Instructor: Rainsong
Date: May 4, 2019 (Saturday)
Seminar: Topic: making friends with the environment- Saturday, 4 May 2019 at 6:30pm/1830hr New York Time — text format in the PSC #lecture room (Discord) — Instructor/Facilitator: Rainsong– Search LECTURE73
Rainsong: Any requests for tonight’s topic?
Carmen: making friends with your enviroment?
Rainsong: What do you mean?
Carmen: building up a relationship with the land, trees, water
Rainsong: Ahhh, I see
Carmen: buildings too if yiou’re an urban mage
Carmen: I’m not so much asking how to contact them as nice things to do/things they like ect
Rainsong: Not my area of expertise, but I can offer some advice on it.
Rainsong: Some of these entities would appreciate respect and acknowledgement, first of all. That respect has been sorely lacking in most places, for centuries.
Carmen: they like being admired too. I usually exclaim a quiet “Oh wow” when I see what something is on deeper levels and I haven’t met a thing that doesn’t get a frisson of pleasure from hearing that
Rainsong: Most kinds of trees like to absorb and use the excess “stuff” our fields put out… in much the same way that many animals -including us – enjoy and use the excess “stuff” plants give off
Rainsong: Also true
ThunderGladiator: Trees are the best feng shui energy generators in my opinion
Carmen: you mean like they just like ahving us around, or if I send someone having an emotional meltdown into some trees they’d love it?
Carmen: they have interesting telepathic nets, trees don’t like to be alone
Carmen: grass even more so
Rainsong: Ground into the soil near a pine tree’s roots, and the tree can use the debris and excess oomph.
ThunderGladiator: I think trees form according to the golden ratio spiral, you could see the fractal pattern with every plant top extending like a fractal
ThunderGladiator: It also depends on the type of tree
Rainsong: An emotional melt-down is less pleasant for them, but as long as the emotion itself isn’t directed to them, they ouoght to be able to use the debris
ThunderGladiator: And the position of the tree depending on the enviornment
Carmen: do you know about the land? from small scale like graveyards to bigger like the land cities are built on to continents?
ThunderGladiator: Its not about the tree, its about the spirit that enhabits that vessel, which then takes part and is binded to its nature. I think they are bothered by ki energy of an emotional letdown
ThunderGladiator: I do know the majority
ThunderGladiator: I studied it for a month, i think i mastered it for now
Rainsong: I don’t know enough about the preferences of land and water to offer advice in that regard.
Rainsong: Plants, though, benefit from “loving” stuff directed toward them
ThunderGladiator: Yeah
Carmen: mm, i think most things do. well most organic things, teh further from human you get the less things like love seem to relate or interact with you
Carmen: humans like love :upsidedownsmile:
Rainsong: So do pine trees
Rainsong: And electronics, actually
Carmen: really? they seem so…
Carmen: they’re like macramé with light
Rainsong: That’s a lovely way to describe them
ThunderGladiator: Even spirits live in electronics, so its probably the same concept
Carmen: aw thanks. usually I’m just scared of messing mine up
Rainsong: Talk with them, encourage them, send them affectionate and gentle thoughts
ThunderGladiator: I once had Rainsong check my Pc for worms, during that time i learned how to access the classification of spirits called “digital djinns, and realized spirits like feeding off electronics
Carmen: do you think trees recognise when you do nice things for the environment? I means plants certainly notice when you garden, trees like being spoken too, but do you think they’d notice a birdfeeder or picking up rubbish from a wood?
ThunderGladiator: When you touch their leafs, they know. When you yell at them, they know. When an insect bite its leaf, they send signals in the air for other plants to warn them.
