honor thy mother and thy father

Hi Wawa. I’m a 华人/SEAsian of Chinese descent interested in learning more about my heritage. Now I know where my family came from except but Great-grandpa from Dad’s side is a bit of a mystery. Dad’s side of the family are Hakka people from Guangdong, mom’s side are from Fujian. We don’t think Great-grandpa’s Hakka, at least not fully, but no one knows what he is. He might not even be Han. My dad thinks he’s Western Chinese, ‘he’s really tall and he looks like them’ he said. I asked Chinese friends and one of them said that’s probably wrong because normally it’s the Han going to Western China and not the other way around. I agree because what would a Western Chinese person be doing up in a random Guangdong mountain village? Another friend suggested he’s Shandong because they’re also known for being really tall. Do you have any idea what the truth is likely to be?

mmmm youknow.... sometimes, there is no discernible reason for the way people look. yes there is a stereotypical look of a people from a certain region, but not fitting the stereotype doesn't automatically mean they're from somewhere else!

your great grandpa might've just been a tall southerner lol (not impossible). and at this point, unless there are written records with insight, "the truth" here is probably just a family myth—something to gossip about when everyone gets together and start comparing physical attributes :P

hey do you ever think about how MAD Lan Wangji must have been post-Siege. like people talk about the Grieving, because of course he was grieving, but I don’t see as many people talk about how furious he must have been. like there’s him being shown first hand the rank hypocrisy of the cultivation world and how they killed Wei Wuxian and the Wen (and jeez, the fear he must have felt wondering what would happen if people were to find out Shizui was a Wen–) and then how they turned around and said that was Justice. how enraging would it be to hear them disparage Wei Wuxian and then without blinking use his inventions; just using Wei Wuxian while condemning him even after death. truly hanguang-jun is stronger than me, because I think I would go crazy.

ksdjfhjsdkfh in all fairness, i think the reason people don't really talk about lan wangji's rage after wwx's death is because we never actually see it. we watch him drink and harm himself with the wen brand in hopeless despair. we see his sadness, his grief, we see him drag his broken body to yiling and search for days for a single trace of wwx, the only thing forcing him to come back being the sickly little boy he found hiding in a tree... but we don't see him angry, resentful, or vengeful.

other than maybe towards jc, lwj doesnt outwardly show any resentment or disdain, and doesnt treat anybody differently. he isn't violent, and even at the immediate threat of losing wwx (ie the 33 elders) he only attacks them so they cannot impede him from escaping with wwx, it was a rational choice made with a clear goal in mind, he didn't snap. in the present, we watch how he simply removes himself from the situation altogether and chooses to help the common people with his own hands, rather than waste time with clan politics.

we KNOW he must be angry at that senseless injustice, but he simply has a different way of showing it. it's all inner brewing, which he answers by changing his actions, not by snapping with violence.

and thaaaat's exactly why wwx is OBSESSED with making lwj angry. because he sees all that self-restraint and emotion boiling behind that impassive face, and he wants to see it explode!! he wants lwj to never have to hold back with him. he knows lwj feels everything SO much but only allows his own actions to be calculated, so if he can tease him just in the right way to let those feelings explode in a positive manner that makes them both happy? well, call that therapy babyyy

episode six was a real we're so back (crystal learning to channe the powers of her ancestors), we're so over (edwin getting dragged to hell) kind of whiplash

thinking about the identity crisis i went though as a kid cuz my parents had told me very simply that my mom was pashtun and my dad was punjabi and they were both from peshawar and that was that. understandably they had simplified it so much for me cuz i was a kid, but whenever other brown people asked where i was from or "what are you" and i mentioned punjabi and they'd be like oh wow where? lahore? and i'd just be like nope lol peshawar and they would press me about how my dad could be punjabi if he was from peshawar and i just didn't have an answer. when i got a little older, i started saying well borders are manmade, you don't necessarily have to be from one ethnicity cuz you're from a certain area (and i was right! i just didn't know at the time why i was right).

as i got older and i found out more about our family background, it all made more sense to me as i came to know that the punjabi side of us was allegedly from a great-great-great grandfather from gurdaspur who had moved to bannu way back when. but as my interest in linguistics and anthropology and history grew, i realized that my old explanation of "borders are manmade" was true anyway!!! prime examples being speakers of Hindko and Derawali, as well as the Hazarewal community in general. anyways, i could go on about this, but it's all just so endlessly fascinating that i wouldn't know where to stop so i'll stop now.

