Lmst

I'm so burnt out with financial insecurity and a sense of worthlessness that I can't bring myself to be online, or visible, not anymore.

neocolonial malcontent chic boosted:

Runway ready and working the sunshine. Such a rock (pigeon) star.

Photo of a beautiful, plump rock pigeon in shades of rich charcoals and greys--iridescent purple speckles on eir frilly throat--standing like a saucy fashion model on a cement fountain fixture under a wash of brilliant sunlight against a grassy quadrangle. The pigeon has turned suddenly towards us mid-strut to strike a pose along the fountain's edge: Eir tiny orange eyes are flung coquettishly in our direction, and eir tail feathers--in beautifully ruffled greyscale--seem to whip 'round in a matching curl forward. Fabulous is the only word for em.

TFW you realise you're twenty minutes into having a conversation with someone, that's entirely imaginary 🙃

Today is neither #MushroomMonday nor #FungiFriday , but extreme humidity and blazing sun, along with brief and infrequent but hard spells of rain that don't really cool things down much (it's felt like 40°-45°C every day for over a month now), have led to this growth of wood-ear fungus on the decomposing stump of a dead jackfruit tree. A welcome sign to me, but can someone help identify what exactly this is, though?

I'd brought this little jasmine home last Sunday to cheer myself up a bit (I'd had enough of a whole month of staying in due to the heat, poor health, and consequent depression), and today I planted them next to the dead tree. Jasmines are bustling, capable mediators, and one of the plants thriving in this weather. I'd hoped to have this one indoors, but they wanted to be outside in the sun with everybody else in the seeping wet of the claimed wetland earth.

#BloomScrolling #ClimateDiary #ClimateChangeGardening

A wood-ear fungus (I don't know which type and would appreciate input on this) growing in florid curlicue clusters on the cracked and decomposing stump of a dead jackfruit tree, surrounded by naturally occurring mulch and pieces of concrete debris of various sizes. The fungus is a light-to-medium reddish-brown in colour, with some fine foamy layers of white over and under them.

A little jasmine (Jasminium sambac) plant with two fully bloomed flowers and two or three buds, newly planted next to the dead tree. The soil base of the plant has been lightly covered with chunks of debris to conserve moisture and help anchor the plant. The plant is bushy in form, with big, glossy, deep warm green leaves. The plant has been copiously watered, and the leaves are shiny and dripping with water.

#MutualAidRequest :boost_requested:
My #ChronicIllness has worsened after a relatively stable two months, partly due to the #ClimateCrisis -induced extremes of heat and humidity. Expenses have been high as a result, and I have more ahead in June‒July, stuff I can't delay any longer:

💊 medical expenses — I haven't gotten tested in two years now, I need at least four tests including an MRI scan, and maybe see a doctor if the funds allow it. For medical care and making space for rest and recovery, I will need USD $200.

🏠 extensive home repairs needed to get rid of termites + damp and mould, fissures and drainage issues, security fixes (!) et al. so that it doesn't flood again when the rains come and I don't have to worry about intruders daily. For this, I need USD $4,000.

Here are ways to support me:

• #MutualAid donations via PayPal 💸 https://paypal.me/NeemBlossom?country.x=IN&locale.x=en_GB

• Tarot sessions via Ko-Fi and Signal ☕ https://ko-fi.com/azadirachta/commissions

• Subscription-based offerings via Ko-Fi 🍀 http://ko-fi.com/azadirachta/tiers

NOTE: tarot sessions via video calls are temporarily unavailable due to my chronic illness. However, text and email readings are very much on offer.

Please, if you can, help me out here. I've attached two testimonials re: my tarot services.

GOAL STATUS 🪫 63/4200

#PleaseBoost

Yellow-green text with brown shadow on a mid-to-high saturation deep violet-blue background reads as:

"My tarot card reading with Debaparna was clarifying and helpful. I would describe the experience as looking into a mirror that helps you see yourself and your role in society in higher definition, perhaps more objectively. I was introduced to the concept of “individual difference” and how to use my unique perspective and experiences to build community. I was impressed with the amount of time Debaparna took with me. This experience wasn’t “fortune telling,” but more like intuitive guidance. I highly recommend booking a reading.

— Osa."

My Fediverse URL and the link to my Ko-Fi page have also been added below (check the text portion of this post for that.)

