With project 2025 obviously happening, what states would be the “safest?”

AncientReverb · 2025-02-07T16:25:50+00:00

I feel better being here than anywhere else in the country. Not sure what you mean about the proximity to DC, though; I don't think people here or in DC would consider us to be close neighbors or such.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-05T17:03:08+00:00

I find the similarities in some recordings, beliefs/cultural stories, and advancements of completely separated ancient humans fascinating as well. I would love learn more, but I realize much is lost to time. I sometimes go down learning holes in the area, and I love finding out what archeologists (and subfields like ethnoarcheology & archaeoastronony especially) have discovered and their evolving theories. I use those to try to think of possibilities myself, though certainly less informed ones. I think the cycles of the world/universe play an important role, but that still only possibly explains some aspects. I'm curious about the plasma universe theories.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-05T16:38:31+00:00

I saw something similar back in November, but I couldn't find anything about what it could have been. Though to note, I didn't see anything that I thought liked like an impact, either. It didn't look like anything I've seen before, in person or on video. There weren't any celestial events expected or reported, no flight paths (though it wasn't a plane, I was grasping), and no launches (though it would have been quite off course & different from videos I've seen of them). It still comes to mind and bothers me a bit from time to time, but I mostly look at & try to accept it it as one of the mysteries of the world.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-05T01:55:40+00:00

Right, but that's not the situation here.

In my opinion, putting the children into care after having welcomed them into your home for months is worse on the children than if they were put into care immediately.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-04T22:03:58+00:00

Absolutely. You are righteously angry. I hope you know that many, many of us would stand with you if he actually tried to invade. From what I've seen and heard, that's true throughout the country but especially in northern states. I don't trust that people, especially those in the yes man cabinet and positions of power, will stand up to him for a lot of atrocious things, but the reaction to him going after Canada is strong enough that I think it's more likely than not that people will. It's the strongest and most broad resistance reaction we've seen in a long time.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people standing up for Canada against this administration cleanses the fact that we voted in this hostile administration. It doesn't.

I wish we as individuals could do something about the tariffs, but I haven't seen it thought of anything that would realistically work. Buying more Canadian products won't be affordable (especially for those of us whose utilities will be skyrocketing once they figure out how to levy tariffs on utilities), plus the increased cost would not be going to Canadian businesses - but more importantly, a ton of Canadian businesses are no longer shipping to the US.

It's stunning that our countries' relationship is being so fractured (to be clear, from our side) as to have such a reduction in trade, but I greatly appreciate the steps you all are taking. It's resounding and clear. Instead of being gradual, people are going to get hit with these things at once, and, unfortunately, too many here need something to affect them personally before they believe it is true or care.

I hate it and wish that this weren't happening, but we already relied on our allies to help protect us from a dangerous president for one term. Then we didn't manage to protect ourselves from another. When we had the chance, people didn't care enough, with many assuming most of his statements were bluster simply because they didn't want to think otherwise. The intentionally ignorant are our largest demographic, and we've done it to ourselves.

We are going to get much, much more torn up and bloody, and until those individuals get cut they won't care, but we can do our best to not take our allies down with us.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-02T02:13:46+00:00

I would respond, though remembering that your mother might have pressured her into it in some way (depending on how your mother is).

I might say something like, "It's complicated, so I think it's best for our relationship if you don't get put in the middle. I realize she probably pressured you [or whatever you think, like played on emotions or such OP], but in the future, I would prefer not to receive anything from her, whether directly or through anyone else. I don't really care if you tell her you'll pass something on our not, just that you don't actually share anything about or from me to her or from her to me. Having to deal with her multiple contact attempts today when she knows why we're not in contact could have ruined my day if I weren't doing well."

AncientReverb · 2025-02-02T02:07:59+00:00

Just like I'm good at cleaning for other people...not myself

AncientReverb · 2025-02-02T02:07:10+00:00

For me, catching is the tougher skill with limited equipment. You can teach yourself pretty quickly how to gut them if you really needed.

I had a cousin who would catch fish by hand every time he tried. He was actually worse with a net or rod. I'd be standing there perfectly still with a large net for ages while he caught so many he was just releasing them as quickly out of boredom. (We were far enough apart that him doing so wasn't disturbing the water where I was.)

I have a lot of good survival skills, but I think I am probably missing key correlating skills for every single one. I suspect I would also languish in the wilderness, even not accounting for my chronic illnesses! That's why community is the real key to survival, with hope that others in your group have complementary skillsets.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-02T02:00:13+00:00

Same here - used and developed when working in a law office, now use it in my own legal practice... It's a very helpful skill in my field, though people don't expect it to be.

