#so i have been looking at ancestral practices to add to my collection

[coyote-fawn]

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[phantoms-lair]

Ok, but Zuko's crew figuring it out after just a week or so and having had enough time to propperly convince him before finding Aang (because he might have seen reason but he's still stubborn and what else are they gonna do? Open a tea shop?) Zuko: *didn't think he'd get this far* 'THIS IS SO AWKWARD; WHAT DO I DO?!?!' Lt. Jee, who knows kids need other kids their age around them, seeing the Gaang: 'They're friend shaped!'

“Here we are, the Southern Air Temple.” “It looks amazing Aang,” Katara couldn’t help but be breathless at the sight. Even so she couldn’t help the feeling of trepidation. Aang was from a time of peace long past. No matter how much they told him otherwise, he wouldn’t truly understand what the Fire Nation was capable of till he saw t with his own eyes. And this was the place she feared it would happen.

Aang led them up a long and winding path, chattering excitedly about everything he knew about the place. “And that’s the field where we played Air Ball, and that’s where the air bison slept and-” he broke off, sadness filling his voice. “This place used to be so different. It was full of monks and life. Now there’s nothing here. I can’t believe how much things have changed.” “Maybe not.” Sokka was looking around with sharp eyes. “If this place was really abandoned, there should be all sorts of weeds and overgrowth.  But everything’s neatly kept. Someone’s been here, and a lot more recently than a hundred years ago,”

His voice was filled with dark suspicion, but it went right over Aang’s head. The last airbender perked up. “You’re right! Come on let’s find them!”  “Aang wait!” But it was too late. Aang had taken off on his air scooter, following the path as quickly as he could. He came to an abrupt stop, air dissipating, and stared at the two figures wearing blotchy grey clothes standing in front of him. One of them, a woman, dropped the bundle of sticks and weeds she was holding. The other, a man with sideburns whispered “An airbender...” under his breath. “Get Iroh, he’s meditating in the Avatar Chamber.” He then bowed deeply as the woman ran off. “Honored Monk, would you and your companions please join us for some tea. I know our leader would be honored to speak with you.”

Aang nodded, but he seemed a lot more subdued than before. They were led into a large room. Sokka kept one hand on his boomerang, just waiting to see if trouble would start. On the way they saw several more grey-clothed people staring at them in wonder.

“Iroh should be here shortly.” the man explained. “My name is Jee.” “Iroh’s the one in charge?” Katara asked. “Everyone but he himself would tell you so.” Jee had a half smile. “Iroh sees our little group as a collection of equals, but in times of crisis or question, we tend to turn to him or Zuko.”

“Who’s-” But before Sokka could finish asking who Zuko was (and for that matter who this group was) he was interrupted by heavy footsteps running towards the door and throwing it open. “Jee is it true?” An elderly man was panting, clearly not used to running like he was. “An airbender has returned?”

Jee nodded. “This good Monk and his friends just arrived at the temple.”

“Spirits be praised.” The mans face twisted as tears began to flow from his eyes. “That the balance might not be destroyed, it’s more than I dared hope.” Then he seemed to catch himself and dried his eyes. “Where are my manners. My name is Iroh, let me make you some tea.” “Thank you. I’m Aang, these are my friends Katara and Sokka.” Aang introduced. “But may I ask, please, how did people from the Fire Nation get here. I thought this temple could only be reached by flying bison.” “Fire Nation!” Sokka rose from his seat, grabbing his boomerang. Likewise Katara reached for the water Iroh was pouring into the teapot.

“Peace.” Iroh sad calmly. “No one here wishes any of you harm.”  “How can you say that?” Katara spat. “You’re Fire Nation!”

Iroh looked directly to Aang. “Will you hear our story, honored Monk?”

“I will.” Aang turned to his friends. “We can’t attack before we’ve heard them out.”

“Watch me.” But despite his words, Sokka made no move to attack.

Iroh poured more water in the kettle, to replace what Katara had taken. “I am curious myself, how you identified us so quickly.”

“You’re wearing ash-dyed clothes.” Aang explained. “That’s what Fire Nation people wear in mourning.”

“A custom no longer practiced, sadly. We have taken it for our own as we mourn the loss of so much in the world, and seek to save as much as we can. If we can call ourselves anything, we are Restorationists.” Iroh handed each of them and Jee a cup, before pouring one for himself.

“Our story began three years ago, in the Fire Lord’s war council. My nephew, Zuko, was about your age and had talked his way inside to observe and learn. Like all children of the Fire Nation he’d been raised to believe the Nation was perfect and the war just. And it was in this meeting those beliefs were destroyed.”

“A General suggested a plan that would end in the sacrifice of the youngest Fire Nation recruits in a gambit that would gain very little, for you see the Firelord cares as little for his own people as those of other nations. The War Room was usually divided into two factions. Those like the General who reveled in slaughter, and those like myself who knew there was nothing we could say to stop it. Except that day there was another.” “Zuko spoke out, loudly and passionately, about how wrong the plan was. He was told he’d have to fight an honor duel for his disrespect. Zuko was pleased to fight someone as dishonorable as the General. Only on the day of the duel, his opponent wasn’t the general, but his own father.”

Sokka drew in a hissing breath. “The Firelord made him fight his own father?”

Iroh took a long sip of tea. “He forced Zuko, yes. But it was not involuntary on both sides. My brother longed to be rid of his kind-hearted son, and saw the duel as an opportunity. But my nephew thwarted him.” Iroh smiled to himself. “He surrendered, refusing to harm his own father. As a result my brother couldn’t land a killing blow without being disgraced himself. Instead he scarred Zuko and had him banished in disgrace for his ‘cowardice’.” 

For the first time they heard anger in Iroh’s voice. “No child should have to learn so young that their Nation is disgraceful, that their family has no honor. It was a terrible lesson, and yet one he did learn. The Firelord gave him an impossible task in order to rescind his banishment, but it’s one Zuko has no interest in pursuing. Instead he set out to learn how much more of what he knew was a lie. I’m sure you know what he found.” 

“Zuko wanted to make a pilgrimage to the places most harmed by the Fire Nation, starting with the Air Temples, the Western Air Temple in particular. We told him only an Air Bender could reach it. We underestimated him. Within a day he had managed to get inside. What he reported back to us was...it was nothing less than a tragedy. The corpses of Fire nation Soldiers and Air Nomads alike were strewn over the temple, which, as you can imagine, had fallen into serious disrepair.”

“Over the next few weeks, we had removed the bodies of the soldiers and gave them tradition field rites as per the Fire Nation. But we agreed we did not want to disrespect the Air Nomads further by denying them the proper rites. We searched the temple in hopes of finding the instructions, which we did.” “Please Iroh,” Aang looked like he was a moment away from sobbing. “Can you tell me...I just want to be sure.” Iroh nodded. “We burned them on an outdoor pyre, eight people in attendance at the cardinal directions. Four people facing the pyre, praying for the spirit of the fallen monk, four facing away, praying to the spirits to guide them. When the fire burned out, we spread the ashes to the four winds.”

Aang let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” His voice shook and Katara pulled him into a hug. Iroh nodded. “But the search for the proper rites drove home to my nephew how much had been lost. We spent much of the first year at the temple, finding what we could on Air Nomad Culture, as well as undoing what damage had been done. We were few to start with, barely thirty people. But as we traveled, more came to us. Most were former soldiers of the Fire Nation who could not stomach what they were asked to do. Some were Earth Kingdom scholars, seeking to uncover what had been lost to the war. We have restored all but the Norther Air Temple, as well as several places in the Earth Kingdom.”

“What about the South Pole.” Sokka crossed his arms. “You said you were going to places the Fire Nation hit hardest.” “The South Pole is still occupied, and I doubt the current residents would appreciate us showing up. We have found some various parchment scrolls, which we have copied into our caches, but not much.”

“Hold up, what caches?” Katara demanded.

“We didn’t want to make it easy for The Firelord’s servants to destroy the histories of the fallen peoples again. All the information we’ve found has been copied and placed in caches. We have one places in each of the locations we’ve restored, as well as several other hidden places throughout the Earth Kingdom. The memories of these people will not be forgotten again.”

“You’re more than welcome to look through the cache here for any knowledge lost to you tribe.” Jee said kindly. “And we would greatly appreciate anything Monk Aang could add. We’ve done our best, but that’s not the same as someone who’s lived in the culture.”

Iroh bowed his head. “For that matter, we recognize that this place and the other Air Temples belong to your people. If your people do not want us in their ancestral home, we will of course leave.”

Aang felt a lump in his throat as he realized that Iroh, and probably the rest of the Restorationists, had made a mistake. They thought he was one of a group of Air Nomads who had escaped. Not that he was the last. And...and if they had been to all the temples, except maybe the Northern One, he very well could be.

“Would you mind if I took a look at the cache.” To be honest he was less interested in it’s contents and more...he just needed some time to sort all this out.

Iroh nodded his head. “Of course. The cache for the Southern Air Temple is in the Atrium of the Southern Wind. I trust you know where that is?”

Aang nodded and rose. “Thank you for the tea.”” He gave a small bow an left, Katara by he side. Sokka hung back a bit and heard a snatch of conversation as he shut the door.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jee asked.

Sokka froze, listening carefully.

“It depends on what you think I’m thinking.” Iroh said amicably.

“I’m thinking your bastard of a brother never let Zuko interact with other children and he never had the chance to once he took the responsibility to undue sins from before he was born. You’re hoping the Monk and his companions will be friends to him.”

“You know me too well.”

Sokka slid away, not sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

“What are you thinking Aang?” Katara asked as Sokka caught up. “Should we make a break for it.”

“No, if they wanted to hurt us, they would have tried already.” Aang said heavily. He sighed. “I really am the last, aren’t I?”

Katara gripped his hand and Sokka slung an arm around his shoulder. “You’re not alone thought. You know that right?” Katara asked him.

He gave her a sad smile. “Thanks guys.”

The Atrium of the Southern Wind was a tall chamber that was open beneath the ceiling so the wind rushed through. Though open to the air, it let little light in, so when the opened the door the chamber was flooded with light.

There was a single person inside, shielding his eyes as the new light greatly outshone the small candle he had been using. “I told you, Miki. I’ll take a break as soon as I finish transcribing this. Codebreaking is easier than reading Monk Chaiyun’s handwriting.” He was significantly younger than the other Restorationists they had seen. He also seemed to be wearing a strange white fur hat.

Katara and Sokka instinctively stood in front of Aang, who chuckled. “It really was bad.”

The Restorationist’s head shot up, causing his hat to fall off with a startled squeak. “You’re not-How did you get up here?” Then he shook his head. “That’s egotistical, we got up after all, sorry.” he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

Katara and Sokka felt their stomachs twist. Iroh had said his nephew had been scarred, and they though they had understood what that meant. They had seeen plenty of scars on the men of the village, life at the mercy of the ocean wasn’t kind. Almost all members of the tribe has some scars, from light gashes on fingertips struck with fish hooks, to the broad slash across Chinuk’s chest from when he’s been hit with shrapnel from Fire nation cannons on their last raid.

Nothing they imagined prepared them for the burn covering most of the left side of Zuko’s face. It was like someone with a flaming hand grabbed it and held on. Knowing it was his own father who’d done this, who wanted to do this, sickened them.

Aang’s attention, though, was on his ‘hat’. “Is that a lemur?” he asked, delight entering his voice for the first time.

Zuko smiled. “Yeah. I gave him some food and he’s stuck with me ever since. Do you want to give him some food?”

“Do I? Aang excitedly asked.

Zuko reached into a satchel and pulled out some berries and handed them to Aang. Aang offered them to the lemur who sniffed, then grabbed one, scootign away to eat it.

“I don’t suppose you have some meat in there?” Sokka stared at the satchel longingly. 

“No, but I feel you though. We don’t bring meat to the Temples since the Air Nomads were vegetarians and we don’t want to disrespect them. But I miss it too. I do have some Rabbiyak cheese though.” He reached into the bag and handed a soft yellow wedge to Sokka.

“Good enough!” Sokka grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth, practically melting in joy. 

Katara laughed, both at her brother and her friend, who now had the lemur climbing over him. “You made a new friend, Aang?” Zuko perked up “Aang? You were named after Avatar Aang?”

“Avatar Aang?” Katara asked, thanking the Spirits that the Lemur was on Aang’s face, so Zuko didn’t see his reaction. 

“The last Avatar we have any information on,” Zuko explained. “He grew up in this very Temple. The last piece of information we have on him was that he was going to the Eastern Air Temple. We don’t know if he made it or not though.”

He didn’t. But neither of the siblings wanted to tell anyone from the Fire Nation that, not matter how much goodwill that cheese had bought from Sokka.

Sokka swallowed the last of the cheese. “Iroh said the cache in here might have some lost knowledge from our Tribe?”

“Oh he did?” Zuko looked surprised. “You’re from the Southern Water tribe? I mean, you’d have to be, we don’t have anything from the Northern.” He opened a stone chest next to him. It looked normal from the outside, but opening revealed a strange shape to the interior, as if there were teeth withing the lid. Zuko pulled out multiple scrolls, which he handed to the siblings.

Sokka opened one and was surprised to find a message within stating that this scroll was a reproduction, and described what the original scroll had looked like, from the type of parchment and ink used, to the carvings on the handles. The scroll itself contained information on building a rigging system for a ship.

“Are there Fire Nation Scrolls in here?” Aang asked, the lemur curled up on his head as it had been on Zuko’s.

“Yep.” Zuko scowled, which looked even worse with his scar. “Seems each Firelord does their best to wipe out a culture. Sozin launched the strike on the Air Nomads. Azulon pretty much destroyed all Fire Nation culture that couldn’t be used to prop up the war. So like, the Fire Festival is still on, because ‘Rah Rah Fire Good’, but the Festival of Rebirth, which centered around sowing the fields with ashes to benefit crops was struck from records and history books because it was ‘too Earth Nation’. A vast majority of our culture just...gone.” There was no hiding the bitterness is Zuko’s voice. “And despite the Earth Kingdoms being the single greatest force of Resistance, Ozai’s been obsessed with the Water Tribes, so I guess that will leave Azula with Earth.”

“If they don’t get stopped.” Sokka pointed out.

“I hope so.” Zuko sighed. “If the rest of the world would band together, they could have been stopped a hundred years ago, but too many keep saying ‘not my problem’ till Ozai’s armies are at their doorstep. Everyone keeps saying stuff like ‘If only the Avatar would return, but he’s just one man? Or woman. Like, sure he can bend all the elements, but you just need four people for that. Maybe try to work on stuff yourself rather than rely on one person???” 

“You don’t think the Avatar can save the world?” Sokka asked, eyebrow raised. Sure he like how easily Zuko admitted to the Fire Nation needing to be stopped, but still...

Zuko shrugged. “It’s less I don’t think he can and more...I guess I don’t feel he should have to, I mean, the Fire Nation is about the size and a half of Ba Sing Se. It wouldn’t have stood a chance if all the Earth Kingdoms gave a United front against it in the beginning, much less both Water Tribes assisting.  But only a few Kingdoms and the Southern Tribe did more than protect their own borders. It just doesn’t seem fair to put it all on one person.”

Thank you Aang thought. He wasn’t ready to admit who he was to the Restorationists. In fact, he would have been happy if no one had known. But Zuko saying it didn’t all have to be on his shoulders...no one but Gyatsu had told him that.

“This would mean so much to the Tribe.” Katara said softly, looking at a scroll describing building elaborate structures from ice.

“Would if be better to get the original or copies?” Zuko asked.

Katara gave him a look that was just shy of a glare. “What do you think?” “Depends on how quickly you need the information. We always put originals in the closest cache to where we find them. Like this Waterbending scroll-” Zuko opened one. “-we recovered from pirates in the Earth Kingdom. You can tell from this marking that the original is in our cache in the Fuxai ruins.” He pointed to a small green emblem at the top of the note explaining it was a reproduction. “That’s quite a distance from here. So if the goal is to get the information to your tribe as quickly as possible, it would be easier for me to get a few hands and copy all we have. We’d probably be finished by this evening, which means you could leave to return with it as soon as tomorrow morning. However if it’s important is the cultural history, it makes more sense to get the originals, even though traveling to all the caches would be months worth of work.”

“Oh,” That was...well thought out. It occurred to Katara this may not have been the first time the true owners  of what the Restorationists recovered had come claiming what was theirs.

“Do you think you could do both?” Sokka asked seriously. “Make the copies now and, since we’re going on a journey with Aang, we can swap out the new copies for originals if we pass by.”

