rootandrock

[rootandrock]

That's super cool! I may pick up that book just to read it myself.

The starch makes total sense - that's going to create a very plastic clay that's very easy to work. Kiln-firable play doh, basically. The starch water is probably all you really need.

Charcoal and hair will burn off in the kiln, and leave the ceramic very porous, so that's a give/take on the added workability and the Woo. I'd suggest using broken down pottery as the grog instead - previous experiments, maybe. Or if you're working the Dragon Book...

However... you can create stunning carbon-black paints by reducing down plants into a thick goo, and applying that to pottery before firing. That requires a specific type of slip applied first to trap the carbon, though.

Another great resource for hand-building from wild clay, and for the aforementioned black paint technique, is Andy Ward's Ancient Pottery over on youtube. I won't directly link because I don't wanna scandalize the man if he checks his link sources.

Paging @rootandrock , I need someone to appreciate the double ceramics-and-woo boner that this video gives

#I have some clay that was dug in the midwinter new moon and has never seen light #Charged some Goodies under the eclipse totality too #I got PLANS for that I tell ya what

[rootandrock]

I unironically and genuinely love how every time something works as intended or expected literally everyone involved goes "Wait... what the fuck... that worked?! It's REAL?!"

And then they do it again and again and again - every time the shock, awe and distress are just as fresh as the first time.

Real talk: It is one of the most true-to-life representations of what it feels like to engage in magical experimentation and work that I have EVER seen.

"Yeah yeah yeah so we unbound one of the retinue of an ancient Slavic goddess that we oopswoopsed our way into in the first place but SURELY we're not going to find GOBLINS when we go looking for GOBLINS and charging our intent to find GOBLIN-... fuck. Well, it's not going to happen again. There's absolutely zero chance we'll be unwittingly admitted into the Venusburg by all of the Fey spirits of the wild, liminal, place- FUCK."

10/10, no notes.

FUCKING SAME, GREG

#Yes even when they do stuff that's maybe not the most wise #we all blunder with our whole ass out on occasion and if you say you don't you're a liar

[rootandrock]

Literally going to have to buy a laser printer to print my little books because I can't find a printer (business) who will 1: print occult material 2: just do the "book guts" for me to bind myself.

Good, funny, times right there.

[rootandrock]

Horniness is not intrinsically less pure than any other human motivation

#I made this art because I'm horny for it existing in the world #I desire seeing it created the way I desire air

[rootandrock]

I wish their was a series on how a plant will kill you,

Like this book gathers all the names scientific and as many folk names we know, that will kill you if you burn them

These ones if you touch

These if you eat

These if you drink

If you take to much

If you put it in oil for infusion

So on so froth like where do you go to find out if you can burn something and if you can't burn it could you put it in oil or water and steam it is it the burning or the fumes?

Where are y'all learning this shit, halp!?

[rootandrock]

#It suddenly makes sense as to why the first group I adhered myself to used Sumerian iconography #We'll sorta wink and nod at the fact that they gave me a nonbinary title before I knew I was trans too but hey

[rootandrock]

The great thing is that "How to get there" is incredibly easy to answer, at least in theory. It's sort of like the Douglas Adams version of how to fly - Fall, but miss the ground.

The not-so-great thing is that in sitting down to think about how it 'works' has lead me to a lot of theory about the function of various actions, even those unconsciously undertaken, and how they're probably all part and parcel to the experience. Those things are a lot harder to put down in writing.

There I was in a Circle doodling and note-taking in my "workbook" when I get The Vibe.

The Vibe is when one of the principle players in The Nocturnal Gatherings decides to nudge into my personal bubble. This nudge is, I think, another 'priest'. Certainly someone touched by Herself in a particular way, anyway. I am paraphrasing their words, because I get it as more of a "meaning" that my brain attempts to assign the best possible word choice to almost as fast as I get it. There's 'input lag', and a bias for sure, it's sometimes hard to convey the full spectrum of what I 'get'.

It is late, and my brain is half-asleep anyway, owed to a very loose border between the two states for me, so I lean a little more into "sleep" to tune in better.

"You're going to need to start writing the [grammar], and the [rites], and the methods for traversing the [badlands] to get to [the gathering place]." Says the Nudge.

Now, in this message I also get Jake Stratton-Kent's name, the word "Grimoire" (Which seems fairly self-evident... pick up their version of The True Grimoire, or maybe some of their other work) someone with a Swedish accent/low voice, saying "sigil", the image of beads being strung. A few more images like that, and those will take time to puzzle out.

"We'll assume I believe that this is genuine communication, and a genuinely communicated wish of the Whole of The Assembly and Herself. Then what is the meaning of doing those things?" I reply.

"You have heard most of the words, and found the right replacements when you couldn't. You found the right way - without losing the meaning - to leave behind the [parts that would cause genuine harm]. The [Ludo narrative, mytheme, mythic truth, 'dream logic', Magical Truth] is now good (as in "proper and useful" but also good as in "not harmful") enough to share."

As they say this I also get that their 'meaning' is intended to match how I describe my own 'traditional witch' as more of a literary tradition than a direct, physical, person-to-person, lineage due to the complications of spirit interactions just like this one. I also get flashes and bits of the things they're referencing that are harmful, and the mitigating factors I've employed.

So I take a second. I think hard about what I just picked up. "So, you're telling me y'all want me opening the way for more people...?"

"They will arrive either way. They sometimes come without being invited, and bring trouble [A flash of the visitor who got their head ripped off for rudeness]. Aren't you the [Image of a retriever gently offering a duck to a hunter]?"

"No, you know very well that if I am a dog I am far more the [Lurchers running down hogs, Border Collie directing a herd, Kangal soaked in blood]. Maybe I can show people how to shape and fashion the right keys, and prepare themselves the right way to gain entry into their version of the roads and ways? Maybe I can nip their heels to keep them walking in the right direction? And uh... keep the rabble out."

