’m pretty sure I know what I need to add to my dissertation to make it into a book. Primary case studies: Maeve Millay and Chidi Anagonye. Almost makes me want to be an academic again.

#westworld #hbo westworld #the good place #tgp meta #television #i didn't proofread this #mostly a brain dump #but also i will eventually publish this book #tgpedit

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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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Everything You Need to Know About the Great Lumber Crisis of 2021

The hottest commodity of the last year was one you probably didn’t realize you needed to care about: Wood.

Lumber has long been the subject of debate over trade policy, ecosystem conservation, and climate change. But in a white-hot housing and remodeling/home improvement market, lumber prices spiked to new highs. DIYers grappling with cabin fever as well as increased demand for home remodeling contractors and home builders looking to increase housing supply sent the lumber market bonkers. Meanwhile, sawmills shut down and later faced a labor crisis, causing a shortage and subsequently causing record-breaking prices.

In some ways, the shortage is a simple supply and demand problem, but the great lumber crisis of 2021 also highlights all sorts of other things, including the global supply chain, climate change and environmental protection, labor shortages, US-Canada trade relations, and the out-of-control housing market. Here, we strive to explain the Great Lumber Panic.

THE SHORTAGE

As North America went into lockdown in March, 2020, a slew of businesses shut down. Lumber production facilities were no exception: Sawmills laid off workers, cut hours, and struggled to balance staying open with minimizing COVID transmission risk.

(Quick note: Though the terms are often used interchangeably, there’s a distinction between lumber and timber. Lumber is wood that’s been processed into rectangular beams used primarily to build homes; about 20 percent of all wood harvested in the US goes to lumber. Timber is unprocessed wood and trees, which can be turned into lumber or pulp, paper, fuel and other staple products.)

Initially, the sawmills closing down seemed broadly inconsequential; after all, Americans were stuck at home, and sending construction workers out put them at significant risk of contracting COVID-19. At the time, basically all economic activity stopped, which included homebuilding and remodeling.

Few producers anticipated that before long, there’d be an uptick in DIY home improvement projects like deck building and home office creation. Repair and remodelling (R&R) markets were responsible for the majority of the lumber demand spike, notes Paul Jannke, principal of Forest Economic Advisors (FEA). A June, 2020, survey by architecture firm The Farnsworth Group found that more than 70 percent of homeowners had started new DIY projects at home, many of them attributing long hours in lockdown to their sudden desire for refurbishments. Stimulus checks offered Americans more money to pay for these endeavors.

Interest in home-buying spiked over the pandemic, too, creating a housing boom that has yet to wane. But housing starts—new build construction projects—have been historically low since the 2008 recession, and haven’t quite recovered yet. The US is just not building as many houses as it used to. Many who couldn’t afford to buy during the COVID-19 housing boom had no choice but to channel their COVID-19 cabin fever into where they currently reside.

“Everyone's stuck in their houses, they're looking around, they're seeing all the things that are wrong with it, they have to work from home, and oh, by the way, their kids have to study from home too,” Jannke said. “I might just want to add on another room.”

MOMMY, WHERE DO 2x4s COME FROM?

According to Jannke, just over 70 percent of wood used in the US is grown here. The rest is imported, and around 83 percent that wood comes from Canada, much of it from British Columbia: This is highly valuable wood from Spruce, Pine and Fur (SPF) trees that many regard as better for homes than the more prevalent species of tree found in the US, like yellow pine, grown in the southeast, between Texas and New York.

The US is home to 514-million acres of timberland, 30 percent of which is managed publicly (by federal, state or local agencies), according to Rocky Goodnow, vice president of North American timber service at FEA. The remaining timber (359 million acres, Goodnow says) is owned by private companies and individuals. Many of these producers are small operations—47 percent of lumber is produced by non-corporate entities—competing in a deregulated environment. But in Canada, lumber production is managed by provincial governments, and, critics say, is unfairly subsidized.

