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Kimberly Steele ([personal profile] kimberlysteele) wrote2025-12-15 10:25 pm
Entry tags:

The Hospital of the Future

The hospital of the future starts out in a private home. Perhaps it is the practice of a nurse who goes rogue and quietly treats sprains, fractures, and broken bones out of her basement. Maybe it is a doula who brings babies into the world in her living room. Maybe it is a doctor, thrown out on his rear by establishment medicine for his anti-vaccine views, putting patients in sitz baths and administering poultices and quietly curing breast cancer. The workers in these proto-hospitals will be paid in cash and favors, trading their herbal remedies for your ability to frame a wall; their rehabilitation of your sick father for a year of childcare. These exercises in trust will be invisible and untaxable. They will be hated by decrepit, disintegrating governments who need you to stay as sick as possible for as long as possible in order to fund their corporate donors. They will also be the only way for the non-filthy-rich to access any reasonable form of healthcare.

The house always wins

The medical system of today does not heal. Going to any hospital, rehab center, doctor’s office, or nursing home to get healthy is like going to the casino to win money. Your belief in success does not affect the outcome. The house doles out some money and prizes every now and then to keep the gamblers placated. Overall, the casino does not want you to win and you do not win. They want you to spend as much as possible during your visit and they want you to return again and again. My husband used to work at a local casino and though he does his best to ignore woo woo things, he said the vibe was crushingly awful. Despair, panic, and hopelessness clung to the walls and floors of the overlarge, rambling, and cavernous gambling house. I went in there a couple of times. The psychic miasma of decay, desperation, and leaden melancholy of the casino was downright impressive. If I was more clairvoyant than clairsentient, I would have seen a dark and steaming husk of a structure weeping ghosts like pus out of open sores. The casino reminded me a great deal of the hospital. Same vibe, same odds of wealth recovery.

The hospital of the future will be the opposite of the casino-hospitals where my grandparents, aunt, and father died. First, the size will not be as large as the labyrinthine, Winchester mansion-style barracks that dot every medium to large sized American town. Instead, the hospital will be a former church, temple, or mosque staffed by monks, nuns, priests, and priestesses who live on or near the premises. Great care will go into the design and restoration of the hospital’s reclaimed buildings. No longer will they look like boxy carbuncles or Borg ships. They will be beautiful, symmetrical, and in harmony with the landscape. The arch, the strongest and most life-affirming shape in nature, will be repeated both outside and inside the lovely campus.

Hell: you are here


Right now, we are in the painful, frustrating pangs of a rough birth into a new age where we belatedly figure out how badly we have been had. Science has discarded its original goals of proof through honest experimentation and is currently a grab bag of favorable outcomes for cheaters and narcissists. Religion is no better. Its experts pound tables with great zeal, echoing their scientific “enemies”. Both scientist and preacher insists that we live in a dead world, and that we should show our hatred of nature by dominating every last bit of it. When some random witch has the gall to talk about herbs or of daily acts of humility such as cleaning your own toilets and floors, church ladies and men of science alike clutch their pearls in furious indignation. They see malefic witches everywhere, yet they are malefic witches themselves.

The old ways are dying hard at the moment, and that is why millions are still paying into the medical insurance grift that bleeds them dry and offers only suffering, debt, and ruin in return. One day, this will no longer be the case.

The hospital of the future is first and foremost a religious center. As the beating heart of its town, the hospital is more important than the train depot or the post office. Church services are offered 24/7 and the doors are always open to the repentant needy. Earnestness, not tithing, is its currency. In the hospital of the future, there is no question that all healing is spiritual work. Those unwilling to do spiritual work are turned away, no matter how fat their wallets or how generous their bribes. Before you walk in the door of the hospital of the future, you agree to take on the task of daily discursive meditation. You also agree to spend a good chunk of every day in prayer. When you are well enough, you will work in and around the hospital according to your skills and abilities. The first goal of the hospital for its patients is to court the Divine, and they are more than happy to help. They do not care what god or Gods are worshipped as long as patients prove themselves via the universal virtues of humility and diligence. Patients must amplify the gratitude and generosity within until those two kinds of magic become an overwhelming, healing force. It goes without saying that nobody is ever admitted to the hospital against their will. The hospital does not waste its resources trying to heal the unwilling.

People die in the hospital. Their poor, mortal bodies become too overwhelmed by age, injury, or infirmity. The hospital has dedicated staff to help people cross over who intimately understand the dynamics of the after-death soul process. They don’t have to guess about what happens when we die like today’s hospice workers and pastors; they actually know. The holy men and and women of the hospital act as lliasons as patients prepare to reunite with their deceased loved ones and pets. They sing hymns and prayers to call down angels. Death is a joyous experience at the hospital, but there is no rush to get there due to greed for a bed or efficiency quotas. The mindset of the hospital is that death is a natural consequence of life. Neither should death be forcefully hurried along nor should life be extended through ghastly experimentation. The spiritual illiteracy and fear of death is a thing of the past. Those who cross over at the hospital have blessed and smooth transitions, unlike the human warehouses/nursing homes of today. Instead of mini-hells of astral confusion and end of life horror, the hospital will respect dying patients and surround them with love. In our era, the newly dead are shuttled out of incarnation in ignorance and confusion; in theirs, there is knowledge and tranquility.

The hospital of the future is a fountain of etheric renewal unsullied by profit motives. Hospitals today are etheric deserts, with no beauty to replenish tired hearts and no flow of wealth that is not immediately gobbled up by greedy insurance reps and high-level administrators. In the hospital of the future, however, food is handcrafted in small batches, often using assistance from the patient’s own loved ones in the kitchen to add etheric power. There is no place in the hospital for cafeteria slop, and the private equity CEOs who lorded over the grotesque school-prison fare of our era will long since have been hung from underpasses by their necks. Cooks are trained in programs that combine etheric techniques from medieval treatises, Ayurveda, and traditional Chinese medicine. Some hospitals will be world-renowned for their cuisine, despite it being tailored to individual patients.

