Peaceful Spring. A wonderful photo by PhilipMatthews
Anonymous asked:
Anonymous asked:
rex-luscus answered:
Sure, here are the steps:
So, as you guys may know, I just started on my tarot journey! I’ve practiced divination for a while now, so this is really exciting to me. Since I’m going to be doing a lot of research as I start to practice, I figured I should share it with you all in hopes it’ll help you too! Today I tackled the Major Arcana! While no divination has right or wrong meanings, these are the ones I felt resonated with me the most! Please enjoy, and feel free to reblog! <3
Major Arcana- 22 cards representing life events, karmic influences, and archetypal themes that one experiences on their way to enlightenment.
The Fool- New beginnings, naivety, Free-Spirited
Inverted - Recklessness, Ignorance
The Magician- Manifestation, Creativity, Desire
Inverted - Manipulation, Illusion, Untapped Potential
The High Priestess- Intuition, Divine Knowledge, Feminine Energy
Inverted - Withdrawal, Secrets, Repressed Feelings
The Empress- Motherhood, Peak Femininity, Abundance
Inverted - Co-dependence, Art Block, Shallowness
The Emperor- Fatherhood, Authority, Discipline, Regulation
Inverted - Tyranny, Inflexibility, Out of Control
The Hierophant- Conformity, Tradition, Masculine Counterpart to High Priestess, Morality
Inverted - Rebellion, New Approaches
The Lovers- Balance, Union, Love, Compromise
Inverted - Self-Love, Disharmony, Misalignment with Values
The Chariot- Advancement, Willpower, Control
Inverted - Self-Discipline, Internalized Opposition
Strength- Bravery, Persuasion, Compassion, Mastery
Inverted - Insecurity, Self-Doubt, Raw Emotion
The Hermit- Introspection, Search for Truth/Reality, Solitude
Inverted - Loneliness, Off path, isolation
The Wheel of Fortune- Turning point, Cycles, Karmic Resolution
Inverted - Bad luck, resistance to change
Justice- Fairness, Law, Truth
Inverted- Dishonesty, Lack of accountability
The Hanged Man- Sacrifice, New Perspective, Letting Go
Inverted - Stalling, Indecision, Self-pity
Death- Endings, New Beginnings, Transformation
Inverted - Inner Growth, Fear of Change
Temperance- Moderation, Balance, Detachment
Inverted - Extreme excess, Realignment,
The Devil- Addiction, Sexuality, Shadow Self
Inverted - Releasing Limiting Beliefs, Restoring Control,
The Tower- Destruction of All Things, Sudden Upheaval, Chaos
Inverted - Averting disaster, overcoming death
The Star- Imagination, Hope, Spirituality
Inverted - Discouragement, Despair, Faithlessness
The Moon- Mystery, Intuition, Mystical
Inverted - Confusion, Fear, Repressed Emotions
The Sun- Joy, Success, Vitality
Inverted - Negativity, Depression, Sadness
Judgement- Inner calling, absolution, Awakening, Judgement
Inverted - Ignoring the call, Lacking self-awareness, Doubt
The World- Completion, Fulfillment, Harmony, “Big Picture”, Travel
Inverted - Lack of Closure
Nietzsche believed that you’ve gotta be able to think about suicide before you can move beyond wanting to kill yourself because only once you’ve accepted it as an option can you make the choice not to do it, and the alternative, to deny the urge and ignore it, would inevitably cause you to cave to the unaddressed desire you have for it.
And the dude was right.
The rogue’s gallery of psych students and junior practitioners on this hellsite have hijacked my post about not being mean to yourself to explain to people how actually what I’m talking about is cognitive-behavioral therapy, and how it involves disciplining yourself to never talk negatively about yourself and how it’s important to check with a therapist that you’re doing it correctly, and like, this is why I don’t trust and can’t stand these people.
Being your own friend is a holistic process, there aren’t exercises you can do or therapy methods you can apply, which is why most people relapse almost immediately after stopping CBT or DBT, because they haven’t actually made any progress in how they look out for themselves, they were merely thrust into a disciplinary regimen where they are taught to engage in habits which their therapist then holds them accountable to, and so, without that therapist, they fall apart again.