This rubs some in the American lumber industry—like the US Lumber Coalition—the wrong way. Some say Canada is able to sell logs to US clients at lower prices because federal subsidies keep costs low. Others have accused the country of “dumping,” that is, selling wood to the US at a price below the cost of production and crowding out the market, making it harder for American sawmills to compete.

For decades, the US has gone back and forth on tariffs it imposes on Canadian lumber; a recent tariff proposal has proven polarizing: The US Lumber Coalition lauded the move as a step toward “a level playing field,” while the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) critiqued it for threatening the already surging cost of homes. (The NAHB says the rising cost of lumber has made the average single-family home $36,000 more expensive on average).

The years-old trade dispute is often used to explain fluctuations in the lumber market. But researchers say this time around, the argument is overblown (the closing of the border between U.S. and Canada has also not had a direct impact; trade has continued more or less as normal).

“It has nothing to do with tariffs,” said Rajan Parajuli, assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, who notes that Canadian lumber prices don’t differ enough from US market prices to have a tremendous impact on US producers. Parajuli is among a few from the school who studied the impact of trade disputes with Canada on lumber prices; in a 2016 paper, he found that American consumers eat the cost of tariffs in higher lumber prices, and lost $2.3-billion between 2006 and 2015 due to trade limitations between the US and Canada.

“The real economics say that the consumers are the losers,” Parajuli said.

THE SAWMILL PROBLEM

By May of last year, wood prices were rising, but there was hardly the production capacity to supply it. This created a shortage, one that remains today, even as prices finally cool, in part because saw mills are struggling to attract new workers. June jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that mill employment levels fell by a few thousand jobs over the course of the pandemic, and only recently reached pre-pandemic rates in April. But as mills aim to scale up production even further, some are still feeling pressure to attract workers.

The lumber shortage has been, maybe as you'd expect, a topic of obsession for people in the housing industry. A podcast made by the NAHB has dedicated the majority of its recent episodes to the lumber shortage and when it might get better.

“I've raised my wages over 10 percent across the board,” Ross Stock, general manager of Western Cascades Industries saw mill in Oregon, said on a May episode of the podcast, called Housing Developments. “I'm hiring in every direction. And I've had limited success finding people.”

Much of the job market is reckoning with wages and working conditions in a post-pandemic economy right now, and working in a sawmill is not particularly lucrative. It's also dangerous.

“You can work in a mill, and make $20 an hour and it's hot, because they're not air conditioned, and it's kind of heavy labor,” Jannke says. “Young folks are not choosing to get into this industry.”

Image: Philipp von Ditfurth/picture alliance via Getty Images

Jannke notes that automation is changing the nature of new hires in saw mills (“A modern sawmill is not the same thing as a sawmill from 20 years ago,” he said. “Today, you need people who have computer science degrees.”) But the manual jobs that remain can be dangerous; BLS occupational injury data shows fatality rates were more than 30 times the rate across the job market, with around 66 deaths per year between 2006 and 2015.

Sawmill owners are starting to pay workers more to compensate for shortages, and weekly paychecks have increased by an average of 10.4 percent since before the pandemic, the Washington Post recently reported. But Jannke says wage increases might not be enough to up production and fill the supply gap. “We're trying to ramp up our capacity really, really quickly,” he said. “That's a lot of labor that you have to get in rural areas.”

The US Department of Commerce is taking aim at shrinking the supply gap by reducing competition from Canada. It recently recommended increasing tariffs on lumber imports from 9 to 18 percent as a way to privilege American lumber production and boost jobs at home. Proposed on May 21, the increase would need several rounds of review before going into effect—and it has already garnered controversy.

What about wildfires? Will this summer’s heat impact our tree supply?