No hospital of the future will have televisions or electronic devices. When such devices are found on the premises, they will be immediately confiscated, if not destroyed.

The spirit of place

Like the days of old, hospitals will be situated on or near natural wonders such as hot springs whenever possible so patients can take the waters. Hospitals will be surrounded by fabulous gardens, functioning potagers, and lush copses of trees. Much of treatment will involve being outside, especially in fair or sunny weather. The supposedly-ignorant medics of yesteryear understood sunlight heals all. Remedies for acute inflammation, i.e. cancer, will not involve radioactive cocktails of poisonous chemicals. Instead, herbs will be incorporated into the patient’s food and drink. He will be taken outside daily, bathed at least once a day, and encouraged to laugh. When inside, he will be surrounded by indoor plants to improve the etheric force as well as the air inside his room. He will be counseled and encouraged by the hospital staff and he will take part in group prayers.

Healing is not all that complicated, but in our era of spiritual retardation and etheric starvation, it is almost impossible to attain. The hospital of the future will stick by a couple of utterances by Hippocrates: 1. Let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food and 2. First, do no harm. These sayings will be engraved in stone in the sanctuary, the recovery rooms, and the very threshold. Other revered sayings will come from the god Apollo: Everything in moderation and Know thyself.

We cannot conceive of the healing potency contained within the hospital of the future because we are a long way off from reclaiming that knowledge. Nevertheless, everyone has got to start somewhere, and every time we choose to work with nature and not against it, when we understand that death is not the end, and that prevention is the best cure in alignment with the Divine, we are on our way.

I am going to be taking a writing break and Ogham break until January 5. Thank you so much for understanding and have a happy Yuletide.


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Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-15 06:42 pm

Diary: With Apologies To Emily

‘Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’ – Nato’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay,

I come from a long line of soldiers. One of my ancestors died in a British POW camp during the war of 1812. Great-Grandfather was in the 15th Infantry when Teddy took all the credit. Grandfather was at Chateau Thierry with the 3rd Infantry. Dad waded ashore at Anzio.

So most of my family history in the military (I am the exception) was spent fighting the different flavors of the fractious Europe who were always trying above all to come out on top when trying to keep their feet on the neck of vassals. We tended to side with the effing Brits who were, in my humble opinion, the worst of the lot.

But my reading of history is that the Germans were pretty good at war. In my lifetime, they had decided that war was bad for business and the happiness of their people and for around seventy years trying to spend less on the military and spend more on the general welfare. I consider this a good thing.

But dumbshit Donny got to bitching about the US paying more than their fair share of the cost of defending Europe. He was right about that. But by being a stupid-ass American businessman who financialized everything without ever thinking about the reasons why things were done, he upset things and pulled the rug out from under a system where we didn't really pay all that much to keep the danger low.

Merz (who may be a stupid as Donny) has pointed out that America is in the process of pulling back to the Western Hemisphere. I can't say that he is wrong. But what that means is that Deutschland may very well begin to rearm and revert to the historic norm of being a warrior culture. I am not thrilled this, my family having fought a couple of wars with the Wehrmacht on the other side of the arena.

The wienies that are at the political top of the European military establishment are besuited morons that truly have been living in Olaf's garden for too long. They are talking about getting ready for a war in 2030. Germany is talking about a draft. I can't say that I like the way that this is heading.

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John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-14 09:25 pm

Magic Monday

or druidry, as the case may beIt's almost midnight and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through.  If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here

Also:
 I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says.  And further:  I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here
 
Bookshop logoI've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***
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Kimberly Steele ([personal profile] kimberlysteele) wrote2025-12-13 10:59 pm
Entry tags:

Open Post

Fairbanks, Alaska

Hi Everyone,

I am on an Ogham and writing break until January 8. Thanks for understanding as I refresh the well of inspiration and celebrate Alban Arthuan/Yule/Christmas.

I recently bought a new car after my 20 year old Toyota Scion XA became too expensive to maintain. It was a very emotional and heart-rending experience. I was extremely attached to my old car, which I named Carla somewhere along the way. We never had an accident. She did have hail damage, dinged up hubcaps, and a busted mirror. I wrote several songs in Carla, including songs from my Dream of Flight album and Somewhere in Time, which I wrote driving by my local Target. She was more of a pet than a car, though when we started out in 2006, she was just a car. She did not change -- I simply learned that everything is alive over that 20 years and recognized her as a consciousness.  Giving her up feels a great deal like losing a beloved pet. 

Because I don't know all that much magic, I said goodbye to Carla by taking her to the forest preserve and doing the Sphere of Protection in the car -- obviously I could not move around but I did my best. I even burned incense in the confines of the car, windows open of course. I have shed many tears over her and I am deeply grateful for all of our years together. I wish I had the automotive expertise to repair her on my own. I tried hard to conceive of ways to keep her.  Sadly I do not have the time or the space and I feel a great deal of guilt and sorrow over it, with worry that she might be frightened or sad even though "she" is a car. I traded her in for my new car, another small subcompact who I have named Asami. 

May the gods bless Carla forever in whatever future form she takes. 

This Open Post is open to anonymous commenters, but I do see the IP address of all commenters, so please keep that in mind. Like JMG's Ecosophia blogs, I'm not friendly to swear words worse than bitch unless it truly makes sense and belongs there. Also, I don't respond to what I perceive as trolling. Other than that, please have at it. I appreciate your comments and interactions.
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methylethyl ([personal profile] methylethyl) wrote2025-12-13 11:18 am

Tamar

 If you've ever read the Old Testament you'll know there are a lot of seriously weird stories in there.  Your Sunday School curricula skipped a lot. Not that I blame them. Remember that episode where Joseph's brothers are out moving their flocks, and some dudes from Shechem kidnap their sister Dinah (Leah's daughter, and apparently the only girl in the family). She's raped by the son of the local petty king, who then petitions Jacob her father to let his son marry her. Her brothers then trick the rapist and his whole household into getting circumcized, and while they're in pain, they storm the place, kill everybody, and rescue Dinah. 