“Certainly.” Zuko smiled. “And it gives me a convenient excuse to take a break form trying to decipher Monk Chaiyun’s script for a little while.”

“One question though. If you thought you could be done by tonight and it was important, why would we wait till tomorrow to leave?” Aang wondered.

“And the others say I’m reckless.” Zuko rolled his eyes. “You guys just scaled the mountain. You know how dangerous it is to navigate in broad daylight. In the dark? Even I’d call it a death trap.”

“Actually we don’t. We flew in on my flying bison.” Aang explained.

Zuko froze, then looked at Aang as though he was seeing him for the first time. “A...a real...you really are a...” His mouth opened and closed several times. “Can I see it?” he finally said, then buried his face in his hands as thought that wasn’t at all what he’d wanted to say out loud.

“Sure!” Aang rose to his feet, wind swirling around him. Zuko gaped openly, but followed the monk outside to where they’d entered the temple from.

Zuko hadn’t been the only one interested in Appa. A large group of Restorationists were staring, albeit from a good distance away.

“This is Appa. He’s been my best friend since we were little.” Aang introduced.

Zuko stared in wide eyed wonder. “Can I touch him?”

“Sure, Appa’s friendly. Aren’t you?’ Aang asked, as if expecting the bison to answer.

Zuko tentatively reached out  and touched Appa. He stroked it for a few minutes before impulsively hugging Appa, burying himself in the white fur.

“He’s so fluffy,” Zuko proclaimed in a muffled voice.

Katara laughed and even Sokka smiled. “Still not sure on the rest of them, but this Fire Nation guy’s alright.”

Katara smiled back at him, and at Aang, who was eagerly showing Zuko the best way to pet Appa. Yeah. This one was okay.

[jeremystrele]

Connecting With The Past + Grappling With History, With Painter Mia Boe

Connecting With The Past + Grappling With History, With Painter Mia Boe

Studio Visit

by Sasha Gattermayr

Mia’s new Brunswick studio is filled with light, and is the perfect space to continue on her growing portfolio of work. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

A painting from her recent catalogue sits on the mantle. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Butchalla-Burmese artist Mia Boe in her light-filled studio. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Mia paints full time and volunteers for The Torch in her spare time. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

One of Mia’s works in progress.

Mia’s paintings are vibrant and narrative-driven, which means she does a lot of her own historical research. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Left: Mia is inspired by figures in art history like Albert Namatjira, Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale; and figures from history such as Eliza Fraser, Ned Kelly and the Queensland Native Police. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files. Right: ‘Stripes 3’ by Mia Boe.

A selection of work Mia recently sold in her latest catalogue and has prepared for prize entries. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

Her elongated, distended figures are always in the landscape and often accompanied by food, animals or spirits. Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

You can see the Sidney Nolan influence in this composition! Photo  – Amelia Stanwix for The Design Files.

The historical and contemporaneous imprisonment of First Nations people is a continuous theme in Mia’s work. Patterns and vibrant colour create tension between the political context and the composition.

Watching Mia Boe’s rise to cult status is almost giving me whiplash. The Brisbane-raised, Melbourne-based artist has grown a dedicated following in the 18 months since she’s really begun concentrating on her painting – and it’s only going up. To give you an indication of just how devoted her audience are, her recent catalogue of nine paintings sold out in under two minutes.

Mia studied art history before last year, when Melbourne’s sweeping lockdowns gave her the time (and a good excuse!) to focus on her art. But it’s not just Instagram fans who are hot on her tail. With a residency at the Museum of Brisbane, commissions for Craft Victoria and Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art, two group shows and a solo exhibition (titled Black Devil) at Open Space Collective under her belt since the beginning of 2020, it’s evident that Mia has well and truly caught the attention of the nation’s arts community.

But the institutions aren’t everything. When she’s not painting, Mia volunteers at The Torch – an organisation that aids First Nations prisoners and ex-prisoners with their art practices.

Art is the past, present and future for Mia – storytelling is her mode of being. Hear it in her own words.

How did you arrive at your current painting style? Has it evolved slowly over time or always been somewhat similar?

One clear continuity in my style has been that I tend to populate my landscapes with strangely elongated figures, whose bodies are also sometimes bloated and distended. I guess also that female figures in my work are representations, approximately, of myself, so a lot of my works could also function as self-portraits. But when I start a painting, I’m not always conscious of who the figure is, though if I’m painting black figures, they’re probably members of my family.

Also, I sometimes add larger figures with little detail, or floating in the landscape — these figures are representations of spirits. They represent family members that have died, and are a marker of the family that I will never get to know because of the repercussions of colonisation. I also try and experiment with colour: inspired by the ubiquitous blues of Robert Owen’s recent exhibition at Heide, I’ve recently been trying to control and limit my palette.

Do you use your art to connect with history or grapple with it?

Probably a bit of both. I’m especially interested in the histories of my family’s cultural heritages. My mum is a descendent of the Butchulla people, but she was only told by my grandmother that she was Aboriginal when she was in her teens (my grandmother was worried she’d have her children taken away from her if she was open about it). My Dad moved to Australia as a refugee from Burma when he was a young child.

My art practice has allowed me to research these twin histories, and to track the consequences of British colonisation in both Australia and Burma. (Burmese historian Thant Myint-U’s recent The Hidden History of Burma is an amazing book for people interested in learning more about Burma.) I hope soon to be able to spend some time looking at concrete connections between the colonial occupations of Australia and Burma. Empire, after all, makes the world smaller — it’s big project, I think, is to remake the margins in the image of the centre — so I’m sure there are some connections to be found (white officers, for instance, might have trained in Burma before coming to Australia, or vice versa).

Anyway, I definitely use my art to think through history: sometimes head-on, sometimes obliquely.

How do you involve historical references in your pieces?

I make sure that I’ve done proper research into a subject before making work about historical events. At the start of the year I showed my first exhibition in Brisbane. It was called Black Devil, and the works responded, from multiple angles, to the history of the Queensland Native Police: an exterminationist outfit which consisted of Aboriginal troopers led by white officers, and which aimed to wipe out resistance to colonisation.

The Native Police was active from 1848 to c. 1905 and were estimated to have killed over 44,000 Murris in those 50+ years. The fact that many of the massacres of Aboriginal people were carried out by Aboriginal troopers, who were themselves often kidnapped as boys, and barracked hundreds of kilometres from their kin and ancestral lands, pointed up for me the ongoing violence and infernal strategies of division which colonialism employs.

During research for this exhibition I found out that my ancestor, my great-great-grand uncle Wonamutta, a Butchulla man from K’gari (Fraser Island), was a trooper in the police force. Apart from his postings around the state, he was also seconded to the Victorian Police, where he helped to track down Ned Kelly (that’s where the exhibition’s title comes from — Kelly called the black trackers on his trail ‘black devils’).

Out of this discovery I got interested in Sidney Nolan. Two of Nolan’s most famous preoccupations were [Fraser Island’s namesake] Eliza Fraser and Ned Kelly. Nolan didn’t see these figures as related, and yet in an eerie way I think they were: Wonamutta, whose country was re-named by Europeans after Eliza Fraser, was also the man who caught Ned Kelly. So through thinking about this personal history, and the random but weird connections it disclosed, I came to envision my exhibition as also responding to Nolan’s own practice. It was a art show about history, but also about the history of art.

Do you have any key references or inspirations?

Some abiding influences for me have been Albert Namatjira and Russell Drysdale. Namatjira looms especially large: because of his tragic life story, his amazing colours. The William Dargie portrait of him which hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery, and the Noel Counihan linocut, which shows Namatjira crucified, are some really important images for me.

Drysdale matters for me because of the colours of his burnt-out backgrounds and those extraordinary gaunt figures idling about in them. His representations of Aboriginal people are very respectful and moving.

Other artists who are key points of departure for me are the contemporary South African artist Marlene Dumas, and Bill Traylor who was a self-taught artist born into slavery.

What does art-making mean to you?

On an individual level, my art allows me to recover and remake the cultural heritages which were stolen from me. And I hope in this process that I remind people (even as I learn myself) about the forgotten pasts which shape everyday life in the present.

Mia is represented by Sunday Salon. Learn more about her practice here. Mia’s next exhibition will be at Milani Gallery from 4th – 25th September.

[bunny-heels]

of course im talking about that graffiti screenshot im not a fool

so Valve had released three new in game screenshots for Half-Life: Alyx on their twitter. the most important one (aside from the one that features our lord and savior ERROR) is this;

under a bridge, classic blue truck on the edge, headcrab on a stick in the back, and of course, the fucking beautiful graffiti on the sides of the tunnel that are just, glowing in the dim light. for reasons outside of graphics and map structure, this is the most important screenshot we've gotten lore wise. here's a good run down as to why.

first, the graffiti on the far left;

depicted is a large Citadel placed in between a Vortigaunt and a tall skinny human. the interesting thing is that the Vortigaunt and Citadel have their own defining features to them, such as the Vortigaunt's individual small eyes placed above their big one in the center of their head, and the Citadels ropes connected to the ground and the small outward unfinished parts that havent been constructed yet. however, the person on the far left has no defining features to them.

people have speculated that, because what is depicted is a Vortigaunt and the Citadel, the human figure might be Gordon. this could also be because the figure itself is bulky, so you'll see it more as a male figure. however, I have high speculation myself, from analyzing the little details we had on them, that the person is Alyx.

similarities they share is not only what seems to be the crooked belt she has around her hips, which is even crooked in the same angle as her actual belt, but also, the crudely drawn Black Mesa symbol on the chest.

of course, this is only an analyzed assumption, but i believe that since the game is literally going to be about Alyx, it's safe to guess that its her.

as for what the entire image is suppsoee to mean, that can't be made certain just yet. it could be a foreshadowing to the Vorts getting her and Gordon out of the Citadel in the beginning of Episode 1, but then I don't understand why Gordon wouldn't be depicted in the image as well. alternatively, it could just be a general depiction of her reaching the Citadel later in-game once you've seen this graffiti. nothing is concrete, though.

next, is this;

depicted, on the top of the wall is the honeycomb like Antlion's ness, surrounded by Antlions. at the bottom is a group of Vortigaunts reaching towards one that is resting on the ground. behind that resting Vort is what looks like a pile of eyeball spheres. what they actually are is unknown.

the graffiti as a whole is much more important than what it can be first guessed. if you were to remember the Antlion mission in Episode 2, where you are to collect extract from the Antlion's nests with a Vortigaunt on your side, the Vort mentions that their kind used to perform 'husbandry' with the Antlions' larvae. meaning they farmed it for the extract.

what should be noted is that this is an 'ancestral practice', meaning a pre-evolved version of the Vorts commonly farmed the extract, which then got passed down to their more evolved counterparts. they likely couldn't continue the farming due to the Combine invasion of their homeworld.

as well, the Vortigaunt says it 'dissolves false veils that divide the vortessence', and that 'all this you(Gordon) shall witness when-', then is cut off. then, when at the table, the Vort that traveled with you eats the extract, and they, including the others around the table, begin to glow purple and gain blue eyes. the same energy is seen in the beginning of Episode 1. the vortessence that is 'divided' described by the Vortigaunt is that shared energy they use when doing very powerful things, such as bringing people out of a frozen time state, stopping someone like the G-Man (albeit having to use over 10 of them to hold him back), and bringing someone borderline back to life by connected them with a lifelink of another human.

i think it's extremely important that we recognize, as well, that this piece of information is very, very briefly mentioned in Episode 2, and could've been easily forgotten about. but it wasn't. so you can have high hopes that they bring back other briefly mentioned details that you may think they'd forgotten. what this also means, obviously, is that this particular piece of lore to the Vortigaunts' history is going to be very important, more than we thought it was before.

one last detail, if you look above that wall, you can see what looks like eyeballs on that curved part of the under bridge. however, it looks much more different brightened up;

they seem to be relatively flat disks with an iris and pupil lookalike style on the flat part, and they are coming out of the wall by a thin rigid stem to keep them attached. they almost loon like satellite dishes, without the signal spikes. they could also resemble cameras. it seems that they also look similar to the pile of eyes behind the resting Vortigaunt at the bottom of the wall. still, what they fully are is completely unknown to use.

to add some more speculation, i would like to add this screenshot from the trailer in relevance;

me and my bf have soeculated this being a Vortigaunt made base, due to its structure and the eye image on the door.

what it actually is, in terms of the area and who inhabits it, are not confirmed. but, i believe with the graffiti on the wall, which already look to be done by the Vortigaunts due to its telling of their history, this could very well actually be a Vortigaunt base.

finally, as you can see in the whole screenshot, there are orange rhombus shapes around variously placed glowing green large dots, and coming out the wall, in the best way i can describe it, look like vertically squished down mid-eruption volcanos. i, personally, have no clue what this is supposed to mean, let alone what it actually is. so there's nothing i can really say on it other then, artistically, it looks cool.

thats all i can really get out of the image. a reminder that all of the speculations i made are not concrete to what could actually be in the game's story. as well, i don't claim any of those speculation to be fact (even though i probably wrote the sentences in a way that makes it look like i claim them as fact but i'm a big stinky doo doo brained ADHD chick so just bare with me here man i'm trying).

if there's anything that i might've missed or you believe i have speculated incorrectly, or you just have general theories of your own that you believe in strongly, i'm open to reading them.

[her-culture]

2021 and the Rise of Shopping BIPOC, LGBTQI+, Small, and Womxn-Owned

Now more than ever, a collective way of life has been prioritized: shopping from small businesses, particularly those owned by the marginalized. The reason? A mix of a few things, like that of the coronavirus pandemic putting small businesses in every industry in an increasingly vulnerable spot, the rising importance of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the collective awareness of how capitalism has contributed to the downfall of so many communities.

When the pandemic hit, a lot of folks were down on their luck financially. They needed whatever avenue of income they could find to help keep them on their feet, which resulted in them opening small businesses selling their art, jewelry, and more. Shopping small and dining locally was also one of the main efforts done by the collective to ensure community staples wouldn’t have to shut down due to the lack of revenue and financial support throughout the pandemic. 

During the height of BLM last summer, one of the ways that folks rallied together to give aid and support to different mutual aid funds, bail funds, and BLM funds was by selling homemade items and giving 100% of the proceeds to these different organizations. With this, there have been threads on Twitter and infographics on Instagram sharing different black-owned small businesses so that folks could directly support the black community.

It’s interesting to see how the rise of social media networks helped pave the way for this, too. Instagram and Facebook both have sections where anyone can sell their products - Facebook marketplace has everything from new and used cars, clothing, furniture, jewelry, and so much more. Instagram (though widely criticised) has updated their formatting so that anyone who uses their platform to sell items gets boosted in ads, and their shopping section is easier to find. Instagram is most accessible for businesses because they don’t charge a service fee like other sites (Etsy, Shopify, etc.) - 100% of the profits goes right back to the shop owner.

Social media sites like TikTok and Twitter have assisted this wave as well. “It costs $0 to retweet my art/business” tweets go viral almost daily, and TikTok itself is filled with trends small businesses love to use to help boost their brand on the algorithm. More recently, brands of all kinds started doing “pack an order with me” TikToks to add a more personalized feel to their business, where consumers get excited to see if their order is one of the ones that gets packaged on the ForYouPage.

Shopping small and from the folks who could use the support most is an incredible way of how community works. It directly supports the dreams and efforts of the folks who put their all into what they make. If it is possible for you, I encourage you to try to shop small and from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and more), and womxn-owned spots instead of larger corporations. Aiding in the journeys of the folks who took a chance on themselves and started their small business could change everything for them - every dollar could unlock a world of chance.

For those who are interested, here’s a list of a few small businesses (organized by business type) that you can check out and support!

Lifestyle:

Nguyen Coffee Supply - This Vietnamese coffee company was founded by Sahra Nguyen, a first-generation Vietnamese-American who set out to teach about the true quality and production of coffee beans in Vietnam. Partnering with a fourth-generation farmer in Central Valley back in Vietnam, they provide ethically sourced coffee beans to folks worldwide. To purchase Nguyen Coffee or learn more about their efforts, you can shop at https://nguyencoffeesupply.com/ and visit their social media sites @nguyencoffeesupply.

Hungry Bunny - A black, womxn-owned business, this virtual donut shop started in March 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic by Khloe Hines. All products are vegan and cruelty free, not using any dairy, eggs, or yeast! To place orders visit their website https://www.hungrybunnyict.com/ and support their social media @hungrybunny.