ThunderGladiator: Plants are attracted to classical music and grow on it, if exposed to metal or rock, they grow into its opposite direction
ThunderGladiator: One thing is clear is that it prefers a high frequency range and making most plants absolutely positive
ThunderGladiator: They definitely know if you are doing great for them and their benefit
Rainsong: Picking up rubbish would probably please them, yes. Birdfeeders are probably a good idea, because attracting birds can lower the risk of insect problems
ThunderGladiator: You become binded to their energy if you take care of them too long. Part of white magick routine
Rainsong: Some nice fertilizer and watering might be good, too, if there’s an especially dry year
Carmen: I wasn’t sure, they seem very removed from.. not the physical, but life as I know it. running around doing stuff. Trees are like a knitting circle of old ladies, If you splash them with water or talk to them they’re all ears but I get the feeling a lot goes over their heads
ThunderGladiator: Rainsong, what is your favorite plant?
Rainsong: Their life experience is different from yours, so it’s to be expected that their interests and knowledge would be different
Rainsong: Favourite? Hmmm
Rainsong: Not sure. Spruce trees, maybe? Cherry? Saskatoon?
Rainsong: What about yours?
Carmen: I’m fond of holly, it’s hopeful
Rainsong: Hollies are nice, certainly.
Rainsong: Cattails are friendly, too
ThunderGladiator: Mine is Dracena Sanderiana, its not called that without a reason, one of the most powerful Ki plants in the world in my opinion 🙂
Carmen: never seen one like that, have you looked at st johns wort? it’s like primal light in plant form, it’s stupidly bright
Carmen: ginger is cute though, it’s friendly and warm
Carmen: :sweatsmile: sorry I’ve been playing with making ink lately, I’ve looked at a lot of plants
Rainsong: St John’s Wort is one of the wildflowers in our meadow.
Rainsong: It and the raspberries and the New England Asters are trying mightily to take over the world 🙂
ThunderGladiator: Also, i bought a jade plant last year, and one month later i had 100k$ knockin on my door. Jade plant is actually called the money plant. I had no idea why until that. Welp feng shui is interesting
ThunderGladiator: Environment decides conditions
ceahhettan: Quick note: Don’t blood-tie yourself to the Land around you unless you REALLY MEAN IT.
Carmen: st johns worts is amazing for it’s medicinal properties
ceahhettan: (/aside)
Carmen: don’t blood tie yourself to anything unless you really mean it?
ceahhettan: I mean that too.
ceahhettan: Not, mind you, that I’ve actually ever regretted it. I did a piece of magic/work at age about eighteen tying myself to the desert I lived in.
Carmen: get this though st john wort’s big side effect is that it causes light sensitivity and can make your skin extra sensitive to sun burns 😀
Carmen: I’m glad it worked out, but please anyone who’s reading this later, don’t blood tie yourself to things, make deals or even promises
Carmen: charity is very much a human invention and if something can trick you into give a lot while it gives only a little in return it will
Carmen: most things aren’t human, it doesn’t make them less than you, but it does make them different
Rainsong: There are several herbs that will cause light sensitivity. Some with water contact, and some dry. And some of them are brutal. For example, Hogweed really would prefer to be left alone. Not a touchy-feely plant.
Carmen: I think st john’s work is just like ingesting light, mostly sunlight
ThunderGladiator: St john wort is not good energy. Aloe vera is a protective plant yet it provides beneficial purposes and the irony is that it harms. Its the duality of nature. That wort is useless since its only purpose is to provide with no contemplorary benefit in its duality, hence why its not popular enough for energy work
ceahhettan: It definitely makes them different. For me it’s honestly made me a lot more like my desert– but it never tricked me as much. I knew what I was doing.
Carmen: clove is fascinating, it’s concentrated fire
Carmen: and anger and will
ceahhettan: On the other hand my experience is that a lot of people would see the benefits and think of something as a shortcut and go into it without knowing what they were doing.
Carmen: sounds about right @ceahhettan
ceahhettan: Alright. I’ve got to get back to work.
Carmen: thanks for the aside! :upsidedownsmile:
Carmen: may I change the topic to another mini topic i’ve been wondering about? @Rainsong
Carmen: do you keep a log? how do you stay organised with studies/explorations magically?