That one's tricky to tell to first-graders. 

Anyway, another such story is that of Tamar. One of Joseph's other brothers, Judah, arranges a marriage between Tamar and his son Er. Er died without children, so Judah pushed Tamar onto his next son, Onan. The idea was, if Onan could father a son on Tamar, then that son would inherit Er's estate, just as though he had been Er's biological child (yay Levirate marriage). It was a way of preserving inheritance lines. Anyway, Onan refused to impregnate Tamar, probably because as long as Tamar remained childless, he was in line to inherit his dead brother's estate. Tamar, frustrated, takes matters into her own hands:  she dresses up like a hooker, hangs out by the roadside waiting for her father-in-law Judah, propositions him, and gets pregnant with his child. She demands some of his personal possessions in payment (ring, necklace, and staff), and later produces them as proof that Judah is the father so she doesn't get burned alive (penalty for adultery). 

The various explanations I've run across for the significance of this story, over the years, are...   inadequate at best. Tamar is generally regarded as the heroine of this story. She was not afforded her rights as a widow, and she found a way to get them by subterfuge.  IIRC she is in the bloodline of Christ, and one of the few women recorded therein, so the ancients must've thought it very important also. In the genealogies you have generation upon generation of man begat man begat man begat man, with the occasional Sarai, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, and Tamar thrown in. They're not accidental. Nothing survives millenia in a narrative like this without a reason. It always felt like there was something very uncomfortably missing. 

Recently, I ran across a mention of the Book of Jubilees, and read it. Thought to be written down maybe first or second century BC, and more importantly...  seems to have been generally accessible to, and read by, the early Christians. It purports to be the account of one of The Watchers (an angel) given direct to Moses while he was up on the holy mountain. There are references to it in the New Testament. It is a fairly short read, it covers the same ground as Genesis and part of Exodus, from the Creation to Moses, but from an oddly different angle-- it skims over a lot of the details covered in the Bible version, and adds a lot of detail of its own, such as the names of wives and daughters, people's relative ages, a very detailed account of the death of Abraham, lots of stuff. And, interestingly, it holds up a lens under which quite a lot of weird-sounding things in the OT come into crisp focus: bloodlines. Is this a right and correct way to interpret the stories? Is the information accurate? I don't know. But early Christians seemed to take this additional account for granted. There are a lot of Bible-conspiracy-theory types who get really hung up on the very brief mentions of the Rephaim (giants) in here. That, IMO, is one of the least interesting things going on in the text. 

In the Jubilees iteration of things, certain people (Lot, Esau, Canaan) are marked out, along with all their descendants, for destruction. They're all going to be rooted out of the earth like weeds, at some point in the future, and it's imperative that the people of God's Covenant, Jacob and his descendants, not intermarry with them. It's repeated over and over: don't marry Canaanite women! It doesn't seem to be a religious thing. There's still the insistence that worshiping idols is forbidden, but at the same time, Jacob marries Leah and Rachel, whose father Laban worships idols (we know this because Rachel steals them when the family leaves Laban's household: WTF Rachel?). But Leah** and Rachel are the right bloodline, so everything's fine. It's not even imperative that they marry inside the extended tribe-- Jacob married an Egyptian woman, Asenath (in Jubilees, she is Potiphar's daughter: but also Potiphar is a eunuch so I am confused about the definition of 'eunuch' here!*), and this seems to have been fine also. 

But Caananites are marked out for destruction because Canaan appropriated land that was given to one of his uncles by Noah. This is taboo. Lot earned that curse by procreating with his daughters. Esau... well, all his wives were Canaanite women, so his family doesn't make the cut. 

So what does this have to do with Tamar?

She's from an approved family background (from the daughters of Aram). But Er and Onan aren't. Out of Jacob's twelve sons, who are destined to be the founders of the twelve tribes of Israel (ok, not Reuben because he slept with his father's concubine), they all marry women from approved family lines except Judah and Simeon. Jubilees says these two married Canaanite women (gasp!). Simeon regrets this and then marries a proper wife. But that still leaves Judah, polluting the family tree. He has three sons with his Canaanite wife. By the logic of Jubilees, all his offspring are now marked out for destruction. There's no way his sons can become the Tribe of Judah. Er dies childless (he was wicked and the lord slew him), after rejecting Tamar (because he wants to marry a Canaanite woman from his mom's side of the family). Onan refuses because he wants his brother's stuff. Judah tells Tamar to live 'as a widow' in her father's house until the youngest son, Shelah grows up.  But then, when Shelah grows up, Judah's Canaanite wife Bedsu'el refuses to let him marry Tamar. Then Bedsu'el dies. Judah is delaying for whatever reason. Tamar hears he's going to be in the area and pulls her roadside hooker stunt. 

After the fact, it's declared absolutely wrong, and a capital offense, for a man to bed his daughter-in-law or mother-in-law. But, it is explained, until Tamar, there wasn't a rule about it. This is why rules get made. Nobody gets burned alive this time. But next time...  don't even think about it. So Tamar gets out of being married off to her dead husband's kid brother, she gives birth to (twins?) Perez and Zerah right before the whole clan has to move to Egypt because of famine. Judah is deeply ashamed, repents, is forgiven by God. But the real upshot of this story is: "unto Judah we said that his two sons had not lain with her, and for this reason his seed was stablished for a second generation, and would not be rooted out."  See what happened there? Tamar saved the family bloodline from Canaanite corruption. That's why she's the heroine of this story. Not because she got her own justice, not because incest is good actually, but because she was the instrument by which Judah's illicit marriage was remedied. 