Not being mean to yourself doesn’t mean censoring self-deprecating humor, it doesn’t mean snapping a rubber band on your wrist when you have a negative thought, it means taking time to sit down and think about yourself as if you were another person, to really take stock of who you are from as objective a perspective as you can muster, and if you really want to grow, realizing that this person you see can’t grow if the person closest to them, which is you, spends all their time berating them and making them feel like shit.
Being friends with yourself is not a series of therapeutic exercises, it’s challenging yourself to evaluate why you’re a dick to yourself in a way you aren’t to other people, or maybe you are a dick to other people, and maybe you want to be a dick to yourself, which is goofy as fuck, but if you’re still suffering, maybe ask yourself why the fuck you want to be such a dick, the answers may surprise you.
That thing of “always avoid negative thoughts” actually does more harm than good, in a lot of cases. It can actually lead to a system where you pretty much scold and punish yourself for not thinking “right.”
“Control the uncontrollable and scary (like suicidal thoughts) by purging all impure thoughts and punishing yourself if you fail” is… never gonna work.
And to be honest I don’t think the people that advocate it are all that interested in making you feel better, even if they think they are. I think
it’s more about a way to control all the scary brains out there to make their own lives safer.
Such a desire to banish all negativity is more about creating a stable, controllable society where the depressed and the angry don’t go around sharing their sadness and anger and rage with the world, or god forbid, lash out at the things that are hurting them.
Someone: vegan diets aren’t cruelty free
Vegans springing from the earth: oh so omnivory IS cruelty free huh? You think vegans are subhuman??? You want us all to die???? Carnists are superior? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING???
God this. So sick of seeing posts that make the good point that vegans diets aren’t cruelty free (despite them claiming constantly they are) only to have a hoard of v*gans start saying “well non-v*gans eat those foods too! So it’s no just us!!” Like they think they’re hitting back when they’ve missed the entire point which is no ones diet is “cruelty free” because of the capitalistic society we live in.
Ok but at least vegans reduce their cruelty compared to meat eaters? I don’t get why it would bug you for someone to want to end animal suffering and make the world a better place..
Vegans do not reduce cruelty because there is absolutely no such thing as ethically raised food in capitalistic society. We all eat food that is equally cruel because all food kills animals, cuts down trees, emits GHGs, and exploits laborers. We all eat roughly the same amount of food. You can see someone eat 50% meat and 50% plants another person eat 100% plants and 0% meat and think “wow the second person doesn’t eat any animals so it must be better” but both of those still add up to 100%. The second person just traded cruelty from animal ag for cruelty from plant ag. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and subsequently there is no “less cruel” food under capitalism.
both “fem” and “femme” are legitimate and historical ways of spelling the term.
I made a decision to switch to the oldest form, “fem,” when I was in a state of distress that describing myself as “femme” was no longer an unambiguous way of signalling my lesbianism. it was my paltry and imperfect attempt to reclaim a sense of ownership in a way, and it was a wholly personal decision.
most of the fems I know in my age-group and older use the spelling “femme,” and have always done so. I see only a very few older people using “fem,” and even they tend to switch back and forth between spellings. I have also seen it spelled “femm” by different people. of late I have contemplated returning to the spelling “femme” now that I once more feel grounded in my identity.
I don’t feel that attributing greater authority or historical authenticity to either spelling is at all helpful to our community. I do not believe that false hierarchies serve us in any way. they only create division and hurt. whichever spelling an individual uses should not be assumed to reflect their level of experience or the nuances of their identity. and it certainly should not be used to leverage an illusory sense of status over anyone else.
at the end of the day, the spelling doesn’t matter - it’s what it means to you, the role it plays in your life, that is what counts. that’s what you define. and every step of that journey is as precious and important as any other. we should be honouring and uplifting each other along the way, not casting judgments on who has more claim to it based on something so trivial and context-specific as how many letters we use when we write it down.
Anonymous asked:
thepaganstudygrouppage answered:
Ghost
Starting shadow work is going ot vary for each person. We each have our own things to work on and our own approaches to things- so there is no procedural way to start shadow work. It’s something that you have to play by ear.
Normally, I start my shadow work with a problem. Sometimes this problem is brought to my attention by others, sometimes its a problem I personally want to work on. Sometimes it’s a deity forcing me to do this, life forcing me to do this, or my own desire to do this. It all just depends.
