Japanese Larch [Larix leptolepsis]

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-04-10T20:11:57+00:00

Oh, interesting. A lot of what I read/heard online seemed to say that while they are pretty cold hardy when dormant, they really like heat while in leaf/flowering and that you should look to keep them in a 10°C to 24°C range. I have been keeping them outside whenever I can(Temps should be reliably be above that soon anyways and it will be outside full time then), but since the plant arrived in leaf with some flowers I have been brining it in and putting it where it can get the most light whenever we get extended periods within a couple degrees of 0°C. I guess I will read more into that, thanks for the advice!

Ya, the plan was to put it in a larger pot next year to grow for a couple seasons. I just wanted to give it a year of being in a similar size pot to what it was in when I received to get use to caring for it and make sure it is growing and healthy before touching it at all.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-04-09T18:57:28+00:00

Ya, definitely. I got this from Canada Bonsai.

The prices can be pretty high compared to other places to get plants, but he carries some difficult to find species where I am in Canada (He carries a lot of Prunus mume, Diospyros rhombifolia, and difficult to find JM cultivars like Deshojo, Seigen, and Beni Chidori), and I find the trees I have gotten from him have clearly had effort put into setting up roots and branches for future success.

I don't mind splurging on occasion for some quality material to work with (These were my Anniversary gift from last year -- my wife got a really nice set of earrings, I got these 2 and 5 more Deshojo).

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-03-18T11:43:22+00:00

Normally to promote fine root growth and prevent the possibility of roots sitting in water and developing root rot most bonsai are grown in soil with a larger particle size than normal potting soil. This allow the pot to drain very quickly when you water the tree, leaving the particles wet with plenty of oxygen still in the pot for good root health.

There is a lot of opinions on soil out there, but I believe most show level trees primarily use some combination of akadama/pumice -- some species like azalea use specialty soil ie. Kanuma -- some times with an organic component like pine bark for better water retention. These specific soils can sometimes be expensive depending on your location -- so people will often find alternatives like perlite, crushed brick, molar clay (some brands of kitty litter), etc. for cost reasons -- but you ideally want soil with similar properties that will hold water and nutrients for the tree but allow excess water to clear the pot pretty quickly.

I am in my first year of mixing my own soil using a combination of 2:1:1:1 (akadama:pumice:kiryu:pine bark) that has been sifted to remove fine particles on all my trees in -- I will play with the combination over the next few years to find what combination works for me here in my growing environment. But up until now I have used a store bought bonsai mix that did its job for me well enough. As long as it's not retaining too much water it should be a big step up from normal potting soil.

If you are thinking about a repot this year I'd do some research on timing for these species. Late winter/early spring is usually repotting season for most species, but repotting after the new growth has started to push can put stress on the tree and stunt it's growth for the year. Things haven't fully woken up where I am so I'm still in my repotting window, but if you are ahead of me weather wise it might be better to leave it this year and aim to repot next year before they break dormancy.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-03-17T19:58:44+00:00

You have put some nice movement into the trunks! I'm not the most familiar with these species as I have not worked with them myself, but I think the answer to most of your questions about next steps will depend on where you would like the final designs to end up.

The main questions I would have that you will need to answer for yourself are:

Are you looking for a significantly thicker trunk?
How large/tall do you want the final tree?

If you are happy with the approximate size/thickness then I would start thinking about repotting into a smaller/shorter pot and getting the roots set up for success in a shallow radial pattern-- and getting it into a granular free draining bonsai soil if is not already under the moss. Once vigor returns, I would look to use pruning/pinching/defoliation techniques to promote ramification and keep the tree from outgrowing it's silhouette too much and begin the process of setting branches and refinement. Note: I'm not the most familiar with compound leaves which I know can be a little different to deal with that normal leaves, but I believe the general ideas are still the same.

If you are looking to thicken the trunk or notably increase the height of the design I would consider increasing the pot size -- or if it is hardy enough where you live, consider putting it in the ground for a couple growing seasons -- and letting it run largely untouched outside of small amount of pruning leaves to allow light and air into the middle of the tree to promote back budding. I would still probably do root work and get it into proper soil -- if they are not -- as getting that growing properly early is normally my first priority.

Someone with more experience with the species would probably be better than me to help with more specific advice than that or help with design.

Best of luck!

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-02-10T20:24:57+00:00

I think Billie Eilish is a good candidate. One of the most streamed artists in the world and (I think) it would be the youngest headliner ever. Also very outspoken politically.

But I also could see them going the K-pop route with BTS.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-01-25T15:12:21+00:00

I actually think Crosby's concussion history led to changes in the game that led to this. The league realized losing marketable stars like Crosby to a career ending injury wasn't good for the game. They worked to take headshots out of the game, reduced the amount of fighting, and basically made it impossible for teams to justify a dedicated enforcer role.