Rainsong: Be well, Ceah
Rainsong: Carmen: sure
Carmen: I grew up as an artist, which is great for some things but I’m pretty scattered
Rainsong: The sheer volume of my notes has been the butt of jokes for decades
Carmen: so do you note everything? I know some people note everything from their diet to the position of the moon, while others just do a brief overview of important events when they happen
Carmen: while others (like me) occassionally make notes on whatever happens to be lying around with no thought for a future me looking back on them with no context
Rainsong: Depends what I’m doing. For some purposes, yeah: weather, position of moon, location of working, time, date, sidereal time, solar weather,…
Rainsong: For others, a couple brief references.
Carmen: …could probably make a web scraping program to get that quickly if it were digital notes
Carmen: hm
Carmen: okay, so, you can probably break notes into two categories, exercises/experiments and general right?
Rainsong: Some types of magic demand more detail than others, in terms of notes “for future reference”, than others, too
Carmen: so if you were specifically spending half an hour looking up a plant that would be an exercises, but the bat that seems to want to be your familliar is a general
Carmen: is that vaguely on track?
Rainsong: That sounds like a reasonable approach.
Rainsong: The question is: what system will allow you to find what you’re looking for, later, if you ever need to look something up?
Carmen: none :S I find it hell to even find something in logs on discord
Rainsong: My notes are primarily the old-fashioned kind: ink on paper.
Carmen: I prefer those, ironically I’m much more likely to lose a digital copy
Rainsong: Different bound notebooks for various topics. File folders and envelopes for complex exercises.
ceahhettan: I do keep notes, although my notes are rarely even useful to me. But.
Rainsong: I should point out that I’m a psionicist, rather than a more traditional type of sorcerer, so the kinds of things I note down might be different from what you need
Carmen: mhm
Carmen: same gist though. we’re practicing and experimenting
Rainsong: Ceah: Kind of like my high school history notes, eh?
Rainsong: Carmen: true enough
Carmen: it’s frustrating keeping notes though, not just because organisiation, but 2d images and english fall so laughably short of being able to describe something
Carmen: poetry tends to be closer to the truth than a usual description
ThunderGladiator: Rainsong, if someone tried to harm you, would you have the capability to fight back and destroy him/her using psionics? Black magick alone could do the job, but psionics would be harsh. Have you ever thought about it in these terms?
Carmen:
Rainsong: Carmen: So what is stopping you from using poetry for your notes?
Rainsong: ThunderGladiator: I have that capacity, yes.
Carmen: you can and you can do far worse than kill, but you define who you are with that choice
Rainsong: Of course
Carmen: @Rainsong I worry that there will be multiple ways to read it back and if it’s years later the ambiguity will come back to bite me
Carmen: but then… magic, I can shape poetry to have clear meaning
Carmen: it would work
Carmen: I can always drown it in dates and celestial positions to make myself feel more clerk-like
ThunderGladiator: If someone is well protected, how do you approach situation?
Carmen: talk to them
Carmen: and work out why you want to hurt them
ThunderGladiator: Ya, i hope this doesnt happen with psionic practitioners. We are like the last people that anybody wouldn’t want to mess with
Rainsong: Carmen: re ambiguity. Yeah, that’ll be a problem with prose, too. English is difficult that way. Add some sketches?
Rainsong: And for some things, a chart or table is the way to go.
Rainsong: ThunderGladiator: Depends on the situation.
Carmen: and photos of the thing, always photos
Rainsong: Photos are good
Carmen: sighs As someone with their own scars and failings, you have to remember this isn’t a game, it’s real. If you treat it like some role playing fantasy, even unconsciously, you’re going to do awful terrible things because you think that you can’t really do anything that can’t be fixed.
Carmen: it’s not that hard to hurt someone, it’s hard to develop the maturity to know when it’s right, and the strength to be able to take a harder path like kindness or understanding
Carmen: kindness doesn’t just grow by itself, we have to make it. and that’s hard, violence is easy.
