I Feel Like Wishing People A “Merry Christmas” Wouldn’t Be Such A Problem

If we weren’t so aggressive and exclusionary about it, y’ know?  Because like for example being wished a happy Purim or Diwali or whatever by someone who celebrates that is nice because they’re saying “this is a happy special time for me and I want other people to be happy during this happy special time” and so like if we gave people time off for their holidays, made room for their cultural and religious practices and shit people who celebrate Christmas could say “Merry Christmas” and have it mean “this is a happy special time for me, and I want you to have a happy special time during a time that’s special to me” as well instead of “I demand you acknowledge my cultural dominance, and refuse to tolerate people different from myself”

Also happy holidays isn’t actually a lot better because it assumes that like every religion/culture is all about their winter festival (or even has a winter festival, or that the seasons are identical everywhere) which is kinda… wrong.  

(I’m an atheist from a family that’s been atheist on my dad’s side since the 19th century, and am third gen atheist on my mom’s side, though we do celebrate Christmas but mostly it’s a holiday about my dad’s version of Santa, who he says is a personification of like the human impulse towards kindness and generosity which is a very nice way of seeing it, he also told me that Santa is all ethnicities and all genders because Santa lives in all of us which is super adorable)

Dear New-Age/Pagan/etc community

Stop using the G-slur for Romani folks, it’s incredibly offensive and profoundly inaccurate.

Also like the lack of respect (shown through lack of rigour in terms of research and careless blending and homogenising of diverse traditions) for a lot of the religions you borrow from is also gross and needs to stop, also like if you actually bothered to read a book now and then you’d end up with something a lot more interesting than Protestantism with the serial numbers filed off.

Additionally, you really need to consider the massive influence of the profoundly racist Madam Blavatsky on the movement’s ideas because they go to some scary fucked up places.

Not to mention carelessly naming things Ostara… given the way that particular name has been tainted historically (gross proto-nazi magazine was named after Ostara) IS ICKY AND YOU SHOULD STOP AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING, because like even if it’s done in total innocence and with the best of intentions using shit that could be construed as a fascist dog whistle is a really great way to make a lot of marginalised people feel really unsafe.

The Fool

cartomancyfancies:

Songs: Cosmic Dancer by T. Rex
I’m a fool for you girl – T. Rex

Book: The Idiot by Dostoyevsky

Meanings: The querent, potential, starbursts of new energy, leap of faith

“Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy, and we both suffer.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

Ideas On A Collectivized English Country Estate

Actually a collectivized English country estate sounds like it could be a very pleasant place to live, basically some people choose to do the farming and live in the cottages (that have been renovated to be super charming and nice) some people live in the big house and they do all the domestic labor and cooking for the people who do the farming, including like laundry, cleaning, clothes mending and maybe even clothes making and so on and like you can switch out if you don’t like the role you’re doing. Ladies maids could be like inhouse beauticians and governesses could mind the collectively cared for children in the nursery while the parents worked… seems sort of idyllic. You could also have your doctor and dentist and vet there, your tailor, your mechanic, a hub for public transport to places outside of the village and like you could put your library there, and like a woodworking workshop and like a place for big expensive tools you don’t need all the time (like lathes and table saws and belt sanders) because they have a ton of room, so basically it’s like a service hub at the center of a big circle and you could have your social functions (dances, weddings, town meetings etc) there, and it would also probably be your designated place to go in case of natural disaster, and you could also store things like a snowplow and backhoe and things for common use there, also maybe your local school depending on the size of things and the outbuildings and you’d go there for meals.

Also you could have a tailor there because getting things tailored is nice. It’d also be nice because you’d always have access to the stuff that you like need sometimes but not all the time (like floor waxers, and carpet steamers and weird special cake pans and other special pastry equipment, and stud finders and sewing machines, and like fancy audio equipment for recording whatever, and nice cameras and double boilers because they’d be shared in common and you could have enough that you were never like “awww someone took the last good camera” (also you’d probably get some of that stuff for people who needed it often) and you could have a giant store of board games and it’d be easy to find people to play with.  Everyone would get fresh fluffy towels delivered like in a hotel… like it wouldn’t be the thing for everyone but for people who like that sort of thing it’d be lovely, and you’d be able to keep horses and things for people who like different sorts of sports and probably have like fancy spa equipment and a collective gym… basically it’d be like ALL THE AMENITIES which’d be cool.

Imagine the giant awesome playground you could have for the kids, and like the super cool treehouse/s you could have for them to hang out in and like a giant shared dollhouse and things like that for the nursery playroom, and the like gigantic blowout birthday/Halloween/other holiday parties you could have because there’s this giant fancy house available, and a bunch of specialist cooks so you could have awesome food and people’d pitch in to decorate (also like onsite petting zoo basically lol) Fuck you’d probably have room in one of the out buildings to store a bouncy house if needed)