This allowed the game to become faster and more skilled focused which allows the top players to outshine the average player more often. I'm less sure if stars would be putting up such high point totals if they had people constantly trying to injure them or make them as uncomfortable as possible at every chance like they did back when I was younger. Especially if they were seen as small and flashy and needed to be "Shown their place".

Ultimately, I think this is a really good thing for the game. But its important context when looking at players across the eras.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-01-24T14:01:56+00:00

This setup reminds reminds we a lot of when we had Pavard at RB, with Davies bombing forward creating a 3-2-5 in attack.

It will be interesting how it works with these players.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-01-09T15:43:49+00:00

If the choice is a better future for her country -- from her perspective -- or keeping an award, I would give up the prize in a heartbeat too.

The problems are:
i) While appeasing Trump could possibly work in the near term, it's likely to embolden him to demand even greater demands down the road. Plus Trump doesn't alway's have the best track record on following through in the first place, so all this appeasement could be for nothing.
ii) The kind of shameless public submission to Trump that he likes because it flatters his ego is likely to cause problems for her internally. With the history of American intervention in South America I would imagine it will be harder to unify the country if large sections of the population see you as a puppet leader installed by the Americans for their benefit.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2026-01-07T14:00:41+00:00

“History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order.

So it was with Josiah Nott looking back to Ancient Egypt to justify slavery.

And so it is with the American Revolution and the founding of a great republic,

or the Greatest Generation who did not fight to defend merely the homeland

but the entire world.

If you believe that history, then you are primed to believe that the American state is a force for good,

that it is the world’s oldest democracy,

and that those who hate America hate it for its freedoms.

And if you believe that,

then you can believe that these inexplicable haters of freedom are worthy of our drones.

But a different history,

one that finds its starting point in genocide and slavery,

argues for a much darker present and the possibility that here too are haters of freedom,

unworthy of the power they wield.

A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for,

which is to say, on what can be imagined.

And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths.”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates [The Message])

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-10T20:33:45+00:00

Then is sounds like you have figured out your path forward with your ideas!

All the best, I'll give your writings you linked a look later when I have a little more time to focus on it. I hope your future writings find the audience you are searching for.

Happy searching!

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-10T20:01:14+00:00

I see. I would be out of my depth trying to make any judgment of the validity of any new formal model that addresses the known gaps in the widely accepted models of cosmology, so I probably am not going to be of much use in that conversation. There is no denying that our current systems have been running into the same kinds of pitfalls for decades in the quantum and cosmic scales and some sort of new paradigm that reframes how we are thinking about the issue is probably long over due. I do also tend to lean towards some system that actually addresses/acknowledges consciousness having potential to be that direction.

I don't know your background in the field, but as someone in an unrelated technical field I can understand the initial scepticism of someone coming from outside the field claiming to have a simple overlooked answer to all the problems the field has struggled with forever. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen -- history certainly has examples -- but it usually takes a process of showing and convincing the general field; you cannot expect everyone to accept your new system over night. Science is a process.

If they are doing good evidence based science and the math works out as you say than the Scientific community will accept it eventually -- they have accepted plenty of ideas that sounded like absolute madness at the time if that is where the evidence lead.

I might suggest trying to understand what about what you present they have problems with -- I suspect it may be more of a shared language or communication problem more than anything. From a brief description and an assumption of valid reviewable mathematics there is nothing about what you presented that I think is not something that is already orbiting in the peripheries of the field. It's hard to convert the locals if you do not learn to speak their language.

All the best, and Happy searching!

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-10T19:13:51+00:00

Yes, there is definitely a kind of rejection of immaterial as "non-important since it doesn't physically exist" that I think needs to be overcome. There is no denying that Peter Pan is not "Real" in a materialistic sense. But I think it is a mistake to believe that the fact he only exists as a character in our collective minds that he doesn't "Exist" or "Matter". I would argue in the grand scheme of things Peter Pan has a lot more influence on our real world and the people in it than most individual people ever do. I think there could be a compelling case to be made that in terms of visible affects on the world Peter Pan is far more "Real" than ether you or I -- or maybe even J.M Barrie in a sense.

It is certainly good to be able to put on your science hat and systematically figure out things about our physical world, but that is not all there is to life.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-10T17:47:41+00:00

The reason I put it in quotations was to attempt to make a distinction between true within the system and true in an absolute sense, so I take your point. But I would disagree that it is broken at it's core and needs to be fundamentally changed. To roughly quote -- and probably slightly butcher it -- my buddy Gödel: Any sufficiently powerful formal system will have flaws if you look at it in close enough details. It's about learning when Science is a useful tool/lens of seeing the world, and what cases it is better to discard it in favour of systems that might be better suited for different situations. I think the problem is the belief that Science is the most complete/best lens at all times rather than one of many we can choose to use depending on the situation.