Yellow-green text with brown shadow on a mid-to-high saturation deep violet-blue background reads as:

"I came across a post about a tarot reading by Tori while doom scrolling or something like it. I had been restless and anxious for some days, processing a lot of different things… I made a donation and arranged a reading… Tori let me express it all in my own way and in my own time… She picked the cards and let me interpret them, only later offering to give her own insights… This is approach was welcome and very useful… I would recommend it to anyone whether they may be a sceptic or someone with a long-standing interest in Tarot.

— Rob."

My Fediverse URL and the link to my Ko-Fi page have also been added below (check the text portion of this post for that.)

I'm watching the video of the NZ Maori legislators performing the haka to protest in the parliament on repeat, and I keep thinking, this is the stuff of legend. This is art. This is beauty and divinity that refuses to back down in the face of racist colonialist oppression and violence. Blessed rage.

And then I see BJP-RSS ethnofascists commending Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke for preserving the traditional way 🙃 I'm like, wait till the legions of Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim, Buddhist ancestral spirits and their living descendants bring the wrath of the universe down on you. You're literally just asking for it.

#NZPol #India

I just saw a magnificent HUGE raven take a pigeon out of the air & slaughter them in my garden, and then take off with a large bit of pidge brain in their beak 👀 The jungle babblers followed swiftly, mindful but absolutely not very demure.

I'm rather shocked because crows don't visit the garden, it's just the babblers, red-vented bulbuls, common tailorbirds, and pigeons. Sometimes a few sparrows. I've literally never seen a raven here before, much less a predatory one. I can't decide if it's an omen 😅

UPDATE: the raven came back to finish their meal, but by then the crows had already been at it. The crows, a pair of rufous treepies, and I chased them off. The treepies were the most daring: one lost a tail feather to the raven, but kept divebombing the raven until they landed in my garden, at which point I scared them away.

UPDATE#2: TIL that the rufous treepie is called শামুক খোল in Bangla (transliterated as "snail shell/snail opener") because they forage for and eat snails.

Tried some night illustration again yesterday. Figuring out how to represent the stars in overcast and/or light-polluted night skies is proving to be a bit of a math problem. I fucked up the scaled placement of the stars here as well: ⅔rd of the Summer Triangle looks fairly okay to me, but Ras Algethi and Ras Alhague needed to be spaced out more and aligned better, and Antares way more to the right-side margin.

You can also see where I got tired of plotting out the fine foliar detail and rushed the conclusion 😅 I'm just getting started and I'm focused on having fun and not being mean to myself anymore, so I felt like I could just do that once in a while. Vega and Altair were big on the east-northeast when I was wrapping up for bed, almost up on the celestial meridian. Couldn't find Deneb Adige, but I thought I could see Polaris and Eltanin.

#VoidMoonVibes 🌘
#MastoArt #TraditionalArt #InkDrawing #NightSky

Pen and ink illustration on brown packing paper: of a rather heavily overcast and light polluted night sky. A big light source on the bottom left corner, from the building, is contributing to the disorienting light level here. This is the east-northeast to eastern horizon, with the darker silhouettes of coconut and tal palms, and the lighter foliar mass of banyan and other trees. Amid the cloud cover, some stars are very dimly visible, and have been labelled on the drawing itself: Vega, Altair, Ras Algethi, Ras Alhague, Sabik, and Antares.

Closeup of the centre-top portion of the ink drawing on brown packing paper placed on the ivory white pages of an open book: Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee. Of the drawing, the stars in the clouded sky and the topmost parts of the darker tree silhouettes are in focus. The text in the background reads: "I was a little stung by Babak's dismissiveness, but I later came to understand that it came from the cynicism of experience. The true worth of a ruhker was in long days of hunting and uncelebrated toil. The first manticore kill, [...] holy ashes in the Fire Temple, the royal feast [...] would never hap-".

@moonrabbit have some from me over here :BlobCat_Flower:

Picture taken from a lower angle, of a young jasmine (Jasminium sambac) tree with a dense cluster of three visible fully open flowers, against a blurry background of a rain-stained wall and a cloudless blue April sky. The flowers are creamy white in colour, and the big leaves a deep warm green. Not pictured: the incredible fragrance.

TFW you go outside at twilight to water and spray the plants with rice water + epsom salt and neem oil, wishing for them to drink up and fight back and feel free and fed and happy — and in the process YOU get devoured by mosquitoes

#Gardening

Baby's first night illustration 🌃 I have a long journey ahead to getting the exact look that I want and can be personally satisfied with; but I can't help but be proud of this thing I made.