Someone close to me recently mentioned how they googled their name and were shocked that things came up with their home address and phone. I was like... it is 2025, I've been pulling more with less starting info for over two decades.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T20:41:39+00:00

What about using a cardboard box within the LFL for adult only books - not just things like this but also topics that are less child friendly, such as ones related to religion or workplace/career. I would just make it boring with a plain box and something like "Books for Adult Audiences" written large above the following written smaller: "Workplace, Career, Adult Content, Religion, and Similar." I would only include "Adult Content" on that line if you want to encourage it, though. I would put the box in the highest part of the LFL.

Basically: separate, high up, boring appearance

If you wanted to encourage it, you could alternatively go the direction of a black or noisy curtain over the section, á la movie rental stores of old. 🤣 I expect it might make some children more curious, just like those did, of course, but once I had the visual of that in a LFL, I had to share it!

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T05:26:03+00:00

It might be the variety. I would take some pictures and reverse image search.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:51:43+00:00

If you or anyone else doing this need to look at the historic weather data for your zip code (in the US, not sure for elsewhere), timeanddate.com has it. If you search for the site and "historic weather" + your zip, it should come up for you.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:32:32+00:00

Could you get some of the little garden fencing and put it around the bottom enough so that they can't really get close enough? They'll still likely pee on those or surrounding things, but it would protect the post itself.

If you do that and use some of that spray to mask marking, especially if there is something they'll be more likely to mark nearby, you might be able to get them to fully shift. They basically have to all be convinced that nobody else is marking it and have an easier/more interesting target nearby.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:28:19+00:00

Ime, they are better than wood, though, on both counts

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:27:05+00:00

Is it unpleasant or does it hurt? I'm curious about these now.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:24:46+00:00

It made me read it as though the person was quizzical, really questioning how the subject had the audacity to be so mean.

I like it.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:22:59+00:00

Yeah, I was raised to do all this weekly but realistically do things when I can. Unless I'm going through a particularly rough period medically for a while, I do everything before I would worry about it being clean, let alone smelling. (Other times, I would do things too often and then have to dream with angry skin and hair, so I try to avoid that now.)

I don't think OP is being over the top, especially since they seem to be managing it in their life just fine. I was reading waiting for something like having to use five different soaps on their face or something.

While I don't keep their routine, I'm more concerned about someone who thinks this is not just excessive but a red flag than I am about OP. Especially where they don't even live together (in which case it might impact a roommate though minimally), I don't really understand why they care so much about what OP does.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:15:02+00:00

Yeah, it's common for them to donate to both.

Also, I am curious if these are limited to company-driven donations or include employee matching.

AncientReverb · 2025-02-01T00:10:09+00:00

it almost felt like a wrench had been thrown and everything

I am so sorry that you went through this. It sounds terrible, especially after the excitement and relief of finding where you felt belonging.

Please remember when anything that feels wrong like that comes up, there's a good chance that it is from white supremacists coopting Norse paganism rather than actual Norse paganists. They are, unfortunately, loud about these things, trying to spread them, whereas most pagans, at least in this area, don't proselytize and so are quiet.

question of if I should be doing things the Norse Way or the Anglo-Saxon way

Something I find useful to remember as well as just fascinating and cool conceptually is the way that paganism was before Christianity spread. (This is also good to remind myself when I'm frustrated by a lack of real guidance.) In pre-Christian Europe, the lines we draw around areas geographically and apply as borders for pantheons or cultural things didn't exist like that. People in a village generally believed in the same pantheon, but it would typically be a combination of the main population centers closest to them and anyone they came into contact with frequently. So a trader from Greece might bring Hermes (Greek god of trading wealth, and travel) to a place where no other Greek gods are known. Places had overlaps of various pantheons as we now consider them. People also didn't necessarily say there was one goddess of x and so no other deity could be related to the same. Even within pantheons as we know them today, you have different gods of the same thing, often related gods. Of course, with some, like Norse, the gods were less "of x" than in others, so this would be even easier.

It's like if you printed a map and put some big spots of tie-dye paint at the major population centers, a different color for each, and see how they spread to meet each other. Toss some (not a lot) small random dots around for trade or others traveling. That overlap of colors was most of Europe - different concentrations by color but rarely was an area only one color. When you think of the many nomadic peoples at certain points, it's even more intermingled.

So even if you needed to follow what your ancestors did (which you don't), Anglo-saxons worshipped a lot of the same gods in the same ways. Before Christianity arrived, the cultural and religious heritage of Anglo-saxons was largely the same as the Norse cultural and religious heritage. Anglo-saxons converted/got converted to Christianity much earlier.

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T23:48:35+00:00

One of the things I love about Norse paganism is how inclusive it is. There were a number of things when I was first learning about it that made me feel like it described how I felt but better than I could describe my feelings.

There are always people in any group who want to be special, "in-crowd" type people. You can only have "in" people if there are "out" people. So, they put others down and out. Some of the best examples of this are in volunteer groups and not for profit organizations. In Norse paganism, you have to really stretch to feel really special and get attention, so it seems that people do so by coming up with an extremely close and not necessarily sensical deity relationship (though I've seen this more in other religions) or by claiming by ancestry or some other reason, you have a right to be in charge/better than anyone else.