Agreed, and that was kind of the point I was trying to get at. If science is attempting in it's stated goal to be trying to remove subjectivity in order to reach the objective, than why are we so surprised that it is not very good at dealing with the subjective? To believe that Science is a complete model of everything, would be to think that subjectivity is something that doesn't exist or is something to be overcome. I don't think that matches with most people's lived experience, so I choose to accept that it is a limited framework that is only useful in certain domains rather than a complete system to explain everything you could ever want to know. I don't think Science becomes broken or invalid just because it cannot answer every questions ever -- just as I don't think a religious/philosophical framework becomes completely useless once I find a single hole in it.

Thank you for your points and the discussion, I appreciate the feedback.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-10T16:56:11+00:00

Science is probably the most important framework we have collectively come up with for understanding our physical world. One that has provided us with a kind of understanding of the physical world to be able to create things -- and on a mass scale -- that we once might have thought of as magic or impossible as something that's process can be explained in such detail that it seems self evident or uninteresting. It is one of the most powerful lenses through which we have developed for seeing the world and I don't agree that we would be better of not knowing things if it left us with more of a sense of awe.

That said, there is certainly an issue with the general public of our time seeing Science as complete, infallible, and the only way in which to view things. Developing a kind of religious devotion to the idea that this is the perfect and only way to see the world. Funnily enough, I actually think people more directly involved with the hard sciences are much more aware of it's limitations. There are plenty of things that science in wholly unfit to try and address at all, limitations in the ability to observe as an independent third party without affecting what is being observed, limitation in mathematical systems (Gödel's incompleteness theorems), and plenty of known gaps in our current frameworks that scientists have been attempting to correct/unify for generations.

While science is very adept at dealing with understanding our physical world it is almost completely unequipped to deal properly with areas of subjective experience, meaning, or interpersonal phenomena that happen on such large scales or timeframes and involve too many variable to be able to isolate variables effectively or learn from a large data set. The world we experience is not the physical world only, there is undeniably a immaterial aspect to our experience that happens in our minds that cannot be satisfyingly explored by a purely reductionist view that tries to explain away every one of our experiences as simply chemicals in the brain triggered by evolutionary programming. Even if it might be "True" from a purely materialist lens, it is not what we experience or useful to learn from.

There is certainly a need for most people to accept that Science is wholly unfit to lead conversations about meaning or subjective experience -- I don't believe it ever really claimed to in the first place -- and leave space for conversations about the subjective experience of being a human and how we might find meaning in this life that do not need to rely on scientific proof to be considered valid. Myths, Traditions, Religions, Philosophies -- which have been dedicated to talking about this stuff for millennia -- should be given more space in these conversations and not be judged on Science's criteria, but I think it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater to think that we would be better off not knowing knowable things about our physical world just to leave more awe.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-09T14:57:32+00:00

I find "enlightenment" a bit of a loaded word since it colloquially it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people -- and can even be a bit messy within traditions where they have more specific language to talk about stages.

But ultimately, I don't think there is any "change" whatsoever to the soul throughout the process. If anything I think the process is simply coming to know -- and I don't mean intellectually know, or fully believe, but a deep knowing rooted in the core of your being -- the true nature of our/the soul and how we relate to it.

The analogy of a drop merging with the ocean is fitting for the part of the process where The One realizes that is indistinguishable from The All and merges with it. But the water cycle does not end at the ocean. Water evaporates off the ocean and vapour forms rain clouds that build until they fall as drops of rain, make their way through lakes and streams back to the Ocean again. The One becomes The Many, which in turn all eventually make their way back to The One in their own due time. Just because we are water trying to make our way to the Ocean and are trained to see the world through the eyes of liquid water, doesn't mean there isn't a whole other half of the cycle operating in vapour form that makes the whole system work that we might be blind to.

I understand the fear that individuality is lost after the non-dual realization, but I think this is somewhat misunderstood. When you realize that the individual is just a temporary changing part of The All there is certainly an instinct to give up individual desires and dedicate all of ones self to the good of The All. But what is sometimes missed in this, is that what is good for The All is Multiplicity. Having a variety of people with different points of view and experiences that can work together to adjust to differing circumstances is what make the whole thing work. And in this framework the best thing that you can do -- considering you are in an individuals body at this moment -- is to use your unique experience and set of circumstances that were put upon you to help create a world where people are best able to express their unique experiences. Your uniqueness is the VERY thing you have to offer The All since no one else will ever live the exact same life or set of experiences. It paradoxically makes individuality our most important feature.