I went out in the evening and found Sirius glimmering in the west-southwest, alone in a rather overcast sky ramping up the humidity. Felt like they'd like to be included here, despite my beginner-level drawing skill.

#VoidMoonVibes 🌖
#MastoArt #TraditionalArt #InkDrawing #NightSky

Picture of an ink drawing on brown packing paper, of a flowering branch of jasmine (Jasminium sambac) with one freshly opening flower and four visible buds, against a cloudy light-polluted night sky. There's a dark cloud right behind the flowers, and beyond, an eight-rayed star: Sirius. On the top corners, black plastic and steel drawing clips are partially visible.

Shubhô Nôbôbôrṣô (Happy New Year) to all Bengali folks who observe and celebrate 🌻 📚 ✨ The Sun entered (sidereal) Aries on the first night of Venus since Her stationing direct, going into the day of Mars, who has also recently entered (sidereal) Cancer.

Wishing safety and prosperity to everyone 🍀🌸💛

#SilentSunday #MakanApaToday #HomeCooking #Gardening #Summer2025

On a blue glass top table with pink and purple patterns, on top of a pair of cotton placemats casually folded in half so that only the reverse side of the weave is visible, in shades of red-purple, blue, green, and yellow: a plastic container (obtained from a takeout delivery) with an etched steel fork jutting out, full of noodles stir-fried with okra and tomato, layered with scrambled egg with coriander greens on top. This was today's brunch to celebrate Venus stationing direct. The friable (!) mass of creamy yellow scrambled egg has somehow blocked out about 97% of the noodles from view. Only the bright deep green of the okra and coriander greens, and rich red of the tomato are generally discernible. Amateur presentational skill on my part, my apologies.

Close-up from the top of a rotund freshly bloomed jasmine (Jasminium sambac) flower, right on the top branch and so big for its size that it has obscured most of the other buds in the cluster. There are more sprays of round creamy yellow-white buds among the big and glossy deep green leaves. In the blurry background: the stone container in which the jasmine has been planted, the pink nightie (in the local parlance) that I'm wearing with a partial view of my brown foot, the yellow, white, and red ceramic tulsī pot with a mature tulsī growing in it and casting a rather Gothic silhouette on the wall behind, and two smaller ceramic pots at the feet of the tulsī, empty and waiting to be filled and planted in.

(Post- or) apocalypse fiction of any medium is such a fascinating screen to any country or organisation's politics. Given that Hollywood generally has the most popular and frequently-screened apocalypse cinema or television, they also function as such essential vehicles for the neocolonial cultural imperialism of the late capitalist/globalisation era.

I don't see many people getting even close to considering it in regular conversation, but the ethos of Hollywood apocalypse fiction has had a definite role in shaping and solidifying the present forms of fascism and majoritarianism in the so-called third world countries (speaking mainly of India here).

Also, an underrated agent in this genre: Christopher Nolan, especially for "Interstellar".

I get that the US is supposed to be vested with great responsibility as a global superpower, etc., but these posts seem so... laughable to me?

Like, don't get me wrong: I understand the sentiment here. But the subtext is so insidiously racist, and the people who post and repost them so oblivious to it, that I can't actually feel anything in response. Like, do people really think the foreign aid was simple benevolence, given out of the US's greatness of heart/treasury for nothing else? Roland Emmerich apocalypse cinema-levels of centrist cluelessness.

"Look at the poor third-world countries all looking after each other!* We, the US of A, are supposed to be SO MUCH BETTER than them, Trump is such a let down!"

* [Damn, I wish we really were, though.]

P.S.: not to mention the fact that the headline itself implies that these countries are, or have already, formed a counter-US bloc led by China or Russia (whoever is easier to scapegoat at any given moment), stoking remnants of Cold War-era anxiety.

BlueSky quote-post with OP identifiers blurred, reads: "I'm just so fucking disappointed in everyone who didn't give a shit about what putting a fascist in power would actually mean, and don't click on the link, because I'm including the NYT in that."

The quoted post, by the New York Times, is a headline (with the article linked with preview) that says: "China, Russia and India have dispatched emergency teams and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Myanmar. So have Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. The U.S., the richest country in the world and once its most generous provider of foreign aid, has sent nothing."

The article headline in preview reads: "Trump's U.S.A.I.D. Cuts Hobble Earthquake Response in Myanmar".