I am not, of course, commenting on good or bad here. Only that the Book of Jubilees version of this story makes sense, where the Genesis version... seems to be missing something.  In this iteration, it is almost exclusively a story about bloodlines. And in that light it works: we can understand why this episode made it into the canon. The Old Testament is obsessed with bloodlines, genealogies, birthrights, and genetic covenants. 

-----------------------------
*I seriously want to know the rest of the story now, concerning pharaoh's eunuchs. Did "eunuch" mean something other than "man with no testicles" in that context? If not, why does Potiphar, Pharaoh's eunuch, have a wife? I mean, that would explain why Potiphar's wife was so desperate to seduce Joseph, her husband's hot young household manager, but still...   Asenath is supposed to be his daughter?  So either eunuch has some other meaning, or the wife and daughter happened *before* he became a eunuch. 

**I love that in the Jubilees version, Leah the unwanted wife of Jacob, gets a happy ending. Rachel of course dies untimely after giving birth to Benjamin. Leah remains. Jacob learns to appreciate and love her truly after all: when she dies, the book says: "for he was lamenting her for he loved her exceedingly after Rachel her sister died; for she was perfect and upright in all her ways and honoured Jacob, and all the days that she lived with him he did not hear from her mouth a harsh word, for she was gentle and peaceable and upright and honourable.  And he remembered all her deeds which she had done during her life and he lamented her exceedingly; for he loved her with all his heart and with all his soul."
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Kimberly Steele ([personal profile] kimberlysteele) wrote2025-12-12 09:34 pm
Entry tags:

Ogham Readings on Saturdays




I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):

 
-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading
-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices

I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via emails -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.

Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.

My next planned break is from December 18 - January 8.

I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.

For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.

I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

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Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-12 05:19 pm

Diary: Cassandra is Tedious

I have worked hard over the years to get over my doomer self. I think that the systole and diastole of civilizations and cultures is a real thing. Simply put, "Laissez le bon temps rouler" isn't a way to run your life 24/7.

But you see, here in the West, we have come to the point where the party is over and the taps have run dry and it is time to go home, sleep it off, and go back to work tomorrow.

It isn't the end of the world. Your individual opinion of what we should be doing isn't particularly important to the folks running the show who have bet their already fractured reputations on the idea that the party can and will go on. These folks are in the process of losing their bet, but that process isn't one amenable to a news cycle, so be patient and watch whatever peculiar haruspicy works best for you to try to stay a little ahead of the curve.

Myself, my methods for adapting to the world and predicting what is heading our way involves reading headlines and maybe the first paragraph of things out there on the nascent nervious system of the world (the internet) and try to stop as soon as they stop reporting facts and start telling me what the facts mean.

This is, at very best, a stupid and low-accuracy means of getting into the bottom of things. But if I am careful, and watch things from 30,000 feet, I can sometimes see outlines that have a slightly better chance of occurrence than not paying attention. Right now these, at least to my readings, show that the downhill slope of this particular cycle is starting to steepen. It doesn't signify the end of the world, it just means that the party is over and it is time to go home.

I thought the picture below fit this piece very well.

[Two leaves.jpg]

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John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-11 11:45 am

Fairness for Reptiles

turtleIn case you haven't noticed, conversations here and on my blog can get pretty strange sometimes. Yesterday was no exception. On the weekly Covid open post, we ended up discussing the way that Franklin the Turtle (an iconic Canadian children's book character) has been picked up gleefully by the meme artists of the populist right and used in ways well designed to get howls of outrage from Canada's liberal elite. The obligatory comment about evil reptilian overlords duly appeared, and it occurred to me just how unfair it is that we blame reptiles for the behavior of, say, Bill Gates. 

When I was a kid I used to keep pet snakes and lizards, so I'm fairly familiar with the behavior of reptiles. My experience is that, unlike certain plutocrats we all could name, they're not malevolent, power-mad, or crazed with insatiable greed.  If you keep them well fed with mealyworms, they curl up under the heat lamp and doze off, radiating a sort of sluggish squamous bliss.  I suppose we could try making Gates eat half his body weight in mealyworms, then stick him under a heat lamp and see if the same thing happens, but I have my doubts. 

bad 1990s sfThe whole "evil reptilian overlords" business, for that matter, comes from British sports reporter turned conspiracy theorist David Ickes. I get the impression that he spent too many late nights watching reruns of that dubious 1980s SF show V -- the source of the poster on the right -- in which evil reptilians from space disguised themselves as human beings and took over the world. (That's basically the theme of Icke's books.)  Since I'm not a fan of either the TV show or Icke's uncredited rewrites of it, I'd like to suggest that it's time to spare reptiles the utter ignominy of being associated with Bill Gates or any of the other usual suspects, and ask the natural question that comes to mind...

Just what are Gates et al.? 

(Or, if you want to be a little less conspiratorial about it all, what sort of life forms do they resemble?)

I'll look forward to your suggestions in the comment thread. My theory, at least for the moment, is that they're evil space opossums. Opossums like trash, right? (When I encounter one, it's usually raiding a trash can.)  The most obvious product of the people we're discussing, and the system over which they preside, is the mass production of trash. (When was the last time Microsoft released a product that wasn't total trash?)  They're all marsupial supremacists, I tell you...

In that jocular vein, I throw the comment thread open to researchers into the alien biology of kleptocrats. 
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Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-10 09:30 pm

Diary: Rain Breaks

Today is a blessed intermission from the "atmospheric river" which has been dumping rain here in the upper left for the past three or four days. Temperature is mild (currently 62 F.) and quite breezy. The windows and door is open and I have the fan running in the back to see how many air exchanges I can achieve during this welcome intermission. Febreze is also being applied to freshen air that has been stagnant with "old man stink" during the deluge. So, in other words, life is good.

I just endured another birthday. Not that the getting old is bothering me, but I finally managed through blistering sarcasm and mockery to convince my children to no pay any attention to the date. I have had enough birthdays that celebrations are no longer required.