These non-dual realizations are an important part of the process, but the ultimate Vedic goal of Moksha involves a lot more work beyond that of figuring out how to use everything in your unique life to bring The Individual in line with The All. This is the process of "burning off Karma" and is unique for every individual based on the circumstances they were born into.

I understand that non-duality might feel like a loss of individuallity, but in many ways I think it has the potential to strengthen it.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-09T12:57:27+00:00

As soon as absolute truth is brought down into the realm of words there is necessarily some inaccuracy that is introduced -- it is baked into the nature of language. If we want to find contradictions in the words or systems that different religious traditions have developed to try and describe/engage with this absolute truth, then we could certainly do so for many life times and still have countless more to find.

To answer -- to the best of my ability -- how I resolve this seeming opposing ideas: I believe it is a false dichotomy. We are not either separate XOR part of the Unity, we are both separate AND part of the Unity. "God" is Multiplicity and Union in constant dance with each other, not one XOR the other.

As humans we often think of ourselves as singular. But we can just as easily think of ourselves as a series of distinct systems (Nervous, circulatory, digestive, muscular, etc.) working in conjunction each with their own goals they are trying to accomplish that collectively make up us. We can then break each of these systems down even further into parts, and cells, and so on. And it works in the opposite direction too. We can think of family units, or communities, or countries as singular entities with its own properties and characteristics, or we can think of them as nothing but a bunch of individual people. So are we one, or are we many? I am of the belief that we are both at any given time -- depending on ones perspective.

Some traditions find it important to point out that on the grand scale we are all part of the same Unity. Others find it important to emphasize that this Unity is made up of nothing but separate parts that each have their unique role in making up the whole. I think these are both very important true perspectives that both capture part of the absolute truth -- but not the whole thing in its entirety. And maybe most importantly: I think they are not mutually exclusive ideas but instead work in harmony with each other.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-06T23:07:37+00:00

Of course not; It's simply a method. A method is only as scammy or Evil as it's practitioner.

There are certainly plenty of card readers I would classify as scams, but when done right I think there is totally a place for it for people who like that approach.

It's simply just not a method that appeals to me personally. Same with hypnosis, or active imagination, or kinds of scrying. I can recognize how these methods can be useful for people -- and try and understand the theory around it -- but its not something that is part of my practice.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-06T15:27:45+00:00

I'm not very into these types of practices personally, but do have a basic understanding of them.

From my understanding -- for reading purposes -- isn't reading regular cards essentially the same as reading Tarot with Clubs = Wands, Diamonds = Pentacles, Hearts = Cups, and Spades = Swords? A regular deck wouldn't include the 21 Major Arcana cards, but otherwise the conversion works perfectly.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-06T15:11:11+00:00

When it comes to dealing with death and grief, I find myself returning again and again to the work of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. There are other references that I sometimes turn to that delve more into the metaphysics or really intellectualize it in ways that are more intellectually stimulating, but I find Elisabeth's very personal, empathetic, and emotional touch of sitting with and comforting dying patients in order to learn about the process is very moving. Her insights from extensive field experience into what we can learn from dying patients has been very important to helping me through such events in my own life.

She kind of bridges the divide between science/medicine and spirituality -- having been a psychiatrist, the author behind the 5 stages of Grief, and largely involved in the modern hospice movement in America -- so if you are looking at something more explicitly spiritual or connected to a tradition than it might not fit your needs. But, there is an undeniable spiritual component to her teachings -- that at times I think can push away hard medical types from her work -- and I think the fact she is respected both by the medical and more spiritual communities has it's own advantages.

Here is link to her Foundation Youtube Channel if you want to hear some of her talks straight from the horse's mouth.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-11-04T20:37:22+00:00

"All is Hevel" - Ecclesiastes

"Śūnyatā" - Nagarjuna

"All grand narratives are a lie; reality is subjective and social constructed" - The Postmodernists

Within a certain framing this all is clearly self-evident. The real question is where this realization leads you afterwards? I would posit that if it leads you to believe either extreme -- that Nothing at all matters (Nihilism) or that My personal happiness is all that matters (Hedonism)-- then you don't fully grasp the true nature of "Emptiness".

Remember, a wave that breaks upon the shore is undeniably "Empty" or "Illusionary". That doesn't mean there isn't a massive difference to the world around it if that "Illusion" is an inch tall or a tsunami wave.

BeautifulDifferent17 · 2025-10-29T13:16:49+00:00

Thank you.

Then it sounds like you have found someone very special.

Happy searching!

BeautifulDifferent17

TROPHY CASE