Hood Herbalism - A center for learning, this community herbal education project is perfect for BIPOC folks wanting to learn about the benefits of herbalism and how to incorporate it into their lives. Courses range from the basics of herbalism to herbal medicine works for birth support. They offer online courses with payment plans, accommodations, and scholarship funds to support those in need! This project space is intended for BIPOC folks, as herbal schools are predominantly white. To donate to their project or enroll in classes, visit https://hoodherbalism.com/ and follow their social media at @hoodherbalism.

Indigescuela - This BIPOC-led space is dedicated to teaching womxn and folks about intentional healing through the avenues of holistic sexual health, womb health, and traditional healing. Using the knowledge and practices of herbalism, Mexican folk healing, and Mesoamerican medicine, Panquetzani (also the foundress of Indigemama: Ancestral Healing) leads students to finding the healing answers they need to lead as their best selves. The courses range in topics from lifelong self-womb care and womb wellness. To enroll in the online distance courses, head to https://indigescuela.com/ and support their social media at @indigescuela.

Bookstores:

Nā Mea Hawai’i - Meaning all things to do with Hawai’i, Native Books is a space created to share Hawaiian culture through education. If you are based in Hawai’i, or have the opportunity to visit post-pandemic, this is definitely a place to stop by! They support local artisans of all kinds in efforts to uplift their community and all that the Islands have to offer. They have dedicated their space to sharing this knowledge, education, and experiences to all who stop by, virtually and in-person. Shop their website https://www.nativebookshawaii.org/ and follow them @na_mea_hawaii.

Raven Reads - This bookstore is indigenous and womxn-owned, which began as an effort to share history and inspire folks as a result of what residential schools did to the indegnous communities in Canada, where languages and ways of life were washed away over the years. They offer collection boxes for children and adults, where each season a curated box will be sent to you filled with Indegenous works. To shop, support, and learn more, their website is https://ravenreads.org/ and their social media is @raven_reads.

Strong Nations - The online retailer is centered around idigenous literature and art, where their products range from children’s toys to classroom materials and, of course, literature. They are also a publishing house, offering a range of services for those interested. They also offer a wide variety of bundles in different categories! Each item on their shop has a badge on it to signify if it is indegnous art, a Canadian product, or indegnous text. If you are looking for indenous literature or works of different kinds, materials for your classroom, and more, stop by https://www.strongnations.com/ or @strong_nations.

Marcus Books - The first black-owned bookstore in the nation, Marcus Books is filled with history and the desire to educate and make space for black folks and all allies. Their goals of using literature to educate and unite communities has served folks in and around the San Francisco Bay Area (based in Oakland, CA) and nationwide through their online store. They have books for all ages in every genre by an array of black and latinx authors. To support, their website is https://bookshop.org/shop/marcusbooks or visit their social media @marcus.books.

Loving Me Books - A black and womxn-owned shop, Angela Nesbitt created this online bookstore to promote self-love amongst children of all races and backgrounds. Books are available for all age ranges and in a variety of languages! They also sell children’s clothing and accessories. There is a section for adult books, as well! Check out https://www.lovingmebooks.com/ and @lovemebooks for your next book.

Skincare:

Alma Bella - Meaning “beautiful soul” in Spanish, this womxn-owned skincare business is the epitome of self care with a cause. Creator Hannah Bahls, based in Washington state, handmakes this heavenly coco cream and redistributes 100% of the net profit to different BIPOC-led social justice funds. With more products coming soon, they prioritize organic, ethically sourced and traded, and natural ingredients. Each month, she chooses a new organization to give the proceeds to. To learn more about Alma Bella, their product and mission, head over to https://alma-bella.square.site/ or their Instagram @almabellanourish to learn more about how they emphasize self and community care.

HanaHana Beauty - Sustainable, clean beauty that uplifts womxn of color. All products are made with natural ingredients and oils, like fair-trade shea butter. They source their shea butter from the Katariga Women’s Shea Cooperative in Ghana. The black and womxn-owned shop includes body butters, bars, lip balms, and exfoliating cleansers. To buy, head to their site https://hanahanabeauty.com/ and follow at @hanahana_beauty.

BrownSugga Beauty - Black owned, vegan beauty for all skin types. Offering a variety of products from sugar scrubs to oil serums, body butters and soap bars, the New Orleans based online business is your one-stop-shop for healing and maintaining beautiful, healthy skin. Shop now at https://brownsuggabeautycompany.com/ and follow them at @brownsuggabeauty_.

Haípažaža pĥežúta - Meaning “medicine soap” in Lakota, this indegnous-owned skin care from Lakota folks sells soaps and herbal products nationwide. They utilize organic ingredients harvested from the homelands as well as fair-trade ingredients from across the world to create healthy, intentional products. The products range from soaps, shampoos, rubs, perfumes, bath bombs, scrubs, and more. (They even offer refills of some of these products)! To purchase, find them at https://www.haipazazaphezuta.com/ and @haipazaza.

Beauty:

Live Tinted - Founded by Deepica Mutlaya, Live Tinted is a brand dedicated to inclusion and diversity within the beauty industry. They use their platform to highlight multicultural beauty - giving space to voices and stories of those often underrepresented in the industry. Their products range from ethically sourced merchandise, huesticks, and gorgeous illuminators. Take a peek for yourself at https://www.livetinted.com/ and @livetinted on their different social media platforms.

Sahi Cosmetics - This small, family-owned cosmetics company has been taking the beauty industry by storm. Founder Shelly Sahi started Sahi cosmetics as a way to change the beauty standards we have become accustomed to after growing up feeling like her Indian skin wasn’t beautiful enough and always had trouble finding products that matched her complexion. Committed to their clean beauty promise, all of their products are cruelty and paraben free, with vegan friendly ingredients. An array of makeup and innovative products and ideas that will surely leave you obsessed! They also offer some clothing merchandise as well. Check them out at select retailers, their website https://sahicosmetics.com/ and their social media @sahicosmetics.

Queltzin Cosmetics - An indegenous-owned beauty brand specializing in fake lashes, all of their products are named after Aztec gods and goddesses as well as Nahuatl words to honor and educate folks about their indegenous heritage. Aside from lashes and lash tools, they offer some apparel and makeup accessories and tools, as well. Shop at https://queltzincosmetics.com/ and visit them at @queltzincosmetics.

Sweet Street Cosmetics - A Latina/womxn-owned cosmetics company that honors the around-the-way aesthetic. This brand was built by Natalia Durazo and LaLa Romero, who also co-founded the clothing company Bella Doña. their brand honors the beauty strides made by womxn of color and celebrates all the uniqueness and individuality that comes with it. Their products include a highly praised liquid liner, lip duos, eyeshadows, and lashes. Shop now at https://www.sweetstreetcosmetics.com/ and follow them @sweetstreetcosmetics.

Clothing: 

Wasi Clothing - A Quechuan word meaning “hope,” Wasi is a brown-owned Bolivian-American clothing company founded and run completely by Vanessa Acosta. This business is dedicated to ethical and sustainable products and processes, as well as diverse representation in the fashion world. Their products are unique and there truly is something for everyone here, as their shop includes everything from clothing to accessories to accessories and prints! You can shop their website at https://wasiclothing.com/ and follow at @wasiclothing.

OXDX Clothing - Diné owned label, this indegnous brand offers merchandise to represent Native peoples and honor their experiences. Their mission includes preserving culture to art, clothing, creative content and storytelling. Their shop has unique pieces of clothing, art, and stickers. Shop at https://www.oxdxclothing.com/ and support them at @oxdxclothing.

Ginew - That Native-owned denim line honors the founders’ Ojibwe, Oneida, & Mohican heritage through the materials and concepts utilized to create their products. Their shop ranges from denim products (jackets, jeans, etc.) as well as unique jewelry, bandanas, and more. Shop all things Ginew on their website https://ginewusa.com/ and follow at @ginew_usa.

Art: 

Hafandhaf - This Pakistani-born and Detroit raised artist uses her South Asian and Muslim roots to create art that reflexts her experinces and the life around her. She uses her background studying the Quran and Arabic and incorporates it into her work. She offers commissions, as well as prints. Many of her pieces were turned into other merchandise, like clothing, mugs, stickers, and accessories. To shop, visit https://hafandhaf.com/ and follow their social media @hafandhaf.

Adinas Doodles - Kichwa artist Adina Farinango creates Kichwa diasporic art. In hopes to heal and reclaim her Kichwa roots and her identity as an idigenous womxn, her art is a form of resistance. Her one of a kind art is available in prints, stickers, and on totes! Shop https://www.adinafarinango.com/ and follow @adinasdoodles.

Accessories: 

BRWNGRLZ - The Pinay-owned jewelry company specializes in laser cut pieces that represent and honor Pilipinx heritage and brown pride. These unique, astounding pieces are only found at BRWNGRLZ. This space honors the stories of Pilpinx-identify folks while uplifting the voices of BIPOC folks everywhere. To support and shop, visit www.brwngrlz.com/ and follow at @brwngrlz.

Customized by Angelisa - Polynesian-owned customizable shop that does everything from trays to accessories! This shop is perfect for customized gifts and pieces for your space! Angelisa’s shop has rolling and coffee trays, resin jewelry, keychains, tumblers, and music player plaques. To shop and customize your own pieces, head to https://www.etsy.com/shop/customizedbyangelisa/ and @cbangelisa.

Spirituality:

Stari Agency - Run by Yakari Gabriel, Stari Agency is an Afro-Latina business regarding all things astrology. Yakari offers birth chart readings, transit readings, and follow ups. She aims to help you heal and learn more about you as you navigate your life’s journey. To book and learn more about these services, you can visit https://stariagency.com/ and @stariagency.

The Woke Mystix - Podcasters and authors Ellen and Imani create space for folks to find themselves in astrology, spirituality, and divinity. This WOC-owned business co-wrote Astrology SOS: An astrological survival guide to life, which releases on March 2, 2021. To listen to their podcast and learn more about their work, check out https://www.thewokemystix.com/ and @thewokemystix.

Dian Tala Crystals - This Filipinx-womxn owned crystal shop was created in hopes of offering affordable and accessible means of crystals and their healing properties. In efforts to offer exploration into intuition and personal guidance, this shop holds a variety uniquely cut crystals while teaching followers the properties of each. All funds go directly to the owner’s tuition, as well as direct relief funds to their family’s provinces when the recent typhoon hit the Philippines. To shop and support, follow their Instagram shops @diantalacrystals and @diantalasales.

Farial Eliza (she/her) is a twenty-one year old Bay Area native, occupying unceded Chochenyo Ohlone land. She is a writer, poet, creator, storyteller, self-proclaimed healer and educator to the communities she serves.

[atrayo]

Channeled Angelic Prophecy of the Jewels of Truth Series on Chinese Militaristic Hegemony Triggers WW3

Hello All,

I'm somewhat nervous about making this entry blog post regarding it's a very very controversial topic. It would come off as China-bashing, which in fact it is more an alarmist entry regarding an East vs. West power struggle that gets out of hand with a conflagration of a World War in its wake. This almost seems like history repeating itself less than a century ago with the Japanese Imperial ambitions of the 1940s spreading across the South Pacific.

I get skittish when I receive such automatic writing missives from the angels as a cautionary form of tough love. As repent all ye who enter here type of phenomena. For my part, I usually bury these statements in my notebook collection of these channeled statements. However, I deemed this one more so detailed with 8 Points of No Return as qualifiers for WW3 with China versus the World triggers itself. I intuit that this is 75% locked in already as ill-fated destiny up to 85% potentiality.

This is my caveat I hope to God I'm awful wrong as having drunk the Kool-Aid as Coco for Coco-Puffs loony toons basket case in this regard. With that stated, I feel more a prophet of doom than an Inspirational spiritual poet as my usual devotion. The statement 3,048 dovetails also upon the commencement of WW4 in 2075 by the European Federation as an Empire, not today's European Union.

Interweaving through all this the angel nameless as they often are without egos speaks about my "Jewels of Truth" series surviving eons (?) from now as a recorded spiritual philosophical angelic discourse with humanity. Talk about a shameless plug in all places and on this apocalyptic topic.

Prophecy of WW3 & WW4:

3048) What is to become of what you call the "Jewels of Truth" legacy of our spiritual angelic discourse with you in the centuries and eons following the end of your life on this earth dearest "Ivan the Atrayo". A future global religion as a cross-pollination of spiritual traditions not unlike that of the Persian Bai-Ha religion but one that actually succeeds in becoming truly globalized. A meta-Worship of the Abrahamic Creator God gets pinched transcending its original roots in around 150 years plus. As can be said from wingtip to wingtip of the Imperial Hawk as the standard for a New World Order.

We the angelic heavenly host didn't wish to alarm you dear Navi (Hebrew for Prophet, ie my first name spelled backward "Ivan") with such an infamous statement as you deem alarmist. However, you amongst many others are canaries in the coal mine seeing the writing on the wall as false placating by China is practically a foregone conclusion in world history to come.

With all this said take this as a pinch of salt to add flavor to the human condition as a cautionary tale of woe if ignored en-masse. As you stated in your introduction above, this is our Tough Love for humanity to glean what it may from our stance to date. Humanity can steer around this for the writing on the wall can still be whitewashed over with bravery if mutual reconciliation is so desired between the superpower of China and the rest of the World.

Allow us to start backward as it may with the future disaster of World War 4 in the region of the world that you presently call Ukraine. Mother Russia is no more a threat for China in WW3 made them their conscripts but that comes later in this statement. The peoples of Ukraine are ancestrally pure stalk of Euro-Slavic genetics and the future European Federation as a dystopian version succeeds the European Union after the rampant famines and plagues scorch the earth post WW3. The European Super Continent unites more so akin to the Ancient Roman Empire of yore with democratic tendencies only for its elite castes. Thus the seeds of distrust and acrimony are sowed once more by barbarians at their gates of the empire.

The year is 2075 the European Continent was less so ameliorated by the nuclear holocaust of WW3 than that of the North American continental shelf. In some ways the traces of Chinese culture is stronger upon Europe for the Silk Road 2.0 of the Sino Belt and Road Initiative succeeds culturally and economically by far before the Chinese government uses it as a Trojan Horse. Chinese population centers of its mainland are akin to a lunar landscape post WW3. Thus its peoples migrant en masse onto Asia Minor what is the Middle East today and into the Eastern flanks of Europe. Such Chinese populations will be considered the barbarian mongrels for the dystopian European Federation thus WW4 ignites around the Black Sea of Crimea.

In twelve years what you consider as an alpha or new beginning Ivan. Will be the start of World War 3 with China upon the year 2033 Anno domino. Give or take 6 months after China crosses 8 Points of No Return that the angel of the Lord God sounds the trumpet of perdition on Earth. China for its part ascended to the righteous status of a superpower too quickly and anything that is achieved too soon is lost just as immediately. The greek tragedy of Icarus with the Sun melting the wax bindings of his artificial wings sends the young lad plummeting to his death.

It is a matter of fact that China has every right on God's Earth to succeed and be a proud nation of her ancestral peoples on a united front. However, as they have been victimized by the Japanese during the early 1940s and were the footstool of the British empire of the 19th century. They feel that payback is in order to the world with a chip on their shoulder, thus their Sino exceptionalism soon becomes a recipe for disaster for the rest of the world and her Asian neighbors.

Notwithstanding its currency manipulations as a temporary measure during the early 2000's to cheat its way to the top. This practice was soon discontinued due to not overheating with a meltdown their economies of scale were soon achieved globally. Next to their notorious one-two punch of lured infamy of intellectual property theft as sanctioned statecraft of technological theft transfers. It would allow the Chinese State to supercharge its beautiful minds to leapfrog the West and the grand USA at its own game.

The first ill-fated seal of WW3 was when China annexed and conquered Tibet during its Cultural Revolution of Mao Tse Tung. That set the tone of supremacy in an egotistical guise of reclaiming its lost Imperial Dynasties of centuries before of grandeur. The 2nd seal of WW3 was broken more so recently from what they learned in subjugating the Tibetan peoples. They carried over to their Muslim minority of the Uyghurs accomplishing their cultural genocide upon them as enslaved conscripts. The Western economic sanctions on its textiles from such a provincial region are little more than a slap on the wrist.

What the Chinese learned from the Tibetans and now the Uyghurs they are implementing on Hong Kong like the flap of the wings of a graceful dragon. Soon the 3rd seal of WW3 to be broken is the naval and aerial invasion of the democratic island nation of Taiwan off its mainland. These so-called rebels will soon experience the Chinese boot snapping their collective necks with the revenge of humiliating their might makes right doctrine.