So I will start with this problem, and i will analyze it. I will try to understand why I am doing what I”m doing, or why things are not panning out as I’d like. And then I begin to dissect that problem and see what can be done to address it, fix it, or come to terms with it. Obviously, each method will be different for each problem that I am working on (and I am often working on multiple problems at once).
I’ve written more extensively about my methods here. And GLE wrote a bit on his methods here. You can sift through my shadow work tag for examples of how others get through their shadow work.
-Devo
I bear the ghost of wings on my back.
Some days they are hardly there at all, just the barest memory in the existing muscles and sinew. I feel a twitch of a shoulder that doesn’t exist, half of a flap from the edges brushing the wind, then they are gone again.
Some days they are almost as real as flesh, powerful and wind-shattering. I forget they are not physical, dodge a blow that would have passed through them anyway, flex and flare them in frustration when I remember I am still grounded.
Most days they are pale and thin, straining for the sky but knowing they will not reach. I spread them in the sun and almost feel the warmth, stretch them in the wind and almost feel it catch, gesture with them and remember they do not exist.
They are only ghosts yet, but they are my ghosts, and I miss them on the days they are gone.
my whole life is just roleplaying as a human
and damn am i bad at roleplay
Same man, same.
Is a myth.
I’ve been out to people for years, and the most “gross” comment I’ve ever gotten was “that is a bit off but I respect your beliefs!”. From both friends and total strangers.
I wear an elven star in public, no one has said anything. I visit many local astrological and pagan shops and all the workers are absolutely fascinated to hear more about it. I’ve never gotten a mean comment to my face.
Online? Plenty of vitriol. And you wanna know the truth of the matter? Being able to hide behind a screen makes people feel tough. I can guarantee you no would run up to you offline and call you a mentally ill basket case who needs to in the hospital.
Being anonymous allows for cowardly acts, and that’s all it is.
So next time people are being unjustly rude to you online, just think- do these people have the balls to come off anon or tumblr and speak the hate they do?
To soap box about mental health while bullying people? To offer no mental help what so ever?
No, of course not. They want an out to look good after being called out.
Everyone I’ve met has been nothing but kind and sweet. I plan on doing public talks soon about therianthropy.
Dont let cowards behind anon get you down, the real world is a lot less cruel than the internet leads you to think.
This is our multiple system’s experience as well.
We’ve worn a Theta Delta necklace as part of our usual wear for over a decade. When people have inquired the reactions have been almost entirely neutral with a few positive responses even. We can only think of one or two times we got a more negative response, but even those were not drastically or dramatically negative.
When we were considering do an undergraduate lecture on therianthropy (we didn’t get a chance to because we just got to busy our senior year), we came out to several professors in the process of pitching our lecture subject. Two of them were psych professors and one was a history professor, all three were super excited and interested to hear about the phenomena.
People tend to be a lot more vocally nasty and bold about be so online.
- Cavern-Risen
I wear the seven pointed star as two tattoos on my right wrist. They are highly visible. In addition, I have at times worn the seven pointed star as a necklace pendant. It has never caused me a problem, but it has led to some cool exchanges.
About ten years ago, a woman approached me in Indianapolis at a health food store, she asked…
“Are you fae?”
Me: “No, but I am an otherkin hare. You?”
“I’m fae, I noticed your star, you don’t see it often.”
We went on to have a good conversation before going our separate ways. It was a great experience, and very affirming for me. Meeting other kin in the wild, at random, is an excellent experience. They are a reminder that you aren’t alone in the world.
I don’t advertise, but I don’t hide. A personal motto of mine is “embrace your weird.“ If people ask, I’ll tell them. The worst I’ve got is, “Ok that’s strange but whatever,” and that was it, echoing the experience of OP.
Online, is a whole other story, but online in my experience is a bit of a harsher place. As the posters above have said, it’s a place for people to feel tough in their anonymous bastions.
“Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who would love the person you hide.”
- C.S. Lewis
-kinFriday
When you fall in Love with the God that people are, and they’re still so lost that they think you fell in love with the illusion of them. I’m just out here falling in Love with me, the self that I see in all others. The human always dies. God is the only Lover.