Carmen: true strength is being able to see the world you want to make and moving towards that. hope, kindness, loyalty, they’re undervalued because they cost a lot and don’t return much, but if that’s the kind of world you want then you have to make them
Carmen: ask how to make the world better, not how to strike down those who want to hurt you, because then you just become one of them
Rainsong: I’m all too aware that I can do things that can’t be fixed. It’s one of several reasons for keeping careful control of one’s emotions.
Carmen: aye
Carmen: when I started out I was all excited about phasing and teleporting and making fire
Carmen: now the thing I use most is my ability to see and talk to things. it’s like travel, you stop seeing thing from such a small human viewpoint
Carmen: anyway, didn’t mean to bring to to a grinding halt. any other advice on good note keeping?
Rainsong: Avoid unconventional abbreviations. They’ll seem obvious when you use them, and will unintelligible when you go back and try to read them
Carmen: mm, good programming habit too
Carmen: I suppose samples are good, but only if they keep
Carmen: bit rubbish to keep a notebook of herbs and observations if you come back and they’ve all dried and crumbled away
Rainsong: Photos combined with sketches (rather than one or the other) is likely best, along with recording the conditions they grow in and the times of year for the “usable” parts
Rainsong: Drying them as samples seems wasteful
Rainsong: Particularly if it involves killing the plant
Carmen: how do you make space? like if i’ve done experiemnts or written a page on a herb, but then discovered something else or something new has happened and there’s no room to go back and add more, and I don’t know how to plan space for unexpected developments, so do I leave huge blocks of blank pages or scatter the notes on one subject through a book making it impossible to find?
Carmen: you never need to kill the plant
Carmen: not for a flower or leaf
Rainsong: Easiest way to make space is to use either ring binders or post binding, such is sold for scrapbooking and stamp collecting. Then you just add pages as needed
Carmen: ehhhh
Carmen: I’m picky on journals
Carmen: maybe I can stick extra pages on the edges so they fold out
Rainsong: That can work, too.
Rainsong: Check art supply and scrapbooking shops for “archival” adhesives that won’t eat through the paper or simply cease to function over time
Carmen: mmm, good idea
or work out how to enchant it
could probably preserve it while closed
I need to do that anyway to keep any glyphs dormant
…entirely talking to myself now, sorry
Rainsong: The inks are mostly protected by keeping it closed, with a few exceptions and presuming a relatively neutral paper. Adhesives, on the other hand, are a completely different situation.
Rainsong: Also, never use a pink eraser on a paper you want to keep. Over time, a chemical reaction from it eats through the paper
Carmen: ew, didn’t know that, but ex-art student. I use the putty erasers
Carmen: also i fyou use oak-gall ink, it physically bites into the paper and will last hundreds of years
Carmen: and using magical ink is neat
Rainsong: You an also enchant the pen or brush, if you feel like it
Carmen: oh god, have you ever looked deeply at a pen? they create worlds. I’m terrified of messing with one
Rainsong: Ink is almost as powerful, yet you mess with that.
Rainsong: Perhap be careful also with the inks, yes?
Carmen: true, only sympathetically though, using magical ingredients. worlds away from using will to tweak a pen
but yes. always be careful with inks
Capcom: Hmm.
Chirotractor: I’m a fan of keys
Capcom: Today’s course was about what?
Just got here now.
Rainsong: “Making friends with the environment” and “note-taking”, basically
Capcom: Watching Star wars.
Making friends with the environment.
Hmm.
Like psionically?
Rainsong: It was in broader context
Capcom: I’ll read up a little bit.
Carmen: and a moral rant
Capcom: So…no psi or anything else. Like planting saving the environment.
Saving the environment.*
Hmm.
I’m down.
Carmen: not psi, some telepathy involved
well… Listening
Capcom: Anyone gonna watch dectective Pikachu?
I see.
So listening to trees does what?
Like hearing something.
Hmm.
What do you mean listening to trees with telepathy.
Finished reading.
Thats cool. I like the ideas expressed about grounding and trees.
Rainsong: Thanks for participating, everyone.
Have a lovely evening/morning/whatever
And “May the Fourth be with you” 😉
Carmen: thanks for the lecture rain, I learnt a lot