The 4th seal of WW3 is already partially cracked open with China claiming its ancestral Imperial Dynastic seaways and now air passage routes in an outright fashion. Building naval airbase atolls out of the ocean a feat of engineering will soon pot mark the South China Seas like satellite landmines to the rest of the world. Naval commerce and air traffic are now harrassed including foreign military air traffic be dammed. Expect so-called enemy fighter pilots of Australia and other South East nations to be shot down outright. With naval cargo and oil freighters to be harassed by premature boarding inspections as so-called checks for illicit goods.

The 5th seal of WW3 to be broken is when Mother Russia is soon out witted by Chinese Hegemony. When the mafia state of the Russian government gets greedy in an oil dispute transfer with the Chinese it soon escalates to sour grapes all around. Leading up to China invading by land its armies seize Russian Southern Oil fields permanently. Thus Putin the Russian Czar's rule comes to an end as his Oligarchs soon replace him with a shill of a weak national leader to appease China. Opening the way in future years that the Russian army is at the beck and call of the Great Dragon of China as its conscripts by any other name.

The 6th seal of WW3 is when China tires of the North Korean Premiers games of Kim Jong-Un they annex North Korea without firing a shot. Installing a viceroy and begin massive industrial mining for the mineral riches of the North Korean Peninsula. Which ironically jump-starts the North Korean economy putting its citizens to work for an eventual rise out of poverty.

The 7th seal of WW3 is the greatly lauded Belt and Road Initiative as the Silk Road 2.0 becomes what it is advertised to do. A boon of Chinese engineering producing Infrastructure projects from China through the Middle East into parts of Europe as Sino goodwill public relations globally. It is a roaring success since similar projects brought Africa out of its schizophrenic famines and poverty up to 20 years ago. That all the foreign aid historically upon Africa could never do.

However, what looks good and feels good with much mutual economic prosperity triggers a fervor for Chinese hegemony abroad. Where southeast Asian nations of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia soon get the negative attention of Chinese interference as Big Brother. Frankly stated the Belt and Road Initiative becomes a proverbial Trojan Horse for the conscripted armies of Russia, North Korea, and China's armies. To seemingly roll upon in the guise of an inaugural guest-hosted military parade throughout the circuitous route becomes a bait and switch tactic.

The 8th seal of WW3 is that the unwelcome security occupation by the Chinese armies outside its mainland albeit as security guarantors is soon worn out. The remaining free nations declare war on China and within months a nuclear holocaust is triggered by the United States as a desperate first-strike policy.

Thus ensuring that Beijing its Capitol and Shangai as a modern port megalopolis of Chinese Supermacy is nuked several times by the Western nations of the US and Europe leaving it akin to a lunar landscape. The United States will receive the majority of Chinese Nukes rather than that of Europe as cited in the above introduction to this posting. The US island territory of Puerto Rico is hit directly upon Old San Juan its Capitol for it lacks a missile battery defense shield capability. All the island residents that remain leave over the ensuring years throughout the rest of the Caribbean (ie Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc...) and other parts of Florida.

All major primary and secondary American cities are hit once or twice by Chinese and Russian nuclear strikes such as Miami, Houston, Washington D.C., Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Detroit, and so forth. Also, the missile defense shield battery purchased by Australia from the United States works as advertised. Sydney is spared a near-fatal strike however the radius concussion of such a nuclear missile detonation overhead causes an electromagnetic pulse knocking out its electrical grid. Its offshore island of Tasmania doesn't fare as fortunate it is hit directly annihilating its entire population. Lastly, the New Zealand Capitol of Christ Church is also hit directly by a Chinese nuclear strike.

World War 3 lasts for a mere 6 years time ending roughly by the end of the year 2039. Leaving what remains of China, Russia, North Korea, and its counterparts of the United States and Europe is a near catastrophe for the next 60 years plus to attempt recovery. The United States loses its superpower status soon to become the Federated States of America an empire by any other name dystopian. Chronic outbreaks of famine and various once curable diseases spread dysentery of water-born illnesses run rampant and plagues of Covid-19 and other forms of Influenza throughout the Americas.

However, in the decade to follow the Federated States of America invades its neighbor to the North as Canada. In order to seize its prized infrastructure and pastoral farmlands to maintain its hold of power. Slavery in America is institutionalized once more in order to cultivate its non-irradiated farmlands and strip mining. Hungry mouths cause riots and thus enslaving such unruly ungrateful once citizens is another act of desperation.

Africa and the rest of the Americas such as the Central and Southern regions fare way better from the Chinese and Russian nuclear attacks lest that of Columbia and Costa Rica. Ironically democracies take root here to one degree or another as they see the dystopian societies of Europe and that of North America and want no part of that turmoil. The Federated States of America partially fascist devolves into feudal Esque family houses of nobility as the once upper classes survive to a degree via tact and shrewdness.

Your "Jewels of Truth" series as our angelic discourse with humanity dearest "Ivan the Atrayo" survives mostly intact not unlike that of the affectionate Rumi and Hafiz as Spiritual Persian poets have done so. Since your channeled writings of us for now, over 26 years to date as Inspirational automatic writings as a clairaudient psychic technique has foretold. It Will be cherished by the generation of readers to come lasting centuries if not an eon or two more. Taken into the stars by futuristic human colonists leaving the earth out of necessity due to dwindling resources.

The 1st truly global earth religion subsumes your writings into one of its tomes of sacred literatures. Thus you'll be piggybacking onto another greatness by sheer good prosperous luck for the added measure as there are no accidents metaphorically speaking. To this, we remark a thank you for taking the courage to share this cautionary statement although your reservations have been noted in protest by us.

Go with God(dess) those of the eyes to see and the ears to hear between the rhetoric spoken by the greater national powers that be. There's is the agony soon to herald all into collective planetary ruin because of a game of brinkmanship that gets out of control soon enough. Pay attention and take actions that are peaceable via protests or be steamed rolled into oblivion. Amen. ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

Ivan "Atrayo" Pozo-Illas, has devoted 26 years of his life to the pursuit of clairaudient Inspired automatic writing channeling the Angelic host. Ivan is the author of the spiritual wisdom series of "Jewels of Truth" consisting of 3 volumes published to date. He also channels conceptual designs that are multi-faceted for the next society to come that are solutions based as a form of dharmic service. Numerous examples of his work are available at "Atrayo's Oracle" blog site of 16 years plus online. You're welcome to visit his website "Jewelsoftruth.us" for further information or to contact Atrayo directly.

[coldalbion]

Good morning. I was wondering how much wisdom Odin produces on his own? A while ago you said he transforms himself according to the new information, like cutting his eye out at the well. I was thinking of American Gods, Wednesday’s last conversation with Vulcan has similarities to Nancy’s conversation with Ibis. Odin is a bastard, this is well known. I wonder if he’s the original cultural appropriation guy. I imagine he validates the new info like the borg, whereas those that cosplay don’t.

Depends what you mean by “produce” I suppose. In my experience, I wouldn’t say he’s a cultural appropriator within the context of taking-from-a-group- and-claiming-as-own/being better than originators. If anything, lore suggest he engages with things and practices on their own terms - he becomes a woman with the witches. He gains the runes through pain and privation. In  Grímnismál  he allows himself to be put between the two fires and is essentially tortured. He’s a god. He doesn’t have to put up with that, but he does. In a sense, it is less that he takes, and more that he adds-to-himself. That’s to say, Odin is rune magician and seidh-master. These are, at first glance two separate praxes. They require different things, different ways. What unites them in this context is Odin. He is the one who performs them. In this sense, he’s not the Borg because the Borg add to the Collective and in doing so, change themselves but also erase difference.  My experience is that the Old Man glories in, and enhances difference.  A key point to consider is where the phenomenon of bricolage  comes in (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage): “Anthropology In anthropology, the term has been used in several ways. Most notably, Claude Lévi-Strauss invoked the concept of bricolage to refer to the process that leads to the creation of mythical thought, which "expresses itself by means of a heterogeneous repertoire which, even if extensive, is nevertheless limited. It has to use this repertoire, however, whatever the task in hand because it has nothing else at its disposal" [7]. Later, Hervé Varenne and Jill Koyama used the term when explaining the processual aspect of culture, i.e., education Literature In literature, bricolage is affected by intertextuality, the shaping of a text's meanings by reference to other texts. Cultural studies In cultural studies bricolage is used to mean the processes by which people acquire objects from across social divisions to create new cultural identities. In particular, it is a feature of subcultures such as the punk movement. Here, objects that possess one meaning (or no meaning) in the dominant culture are acquired and given a new, often subversive meaning. For example, the safety pin became a form of decoration in punk culture. Social psychology The term "psychological bricolage" is used to explain the mental processes through which an individual develops novel solutions to problems by making use of previously unrelated knowledge or ideas they already possess. The term, introduced by Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Matthew J. Karlesky and Fiona Lee[10]The Oxford Handbook of Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship of the University of Michigan, draws from two separate disciplines. The first, “social bricolage,” was introduced by cultural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss in 1962. Lévi-Strauss was interested in how societies create novel solutions by using resources that already exist in the collective social consciousness. The second, "creative cognition,” is an intra-psychic approach to studying how individuals retrieve and recombine knowledge in new ways. Psychological bricolage, therefore, refers to the cognitive processes that enable individuals to retrieve and recombine previously unrelated knowledge they already possess.[11][12] Psychological bricolage is an intra-individual process akin to Karl E. Weick’s notion of bricolage in organizations, which is akin to Lévi-Strauss' notion of bricolage in societies.[ Philosophy In his book The Savage Mind (1962, English translation 1966), French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss used "bricolage" to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. In his description it is opposed to the engineers' creative thinking, which proceeds from goals to means. Mythical thought, according to Lévi-Strauss, attempts to re-use available materials in order to solve new problems.[14][15][16]Jacques Derrida extends this notion to any discourse. "If one calls bricolage the necessity of borrowing one's concept from the text of a heritage which is more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur."[17]Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, in their 1972 book Anti-Oedipus, identify bricolage as the characteristic mode of production of the schizophrenic producer.[18]” So given the above, particularly in reference to the re-use of available materials, we find ourselves presented with a very Odinic situation. It’s my contention that bricolage can be used as a justification for cultural appropriation - but it’s a bad one, because for me the essence of magic is the poiesis; the bringing-forth from something that no-one else can bring-forth from. Ordinary people can do things in ordinary ways but the magician is by definition outside of the ordinary - literally extra-ordinary. Not only that, but because of this position, they are able to re-order the ordinary, and thus, everything they contact can be rendered extra-ordinary. In this sense, one could argue that this ability to take restrained or limited context and proper/achieve one’s goals is literally the “spinning straw into gold” of Rumpelstiltskin, the lead into gold of the alchemists, etc. In another, this places magicians - of which Odin is an exemplar- at root as uncanny, almost Lovecraftian monstrosities. This, in one way, renders the occult in its original context of being hidden. That is, it is imperceptible to those who have not been initiated or reconfigured in order to perceive it. It’s important to note that the etymology of perceive is actually rooted in grasping: perceive (v.)c. 1300, perceiven, "become aware of, gain knowledge of," especially "to come to know by direct experience," via Anglo-French parceif, Old North French *perceivre (Old French perçoivre) "perceive, notice, see; recognize, understand," from Latin percipere "obtain, gather, seize entirely, take possession of," also, figuratively, "to grasp with the mind, learn, comprehend," literally "to take entirely," from per "thoroughly" (see per) + capere "to grasp, take," from PIE root *kap- "to grasp."

seize (v.)mid-13c., from Old French seisir "to take possession of, take by force; put in possession of, bestow upon" (Modern French saisir), from Late Latin sacire, which is generally held to be from a Germanic source, but the exact origin is uncertain. Perhaps from Frankish *sakjan "lay claim to" (compare Gothic sokjan, Old English secan "to seek;" see seek). Or perhaps from Proto-Germanic *satjan "to place" (see set (v.)).

Combine this with the common sense of possession in a spiritual context, and we arrive at something Jung wrote in his essay on Wotan in the 1930′s: Perhaps we may sum up this general phenomenon as Ergriffenheit — a state of being seized or possessed. The term postulates not only an Ergriffener (one who is seized) but, also, an Ergreifer (one who seizes). Wotan is an Ergreifer of men, and, unless one wishes to deify Hitler– which has indeed actually happened — he is really the only explanation. It is true that Wotan shares this quality with his cousin Dionysus, but Dionysus seems to have exercised his influence mainly on women. The maenads were a species of female storm-troopers, and, according to mythical reports, were dangerous enough. Wotan confined himself to the berserkers, who found their vocation as the Blackshirts of mythical kings. Leaving aside whether National Socialism was a kind of madness that seized the world (spoiler: the time period was a perfect storm for horrors) and blaming it on Wotan, Jung’s language is important here - particular because it signals a polarity between seizer and seized. Consider Odin’s role as world-creator in Norse myth. He (and his brothers) seize the giant Ymir, kill him, and in supreme butchery, render his corpse into the worlds we know. Taking one thing, they use it to make another - and it is important to note that, according to mythological genealogy, Ymir is Odin’s maternal ancestor - he is not separate from the jotnar.  Rather, he re-orders their potencies to make the world, and since those potencies are inside him, re-orders his own ancestral potencies into that which humans might call god as distinct from jotun. In this sense, we all do this - our lives, bodies and minds are recapitulations and reconfigurations of our ancestors in new forms. When we suggest that “We are our deeds” or whatever, it is a mistake to ignore that the faculties to perform those deeds come from faculties bestowed on us by environment and heredity. How we experience things depends on how we are configured - though such configuration is constantly shifting due to constant inputs. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the magician deliberately seeks out that  reconfigurative reflex. seek (v.)Old English secan "inquire, search for; pursue; long for, wish for, desire; look for, expect from," influenced by Old Norse soekja, both from Proto-Germanic *sakanan (source also of Old Saxon sokian, Old Frisian seka, Middle Dutch soekan, Old High German suohhan, German suchen, Gothic sokjan), from PIE *sag-yo-, from root *sag- "to track down, seek out" (source also of Latin sagire "to perceive quickly or keenly," sagus "presaging, predicting," Old Irish saigim "seek"). The natural modern form of the Anglo-Saxon word as uninfluenced by Norse is in beseech. This desire, this hunt, can be clearly seen in an Odinic/Dionysiac furor complex - combined with *wen:   *wen- (1)Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to desire, strive for."It forms all or part of: vanadium; Vanir; venerate; veneration; venerable; venereal; venery (n.1) "pursuit of sexual pleasure;" venery (n.2) "hunting, the sports of the chase;" venial; venison; venom; Venus; wean; ween; Wend "Slavic people of eastern Germany;" win; winsome; wish; wont; wynn.It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit veti "follows after," vanas- "desire," vanati "desires, loves, wins;" Avestan vanaiti "he wishes, is victorious;" Latin venerari "to worship," venus "love, sexual desire; loveliness, beauty;" Old English wynn "joy," wunian "to dwell," wenian "to accustom, train, wean," wyscan "to wish." Note the reference to Vanir and Vanadis (by way of vanadium) as well as Venus. That there is a polarity betwixt hunter and hunted is obvious, as with sexual partners (regardless of gender or sex it is two -or more - parties conjoined by desire) and also in the notion of veneration, and winning/victory.

So, perhaps more properly, we might argue that the magician goes-into the world in a more intense fashion - not with the principle of union-with, or reduction to Oneness. Rather, towards profusion  of difference, of options and room-to-move. A peculiar notion of freedom via absolute restraint ; enhanced negative-capability. In such a context, to culturally appropriate is to defang the numinous, make it more palatable, more ordinary. To commodity it. I do not think Yggr, the Terrible One, would do so for mere “safety’s-sake”. Maybe that’s just me though.  

[tipsycad147]

Crone of Wisdom: Sage Plant Profile

The Ancient Greeks, one of the many ancestral lines of traditional western herbalism, called the Goddess of universal remedy, Panacea. She is one of the Holy Ones invoked in the Hippocratic Oath and for  herbalists like myself She has lended her name to describing those special herbs - called panaceas - which offer a broad spectrum of healing gifts. Sage (Salvia officinalis), the herb teacher we’ll be meeting today, has long been revered as a panacea not only because of the ways that it supports inherent vitality and longevity, but because it helps us to process knowledge into wisdom.

So let’s meet, Sage!