Yes and no. Jannke says this year’s record heat across much of the US, including lumber-producing regions in the Pacific Northwest, is “quite concerning.” Last year saw record-breaking wildfires and this does interrupt the supply chain: Saw mills had to shut down and evacuate to avoid the fires, loggers left their jobs to fight blazes, and wood stores were lost. He anticipates that this summer’s wildfire season will be similarly devastating.

“Since the demand supply is so tight right now disrupting the supply of lumber is just not a good thing,” he said. “It’s pretty scary.”

The impacts of climate change are as bad news for the industry as they are for ecosystems. And some fear that clear-cutting practices create a vicious feedback loop with wildfire risk: Open patches of forest raise overall temperatures, while woody debris leftover from logging becomes easy tinder, making forests more vulnerable to blazes.

But industry experts like Jannke say that, even in a changing climate, our wood supply remains strong: “We've been harvesting below our growth rates for a while. So the problem is not that the industry is harvesting too much,” he said.

This is largely because of the US timber market’s design, notes Dr. Robert Bardon, associate dean of Extension at the NC State University College of Natural Resources. Producers have a vested interest in keeping their trees growing and plant almost immediately after cutting.

“We've not seen instances of not having enough trees to harvest in, oh, 100 years,” he says.

Cutting down trees does cause disturbances to ecosystems, but Jankke believes the industry has become “more conscious” of this in its harvesting patterns, striving to cut in such a way that minimizes harms to animal and plant species.

Of course, changing weather patterns do have the potential to harm tree growth patterns: In western Canada, for example, a bark beetle called the mountain pine has proliferated, infecting and killing trees at growing rates, primarily because of climate change. These beetles fly from tree to tree to lay eggs underneath their bark, often carrying with them a fungus that disrupts the flow of water and nutrients within the tree, causing it to die. By 2012, the mountain pine beetle had attacked more than 53 percent of British Columbia’s merchantable pine trees.

The beetle's prevalence was spurred on by climate change: These beetle populations are unable to withstand freezing temperatures and typically die each winter. But warming temperatures allow mountain pines to live longer, causing outbreaks that infect trees at a larger scale.

It’s possible that changing weather patterns affect US lumber stock the same way: Though it’s still too soon to tell, the effects of the climate crisis on ecosystems are wide-reaching and any number of factors can harm tree species.

THE CRISIS ENDS (?)

Though lumber prices are still far above pre-pandemic levels, they fell by more than 40 percent in June, indicating that the crisis is not as acute as it recently was. This could be because sawmills are finally filling empty jobs, or it could be because demand for at-home projects is falling as COVID-19 restrictions lift and people go back into the world.

The cash price per 1,000 board feet of lumber is now $1,113, down from an all-time high of near $1,600 at the end of May (for context, it was $400 for the same amount in February of 2020.) Some people, of course, could consider building homes with alternative materials, like steel (which is facing its own shortage) or concrete. But Jankke, Parajuli and Bardon all caution that, ironically, this is less sustainable than building a home out of wood, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere even after a home is constructed.

“It can potentially be part of the solution to the climate crisis,” Jannke said.

Everything You Need to Know About the Great Lumber Crisis of 2021 syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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moonluckdragontemple-blog · 8 years ago

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Lucky Green Rice Recipe

Ask yourself…

Do you desire a new job or a promotion?

Do you desire to bring in customers to buy your goods?

Do you desire some quick wealth or financial harmony?

How about erasing debts AND getting your financial life back on track?

Then Green Rice MAY be the answer for you!

One of my first ventures into Voodoo and Rootwork (Hoodoo) is making ‘Lucky Green Rice‘ or ‘Green Fixed Rice.‘ I’m actively pursuing a connection to New Orleans Voodoo but I have noticed that a lot of Hoodoo and Santeria practices tend to cross over. This is one of those instances. Always do a bit of research on practices before engaging in them. Ignorance is no excuse for a bad interaction. Even seemingly harmless practices may turn explosively rotten without a bit of experience under your belt.