Birthdays should be celebrated for children. My grand-daughters birthday is treated much in the same way as Mardi Gras. I am happy with this. But the trouble is that folks who emphasize birthdays and the resultant gift receipts are probably just fishing to make sure that they stay on the gravy train of attention and gifts.

Nope, it is my feeling that birthdays get dealt with the same way as christmas. There isn't a Santa Claus or Birthday fairy. At age eleven you get a cake and a present and you deal. Stretching it beyond that is plain foolish.

[78611d4e-5af9-4354-a094-74e753818a57_684x756.jpg]

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Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-09 05:35 pm

Diary: Trying Not to Worry

I have been stuck at home for a couple of days now. The current buzzword for "lots of rain" in the Pacific Northwest is "atmospheric river". It has been dumping rain here. I suppose that if I were a real Pacific Northwesterner, I would "damn the torpedoes" and don layers of raingear and savor those rainy moments.

Fuck that!

So I am inside more than is my preference. So lets talk about isolation in the modern world.

At my age, isolation is not the huge deal that it was in my salad days. Truth be told, isolation is preferred about ninety percent of the time. So there is an approximate 2 hour window every day where I do enjoy human interaction. It doesn't have to be much, a phone call or a greeting during a walk or a conversation with a neighbor while getting the mail does me just fine. But serious rain does limit the opportunities for these interactions.

I still kind of wonder about the place of conversations in settings like the one we are reading. I am enough of a geezer to remember sending and receiving physical mail and how important that was in maintaining connection. In the infantry, "mail call" was an important time and letters were cherished (or feared, depending on the correspondent). But they were always an important tie to the outside.

I was (am?) a science fiction junkie. But the sheer number of wannabe science fiction writers. I have been pondering an old Isaac Asimov tale "The Naked Sun". How much of the semi-isolation of communication via the internet is "good" for a person? This simple question then expands into something that was brought to my attention: What are the implications of folks using what is laughably referred to as "artificial intelligence" as a cope for lack of interpersonal communication?

Big can of worms there, I think that it might even require a formal sit down and ponder month.

ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-09 03:06 pm

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 225

FranklinWe are now into the fifth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health remain anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; new revelations are leaking out about just how bad the Covid vaccines are for human health; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.


5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button. 

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.


With that said, the floor is open for discussion.  
kimberlysteele: (Default)
Kimberly Steele ([personal profile] kimberlysteele) wrote2025-12-08 10:52 pm

Trans is Violence

I have nothing against people who feel their gender does not reflect the way they feel inside. As a believer in reincarnation, I believe souls take turns as male and female incarnations, so it follows that sexual dysmorphia would be a natural outcome in a world where reincarnation is rapid, with little time between death and re-birth. My problems with trans began when it went from being a fringe choice to a mass agenda pushed upon young children by the greedy State. My objections arose when trans tried to become the new normal, wedding the pharmaceutical-industrial complex to public schools and monopoly media in a disgusting, fascist polygamy of propaganda and brainwashing. I began to hate trans when it called me a bigot for questioning castration hormones for boys and induced menopause and mastectomy for girls, perverts in taxpayer-funded libraries, chest binders at Target, and the erasure of women’s sports. I don’t like sports nor have I ever liked them, and if I never saw or participated in another sports game for the rest of my life, it would not be too soon, but I hate seeing sports taken away from girls and women. These girls and women love sports and cannot have them because of male fetishes and insecurities. Give them back, and while you are at it, keep dudes out of the girl’s locker rooms and toilet stalls.

TRANS IS MUTILATION

Usually I don’t shout my headings like a Boomer or some doofus from Fifty Shades of Grey, but I feel it is warranted here. Hormones are the tip of the trans-mutilation iceberg. Whether they are for an F to M (female to male) or M to F (male to female) transexual, it is not a good idea to take regular doses of opposite sex hormones at any phase of life. It is especially damaging to take hormones as a child. I had a friend who accidentally tampered with her own hormonal balance by starving herself and replacing meals with diet shakes and pills during puberty. She seemingly screwed up everything: the development of breasts, digestion, and moods. She never experimented with drugs, including diet drugs. Kids who screw with the polarities of estrogen and testosterone with actual drugs blow up their entire hormonal ecosystems before they are built, trapping themselves in a paradox of aged babyhood and permanent sexlessness.

It’s just Pat

Back in the 80s, Saturday Night Live ran a particularly cruel skit called It’s Just Pat featuring Julia Sweeney as an androgynous person named Pat. Everyone around Pat tried to goad him/her into revealing his/her gender. Pat was an insipid, nasal, whiny, and mostly unfunny caricature of a human being. In that way typical of overweight, stocky adulthood, it was difficult to make out Pat’s feminizing or masculinizing features. For Sweeney, the skit appeared to be a humiliation ritual, throwing it in the actress’s face that she was only one bad haircut or some extra padding away from ugly, androgynous freakdom.

Hormones make the man or the woman, but they also regulate digestion, mood, water retention, muscle, and fat. If fertility were the only concern in hormonal manipulation, it would be a small one. Most people who become trans start out gay, and baby-making has never been a primary obsession among gays in any era except our own. The trouble with trans is that hormonal manipulation via shots and/or pills do not make a man into a woman or a woman into a man. They make either gender that takes them into Pats, androgynous and riding the middle in the worst sort of way.

Chopped

I recently uttered a single, flippant sentence in an essay that I wrote about plastic surgery about how M to F trans who opt for a colon graft end up with a second, stinky butthole they must dilate every day for the rest of their lives. There is nothing unprovable about what I said, it is plain fact. Some M to F trans have parts of their harvested lower colon implanted as a faux vagina. Because the lower colon has the function of eliminating waste in the form of stools, it continues to have that function if it is implanted in the perineum. My comment triggered a thousand liberal Karens who immediately broadcast my essay to the entire free world. I wept all the way to the bank.