Sage

Salvia officinalis

Folk Names : Sawge, common sage, garden sage Element : Earth, Fire, Air Moon Phase : New Moon Zodiac Signs : Gemini, Sagittarius Planets : Jupiter, Moon, Mercury Parts used : Aerial parts Habitat : Native to southeastern Europe, but naturalized widely. Growing conditions : Full sun and well-drained soil with moderate watering. Collection : Spring before plant flowers. Flavour : Pungent, bitter Temperature : Warm Moisture : Sometimes dry + sometimes oily Tissue States : Damp/Relaxation, Dry/Atrophy, Cold/Depression, Tension Constituents : Beta-carotene, B vitamins, niacin, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, volatile oils, flavonoids, tannin, phenolic acids, phytoestrogens, resin.

Actions : Anaphrodisiac, antifungal, antigalactogogue, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antisudoforic, aromatic, astringent, carminative, choleretic, emmenagogue, estrogenic, expectorant, diaphoretic, digestive, hypotensive, hypoglycemic, nervine, phytoestrogenic, vermifuge.

Main uses : Sage is an impressive panacea of a plant. It’s an herb of longevity, promoting long life and protecting brain function as we age. The herb is warming and strengthening to the body and helps to clear out respiratory congestion. In other words, Sage helps us to breath deeply. Sage has an amphoteric relationship to the fluids of the body which is why it is categorized as both oily and drying in nature. If there is excess fluid, mucus, and catarrh, Sage’s astringent qualities dry out and expels it. The herbs astringency, for example, can be used for excess sweating and heavy periods. If there is lack of moisture, Sage’s oily qualities come into play, lubricating dry and atrophied passageways and organs of the body. The herb is used as part of weaning as it dries up breastmilk.

Sage is well-known as a circulatory tonic, but I would further classify it as a “processing” tonic in that it not only helps to move blood, heat, and information throughout the body, but it helps us to process these parts of ourselves as well. The herb moves energy downward from the crown of the head through the feet which is one of the reasons that Sage helps to calm us down, get restful sleep, and help with digestion.

As a digestive tonic, Sage assists us with processing and digesting fats as well as nutrients from our foods. Look for signs of flatulence and cold digestion. The herb can be used for both chronic and acute infections, especially when fatigue is present. It’s a powerful herb that can be used for everything from the common cold to Staph aureus infections. As a neuroprotective brain tonic, Sage assists with the processing of information and memory, by protecting and improving cognitive function. Additionally, Sage helps to relieve the Tension Tissue State, helping someone shift from being reactive to receptive.

Topically, Sage is a great addition to hair rinses, helping to prevent hair loss, reduce dandruff, and even return or improve the color of the hair. It is also an excellent herb for burning and all varieties - not just the over-harvested and dangerously endangered White Sage (Salvia apiana) variety - are wonderful for cleansing the energy of body and place. One of my favorite ways to use Sage is as a gargle for sore throats and canker sores in the mouth. It can also be used topically for cuts, burns, bruises, bites and stings. It makes a very effective pain and inflammation-relieving compress for swollen and sprained joints.

Magickal uses : Sage is probably best known magically as “smudge” and it works powerfully to cleanse a space. But please do not purchase White Sage (Salvia apiana) but grow your own and protect the few remaining plants in the wild. The plant has been dangerously overharvested in the name of spiritual practice which is a fundamentally un-spiritual act. The great news is that other Sages can be used in place of White Sage including Black Sage (Salvia apiana) and Garden Sage, both of which can be harvested sustainably. Use in spells of longevity and immortality. A great herb not only for physical health but for spiritual health. Use in rites of grieving. An herb of the Crone, work with Sage to connect with the Old One.

The Sage Personality : Every one of us is growing and maturing. Some of the time we feel able to learn from our growth, develop as people, and feel a little bit wiser at the end of the day. Other times aging and growing feels ungraceful, traumatic, and miserable. Sage is particularly useful for folks for whom the latter is true, especially if their stall in maturation is a chronic one. The Sage personality isn’t a classic victim or martyr type but is more often fixated on being ill-fated. They might be able to learn from their previous life experiences in a logical manner, but the wisdom has a difficult time permeating into their body. Sage folks often struggle with their body, bodily changes, and signs of aging. If they are so dissatisfied with their physical form why would they want to inhabit it deeper? Fortunately, Sage isn’t here to force us to be embedded in a body we struggle with but to learn how to descend into the wisdom that resides in our physical form without getting hung up on it. In a state of balance, Sage folk are the wisdom keepers and elders (regardless of age) that we are always in need of.

Contraindications : Avoid large doses during pregnancy. Avoid while nursing (it dries up the milk). In very large doses, its thujone content may adversely affect those with epilepsy, high blood pressure or kidney disease.

Dosage : Standard dosage. Hot tea to induce sweating, cold tea to stop sweating and discharge. 1 tsp per 8 oz water; Adults 30 - 60 drops tincture or 1 - 10 drops for drop dosage.

White Sage Smudging Alternatives

Since White Sage (Salvia apiana) is endangered, unless you are growing it on your own (which you should to help our beloved survive), I strongly encourage you to use a different herb for the purposes of smudging. Here is a short list of herbs that offer a wonderful alternative to White Sage as a smudge

Garden Sage (Salvia officinalis)

Juniper (Juniperus officinalis)

Cedar (Cedrus spp.)

Lavender (Lavandula officinalis)

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

Mugwort (Artemisia spp.)

Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha)

Frankincense (Boswellia spp.)

Copal (Protium copal)

Pine (Pinus sylvestri)

Smoke-Free Smudging Alternatives

Smoky smudge may be popular but it’s not always feasible (enclosed spaces, housing restrictions, allergies, etc) and there are plenty of smoke-free ways to cleanse a space.

Room Spray with salt and/or essential oils and/or flower essences

Crystals placed in a room or waved through the aura

Sound including your voice, bells, chimes, singing bowls and other instruments

Candles made of high-quality wax

Sunlight and fresh air

Croaking Toad Cough + Sore Throat Oxymel

An oxymel is a form of herbal syrup combining honey (or other liquid sweetener like agave or coconut syrup) with raw apple cider vinegar. Croaking Toad is a great remedy to have during cold and ‘flu season as it contains a combination of soothing expectorants and vitality supporting herbs to help us find our way back to feeling well.

Begin by combining the following dried herbs:

1 part Licorice Root (Glycyrrhiza glabra)

1 part Marshmallow Root (Althea officinalis)

1 part Elecampane Root (Inula helenium)

1/2 part Sage Leaf (Salvia officinalis)

1/4 part Chlorella Powder (Chlorella vulgaris)

Place all herbs in a glass jar with a tight sealing lid. Since we are using raw apple cider vinegar as our menstruum, you might choose to use a plastic lid or place wax paper between the metal lid and the blend to prevent corrosion. Cover your herbs with (preferably local) raw apple cider vinegar so that there is roughly 3/4 inch of the vinegar floating above or below the herbs. Let your blend brew for a few weeks - I typically brew all of my extracts for one cycle of the Moon.

Once ready, strain the herbs from the vinegar. Then, mix local raw honey with your herbal vinegar. My weight ratio for the vinegar to honey is 1 part vinegar to 6 parts honey. Basically, add honey to taste. If you want a sweeter elixir or oxymel, that is less herbally potent, add more honey. For a more herbally potent oxymel, add less honey. Stir together the honey and vinegar until they dissolve into one another in a loving embrace of healing wellness. Bottle and store in a cool dark place. I store mine in the refrigerator.

A dose of 1 teaspoon - 1 tablespoon is recommended up to 3 times daily during times of cough and sore throat.  You'll want to refrigerate your Croaking Toad Oxymel use within 6 - 12 months.

http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/crone-of-wisdom-sage-plant-profile?utm_term=0_fcddf938c4-196683d2cb-85143013&ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_26_2018_17_32_COPY_01)

[alexdeschanel]

Hi there,

Being in quarantine, I started checking my folders for no apparent reason, and you know, I came across ‘Aion’. OMG… Viewing screenshots, I felt great nostalgia for those good old days.

Aion is one of the most beautiful computer games in the MMORPG genre that I have ever played. More precisely, this is my first game of this genre.

I remember how I chose a race of Asmodians without giving it a second thought. They attracted me their unusualness, wrapped in mystery, demonic look unlike the Elyos with their arrogance and imperial bearing. They just looked like ordinary people. Next to ordinary.

I must confess I have always liked to have beneficent influence, so my first character was a cleric as he had skills of HP restoring.

As soon as everything began, it was extremely fascinating: that mystical atmosphere, wonderful background music with a beautiful singing voice at times, burning desire to complete the most difficult quests as soon as possible, for example, get rid of the Black Claw Elites, and learn some new skills like Resurrection or Flash of Recovery. It was so nice to see a dead player, heal him and get a deep gratitude from him. I think many people understand me well, especially Clerics and Chanters, and now Bards as well.

To be perfectly honest, I was not quite a skillful player in the early days to demonstrate my healing skills in practice because there was a strong desire to learn to stand up for myself than heal. I was motivated only by my wish to get… Nevertheless, I become quite a good healer with Benevolence by trial and error. I even remember it was possible for very few people to defeat me, except for Spiritmasters with their Fears and Assassins with their Stuns. You must admit that it is so pleasant to gain a victory. It concerns everything.

Unfortunately, there appeared to be less interest in this project with each update, and it was extremely frustrating because the spectacular game turned into a sad trash which differs in no way from other MMORPG games. I was under the impression that the person, who was responsible for the project development, just killed it.

The first thing, that I was upset, is receiving a lot of XP and gifts. Instead of raising the maximum level, the developers could remove all sorts of items and gifts that contribute to the rapid development of the character as well as return the original complexity of the quests and missions. Try and remember how people got Fenris or wings of the Circle. It was vitally needed, but now you are getting such a lot of experience, so many things became useless.

I think any kinds of players are much more pleasant to enjoy the gameplay when you need to make every effort to receive a reward. They have a goal. If they want to have a high-level character, they will do it themselves without any help. It is worth nothing that the very first players achieve everything themselves. For example, in Verteron, you cannot imagine how good it was to eliminate the monsters at the Tursin Garrison as most of them were elite, and it was not possible to go alone. Or the Fire Temple, full of a great number of monsters, with Kromede bristling with life to defeat which we must have got into the full group. Now two characters can do this. No adrenaline.

The second is modern items, tainting the fantasy atmosphere. Instead of creating motorcycles, making Gunners and Aethertechs and so on, they could create, for example, Masters of hand-to-hand combat like in Blade & Soul. By the way, I do not know so far who copies who because I have a huge suspicion that Aion and ArcheAge have the same ideas at times.

The third is ubiquitous rifts. I understand well that they have to be, but not everywhere.

For example, it is much better to remove any rifts in Inggison and Gelkmaros, when level 50 is reached, you will get permission to go there as it used to be and you should possess the two fortresses to have an entrance to the Silentera Canyon to visit the Beshmundir Temple or get to the enemy territory. They should also return negative effects to any rifts and set a level limit as it used to be. The level 65+ character has nothing to do in the initial locations and vice versa.

The fourth is Newcomers’ Server. Most of the players are just sitting there to get the maximum level, and when you decided to teleport to the enemy territory, you can see only tumbleweeds. What is the use of having enemies then?

The fifth is Abyss. This location is losing its meaning with each new update: if earlier people were going to the sieges, dungeons to earn some Abyss points, and then it lost all sense of its existence in the last update. It is worth noting that we do not have the equivalent of this wild location with its mysterious battle soundtrack in other games. I was impressed by Frozen too, but it does not mean that we got to cover everything with ice.

The sixth is skills. They should return a complexity of the skills development, the cost of ancient stigmas, and their former system one. Players used to have a goal to earn kinah, which were deleted as far as I know, and Abyss points to get skills. Coins, medals and so on were personal. The players are now taking everything on a silver platter. That is not interesting for anyone.

The seventh is a Soul Healer. They should remove all his ability to the blessing and regaining the HP, MP and flight time. It is sufficient that players can regain their recoverable experience. People sincerely used to ask Clerics and Chanters, especially the last one with his Blessing of Stone, to buff them, and now pay no attention.

The eighth is a storyline. They should return the previous one, so that players have an opportunity to go to the dungeons again, for example, the very same Fire Temple or Alquimia Stronghold to get uncommon skills. Now many important moments are flying by if they were not deleted yet, of course. Recently they made a group entrance to the Haramel and Kromede’s Trial. Like Edie Britt said: ‘What the hell you have been smoking?’

The ninth is minions. Instead of making them, it would be better to create a well-designed system for domestication of wild animals as they promised. It is much more useful and interesting. Instead of it they made transformation into Minions.

The tenth is equipment. They should remove the use of high-level equipment, its complete destruction and a 100% gain by magic stones. I think, many people remember when they inserted them into equipment and kept their fingers crossed. It was a sort of mental stress, you know. There is also need to rework the system of enchantment jewelry as the careless localizers put it in the game shop for real money at a high price, thereby destroying the game balance.

The eleventh is initial locations. They should return all of them because players should perfect the tactic skills of the chosen class as well as the attack zone in previously inaccessible locations Theobomos and Brusthonin. The twelfth is locations. They should return Sarpan and Tiamaranta as well as North and South Katalams. If they made a decision to get rid of those locations later, during the course of events in the Atreia history, they could deny the high-level characters every possible opportunity of teleporting there. New players do not know who Tiamat is.

They could create an open world and a wide stretch of water to make people set out on incredible adventures on open spaces of the huge world with powerful raid bosses and fierce sea battles.

As stated above, as a result of the advent of the open world, they could add peaceful areas for building of houses, it is precisely that building of houses which is of interest to us, and not buying them at an auction, in which you can set, for example, tables for crafts, and in the surrounding area you can grow materials used in them, for example, having collected seedlings or seeds in the wild using Essencetapping or Aethertapping. It is also necessary to develop a system of trade in order to earn money through the delivery of commercial cargoes.

Develop a system of raising the level of the legion, improve graphics and game mechanics. In other words, instead of creating a lot of second-grade projects, it would be better to do one, but great. How long are the Linage and the World of War Craft on the market? People are still interested in.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that most of the changes, like I said, were taken from ArcheAge, for example, hairstyles, the same skills of the High Daeva that in the above-mentioned game are called Ancestral levels and skills, and Archeage, in turn, created fly gliders in the form of wings.

I think a partial destruction of the game began with version 3.0. We all know about the existence of the so-called Master server, which is not available in many countries, but this is not what players need.

About one of the last updates, it is better to stay silent because most of the content was removed, simplified in the extreme, there was created a powerful Dragon Lord Ereshkigal, but pretty soon you have to kill her. Is it over? Of course not, now there is the next stage of mixing with ArcheAge: they created a location in which it is necessary to care for environmental protection, and in Aion it is a location with the laboratory polluting it.

I think if the developers were truly interested in developing their magnificent project which they killed, then it would have a great success. But now it is, like I said, the next sad trash.

[theprojectschool]

The Circularity of Time

The Infinitesimal and The Monumental Duration Spin & Weave: An Exploration of the Themes of Nationalism, Social Fabric & the Circularity of Time ‘ 

- interview with architect and interior designer Aarushi Kalra.

AM - Could you give a bit of context about the Gandhi project of using the hand spinning of cotton as an instrument to raise awareness of the independence from England? 

AK ‘ In 1909, in an anti-colonial move towards Indian self- sufficiency, against the British, Gandhi decided to revive a craft many saw as already dead: the hand- spinning of cotton into thread, using the Charkha - the Spinning Wheel of India. He saw spinning as an economic and political activity that could bring together the diverse population of the country and was a defining symbol in the struggle against the British rule. It was a symbolic call towards a self- sufficient India, highlighting the ‘Swadeshi Movement’ - a part of the Indian independence movement that contributed to the development of Indian nationalism. This movement aimed to make Indians rediscover their sovereignty and strengthen their pride in Indian heritage, while also disengaging with the imposed British norms and boycotting all British goods. Gandhi claimed that spinning thread in the traditional manner could create the basis for economic independence and the possibility of survival for India’s impoverished rural multitudes.  His choice to stand in solidarity with the poor of the country, while East India company was systematically exploiting them became a powerful symbol that then became the face of the movement and urged his more privileged followers to copy his example, and discard, or even burn, their European-style clothing, proudly returning to their ancient, precolonial culture. This simple act of spinning pierced through the varied Indian community, uniting all classes, caste, gender and creed into one cause and fabric. However, today it seems to be reduced to a static symbol; as a part of history and as a part of the India national flag. It lost its efficacy once its dynamic performance ceased to anchor a political movement. We retain now only the echo of its circular rhythm. 

