I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today.
It's right-handed
I am right-handed
There are grooves for the thumb and knuckle to grip that fit my hand perfectly
I have calluses there from holding my stylus and pencils and the gardening tools.
There are sharper and blunter parts of the edge, for different types of cutting, as well as a point for piercing.
I know exactly how to use this to butcher a carcass.
A homo erectus made it
Some ancestor of mine, three species ago, made a tool that fits my hand perfectly, and that I still know how to use.
Who were you
A man? A woman? Did you even use those words?
Did you craft alone or were you with friends? Did you sing while you worked?
Did you find this stone yourself, or did you trade for it? Was it a gift?
Did you make it for yourself, or someone else, or does the distinction of personal property not really apply here?
Who were you?
What would you think today, seeing your descendant hold your tool and sob because it fits her hands as well?
What about your other descendant, the docent and caretaker of your tool, holding her hands under it the way you hold your hands under your baby's head when a stranger holds them.
Is it bizarre to you, that your most utilitarian object is now revered as holy?
Or has it always been divine?
Or is the divine in how I am watching videos on how to knap stone made by your other descendants, learning by example the way you did?
Tomorrow morning I am going to the local riverbed in search of the appropriate stones, and I will follow your example.
The first blood spilled on it will almost certainly be my own, as I learn the textures and rhythm of how it's done.
Did you have cuss words back then? Gods to blaspheme when the rock slips and you almost take your thumbnail off instead? Or did you just scream?
I'm not religious.
But if spilling my own blood to connect with a stranger who shared it isn't partaking in the divine
I don't know what is.
february by Alex Dimitrov
Yes, this is a weird layout! I wish I could see more of this house to give the basement staircase more context. It’s similar to the basement entrance in my (formerly) grandmother’s gorgeous house. For reference her house was in Taylorsville, Utah. I would guess it was built in the mid 1960’s. Very open plan concept. Home entrance at street level. Walk up 4 stone stairs to the main house. To the right is the sunken main living room if you walk down 2 steps. Enjoy the windows or the stone fireplace, and there is a half-wall behind the sofa, gorgeous, very open. At the home entrance to your left is the dining room. Big sliding glass door at the back leads to the fully landscaped backyard. Incorporated seamlessly as a divider between the living and dining rooms is the basement staircase (basically straight across from the house entrance).
Very demure.
This one makes me wonder if this originally had a sunken living room and the “sunken” was remodeled away. The result would be a very out of place staircase.
initiation song from the finders lodge by Ursula K. Le Guin
I am so proud of Kanga for weaponizing Roo.
With Winnie-the-Pooh and The Battle of Hastings sharing an anniversary today, did you know that E. H. Shepard once drew this amazing scene for an exclusive book bag?
[image description: An elegant black cat with a long tail sits in profile on a block of black marble, blocking the view of Assless Chaps behind them. Text reads, “55, Obsidious ~ The Small God of Occluding Cats”] ____________________________________________________________
The cat is in the way.
This is a basic fact of the universe, simple and immutable. The sun is shining, the wind is blowing, the cat is in the way. The world is spinning, the atomic structure of the universe is decaying, the cat is the way. The faithful pray, the apostate condemn, and the cat is in the way.
How is the cat always, inevitably, unavoidably, in the way? When did we get a cat, anyway? How did that cat get in here? Hey, is anyone willing to take responsibility for this cat? Can someone tell me whose cat this is?
No.
No, no one can tell you whose cat this is. No, no one is going to take responsibility for that cat. No, no one let the cat in, and the cat is in the way because it is the nature of cats to be in the way. If the cat were not in the way, something much more terrible than the cat might rise in its absence. The cat occupies space to ensure that the space is occupied, because the space will be occupied, whether it is by the cat or by something far more terrible. The cat is doing you a favor. Do not count the cat’s eyes. The cat’s eyes are none of your concern. The cat can see you. Isn’t that enough?
Isn’t it enough that the cat is being generous enough to protect you from the terrible thing that would be looking at you with some uncounted number of eyes if the cat were not there? Isn’t it enough that the cat is soft, and the cat is purring, and the cat is in the way?
Isn’t it enough?
Let it be enough.
The cat loves you. The cat will love you even into the void. The cat will forgive you for your frailties, and the cat is in the way.
The cat is always in the way.
____________________________________________________________
Artist Lee Moyer (Trident of Aurelia, 13th Age) and author Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, October Daye & InCryptid series) sincerely appreciate you, but wonder if you could scoot just the tiniest little bit to the left?
On behalf of all the pagan peoples of the world let’s share Easter with the transgender people and Trans Day of Visibility. Easter is about rebirth and renewal of nature, and celebrating the joy of the longer days ahead. Sounds like Trans joy.
The nostalgia for the present.
The longing for a time that ended just as you learned to love it 💝
The reality that you can’t remember the exact day that something beloved ended.
@fairycosmos / Comic by @shhhitsfine / Comic by @incendavery
Yes, my next project will be learning this for my October calendar
fun fact about me is that when i was a kid id write capital E’s with as many of those little horizontal lines as possible and id call them ladder E’s and adults fucking hated them
I want to see free or affordable insulin for all. In 2024 no one should be dying because they can’t afford insulin.
Healthcare is a human right!
She/her; ASOIF Fan Dany Stan; All colors for all kids; Trans Rights are Human Rights
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