Flint and the magic of history

For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors back to the stone age have been using flint (and obsidian) tools in areas where those rocks are abundant. The art of shaping flint has been lost to most for generations, but with the help of archaeology and extant ruins we can uncover some of the techniques they used. But what does that have to do with Witchcraft?

Lots!

First of all, it helps us connect to our ancient history and the spirits of our ancestors. Connecting to the practical work of our ancestors and ancient people is important for death and spirit work, even those whose language we would not understand at all today. Those people existed on the same land as us, and they can speak to us through these practices. We can feel a little bit of how they felt back when they lived their lives, how they might have shaped a tool they used to hunt and to carve wood to help build their homes. The very bricks used in the middle ages, even, were often knapped flint. Most especially ancient holy sites and churches.

Flint is a double-edged sword, used for hunting and building a home where you can be protected from the elements and the outside world. As such, it is an especially versatile rock in Witchcraft. It can protect you against the elements and it can carve new life through death, the hunting of prey that eas practiced from the time of our ancestors. It built the walls which are sacred to many Christians, medieval churches and monasteries were commonly made of flint. But its roots go much earlier than Christianity.

The rock itself is also extremely diverse! It is a type of quartz/chert that is rock hard, shattering in unique patterns when struck. It's razor sharp edges were used for cutting meat and as a scalpel, as well as arrow heads and small axes. It comes in many different colours, from red to orange, brown, grey-blue and almost black (though obsidian is black it is a similar but distinct stone). Encased in flint you can often find deposits of various minerals, including quartz, ancient sponges, fossils and iron to name a few.

I use each colour of flint slightly differently: red and orange flint for heart and connection to the earth and family, grey and blue flint for protection and stability. Hag stones are also commonly made of flint and they are excellent forms of protection. Flint pebbles and shards make an excellent addition to a grounding, protection or friendship spell bag, and can help bring you closer to the gods.

In my next post on flint I will talk more about the practice of flint knapping itself and how I use it in my practice.

got called an american yet again,,,

im this close to violence

Btw your homework today is reading Pedro Paramo and then telling me in detail how it’s affected your mental illnesses

There is no substitute for spending time with trees themselves. Experiences with [funerary trees] can do wonders for the grief that comes with losing someone very close. The intensity of being alone with a particular [funerary] tree or grove [...] while in a vulnerable state is hard to put into words.

From The Witch's Cabinet: Plant Lore, Sorcery, and Folk Tradition, published 2021; Corinne Boyer (My Ko-Fi Here)

ned should've packed up and gone home the second they were like "kill your daughter's dog"

It’s always my time to shine from the moment I open my eyes. Blessings to the Ancestors and The Most High for the blessing of being me ❤️

‘‘ The lights must never go out,

The music must always play…

May I, composed like them

Negation and despair,

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Show an affirming flame ’’

sometimes you’re sitting eating toast and then you get the deepest, strongest wave of despair over the things that happened to your people at the hands of colonizers and because of that you will never know your own personal history or genealogy in the way that many other people do and you already feel like an outsider to your ethnicity in a lot of ways

eating highly ethnically specific food at the rural family function and being like "is this liver?" it's probably not liver, they say. eat it. it's liver.

me: davina in my canon is sacrificed once. . . not really. just killed by her boyfriend's dad aka the devil.

also me: but in her actual canon in TO... technically she was sacrificed 4 times. what in the hell... i went light in my canon.

T*TK STORY SPOILERS IN TAGS.