AM - How did you come up with this idea of exploring the idea of the spinning wheel as a tool for reflection, almost crafting through time? 

Having grown up in India, Gandhi’s presence is all around us. Not necessarily as the figure we have studied throughout history, but as an integral subconscious symbol in day to day life – on the currency notes, names of the streets, etc. Moving out of India, for the first time, to pursue my post-graduation in London made me acutely aware of of my heritage. Moreover, at the time the news was flooded with updates on Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as the president, the building of the wall between US and Mexico and more news of the same nature from Russia, India etc. When we were presented with the brief that asked us to expose a political space of production that spanned the ‘infinitesimal to the monumental’, the symbol of the spinning wheel almost instantly came to my mind, as it was a simple machine and a simple activity that united the entire nation. I wondered how today the term nationalism has been broken and twisted to divide rather than unite. And as an extension of this thought, can it be argued that the spinning wheel that once spun the fabric of unity now spins the fabric of division? What once symbolized inclusivity now takes pride in furthering exclusivity? And that for me was the starting of “Spin & Weave”- a project that explores the theme of Nationalism, Social Fabric & the Circularity of Time. I was interested in investigating how a symbol, so intrinsically part of my own culture, can be revived to interact with present-day political, global occurrences. How a symbol of unity, can now represent boundaries? Based on my new insight into nationalism, this project was a way to explore whether this symbol out of its original context remains the same static image while showcasing the change of ideologies, or does it take on a new form and new meanings? The end piece was envisioned as a scaled model of an experiential installation which showed the two sides of the wheel. One, where a multitude of threads converge at its centre, representative of the people that would once come together to unite, while the other showed the same threads diverging into multiple directions disrupting the spectator's path and field of vision. To be able to traverse this space you might have to go over the strings or under them, cut them, tie them up, loosen them; but you have to make an effort to navigate this stretch. At the centre of all, is this spinning wheel, entangled in the boundaries it continues to weave. A wheel that cannot spin any longer but continues to monumentalise the act of spinning. 

AM - Did you consider/imagined the meditative properties of spinning when you created your project? 

“Take to spinning. The music of the wheel will be as balm to your soul. I believe that the yarn we spin is capable of mending the broken warp and weft of our life…”   – Mahatma Gandhi 

The process of spinning yarn is inherently meditative. It’s not something I originally considered at the beginning; however, it was hard to ignore it as I sat for days threading yarn, creating scaled models of the final output. There is a rhythmic cadence to it. It is monotonous, repetitive, but just as when you’re meditating it allows you lose yourself into it. It is a wonderful process to instil patience, stability and peace in an individual. Which in my belief had been of utmost importance at a time when the people of India needed to be level headed and find the strength to stand against the colonial rule. One of my biggest takeaways from this project was the lesson of patience and discernment. I learnt the importance of each individual’s effort in fuelling a collective power; which during the colonial time, created this beautiful, peaceful and unified fabric of my country. 

AM - Do you think that there is a connection between crafting/identity and narration? 

AK - In terms of physical and tangible materials, for sure. Every region, city and village boast of its own handmade traditions and skills, the ancestral knowledge embedded deeply in our cultures. The geographical location, environmental factors, and the available local materials initiated certain ancient practices that slowly got imbibed within the fabric of the place, which inherently defines its identity and a specific cultural viewpoint. Local materials are used to tell local stories in a particular cultural context. The way of using them only further adds to that. Anything that becomes tangible has an identity, and everything that has an identity has a narrative. Crafts are a way of giving shape to new forms, building a whole new database of identities and narratives in design. It enables the piece to embody the history, culture, socio economic political expression and the various personal stories and aspirations of the designers/ craftsmen. Art and design by nature are a form of storytelling. In no two cities or zones can the same art or craft be practiced in the same way. It is always adapted, and with this adaptation the story changes immensely across boundaries. This is the beauty of context in art, design and narratives. Any small change brought to any one aspect has a ripple effect on all the others, leading to a completely new personality of the base identity. An example of this is how from Japan's kimonos to Scottish tartan, and from Uzbekistani Suzani to Gandhi's push for Indian khadi, the culture of the world is woven, quite literally, into local fabrics. Though the machinery and techniques have been similar, yet throughout human history one look at a man’s clothing could tell you more than his words: his social standing, wealth, class, military rank and more. Historically cloth was unique to its region and country, sometimes literally tying in elements of the land and the people that live there. Even today in a globalized society where one can swipe through countries in no time, all groups of people have secrets hidden in patterns, dyes and fabrics that are waiting to be explored. - How do you think that we could share ancestral forms of knowledge without commodifying them? This is a very difficult conversation to have in the world today. There is a very fine balance between conserving and commodifying. We have lost so many art-forms simply because we haven’t been comfortable in the idea of commodifying them. There are various ways to share knowledge but as soon as they become quantifiable, it becomes a commodity. It almost seems to me as though we might need to change the way we understand commodities and become more mindful of the exchange of these. As a designer I believe in sharing ideas and culture, and I see no harm in others doing the same even if it comes at a certain cost. One can’t ignore the fact that one needs an income to enable these storytellers to run their own lives while comfortably dedicating their lives to the craft. This constant debate between conserving and commodifying, impacts the simplicity and the purity of exchanging stories and emotions through craft. 

AM - How do you deal with the idea of orality associated with tradition? For instance, in African countries, many times traditions are never recorded, so, we lose them, but on the other hand that is how they evolve naturally... so, if we record them, we somehow kill them in the sense that they no longer transform/evolve... 

AK - India has a very rich oral tradition. Take Indian Classical Music for example, where the original tradition of imparting knowledge over thousands of years was through recital with a minimal use of the written word. Recorded and written material developed, but only as a key to absolute basics. Beyond that, Indian classical music is still almost entirely improvised, improvisations based on these certain written ground rules. The same is true for most of our forms of Art, Dance and Scriptures. The oral tradition is in a sense trapped within the confines of a culture’s collective value system. It is first and foremost a group activity, and reinforces bonds within the culture, but it also depends on that group’s willingness to further keep the art of practicing and sharing alive. Writing, on the other hand, is an individual pursuit. Writing transmits ideas from other cultures that reside outside the local sphere and allows the individuals to interpret those ideas for themselves. Written or documented references not only cater to a wider audience, but also to a more distant generation; enabling them to enjoy, learn and reinterpret past stories, leading to a natural evolution that keeps these traditions relevant. The only drawback being the loss of understanding, guidance and the radicalizing of the written knowledge. I feel, this documentation must allow the artist to freely interpret and improvise this knowledge. The need of the hour today is also to learn the subtle language of symbolism and essence, not only to keep the traditions and rich stories alive as they were, but also to strengthen our understanding of each other’s thought processes and maintain a better harmony. 

AM - Do you think that it would be possible to create a project that would connect young artists with old craft studios to create sustainable projects in India? What is missing in terms of business channels that could render these local projects visible worldwide? 

AK - Every craft form is based on shared information that is continuously evolving. Formulating more and more collaborations where old traditions and skillsets are funnelled into the younger artists, along with a freedom to reinterpret them through their own experience and insight, might help bring these traditions to new light. Take for example how a khadi wheel works - the wheel is a form of analogue technology and weaving is a cultural idea. The practice pushes the technology and cultural idea embedded in it forward. Now, for a ‘young’ artist, some of these technologies or cultural practices may present a space of possibilities that may connect to their own practice; or a possibility where they can combine it in with the latest technologies - retaining its roots but giving the product a more global and widely accepted appeal. This may perhaps be a way to find a common ground and explore further. To a certain extent this has already started to happen. However what concerns me is that in the collaborative effort between the designer and the artisan, the designer gets all the credit and possibly the profit while the artisan has gained nothing more than what they always had. The need of the hour is to evolve the stature of the craft and the craftsman enough to give the artisans an incentive to believe in what they do, and for the younger generation to be willing to learn and continue this process. Now as far as contemporising the traditional crafts go, I believe it requires work in two divergent directions. One is that art forms and crafts become a natural part of life again, as they once were. An extremely simple example is how in parts of the country and world over plastic plates are being replaced by banana leaves. This was a common traditional way of eating in southern parts of India, and now again there are people working on spreading it across the country, not as a tradition or luxury, but as an absolute basic awareness. On the flipside, craft must also be innovated and made a part of high-end design. One that celebrates the craftmanship for its glory, and adds an aspirational ramp value to these ancient crafts. An example of that is furniture designers today are reviving and reinventing the dying craft of making utensils and artefacts by hammering brass—traditionally practised by a community of Assamese artisans, to create high end, contemporary and innovative products that are highly global in their appeal while the manufacturing techniques belong to the Indian handicrafts’ tradition of the country. Government, innovators, investors, crafts organisations and designers need to come together and work closely with the craftspeople; listen to their voices, build on their strengths, think out of the box and possibly create a regulatory body that connects various craftsmen to designers all over the world, almost like an open source. However, it needs to have its own regulations in place to ensure that artisans and craftsmen are not exploited, and can also gain from the exposure and the innovation, giving them a reason to believe in the craft they have spent their lives mastering, again.

AM - Ana Mendes

AK - Aarushi Kalra

Aarushi Kalra is an architect and an interior designer, recently graduated from the MA Interior Design at Royal College of Art. Currently she is in the process of setting up her own design wing based in New Delhi, India, by the name of I'mX - that aims to work fluidly between multiple disciplines. One that challenges and immerses viewers into provocative, layered and experimental environments. 

[mamascauldron]

Mama's Book: Eggshell Powder

Hi all!  I am currently kicking up my practice again now that the baby is a little more independent and I have time...she also likes to watch me in the kitchen, which is super cute and very convenient.  Part of my new efforts includes planning and researching for my Book of Wisdom (final name still pending), which I hope to make as a reference book and work of art.  If my little one gets into witchcraft and/or Paganism, I would love to hand it down to her and start a family line.  Her choice, of course!

One of the simple ‘recipes’ or ‘ingredients’, however you look at it, is eggshell powder.  I’ll go over its origins, how to make it safely, its uses in magic, and its other uses.  At the end, I’ll also mention how I personally use this in my practice!

Photo by Autumn Mott Rodeheaver on Unsplash

🗺 History & Origin 🗺

In terms of non-magical uses, my guess is that eggshells and eggshell powder have been used in gardening and medicine for as long as people have had eggs.  There is no clear origin that I’ve discovered for these uses.

In terms of magical use, Cascarilla Powder originated in West African practices.  Its origins are well-summarized below:

...the people of this region brought to the New World the concept of sacred white earth they called efun. ...Cut off from their ancestral lands, they sought an alternative that could achieve the same effects. This came in the form of an herbal powder called cascarilla. The finely ground outer bark of this large, tropical shrub was already known among the Caribbean natives for its medicinal properties ... In fact, the word cascarilla refers to any kind of outer skin or husk. ... Santeria practitioners transitioned from using this herbal powder to using crushed egg shells...

(Source)

You can find this already made in those little white ketchup cups for relatively cheap, but I prefer to make my own over time anyway.  I also personally don’t call what I make cascarilla powder, as I am not connected to or practicing Hoodoo, Voodoo, or Santeria.

🍳 How to Safely Make your Eggshell Powder 🍳

Make or bake something (yum!!!)

Wash the insides and outside of the eggs, removing the membrane

Store in the fridge if you still have more to collect before you process it (lessens the growth of yuck like salmonella) 

Place washed, de-membraned eggs on a cookie sheet to bake at 150f for 10 minutes (I did 170f, my oven doesn’t go so low in this place)

Let cool

Use a mortar & pestle or food processor/coffee grinder to grind the eggs

Store in a jar (food-grade if you intend to use it as a supplement or medicine: see below)

What I love is that many households already use eggs a lot, and this is something I can truly make.  For me, this fits perfectly into my goals regarding herbalism and my magical practice.

🕯 Magical Uses 🕯

The powder typically serves two main purposes:

Acting as a barrier, usually between the spiritual and physical realms.

Expulsion of negative energy.

Here are some specific ideas:

Press the powder into chalk and use it to draw circles, sigils, et cetera.

Add the powder to a ritual bath to be rid of negative energy.

Add it to a house cleaner, most efficient is a floor cleaner, to keep negativity and spirits away.

Dust your windowsills and doorways to create a barrier.

Put the powder in other spell-related things like soaps, incense, or candles.

🌿 Non-Magical Uses 🌿

Some of these can, of course, be made magical...but that isn’t how most people do these, which is why they’re included here.

Food supplement: the powder can be added to foods for anyone in need of increased calcium, instead of buying expensive supplements already. (Please talk to a doctor before doing anything like this; this is not medical advice).  I personally recommend the coffee grinder/food processor preparation for a finer powder.

Gardening: nutrients for the soil (put some in the holes before planting, and then around the plants every couple of weeks).  Broken shells can also deter common garden pests like snails and slugs since they dislike the texture.  

Also, eggshells are a great seed starter: rinse empty eggs (try to keep at least half of the shell as a little pot), poke a small hole in the bottom to drain, fill with soil, plant a couple of seeds, and store the starters in the empty carton until they’re ready for their home.  You can plant the entire thing, shell and all!

Cleaning: eggshells are abrasive but soft (being calcium) so you can mix the powder into cleaning agents for your floors...or even your skin! Make sure the powder is an appropriate grit for the use.

🌱 My Use 🌱

Green and garden witchcraft are my favorites . I also incorporate kitchen and cottage witchcraft. For all of them, I want to grow some of my own herbs and, if possible, veggies.

This spring, I'll be using the seed starter idea as well as sprinkling the shells onto the soil to try and grow plants such as basil, rosemary, bay, and mint. I'll plant the seeds in the starters during the next new moon.

I can see the possibilities of incorporating lunar cycles with banishing and the powder, too.

Do you use it? If so, how?

Thanks for reading!

[chronicparagon]

Bittersweet Beginnings

@spiritsintertwined

After a long day, Harmony has been looking forward to the end of it. Today is a little special and she still couldn’t believe it would happen. Today is when Yugi would have a chance to visit her house. She’s not sure what he may think of it, but hopefully, he won’t find it too strange.

The apartment is a little small but has enough room for a small family to live in. The largest room is a living room on one end with the kitchen at the other with a counter separating the two sections. The doors to the master bedroom and her own bedroom remains closed. Harmony wants to respect her parents’ privacy and she doesn’t want Yugi to see her bedroom being a mess along with one of her bigger secrets. Despite her age, Harmony still collects stuffed animals. She doesn’t want to come off as too immature for holding on to her plushes.

The living room’s decor is a bit different. It included the essentials, such as the large, low table standing between a television on an entertainment center and a simple, black sofa. A large rug laying over the hard floor bears rich shades of color in a design popular in the southwestern region of the United States. A brightly colored star quilt hangs like a tapestry behind the couch.  A buffalo skull hangs on the wall with a sun painted from its forehead. Beaded bands of red, yellow, black, and white hug its horns with feathers hanging from the bands.  Photographs of Harmony’s family decorate the walls along with a few paintings showing vast prairies and of her tribe’s glory days when the entire west was their domain. Even photos of Harmony as a child are apparent, revealing her to be a chubby little girl, not the athletic woman that she came to be.

Two glass doors lead to a small balcony outside where two large, clay pots filled with hydrangeas stand. Nestled in a corner of the living room closest to the doors to the balcony is a small table that holds special items. A frame stands in the middle holding a photo of a man with silver streaks in his jet black hair bound in twin braids. Dark eyes hold great sincerity and lines telling the story of his life mark his dark skin. He stands wearing a black cowboy hat decorated with a band made from rattlesnake skin. A necklace hangs around his neck that bears a bear claw. The same hat hangs on the wall above the table, the necklace, which became a goodbye present to Harmony, lays on the cabinet surrounding the photo. Instead of incense that is a staple in ancestral alters, an abalone shell sits with remnants of burnt herbs resting on it. A fan made of eagle feathers rests beside the shell.

Harmony did all she could to clean the place with little time she had. At least she wiped down the balcony doors until it reflected.

She rushed back home from swimming practice in hopes to have everything ready. Unfortunately, she was a little behind and still had to prepare dinner by the time Yugi arrived. As always, Harmony adapted and told Yugi that he could watch television and take a look around the room while she cooked

“I’m so glad you could come over today. It gets lonely with Mom and Dad spending more time at the Base.” Harmony says over the sizzling skillet before her. They work hard for the Air Force, so she knows it’s not like they choose to stay there. She pauses for a moment when guilt hits her.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be ungrateful. They work hard, but...I do miss them and...You know what I mean, yeah?” Harmony continues her work over the stovetop with her back facing the living room. Her spatula flips the burgers over on the skillet, igniting a series of sizzles and an occasional pop. “I hope you like this. Burgers are one of your favorites, I believe. I haven’t made any in ages, but they’re not too difficult.” The girl turns her head over her shoulder to get a better look of her friend. Though she can’t seem him very well at the moment.