Castrati, court eunuchs, and female genital mutilation

For those who think castrated males and “cut” females are a new phenomenon, please consult the annals of history or at least Google and educate yourself. Since the dawn of imperial courts, said courts have made a habit of altering boys and men by amputating their testicles and penises. Castrated men, also known as eunuchs, were put into the service of elite rulers who used them, often for the duration of their neutered lives.

The Italian castrati were pre-pubescent boys whose testicles were often removed or more commonly crushed to render them impotent. The boy’s voice remained beautiful and high throughout his manhood. They were the lucky ones.

Cutting off the testicles alone is far less painful and dangerous than chopping off both penis and balls. I have four male cats, all of whom are feline castrati. Though they do not mark their territory in the manner of unneutered male cats, they piss like champions. Their healthy urine streams strike the sides of and top of their covered litter boxes.

The court eunuchs of ancient China and old Byzantium were not so lucky. It was custom for thousands of years to remove both cock and balls in a single, harrowing procedure that fewer than half survived. Those who did survive often lived long lives, but the procedure that took their penis resulted in a lifetime of catheterization as the wounded penile stub was prone to closing.

As to why eunuchs were so popular in dynastic China and other places, it is quite obvious. Eunuchs were useful. In the golden cage of the harem, emasculated men served as guardians and petty dictators over bevies of scheming courtesans. Eunuchs knew how to exploit their liminal situations in ways that their 21st century equivalents have yet to grasp. The last surviving eunuch, Sung Yaoting, lived from 1902-1996. His own father performed his castration when he was only 8 years old.

For approximately 2000 years, Chinese court eunuchs were made into eunuchs as a matter of punishment. Full penis and testicular castration was a traditional punishment used to place men as high ranking civil servants and to assimilate them into the court. The “crimes” involved to merit the punishment of castration could be rape, rebellion, or merely being on the losing side of a war. Because eunuchs had a great deal of power, kids from poor families such as Sun Yaoting were often volunteered by their own families. Often, men older than the age of 14 were killed and those who were still young were castrated. The procedure, traditionally done in a chair with the legs spread and the organs chopped off with a sickle-shaped knife, routinely rendered men and boys incontinent for life if they were part of the 30 percent who survived. Self-administered catheters and diapers were and are the eunuch’s reality for the duration.

What about the girls?

Women have always been used and abused for their fertility, and that is why only eugenicists like Margaret Sanger desire to “help” certain races to stop reproducing. In cultures that openly hate women, girls, and femininity with zero qualms, female genital mutilation is the preferred method of ending a woman’s capacity to enjoy sexual pleasure. The advantage of FGM is that it wrecks any sense of fulfillment or power for the girl and future woman without destroying her potential as a baby factory. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the few intelligent people ever to emerge from Somalia, describes her own mutilation around the age of five by her own trusted relatives. This surgery, if you can call it that, was performed on the kitchen table with a pair of scissors and sewn up tight on the spot so she had to pee through stitches. As you can imagine, this disfigurement has caused her a lifetime of pain and suffering.

You have to pee through that

The trouble with trans surgeries and hormones is that they mess with urinary and waste systems while attempting to exclusively target the reproductive organs. Whether the transition is M to F or F to M, bottom surgery involves the shortening or stretching of the urethra. Adolescents and children who have not been sexually abused do not have any concept of the predicament of an aging urinary tract. For a woman, the first time anything penetrates the vagina and leads to an orgasm often heralds the last time peeing is normal, painless, and easy. Because the two pieces of equipment are so close together, the urethra is regularly irritated and often infected with UTIs that emerge after sexual activity. The beginning of sexual activity is routinely accompanied by frequent urination, burning, and a funny smell to the urine even if both partners start out as disease-free virgins.

Almost all men who reach a certain age get prostate cancer. Only vegan men seem to be spared. My not-young, vegan husband pisses like a racehorse. He has 100 problems, but his prostate is not one. Unless you maintain a strict diet free of animal flesh and secretions and an herbal regimen of urinary tract supporting herbs for decades, you will probably end up in an adult diaper as an elderly person.

Trans hormones wreak havoc upon digestion, cognition, and mood. The trans seeking person hopes surgery will complete the process, allowing her or him to emerge from the surgical cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly. Instead, they emerge as Pats, neither male nor female.

The reason the post-op trans person is 17 times more likely to commit suicide is because trans bottom surgery is more brutal than what was done to Qing dynasty brothel boys. At least 1 in 6 trans victims end up with searing, chronic pain that will haunt them until they die. In the creation of a faux vagina, vulva, and clitoris, the penile shaft is either inverted and stuffed inside the perineum or the afformentioned section of the lower intestine is crafted into a “vagina” and stuffed into the same area. The root of the penis is impossible to remove without killing the customer patient, and the castrated male is left with erectile tissue in the stump of his amputation. The stump has a manufactured wound-hole behind it along with reconstructed lumps of flesh as labia to cover the amputation. Unlike the Chinese court eunuch, he is condemned to dilating or re-opening his faux-vaginal wound every day for the rest of his life, lest the wound close and become septic. His shortened urethra is a recipe for permanent UTIs and premature incontinence. There is a high likelihood he will never orgasm again after surgery due to both his hormonal treatments (the same hormones are given to male sex offenders to make them impotent) and the painful, dysfunctional state of his amputated penis.

For F to M transitioning women, the process and results are even more ghastly and hideous. A woman or girl who goes through the F to M grist mill must harvest skin from another body part to form the sleeve or shaft of her future frankenpenis. The skin taken from her forearm (preferred), thigh, or back leaves a permanent track of shriveled, reddened burn that never heals, the searing brand of the surgeon who finances his next tropical vacation on the insurance payout. The urethra is stretched through the phallus, blithely casting aside its intended function purely for the sake of aesthetics. (Gee, when have we seen women subject themselves to bizarre and outlandish tortures and permanent damage in order to look a certain way before? That never happens) The frankendick will only work to function as a dildo with a pumping device. My research hinted at something referred to as “donor testicles”, and I am going to guess that means testicles are being harvested from nearly dead, male ICU patients who made the mistake of checking the Organ Donor box on their driver’s licenses.