'tis the season when bees, moths, and wasps routinely get stuck inside my home, drawn in during the night or at dawn while scouting for flowers in the garden, and I must dutifully open the windows and doors to let them out. today I let out a hecking huge hornet and watched as it did the flight-version of stumbling out drunkenly.

little dork.

So for #TransRightsReadathon :flag_trans: I've shortlisted:

📚 [Reread] Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot by magic grandma ✨ Rachel Pollack
📚 Be The Sea by Clara Ward
📚 The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy
📚 Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body ed. by Florence Ashley

I'm not making a final selection because I want to let the moment tell me which of these to actually read. It's a ten-day readathon, so there's no point in making myself a big read-list.

As usual for when the Moon is in Scorpio, or magnificently void of course, (tonight: both!!) I've been craving noodles/noodle soups.

And lacking either the core ingredients needed or the money to get takeout (or even the wish for takeout, really: the stuff I want I've just got to make at home, and that's at once a tiring and exciting thought), I just ran through my (few) memories of food I'd had before moving out that I'd enjoyed, which included this incredible soupy garlic chicken noodles I'd had at the Coffee House near College St., Kolkata, and browsed through a number of recipes on Chinese food blogs.

And then went on and had my dinner of leftover roti and my first, very nice attempt at a favourite potato and green papaya vegetable (first fed to me by my BFF#2) -- that I'd spoiled while reheating by adding too much salt 🥲

Anyway, my beloved neem tree flowered today for the first time ever. And for a second first-time-ever, I saw neem flowers live. Have I mentioned that, growing up, I've always adored neem trees and wanted to live so close to one that I'd be able to touch it from my window, and now, by some miracle, I actually live exactly that close to one of those beauties?! I'm declaring March 17 a personal holiday 📆

#RetreatPosting 🌘 #VoidMoonVibes
#BloomScrolling #Spring2025 #NativePlants

Shallow-depth closeup of a spray of neem (Azadirachta indica) flowers and buds + young leaves against a background of fast-maturing neem leaves and mostly-obscured branch. The ovoid buds have grown in size, and the open flowers are tiny and a soft creamy yellow-white (almost the same shade as Jasminium sambac flowers), reminiscent of daffodils in their shape and petal arrangement. The somewhat blurry golden haze of a March morning in West Bengal, India makes for a subtle vintage-y dreamy mood in the picture.

High closeup of one of the open neem flowers. The tepals are slim, white, and spread exactly like a five-pointed star. The conical corona is open with a ruffled rim, very ornamental. The flower's reproductive parts are just about visible inside the corona.

I had planted this variety of jasmine (Jasminium sambac) in honour of my Shib Baba. So the first flowers blooming on the plant went dutifully to the deity this morning. This Friday-Saturday is Holi/Dol Pūrṇima; I'm hoping I'll be well enough, and the plant will bloom, to get flowers for Them.

#RetreatPosting 🌘 #VoidMoonVibes
#BloomScrolling #Spring #Spring2025

The same Jasminium sambac plant from the previous post in the thread. There are droplets of water on the big glossy green leaves and bright creamy yellow-white buds and two open flowers. The sun is already a strong golden lustre at 7:30 AM.

Against a black-painted wall and on a red and black cement floor (mostly obscured), a square slab of unpolished pink marble (scrap I'd found locally, and brought home and cleaned up) with Lord Shiva in the form of the Shiva lingam, placed in a copper vessel. An ivory and coppery red-brown conch shell is propped up against the vessel's rim, dedicated to the deity. The deity is decorated with a tilak painted on with sandalwood powder, a band of sacred thread, and the two jasmine flowers in the previous picture. There's a small brass tumbler of fresh water and a small brass plate of American black nightshade (Solanum americanum) fruits, both ripe and unripe, and a handful of nôkuldana (mimosa sugar balls) -- today's offerings to the deity. An incense stick burns slowly to the right side, with wisps of smoke curling loosely around the Shiva lingam.

I get dispirited when I remember that my professional writing has become mostly an effort to make money these days. It's hard to truly enjoy anything with so much pressure on.

But then I think about why I need that dough: sustenance for myself so I live to see another spring as beautiful as this one, if not more so. Shared resources with and gifts for my friends: the humans I laugh and cry and love with, the other-than-human kin that tell me stories and give us strength.

I don't love having my nose to the grindstone. (Who does?!) But I do love building a world together with and for my loves.

#RetreatPosting 🌘 #VoidMoonVibes
#BloomScrolling #Spring2025 #HomeCooking