“Oh, did you have a chance to look at tonight’s assignment? I’ve been having a little bit of trouble with it. Math isn’t my best subject.” She adds with a laugh. A change in topic is better than dwelling on the reality of being home alone. It always made her wary. Thankfully, Yugi will be here for at least a little while. “It’s okay if you haven’t done anything with it yet. Maybe we can work together with the problems.”   Harmony adds while taking the finished patties from the hot skillet to a plate.

“Hmmm...Okay, one more dish and we can eat. It shouldn’t be much longer now.”  She sets the burgers on the counter with the buns, vegetables, and condiments. A brief check on the fries and she pulls them out of the oven. “There we go! I got everything done. Would you like to help me move everything to the living room? It doubles as a dining room.” Harmony turns around for the first time since she started to prepare the food. She has no idea that the altar dedicated to her grandfather or the spiritual items throughout the house may trigger something otherworldly. Gray eyes turn to the glass door that separates the balcony from the apartment. Harmony has no idea that what she would see reflecting on the glass is nothing like her friend.

[witchypupil]

Practicing Witchcraft: What You Should Know About Blood Magic

Blood Magic

‘Blood magic’. conjures up all kinds of gothic images, doesn’t it? The very word ‘blood’ is a real attention-grabber. Combine it with words like ‘magic’, ‘ritual’, ‘spell’ or ‘rite’, and usually thoughts fly to human sacrifices on a stone altar dripping with dark red and other images that look like something straight out of a horror movie.  

As usual, the fiction is much darker and more stirring than the reality of it. Yes, blood can be dangerous— both magically and mundanely. But fire can also be dangerous, no one would think to tell you not to use it to cook your meals. You just have to learn how to use it safely and properly.

The truth is, blood magic can be quite potent if you’re inclined to do it, and if you know what you’re doing. It should not be undertaken lightly, or carelessly; but it doesn’t deserve the ‘taboo’ stamp that many are quick to give it.

Using Blood in Magic and Spells

The Power of Blood

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that blood is a powerful thing. This is something that is so embedded in us that we all understand it. Fear and awe of blood goes way back to our earliest human ancestors. The sight of that bright red fluid -- whether it was coming from an enemy or friend, your prey or yourself – got immediate attention. Blood is associated with such powerful concepts that some people can’t stand the sight of it, and might faint away if presented with too much. Hemophobia is the fear of blood.

Blood is associated with death: the slain warriors on the field, the victim of violence, the hunter’s prey all lay bloody in their final state. Blood is also associated with life: it’s part of the cycle of fertility that perpetuates life. If you lost too much blood, you would grow weak and die. If your blood is tainted, you will wither.

Blood is associated with pain: you see it when you stumble and fall, have an accident, or fight. Blood is also associated with passion: when you love doing something, when you are good at it, it’s ‘in your blood’. Someone you love, particularly family members, are your ‘blood’. Blood connects you to things, or others. Even if you don’t know someone, you can empathize with them, your ‘heart bleeds for them’. Blood is passion, it’s connection, it’s raw emotion.

Blood is life. It courses through your body delivering oxygen and nutrients to every part of you. Blood is energy—when you push yourself, your heart pounds and your pulse races as your blood flows even faster.  A woman bleeds during her menstrual cycle, she bleeds when her hymen breaks, there’s blood at childbirth. If you donate blood you might be saving someone’s life.

Whatever little microscopic bits are floating around in there contain the very essence for all that you are. A scientists can (illegally) clone you if they had just a drop of your blood. Your blood contains your DNA—a blueprint not just for you, but your complete ancestral line.

Something that contains this much power is naturally powerful in magic. Perhaps some would say it’s too powerful.

Blood Magic is Not Blood Sacrifice

Blood Magic: No Harm Necessary

Blood magic is not magic that involves killing people or animals in ritual sacrifice. Let’s just make that clear. We’re not talking about laying some innocent creature out on an altar or in the center of a pentagram and killing it, or wounding it. This would be all kinds of wrong, not to mention illegal, and is not at all what I mean when I talk about blood magic.

Blood magic is the use of a few drops of blood during a spell or ritual—usually your own blood, but if you are casting for someone else you could use theirs (with caution and permission, of course).  Those few drops can add power to a magical working in any number of ways.

Is Blood Magic Evil?

The first thing you need to learn about blood magic is that it’s not inherently evil. Blood isn’t evil, is it? Does it make you ‘evil’ or desire to do malicious deeds just because it’s currently inside your body? If not, why do you think it would it become ‘evil’ outside of your body? Some people mistakenly think that using blood in magic is ‘dark’ or somehow only associated with malevolent intentions. This is simply not true.

The negative connotations stem back to that fear of blood I spoke about earlier: fear of our own mortality, fear of power, etc., are the kind of driving factors behind a fear of blood. Indeed, if you are hemophobic, you might want to avoid blood altogether. It’s not for everyone.

But I come from a more objective perspective. I see blood – like any object or component you would use in magic – as simply a tool. It’s a very powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. It’s neither benevolent nor malevolent in its own right. You could use it for any number of purposes, though like any other tool it’s not advised to use it for unethical purposes.

Going back to the fire analogy—I could use fire to burn down my neighbor’s home when they piss me off. I have access to fire, which can be a very powerful destructive choice if I choose. So what stops me? The fact that I am an ethical person who has no interest in hurting others. Just because I don’t want to hurt someone with fire doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use it. By the same logic, I don’t want to hurt someone with blood magic; just because I don’t want to cause harm with it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feel free to utilize this powerful tool.

A good implement to have for blood magic is the prickers that diabetics use to test their blood sugar.

A Little Goes a Long Way

Practicing Safe Blood Magic

Before I begin discussing ways to use blood in magic, let’s discuss ways to use it safely. First, there are a few don’ts to keep in mind:

Don’t ever take more than a few drops

Don’t ever take blood from an unwilling participant (this includes animals because they cannot give consent)

Do not smear your blood on people, let people smear blood on you, or try to exchange blood in any way; remember that many diseases can be transferred through blood

Do not ever consume blood, either directly or by putting it into a drink; aside from the fact that you can catch diseases, blood itself is toxic to human beings. More than a couple of teaspoons can cause haemochromatosis and potentially do some serious organ damage.

Don’t let others drink your blood, either directly raw or by putting it into food or drinks; this is essentially giving your power over to that person, and not in a good way.

The correct way to perform blood magic safely would be:

Sanitize the area of skin with an alcohol pad or sanitizing gel.

Sanitize a small poking implement, such as a pin.

Poke only enough to break the skin.

Squeeze out your few drops to collect for your use

Clean the wound immediately and put some antibiotic ointment on it. If it’s still bleeding, put a bandage on it.

Handle and dispose of anything that has been touched with blood with extreme caution until the end of your ritual or spell.

Disinfect surfaces (of your skin and your work space), implements and any other tools after performing blood magic.

Keep the wound clean as it heals.

If you are a woman and you prefer, you can use your menstrual blood (moon blood, blood of the moon) rather than pricking yourself. You can catch menstrual blood easily with a diva cup if you need to temporarily preserve it for ritual—just don’t hang onto it very long, and all the same sanitary practices regarding care and clean-up also applies.

When (and When Not) to Use Blood Magic

I can't tell you exactly when and where blood magic is your best option, but I can tell you my reasoning: I use it only in extreme need for the most important circumstances.

I’ll use it for protection— not minor protection, such as if my co-worker is a nuisance I’m not going to use blood magic to keep her out way; but major protection, when there is a potential for serious life-changing threats (accident, crime, etc.)

I’ll use it for health and wellness—not minor issues like sore throats or skinned knees, but big health issues like disease, injuries, surgery or breaking unhealthy addictions.

I’ll use it for desperate needs—not minor things like saving money for a Disney trip, but big things like if I were on the verge of being homeless or starving I would use it to draw what I need to survive

That’s about it. I have more rules about when to never use it:

I never use blood magic unless I’m (or the person I’m doing it on behalf of is) fully prepared to accept whatever the consequences may be (which means thinking them through very carefully).

I never use it to target other people without their permission (unless, of course, it’s deadly necessary for protection; I had no issue banishing a violent family member who refused to leave my mother’s home and threatened my life with a gun)

I never use it in love or relationship magic; bonds between people need to be naturally developed, not forced. Blood magic turns a potential bond into a chain: emotional slavery.

I never use it to gain power; if you can’t earn it naturally, you don’t deserve it and probably won’t know how to wield it.

I never use it to bring harm to anyone or anything.

I never use it for vengeance or retaliation

Spell Casting with Blood

Using Blood in Magic

Now that you know the correct way to safely use blood in magic, let’s talk about how you might put it to use. There are countless ways, actually, limited only by your imagination. But here are a few ideas to get you started.

In candle magic, mix blood drops with oil to dress and charge your candle.

Use a small drop or two to anoint and charge any talisman or amulet.

In jar or container magic, add a few drops of blood to the container.

In petition magic, smear some blood on the paper the petition is written on.

Place a drop of blood in a mojo bag before tying it up.

Alternatives to Blood

Though not entirely as powerful as blood, there are other things you can use to personalize a spell and lend it a boost: urine, saliva, semen, nail and hair clippings, for example. These are all effective options that will lend power to minor workings, or workings when blood magic wouldn't be appropriate or advised.

When you're first learning magic, it's advised that you work with these first before graduating on to blood. Take some time, experiment with these things. You'll begin to get a sense of how much putting 'part of yourself' into a spell affects your magic.

Once again, nothing is inherently good or bad—it all depends on how you choose to utilize it. So practice ‘safe magic’ and you'll be okay.

-Mackenzie Sage Wright  

https://exemplore.com/wicca-witchcraft/Witchcraft-for-Beginners-What-You-Should-Know-about-Blood-Magic

artwork: http://evil.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_Blood_Magic.jpg

[classyfoxdestiny]

Shankar's Fairies: The Indian Film that Wowed Locarno

Shankar's Fairies: The Indian Film that Wowed Locarno

‘My Nani passed away in January 2016 and the house belonged to her and my Nana.’ ‘After they passed away, the family decided to sell the house.’ ‘My mother’s immediate response was that we have to make a film in this house before it was sold.’

IMAGE: Irfana Majumdar with her mother Nita Kumar.

Revisiting childhood memories is a familiar theme that film-makers like to explore for the screen.

But it is not always easy to represent nostalgia with warmth, honesty and innocence of the time period, especially without an added dose of melodrama.

Irfana Majumdar‘s Shankar’s Fairies captures the childhood memories of the director’s mother, Nita Kumar, who wrote the script and produced the film.

It is a beautifully moving film, handled with much gentleness.

It is somewhat similar in tone and mood to the 2019 Maithili language film Gamak Ghar — a quiet story about Director Achal Mishra’s ancestral house in Jharkhand.

But Shankar’s Fairies has more layers and universal themes: The stories a domestic help Shankar shares with the kids of his employers; the larger narrative of domestic workers who leave their children in villages so they can take care of wealthy people’s homes and their offspring; parents who are busy with professional and social engagements and find little time to focus on their children; and the rhythm of life in a medium level Indian city in the early 1960s.

Majumdar also acts in the film, playing the role of her grandmother.

Theatre artist Gaurav Saini, who is married to the director, steps in as film’s associate director as well as Majumdar’s character’s husband — a senior police officer whose house is packed with a retinue of gardeners and other workers, including the film’s protagonist, Shankar.

Majumdar recently traveled to Switzerland for the film’s world premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival.

The film was well received and Majumdar was stopped on the streets by local people who told the director how much they had loved the film.

“I think it was a great collaboration because we have distinct skills and areas of expertise. I don’t think I could have done it on my own,” Majumdar tells long-time Rediff.com Contributor Aseem Chhabra by phone.

  IMAGE: Jaihind Kumar as Shankar in Shankar’s Fairies.

Irfana, are you based in Mumbai?

No, I live just outside Benaras in a village called Betawar.

We have an organisation for arts, education and environment that my parents started in 1990. It’s called Nirman.

We have a theatre studio where we do projects.

Many years ago, I had a theatre group, but now we do our research and training.

There is a school, the first major project that began in 1990.

It’s a regular CBSE school but based on arts and ideas of the environment. I studied there between Class 5 and 10.

Then we have a research centre which had a study abroad programme.

Earlier, foreign students would come to attend lectures and seminars.

We have art studios.

I am mostly involved in theatre and film there, but I have taught in the school. I am still involved with the vision committee.

Your mother produced Shankar’s Fairies. I read that she was teaching in California. Was she based there?

She just retired from the Claremont McKenna College in California.

Her heart has always been in India but she has taught in the US for 30 plus years.

She would come twice a year to India and spend about five months.

IMAGE: Shankar and Anjana in Shankar’s Fairies.

What I find interesting is that you worked with your mother and husband to make this film. You and your husband acted in the film, while it was your mother’s story. Creatively, how did you guys work together and how many times would you argue in a day?

Well, we have collaborated in the past as well. My husband is also in theatre so we have similar roles. He is a director and teacher.

We have different areas of interest in theatre, but we have experience with each other’s working style.

My mother and I have collaborated in the operation of Nirman.

Creatively, this was our first major project, so it was new in that way. We enjoyed it.

I think it was a great collaboration because we have distinct skills and areas of expertise. I don’t think I could have done it on my own.

We would argue a lot. All of us have strong opinions.

During the four-five months of pre-production, we would have meetings all day where we would discuss the script.

My mother had written a draft of the screenplay and she also wrote a prose story.

The story was not set in stone in terms of the sequence of events.

She had all the different anecdotes and they could have gone in any direction.

If she liked a particular anecdote, we would go in depth into the themes behind it, how it connects to other things, the characters…

We would dissect each scene in figuring out what we were saying in the film.

That’s the time we perhaps had the most arguments, although I don’t even remember what they were about.

But would you have the final creative control since you were the director of the film?

That way, everyone was clear. During the shoot, I was the only one figuring out the scenes.

My mother stepped back and Gaurav was acting in the film.

It was a very low budget project so they did a lot of production related work during the shoot.

After that, during the post-production, I was the only one working on the film.

They watched the edits and gave feedback. But only I sat with the editor and worked it all out.

IMAGE: Shankar narrates a story to Anjana.

At what stage did your mother say that she had this idea for a film and script? Would she narrate her childhood memories to you?

It happened in a slightly different way. My Nani (maternal grandmother) passed away in January 2016 and the house belonged to her and my Nana.

It was his grandfather’s house and jointly owned by my Nana and his four brothers. But only my grandparents lived there.

After they passed away, the family decided to sell the house.

My mother’s immediate response was that we have to make a film in this house before it was sold.

It was the feeling of preserving an entire lifestyle and so many memories of her childhood.

Her way of life and our way of life is different. It was an important part of her.

It felt like it was coming to an end.

Making a film was a way to save that memory, freeze that time.

Where did Shankar’s stories come from? Does your mother remember these stories from her childhood?

The stories are ones we chose, not the actual ones from my mother’s childhood.

While he was staying with us, we asked the actor, who played Shankar (Jaihind Kumar), to read collections of folk tales.

He would re-tell them to us in the evenings, both to practice narrating stories and so that we could chose the ones we liked.

The djinn story was contributed by (journalist) Mehru Jaffer, who lives in Lucknow and writes about the city. It’s a story her father used to tell her.

Where is this house where the film was shot?

Lucknow. My mother didn’t grow up there since she was a daughter of a police officer and her father was posted to different locations, many different towns of UP. They moved to this place only after my grandfather retired.

All these houses had a similar feel. In a way, this was the house I grew up in because I spent so many summer vacations and other times there.

So it was an interesting mix of my memories of this house and my mother’s memories of her childhood.

Did you add anything to the house? That jhoola which features so prominently in the film, was it always there or you added it for the film?

There was a jhoola in my childhood. It was a common thing in those houses.

But the tree and the jhoola became a symbol for the film.

I see you have the jhoola in your DP in your WhatsApp account. It was just lovely hearing the story Shankar narrates about the fairies sitting on the jhoola and suddenly the camera takes us to the jhoola as is it gently moving. It is one of the most magical moments in the film.

IMAGE: Anjana on the jhoola in Shankar’s Fairies.