This mixture is used to bring prosperity, quick money, abundance and fertility in all forms. It can be used to help with job interviews, promotions or any venture that is financially themed. It’s creation is fairly simple and with some homework, a dedicant can make their own mixture or buy some ready made from sites such as Ebay or Etsy. I strongly urge that you do some homework on whatever vendor you are buying from before purchase. If you research their feedback and see a lot of negative comments or ratings, then you might want to reconsider the item. A strong feedback rating, positive results and testimonials can certainly add to a person’s credibility but it does not ensure a guarantee of authenticity.

As some of you may know, rice by itself has long been used as a symbol of wealth and prosperity in ancient and modern cultures. If you have rice, then you and your family aren’t going to go hungry. If you can grow rice where you live, then you are doubly blessed with good fortune. Rice has long served as an offering to many deities and entities such as the Kitsune from Japan who is a servant of the Grain Goddess Inari. The very motion of sprinkling rice into an earthenware bowl sounds like rain or coins falling.

At first, I searched the internet for a basic recipe. One constant in Voodoo/Rootwork is that there are many interpretations of the same concept. A lot of the recipes varied but a few had some consistencies in their creation. A note about making anything magickally related. You must visualize what each ingredient means to you as you are making your conjuration. If an ingredient as a negative thought form, reminder or means nothing to you it will not be potent. It’s also important to try and find fresh ingredients as their potency may be in question if they are too stale. Although, sometimes despite the best efforts at acquiring things, the seasons may stand in our way so it’s important to try but not necessary. Results will vary of course.

You will need the following ingredients, substitutions are always welcome!

1 Cup Jasmine Rice – You can use any rice but I’d steer clear of any of the minute rices or ‘sticky rice’ as there is too much starch in these varieties and it tends to get messy quick. I adore Jasmine rice because of it’s scent so I use this variety in my workings.

2 Tablespoons of Rubbing Alcohol

Several Dollar Bills (Shredded) – This is a very important ingredient to the mixture. If the idea of shredding real money bothers you, you can purchase pre-shredded currency online that has been taken out of circulation. Ebay is a great resource for finding this element and it’s usually pretty inexpensive to purchase in decent quantities.

Confetti Money – This seems to be a uniquely ‘New Orleans Voodoo’ practice. You can purchase this at party shops, novelty stores or online.

4 whole cinnamon sticks that you will crush up

2 oz powdered or crushed pyrite – You may need to go online to find this potent factor. If you have pyrite, I can personally attest to the difficulty involved in powdering it.

2 Tablespoons Pennyroyal – This is actually a common herb to find if you live near a store that stocks lose tea herbs. If not, you can grow some with ease if the weather is right or again, purchase online.

2 Tablespoons Holy Water – Now some Pagans don’t actually believe that witches can make Holy Water as it is a purely Christian spiritual tool. I don’t subscribe to this one bit. I’m also one to believe that Magick is Magick regardless of the source. If enough people believe in something strongly enough, it becomes something. That is a Pagan belief, is it not? Holy Water or cleansing water has long been used in Polytheistic practices from around the world. While it may be absent from NeoPaganism you can not discount ancient practices that are well documented. If the practice of Holy Water bothers you, you can skip this part.

Green Food Coloring – How did you think it turned green?*grin*

(Optional) Lodestone Food – Another rare ingredient that adds to potency and can be purchased online. It is not entirely necessary but it does help. Some people substitute ‘glitter’ in this instance but I’d prefer to use Lodestone Food.

Lemon Grass

Whole Cinnamon Sticks

Pennyroyal

Holy Water

Shredded Currency

Rubbing Alcohol

Pyrite

Green Food Coloring

Thai Jasmine Rice

Alright, so taking your uncooked (dry, unprocessed) rice, place this in a jar with the rubbing alcohol and the Holy Water. Invision as you do this, that the rice is being purified. Surrounded by a brilliant white light, all of the negativity is leaving the rice and going into the earth to be transmuted. Place some of the green food coloring in the jar now and envision your empty wallet being stuffed full to the gills with money. Envision your new paycheck with a substantial amount being cashed at the bank or credit union. Affix a lid to the jar, screw it on tightly and gently shake the mixture. Hear the sound of coins falling into your possession.