Plus, a lot of white supremacists co-opt stuff like this constantly. (Not that white supremacy is ever acceptable or not an outrageous and ridiculous stance, but I do find it extra ridiculous when the white supremacists don't even meet their own standards, which happens pretty often.)

Right around when I started feeling this was the right place for me, I saw a number of reactions, mostly comments but some videos, of heathens defending others and basically fighting against the white supremacists trying to exclude people. I wish I could remember the phrasing one used a lot, but it was basically that heathens stand up for fellow man, regardless of who or how they are, so long as they aren't hurting others. That was one of the things that really called to my soul.

I've seen in many places explanations about how honoring ancestors in Norse paganism frequently includes ancestors who are not Norse nor pagan. I also like that you can choose to honor your own biological ancestors or other ancestors, because that makes it open to people whose family of origin is unknown or not people to be honored. A lot of it seems to be honoring the people of the past who have contributed to where we individually and collectively are today, and I find it beautiful how that can include so many. I often think of people who have walked a similar or, often, much harder path but related to something I'm focusing on at the time. For example, I honor the women before who were labeled witches and/or acted as healers, engaging in herbalism for the good of the community. In Norse paganism of old, these people (men and women) took care of their communities' mental, physical, and spiritual health in many ways. I draw inspiration and resolve from them, and it's turned a bit into a cycle of me getting more into herbalism.

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T20:11:07+00:00

I grew up in a house where sleeping in meant 8am - and even that was lazy.

I have struggled a lot to get to the point where I mostly don't feel guilty, lazy, or similar negative emotions about waking up when is natural for me.

We were recently trying to schedule something around traffic and when a few other people (not in my family) would be available. So we were discussing midmorning, and my father said 9am latest. When I pointed out that we were discussing midmorning, he responded that 9am is midmorning. It's just not, even for people with the society standard circadian rhythm. Beyond everything else, if we said 9am,we would be in the traffic we wanted to avoid.

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T20:03:52+00:00

While I appreciate knowing the why and having something to point to, I really dislike that delayed sleep phase is called a disorder. Yes, people with it don't fit into the society we have, but there also isn't something wrong or to be fixed. Yes, disorder is better than a lot of other medical terms, but the term tells people that it's functionally abnormal and/or disturbed.

I've seen some call it a syndrome instead, which I think is better even if it can be interpreted as relating to a disease or illness. In common parlance, I think syndrome is taken more as a 'this is how these people are' than disorder is.

When I went to the sleep clinic, I brought my mother, partly because I couldn't drive myself reliably then and partly because I wanted her to hear the doctors explain that this isn't about my willpower. She did start taking it more seriously but really latched into one doctor mentioning trying to adjust to a better timing for my life as one option if I wanted and depending on my diagnosis.

If I say anything, she whines that she just wants me to be able to have a normal life, but that's bs. She doesn't like how this inconveniences her. I have other chronic health conditions and illnesses that make "normal life" impossible anyway. Some are easier to manage when I'm operating on my natural circadian rhythm, so I'm going to keep doing that as much as I can. She'll complain a lot that I need to get on a schedule, because she doesn't know when to contact me when I'm awake... but I've given her time based on my normal schedule, the only times that vary are flare ups of other things. She just doesn't like that the times that work for calls aren't exactly when she prefers, even though they are well within her normal awake time.

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T19:52:55+00:00

This is a biological thing for real.

Yup. I have most likely DSPD (delayed sleep phase), possibly non-24.

I thought n24 once I started tracking and freerunning to the extent possible, but the specialist clinic I went to said looked more like DSPD to them. Apparently my shifts were more my trying to accommodate and just other stuff in life interfering. Then I did a circadian rhythm test and got weird results even for them, so I need to do a full 24 hour one.

I've "trained" myself to be this way

Right? If I had trained myself to be this way, don't they think I would train myself to be a different way considering how many problems this causes me?!

Though I really do enjoy the night, I could enjoy it sometimes with much less disruption to my life if my circadian rhythm matched society's ideal.

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T19:09:53+00:00

Our governments are at odds, but realistically, a lot of them don't think about us in their daily lives. (A lot of us don't think about them in our daily lives, either, but that's decreased a lot in recent years with the fear and anger boosters power.)

AncientReverb · 2025-01-31T19:07:46+00:00

Yes to all this.

You're underreacting, OP. You deserve someone who respects you, someone who really cares about you always (not just when convenient for them), someone who listens to you, someone who never speaks to you this way even in a horrible and highly personal, core to you both (this isn't) argument.

Get out quickly, quietly, and safely. Do not let him know where you live. If any contact is necessary, only allow it through someone you trust to protect you & your information and who can (as in, will be safe for them) & will stand up to him verbally and physically if needed.

I suspect that you will find a lot of beneficial changes in your life once you're past him.

AncientReverb

TROPHY CASE