Irfana, you had made a few documentaries. But as a first-time feature film-maker, how did you capture the essence of a quiet home? The opening scenes of the sun rising, the workers are sweeping the grounds around the house, the house slowly waking up. I understand a lot of that quiet tone comes through editing. But how did you get it cinematically? You can write memories in books but to bring them in cinema requires a different skill set.

For us, the house was the essential element of the film. The physical feel was always very important.

It was all part of my memories — waking up, seeing the light streaming in from the ventilators, the high ceilings, days when time stretched on, being outside and inside, all those feelings.

So when I was trying to think of how the look of the house should be, all these memories were at the forefront of my decision making.

The characters are placed in that context. I always wanted that visual layer.

Since you know the feeling you are going for, you keep adjusting the elements to get to that.

You cannot plan it in advance but you fine-tune and make minor adjustments during the shoot.

I know theatre is a very different medium but my training in theatre and my experience in different arts and other aesthetics — all of that contributed to the feel and the mood of the film.

We worked so much with the space, what the audience should experience.

Besides you and your husband, how did you cast the three main actors: The man who played Shankar and the young girl and boy?

Jaihind Kumar is an actor in Mumbai. He has played minor roles so far.

He is a friend of my husband from his film and theatre days in Mumbai. He came for the audition.

My husband was very sure about him. We spent quite a lot of time working with him.

He came to Lucknow and stayed with us in the house for three months.

Initially, we didn’t tell anyone that he’s the lead actor, so he worked as the servant of the house and stayed in Shankar’s room which you see in the film.

We don’t always follow such a method, but with him, we thought he should experience the character more intensely.

Every day, the three of us would do some acting exercises for a couple of hours.

He had to be familiar with everything he had to do.

The essence of Shankar is that he is very skilled as a domestic help.

So the poor thing, he played the lead role and he couldn’t stay in a five-star hotel.

Ya (laughs).

When I read that Gaurav and you are married, I began to believe that those two kids are your children.

(Laughs) Many people have thought that. We did workshops in a few schools in Lucknow.

My husband works a lot with children in theatre, age three onwards, and so he conducted them mostly.

The girls we liked, we would invite them, play and interact with them.

The moment we chose this young girl (Shreeja Mishra) was when Gaurav was telling them a story about fairies and she was listening.

You could see it in her eyes that she half believed it.

We just wanted this child to be at the cusp, still believing in fairies, not losing the innocence.

Some of the other girls were good. but they were past that innocence stage.

We worked a lot with her. She would come over almost every day after school.

How old was she when you were shooting?

She was nine years old.

The relationship and comfort she had with Shankar, even though she knew she was acting, seemed so natural. You start to believe that she and the little boy have known this man in real life. I guess you did a lot of workshops with the three of them.

Yes. The little boy (Adwik Mathur) was only four at that time.

He was more reserved.

We wanted them both to develop a relationship with Shankar and us.

Shreeja is very talented. Even I am blown away by the expressions in her eyes.

I am so impressed with how much you achieved so much in such a low budget. There is something so unique in the narrative. I was reminded of Kabuliwala. Did you think of stories like that?

In the beginning, I didn’t think of the influences.

We were wrapped in the project and the enormity of it.

It was the first narrative film I was working on.

Later I realised that there were many sources to pull from.

Of course, there is the training in film-making, but all your experiences and reading also influence your thought.

It’s better not to be too concrete about things you are drawing from and allow for it to go through your less conscious intuitions.

I saw the video of the making of the film. You shot it in 2016. I saw the work-in-progress cut of the film at NFDC’s Film Bazaar in 2019 and then the pandemic ruined everyone’s lives. But you have been with this film for a very long time.

We cheated a little bit. The idea of the film suddenly came to us, but we had other plans and projects as well.

Right after the film was shot, we went off on a theatre tour.

Then my husband and I had a baby.

So I got back to the film in the beginning of 2019. That’s when I worked on the edit.

Our German editor left last year because of the pandemic, even though it was going very well.

So I made another edit for last year’s Cannes market. I worked with Tanushree Das (Eeb Allay Ooo) to edit the final cut.

It was a lot of getting into the film and then leaving it a few times. In a way, that helped me.

We had scripted the film, but it wasn’t plot driven and set in stone.

It allowed me the time to think about what we were trying to do.

You dedicate the film to Shankar. Was that the real person’s name? Is he still alive?

Shankar’s is the only name we didn’t change, so yes, there was a real Shankar. He passed away in 1988.

Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com

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[reedsy-short-stories]

The Glory of Ramadan

by M.A.Q. Rizvon

In the sparsely clouded western sky the splendor of the setting sun was paling into a silvery twilight when the crescent, heralding the birth of Shavval , came into view. And all at once, gleams of joy crept into a million eyes and a million houses rang with the laughter of children rejoicing the eve of Eid.

 Young men congregated in groups of eight or ten and stormed the stalls vending hot jilaebis and steaming glasses of milk. They had the most important task to fulfill.  Finalise tomorrow’s programme of visits to relations and photo studios and the inevitable cinemas.

 And rosy cheeked maidens in the full bloom of youth lay back on sofas or mattresses and pillows spread on floors.  Their joy was in reviewing toorrow’s informal parade of new dresses, new makeup and who knows, start, Insha Allah, of a new romance; the long awaited one could be a guest mong relatilons coming in toconvey Eid Greetings with gifts and flowers in hand.

But in a miserable dwelling in an ill lit quarter of the city, a young man in his underclothes was pacing his little room up and down. Yet another of the educated unemployed,      scions of families clinging to a near regal past and a most difficult present of a jobless and penniless concerns.  An ill managed charity trust helped him meet the barest essentials of a college education. For his living expenses, his eye raised to Allah nd somehow starvation was kept at bay.  The local parliamentarian patronage and he made a handsome living writing speeches and managing his informal office at a low, low remuneration.

 On this night of nights when even the poorest of the land were looking forward to an Eid of Fith’r doles from the affluents, he found no silery lining beyond the dim electric bulbt that was his best companions for nights of worries and lack of sleep. He hd a knotty problem to solve and his inborn good sense preventied him from howling and banging walls to buff out his despair. Nothing in the world allow him to add to the pains and problems of his widowed mother.

 He had yielded to an indiscretion that was unavoidable at his age.  Brand new and gorgeous clothes for Eid! He felt desperate as he reviewed his hopeless situation.   He the foloshness to walk to the city’s high class outfitter – patronized by the Khan Sahib –and ordered a princely attire for himself.  Sherwani, jibba and pyjama of expensive material. The bill: twothousand five hundred rupees!  And it had to be paid and the clothes taken before 8 A.M. the next morning. The tailor was a decent guy but a man of business.  Terms cash and no dithering.  If the deadline was not met, he would call in another client, whose measurements were close to his own and dispose of the master cut outfit that was, as the maker said, fit for a bridegroom!

 Poor Manzoor! His was an unenviable state of mind. The more he thought about the challenge facing him, the more desperate became his state of mind. From where could he hope to earn such a huge sum within so short a time? He had none to help him except his aged, widowed mother whose only  source of funds was a paltry amount of just a thousand rupees she could collect by way of rent for a thatched house in  a distant part of the city.  That too had been spent away days ago. And she could meet household expenses only with the small amounts kind hearted neighbours would lend her now and then. There was not  the faintest hope of his need being fulfilled.

 Yet his determination proved irrevocable.  For, at the age of twenty, he could not be expected to resist the temptations of romance that was being thrust upon every young person from the books, magazine and wall posters all around the city.  

 Hence, it was but natural for him to look upon rich and vivacious Rifath’s regard for him as blind, uninitiated love. To him, the fact did not appear to be of any worth that the courtesy and high regard she extended to him was not for him as a suitor but for his talent as an up and coming Urdu poet and public speaker of rare charm. but her admiration of his talent in composing and reciting exquisite ghazals, lyrics, at youth mushairah’s at the college. And, at literary events in their city, she was asked to introduce him and she called him “My dear friend” and praised him as the “pre eminent poet of the age”. This earned him the jealousy and rage of the high brows who hovered around her on such occasions. And he had felt elated when his own friends called him “Rifath’s boy friend”.

 He felt he owed her the duty to appear immaculately dressed at her Eid party the next evening.  He could not think of any dress other than the Shae rwani and Pyjama that the tailor was getting ready for him, as suitable for the occasion. It was indeed a pity that his abject penury could prevent him from taking delivery of those clothes before eight in the morning when the tailor was sure to find another buyer of his own size for them.

 His mother called him for the night meal but he declined, saying he had been to an Ifthaar party hosted by a friend and they had dumped too many savories on his plate and he would not be able to eat anything more. Unlike other moms she had learnt to respet his oddities and left him alone to sort out his thoughts and soften his mood.

 The city had settled down to a quiet though uneasy sleep. He lay down on his cot (a chaarpaayeeh,  bed formed of a bamboo frame with zigzagging fibre ropes for body rest) and tried to lull himself to sleep.  But an hour crawled by and he could find no respite from the anguish that was choking him..He rose and resumed his practice of pacing up and down his small room and pausing now and then to thump his clenched fist on its lone  table and frowning at his own reflection in the mirror nailed to the wall behind it.

 In the past this drama had helped him to cool down and keep his agony from a violent outburst that could shock his mother. But on this memorable night, it failed him and he had to discipline himself.

 The timepiece on the table told him it was nearing midnight. He realized he could ignore his soaring emotions no more.  The stuffy atmosphere of the room was suffocating him. And his lungs yearned for the fresh air outside. He dressed himself and came out, telling his mother he would have a glass of tea from the stall nearby and came out.

 The night was, unbelievably, pleasant.  A cool breese was on and the thin strilp of starstudded sky amidst the parallel rows of houses in the narrow street was so beautiful and soothing to his nerves and his mental agitation.

 He walked on at a brisk pace, not caring where he was going and why. He felt he should not lose hope. There could be a way out of this mire, the way things in his life had sorted themselves out. He seemed to be in for mental fatigue as he forced himself again and again to think out some way or the other of earning twothousand five hundred rupees before daybreak..  He had no problem finding his way as he had grown up in these narrow and winding lanes and he felt quite safe and sure something would turn up in time to relieve his agony.

 With doubts crisscrossing his mind, it took him half an hour to reach the posh area of the city that was nicknamed by the less fortunates as the Aristoland. The lights wee brighter and more decorous, the tree lined avenue was best maintained and freed of both the dust and grime of other localities. Both sides of this imperious roadway, stood the mansions of the rich and the might, each an enclosed .half acre of manicured lawn and colourful foliage.

 Manzoor noted that only one of the mansions had it lights on and it was the ancestral home of Nawab Mohsin Khn, the current Mayor of the city. Maybe the Leader, as his followers called him, was preparing the speech over radio, that was an annual event of Ramadan. If he had called on the great man earlier in the day, he could have done some good to the rich man and also earned a handsome reward. Maybe the opportunity was not lost. He quickened his pace and reached the mansion within seconds.

 The ornate gate, painted green and gold, opened as he reached it.  The security guard gave him a sylish salute. And like a courtier from their Moghul past, he made a deep bow and said “Welcome Badshah!” as though e was receiving a monarch and not a young man seeking a job and a reward.  He led Manzoor to the huge office room and asked him to be seated. And he called the Nawab Saheb over the intercom and informed him of the young man’s arrival and left. .

 Manzoor sat back, in fact, he sank into the deep comfort of the imported sofa. For once he felt the aura of high living and felt himself a part of fit. He felt the load was off his chest ad he breathed easy and relaxed. Already, from his heart and in his mind, he felt the upsurge of a strange new feeling.  Was it courage, toughness, bravery, the daring to take on the opposition and care not for the consequence?

 The door opened and the Nawab came in.  He was handsome and sprightly, more like Captain Pataudi than the robust, rotund and regal rich of the time. The young visitor rose and walked up to him and they shook hands.

 The big man was eloquent in his welcome: “Khush Aamdeed and Eid Mubarak! I mso happy you came.  Be seated we have to talk lot”.

 “I’ m sorry to disturb you at this hour, Khan Saheb. I was psssing this way with friends than I saw the lights were on and dared to come in”.

 “Manzoor Khan!” It was the big man’s specialty to share his own title with all his friends. “You know we don’t stand on formalities.  You’re welcome any time. But this time it is a Rahmath. blessing, from Allah that you came“.

“Harayeh Khidmah” the visitor said and rose. :If there is anything I can do for you.  We’re honored when you praise us like this”.

 The Khan’s hand signaled him to remain seated and he said, “I don’t know if you were there.  I didn’t go to the Urs of the Dargah last night. Two groups clashed instead of offering salutations and respects to the great saint. The police informed me the riiot was started by the ruffians hired by those who gain from violent upheavals like this. The Chief Minister called me. He was deeply concerned.  Two guys, one a student and the other a salesman are in hospital with serious wounds.  They will recover but the peace and calm  of our city hs been shattered. The CM has asked me to discuss the event with leaders and advise them to reunite and restore the sanctity of the mausoleum.  The Urs had been going onr fo over a thousand years. Other festivals are to follow.  We cannot afford these events of joy and bonhomie to be turned into rowdy battles. I have assured him of my fullest support. And I have convened a leaders’ meeting tomorrow after Eid. Prayers. We will issue a nice appeal to the conscience of the people not to allow even a single repeat  of such devilry anywhere in our district.”

  “If I can write ……”

 “Yes. Sure you’re the best guy for the job.  Here are my notes.  I have a telephone interview with a pressman an hour from now.  And my address to the elders’ meeting tomorrow.  And finally, the masterpiece: Our Joint appeal to the citizens.  Do your best. Allah Will Help You.  This time you will be earning sawaab, religious rewards, from Allah when you reunite people’s hearts and keep them from killing and wounding one another”.

 The Khan rose and walked to the door. He turned and said, “I’ll be back after an hour at the latest. Write as best as you can.  You know my message: Our young people must learn to control and avoid anger and fury.  All the tragedies we have suffered through history resulted from our failure to control our temper.  Our Prophet taught us to keep our cool, whatever the provocation. He is Our Role Model. We must adopt his Uswathul Hus’naa, his incomparable excellence of character and behavior. This is the best guide for our advancement in life.  Allah’s Help is gained and people also take a liking to us. Most people who gain wealth end up with more enemies than friends.  Our Prophet wants us to win hearts and earn triumph through superior thinking and magnificence towards people”.

 The Khan left, closing the door silently after him so the

people inside the mansion would not be disturbed after the hard day they had, of Eid preparations.

             Manzoor collected the papers and took over the desktop he was used to work on. He thought of the long years his family had been allied with the Khan family. His father was the Estate Manager and his mother the best teacher in the free school started by the Khan’s Begum and funded by the Khan himself. The Khan had four sons of his own and yet he doted on Manzoor for his welcomspecial talents in English writing. His boys also liked him and welcomed him, as Dada, elder brother. He retained their trust and regard by scoring the highest runs and  taking the most wickets in all regional tournaments.

            A streak of pain flashed through his being as the memory asserted itself of the disaster his family had suffered in a deadly train accident that turned him into an orphan.The Khan stood by them and remained their constant support ever since. Yet his mother, who was proud of her own ancestry, declined to be dependent on her husband’s employer. She had earned honors in her teaching and sports management of the city’s famed English school. She allowed him to avail the scholarship from a Charity fund.  But for all other expenses, Mom’s salary and even her jewels were at his son’s disposal. But the son, equally a conscientious young man, had never exceeded the monthly allowance she gave him.  

            But she did not oppose her son’s close friendship with the Khan’s children and their dad took liking to him and Manzoor took care of his office work off and on. The pay was good and on this Eid night, he put in extra care and fulfilled his task to the big Mayor’s satisfaction and received a rich reward. With profound thanks he left for home.

            There was a nice breeze as he reached the highway and he felt he could break into a dance. There were five thousand rupees in his pocket.  The tailor would receive half of it and the rest would make his Eid a fabulous experience. He would spend some and save the rest. Mom would never take anything from him. The last time he tried to share with him the prize money  from an essay competition won  by him, there were tears in her eyes and he had to run back to his room to hold his own.

            He thought of going to the tailor whose shop was en route and he should be at work even at that late hour a it was the eve of Eid. He could try his clothes on and satisfy himself that they were indeed of the Paris design and finish as the tailor had promised him.  And he winked to himself in a bout of self confidence as he imagined how he would look, tall and triumphant as he faced his adversaries when he would appear at Rifath’s gala Eid party in his immaculate attire. And Rifath? He checked himself.  That was for tomorrow, No hurry!