After you’re done doing this, lay out some paper towels and spread the rice out to dry. It might be a little messy so you may want to wear gloves if you’re worried about getting food coloring all over yourself. After a few hours, you’re ready for the next step! Add the shredded money, rice mixture, confetti money, crushed cinnamon sticks, lodestone food, pennyroyal and crushed pyrite (or glitter) to a large gallon-sized freezer bag. As long as you properly dried the rice, everything should shake together nicely. You may also add some dried lemongrass if you wish, another herb considered to be lucky.

As you shake the bag to evenly distribute the contents, recite a favorite prayer. The traditional one is ‘Our Father’ a Catholic prayer (many of the traditions like Voodoo or the like use many Catholic aspects as this was part of the cultural assimilation.)

Our Father, Who art in heaven Hallowed be Thy Name; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.

You don’t need to use a Catholic prayer if you don’t feel a connection to that deity. I was raised Catholic so I still feel some connection to that faith. I’m more aligned to Mother Mary than the Christian God. I also feel a strong connection to the Mexican deity of Santa Muerte even though She has recently been blacklisted by the Catholic Church. I would personally cast a Magickal circle over the rice, awakening it’s powers and creating sacred space. After that, I would call on Santa Muerte and ask Her for Her assistance in blessing the rice for abundance while visualizing my goal. Visualization is the most elusive part of manifestation into the physical world. If you can see it in your mind strong enough you can bring it from the ethereal plane into the mundane world without trouble.

Another interesting note is that some practitioners of Voodoo use ‘Money Draw Oil’ to also infuse their rice. I will some day post a recipe for that as well on this site. The ingredients are very similar to the Lucky Green Rice and the addition of this ingredient only adds to it’s potency. After the rice has been awoken, charged and consecrated to the flavour of your personal beliefs, I would then obtain a Green Novena Candle. Before it I would place a small bowl of the Lucky Green Rice as an offering to the spirits, ancestors, entities or deities you are working with to accomplish your task. Anoint the Green Novena Candle and also, with a black permanent marker (it’s quite challenging to get anything else to stick to the glass on these) I would write your goal. New Job, Promotion, Quick Money, etc. Use these keywords as a daily visual reminder of your manifestation goal.

Now, light the Novena candle. These are my favorite candles of all to use in Candle Magick. They are relatively safe to leave burning alone, inexpensive, easy to obtain and will last for 7 days. 7 is a very lucky number when calling forth financial energies. As with all lit candles, exercise extreme caution. Burning your house down isn’t going to help you. Make sure wherever you place your candle and bowl of rice that it is free from the influence of pets, children or clumsy roommates.

Every day, add just a tiny bit more of rice to the bowl. Visualize your pockets/wallet/paycheck growing more by each day that passes. There you are! LUCKY GREEN RICE!

Cautionary note:

There are no ‘free rides’ in Magick. If you ask the universe for something be prepared to give something in return. A sacrifice must be important to you. You also must be willing to put forth the effort to gain the things you’re after. For example, using Lucky Green Rice to obtain a job will require you to fill out applications, dress the part and actively participate in an interview. No one is going to come beating your door down to offer you a job while you sit on a couch waiting for an anointed candle to burn. If you receive what you were after in the first place, BE SURE to thank the spirits/entities/deities who you approached. Don’t just ask them for something and pay them no mind. They will cut off connections to you quickly and without warning. Alright, with that said, let’s move on to the fun part!

Lucky Green Rice Recipe Lucky Green Rice Recipe Ask yourself... Do you desire a new job or a promotion? Do you desire to bring in customers to buy your goods?

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