A metioplasty involves cutting the clitoris (female genital mutilation) to unmoor it from its surrounding skin so it can stand at attention and function as a micropenis. Fake silicone testicles are added with more harvested skin. The result is the exact sort of “penis” that most straight women purport to hate and loathe, especially if said micropenis is attached to a gender neutral, Pat with a balding pate and a pot belly. Pat with a micropenis does not appeal to anyone, gay or straight. It’s almost as if lesbians prefer to be with other women.

TRANS IS ABUSE

Gays had a short moment in the 1990s when things were looking up. They were not yet free to marry, but they had gained a great deal of respect and clout in our civilization. The 1990s and early 200s showed us that gay is not that big of a deal and that anyone with a puerile interest in what consenting, mature adults do in the bedroom should probably seek help. Big Pharma had not yet cannibalized the populace to the point where it needed to use lesbian and gay children as cannon fodder in its never-ending war against the human race. Right around the time Big Pharma mated with government to create the Covid scare, we got the trans movement and the funneling of children into the medical system via subterfuge such as preferred pronouns and on-the-sly gender counseling. Fascism is the alliance of governments and corporations to create a de facto rule of law. Trans fascism was all the rage from 2016- 2023 until Dylan Mulvaney served as the straw to break the camel’s back by tanking Budweiser’s market share. Fascists cannot fascist if they cannot turn a profit, and Budweiser learned the hard way that its demographic of good old boys and sportsball bros were just as happy to drink Modelo and Miller. The name is irrelevant — it all tastes like carbonated gerbil piss, so why buy the one being hawked by the freak in womanface acting out a minstrel show of Venus flytrap femininity?

Men, as it turns out, try to become women in order to punish them. They have daddy issues galore but it is their mothers who drive them truly nuts. To punish women, they invade their private spaces and steal their trophies. Thanks to the trans movement, the physical superiority of men is now glaringly obvious in a way that was unclear in my Generation X. The strongest female athlete will always be beaten handily. If the point of sports is victory, there is no point to female sports. A group of amateur teenage boys beat the US Women’s Soccer Team, with the women scoring only one point in the entire game. They did this more than once. Switzerland Women’s National Team (it’s called football over there) went up against a group of boys, none of whom was over the age of 15. The women had their asses handed to them. Serena Williams, who is currently shilling her newly-emaciated Ozempic body, once boasted she could beat any male tennis player ranked outside the top 200. She was trounced by Karsten Braasch, who ranked 203rd and whose training “regimen” involved beer and cigarettes, beat both Serena and her sister, Venus, when both were at their physical peak in 1998.

Clearly the best sportswomen in the world are no match for a random, untrained teenager with a cock and balls. They are having their faces rubbed in their physical shortcomings, and though I should feel a grim satisfaction watching all the female jocks who ostracized and mocked me for sucking at sports when I was young, I don’t. They are getting their comeuppance and a taste of their own bitter medicine. Like me, they will never be good at sports. Not really. A man will always do a better job even if they train their entire lives. But just as I play piano and do not qualify or come even close to being the world’s greatest pianist, it does not mean I should give up playing or be mocked because I am not as good of a pianist as someone else. Women should continue being active in sports. Biological men and boys should be kept out of women’s sports so women can win fair victories against other women and gauge their own improvement on a fair grading curve.

F to M transitioners often come from abusive backgrounds. Many have been sexually assaulted and/or raped. They seek transition in order to avoid feeling vulnerable. This certainly seems true of the person formerly known as Ellen Page, who was passed around in the Hollywood System and now passively victimizes others by broadcasting her own brand of false transcendence. Sadly, the abused become abusers at a prolific rate, especially when abuse is of a sexual nature.

TRANS IS PERVERSION

The goal of transitioning is to run away from the weight of age and maturity or anything that looks remotely like it. The person formerly known as Ellen Page has no plans on aging into a bearded, wizened, beer-gutted fellow; no, Page wants to be the miniature version of her own imaginary biological son for the remainder of this articulation. She wants to be a boy, not a man. The man known as Rachel Levine would not dare to cut his hair short — to do so would prevent him from gaslighting the general public into calling him ma’am. Dude does not even look like a lady, and short hair would be far too honest, especially for an obese ex-Secretary of Health. Dylan Mulvaney said it himself: he wants girlhood for himself, not womanhood.

In the 1988 horror film Silence of the Lambs, there is an ostensible M to F trans character who captures, fattens and slaughters larger women with the goal of making their hides into a skin suit that he can wear while prancing about in front of a full-length mirror. Though the real serial killers Buffalo Bill was based upon — Ed Gein, Gary Heidnik, and Ted Bundy — were not autogynephiliacs (males who experience a sexual thrill from viewing themselves as females) but the Buffalo Bill character was depicted as tucking his equipment under crossed legs, enchanted by his own reflection.

The Buffalo Bill character was frightening because men who wear femininity as a costume are scary. A man who sees his XY chromosomal status as a cursed will always be perceived as wanting what he cannot have. To become a woman, he may exact revenge on women, killing them so that he can wear their skin.

Trans is an act of vengeance upon the polarities that make us whole. Being gay is reframed as such an extreme perversion, it must be erased so the formerly gay transperson can become technically “straight” in order to do traditional, penetrative sex. The gay woman has herself genitally mutilated show she can grow a penis out of her defective crotch and mate with other women as a man would. The gay man is castrated and wounded so he can become the quasi-feminine receptacle for another man’s sperm. I don’t know why anyone gets off on this but it is apparent there are entire autogynephiliac armies waiting to groom future autistic gay kids so they can join the ranks of the mutilated.