The Nudge is nodding slowly, but enthusiastically. "Even if they do not come to us, they go where they belong."

"Well, there's a tiny problem with that: You and I both know the writing would have to be a physically delivered medium, and the last four printing houses I talked to said no in the strongest possible terms with one of them threatening to send the prayer warriors... so..."

"[That sounds like a you problem.]" says The Nudge, and is gone.

Wow thanks.

[rootandrock]

I've been using a deck of "Spanish suited playing cards" that I'd picked up for... maybe 50c as a fidget toy. Shuffling over and over and over, dealing out for solitaire, playing a game, loading them back together, shuffling over and over.

It took me about a week of this to realize this was me getting to know a divination tool.

Thoth deck: "Riffle shuffle me and I will SMITE you." This deck: "If you don't riffle shuffle me constantly I will develop separation anxiety like an idle Huskey and eat your couch."

[rootandrock]

There I was in a Circle doodling and note-taking in my "workbook" when I get The Vibe.

The Vibe is when one of the principle players in The Nocturnal Gatherings decides to nudge into my personal bubble. This nudge is, I think, another 'priest'. Certainly someone touched by Herself in a particular way, anyway. I am paraphrasing their words, because I get it as more of a "meaning" that my brain attempts to assign the best possible word choice to almost as fast as I get it. There's 'input lag', and a bias for sure, it's sometimes hard to convey the full spectrum of what I 'get'.

It is late, and my brain is half-asleep anyway, owed to a very loose border between the two states for me, so I lean a little more into "sleep" to tune in better.

"You're going to need to start writing the [grammar], and the [rites], and the methods for traversing the [badlands] to get to [the gathering place]." Says the Nudge.

Now, in this message I also get Jake Stratton-Kent's name, the word "Grimoire" (Which seems fairly self-evident... pick up their version of The True Grimoire, or maybe some of their other work) someone with a Swedish accent/low voice, saying "sigil", the image of beads being strung. A few more images like that, and those will take time to puzzle out.

"We'll assume I believe that this is genuine communication, and a genuinely communicated wish of the Whole of The Assembly and Herself. Then what is the meaning of doing those things?" I reply.

"You have heard most of the words, and found the right replacements when you couldn't. You found the right way - without losing the meaning - to leave behind the [parts that would cause genuine harm]. The [Ludo narrative, mytheme, mythic truth, 'dream logic', Magical Truth] is now good (as in "proper and useful" but also good as in "not harmful") enough to share."

As they say this I also get that their 'meaning' is intended to match how I describe my own 'traditional witch' as more of a literary tradition than a direct, physical, person-to-person, lineage due to the complications of spirit interactions just like this one. I also get flashes and bits of the things they're referencing that are harmful, and the mitigating factors I've employed.

So I take a second. I think hard about what I just picked up. "So, you're telling me y'all want me opening the way for more people...?"

"They will arrive either way. They sometimes come without being invited, and bring trouble [A flash of the visitor who got their head ripped off for rudeness]. Aren't you the [Image of a retriever gently offering a duck to a hunter]?"

"No, you know very well that if I am a dog I am far more the [Lurchers running down hogs, Border Collie directing a herd, Kangal soaked in blood]. Maybe I can show people how to shape and fashion the right keys, and prepare themselves the right way to gain entry into their version of the roads and ways? Maybe I can nip their heels to keep them walking in the right direction? And uh... keep the rabble out."

The Nudge is nodding slowly, but enthusiastically. "Even if they do not come to us, they go where they belong."

"Well, there's a tiny problem with that: You and I both know the writing would have to be a physically delivered medium, and the last four printing houses I talked to said no in the strongest possible terms with one of them threatening to send the prayer warriors... so..."

"[That sounds like a you problem.]" says The Nudge, and is gone.

Wow thanks.

#spirit communication #the unseen coven

[rootandrock]

[rootandrock]

This is your reminder to select a Strange and Unusual Plant at the garden center just after the eclipse has hit totality.

It'll work out just fine.

[rootandrock]

Reblog if you can hear this image I'm trying to see something

#HmmmmMMMMMMmmmmm

[rootandrock]

Lately my mornings have been starting with a walk on the treadmill. Much to the dismay of my roommate I'm also using this time to dictate the long suffering toad book into my phone (when I'm going a little too fast to thumb type anyway).

So, yeah ... I'm working on writing again. Bits and bobs and stops and starts.

I'm honestly doing better mentally than I have in a while despite my surroundings being a little nutty. If the momentum holds I expect I can restart other projects that got stalled out during 2022/2023's utter hellfire. Edited to add: I've actually COMPLETED several written/illustrated projects. The problem is that out of the four printers I've contacted about getting the "guts" of books made so I can bind them myself 3 have just said "no" and the fourth kinda lost the plot and began to spam me with religious messages, sooooo.

[rootandrock]

The number of friends I've had in straight relationships where the guy outright refused to touch her if she didn't shave her pubes. Fellas this is beyond embarrassing it is outright misogyny and abusive coercion over someone else's body. Get the fuck over yourselves and embrace bush or perish.

#I am a full grown fucking mammal #I deserve to have a pelt

[rootandrock]

POV you made a popular post about insects

#just basically living as a rat or snake owner

[rootandrock]

it's always "you gnawed off your own leg to escape like an animal caught in a trap" and never "why didn't anyone try to help you out of the trap" or "why weren't you provided with any other resources to escape the trap with except for your own teeth"

[rootandrock]

I don't do mean pranks on this day. I might post something silly and fun, but that's about it.

I hope your day is free of upsetting 'pranks'.