Rapists are still rapists even if they are autogynephilic men who have their junk amputated. Those who were straight and who raped or wanted to rape women to begin with found themselves in an ideal position from 2016-2023. The point of transitioning for many men was part sissy humiliation ritual and part espionage to see how the other half lives. There are straight men who seek a trans disguise to predate on lesbians, the final frontier for the dedicated misogynists. Losers who fail at being men must co-opt women’s causes and invade their private rooms. They depend upon cultural niceness mandates to defend them from the retaliation they deserve. They hate women and yet they want them and want to be them. Like Ed Gein, the serial killer who inspired Norman Bates of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, they hate and love their mommies in equal measure. They are not above terrorizing the fairer sex in order to satisfy their urges.

To the keyboard warriors at the ready whose fragile, broken minds are boiling over with verbal barbs and accusations of transphobia right now — go outside and touch grass. I am a rando on the internet. I do not think about you at all. Also, if you have read this far without trying to comment yet, you will soon find out that you are not allowed to comment on this essay without signing in. As I have said in the past, I am going to die without being bought. You cannot scare me and you cannot buy me off, so go away.

What I do want is to spread the message that mass acceptance of trans nonsense is over. We are done. We are now coming into a time where dangerous medical procedures of any sort will be questioned and investigated. The enlightenment is here. Allopathic medicine is fascism. Their unholy coupling with Big Government and corporate media in order to push the trans machine has been exposed.

Just a reminder that I will be taking my usual short, seasonal break from writing essays from December 19 - January 5 to rest and refresh the well of inspiration. I have put this blog's comments section to Dreamwidth Registered Users only for this moment and I will most likely turn on this same setting over my break. Thanks for understanding.

ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-07 09:51 pm

Magic Monday

dream it and then do itIt's almost midnight and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will not be put through.  If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here

Also:
 I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says.  And further:  I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.

(The image? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here
 
Bookshop logoI've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!  

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***
degringolade: (Default)
Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-07 08:37 pm

Diary: Running on Empty

Sorry that I haven't been posting lately. It is just I got nothing to say while waiting for shoes to drop.

kimberlysteele: (Default)
Kimberly Steele ([personal profile] kimberlysteele) wrote2025-12-05 09:01 pm
Entry tags:

Ogham Readings on Saturdays




I am happy to read your Ogham free of charge -- that's how I hone my divination skills. Please limit your reading request to four or fewer Ogham cards: though this can take many forms, here are some common ones (all of them are basically combos of 4 cards):

 
-a single three card reading for the week or month and a one-off, one card reading
-four questions about four separate items that require one answer (card) per item
-a one card reading to answer a specific question and a three card for a more nuanced question
-Two separate readings, two cards a piece exploring the positives and negatives of two different choices

I am happy to do Ogham readings confidentially via emails -- just email me at k steele studio at gmail during the allotted time/before deadline. I cannot answer health questions. If you have a question about health or another sensitive, private matter, provide a bunch of non-identifying information and the Ogham will be able to figure it out even if I don't. I'm serious... the Ogham actually tend to "know" things without me being privy to what is going on.

Please note I take time off during Solstices and Equinoxes for Druid stuff and because sometimes I simply need a break.

My next planned break is from December 18 - January 8.

I take reading requests from whenever this post goes up on Friday night until 8pm US Central Time Saturday.

For a more in depth look into how I read and interpret the Ogham's symbols, please visit my website druidogham.wordpress.com.

I am currently trying to minimize my use of PayPal. If you'd like to make a donation, I would be grateful if you did it here:

http://buymeacoffee.com/kimberlysteele

Your prayers of blessing to the deity/deities of your choice are welcome whether or not you can donate.

ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-05 09:35 am

Frugal First Friday

brussels sprouts in winterWelcome to Frugal First Friday! This is a monthly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up on the first Friday of each month, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course. 

There has been talk about releasing these posts in print format.  In case that turns out to be worth pursuing, please note: if you comment on this or any future Frugal First Friday post, you are giving permission for that comment to be included in print or other editions. This means, for those of you into the legalese, that by posting something in the comment thread you are granting me non-exclusive reprint rights to your comment, and permitting me to transfer those to a publisher or other venue. Your contribution will have your name or internet handle attached, your choice. 

I also have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed. One change from the earlier frame is that if you produce goods or services yourself, and would like to let readers know about them, you may post one (1) (yes, just one) comment per month letting people know, with a link to your website or other contact info. The other rules ought to be familiar by now. 


Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #3: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

Rule #4: don't post LLM ("AI") generated content, and don't bring up the subject unless you're running a homemade LLM program on your own homebuilt, steam-powered server farm. 

With that said, have at it!  
ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2025-12-02 10:52 am

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 224

who did itWe are now into the fifth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary all these years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health remain anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; new revelations are leaking out about just how bad the Covid vaccines are for human health; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before:

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its wholly owned politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.


5. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

7. Please don't post LLM ("AI") generated text. This is a place for human beings to talk to other human beings, not for the regurgitation of machine-generated text. Also, please don't discuss large language models (the technology popularly and inaccurately called "artificial intelligence" these days) except as they bear directly on the Covid phenomenon. Here again, my finger is hovering over the delete button. 

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.


With that said, the floor is open for discussion.  
degringolade: (Default)
Degringolade ([personal profile] degringolade) wrote2025-12-02 03:37 pm

Diary: They weren't that good.

In the morning following my wake up and my body slowly and a little painfully getting up to speed (and that speed is slow) my process consists of drinking coffee and trying to kick-start my cranial neurons. While the caffeine is taking effect, I usually peruse what is referred to as "the news".

Today was no different. But for some odd reason, a not particularly good song from the '80's wandered unwelcome into my brain while I was perusing the antics that constitute "the news". I think that this trite little title is the core of the matter. While everyone does, they usually want change in order to cement what they feel is their rightful privilege. You see, that is the root cause of the problem.

I am going to ponder this for a bit. In the end, it all comes down to what you feel is the critical core of human society. I tend to think that the vast majority of folks out there feel their individual needs are that core.

[last bit of fall.jpg]