Filene 🌠🌠🌠 @Filene@witches.town

My spouse joked about me wearing the same sparkly sheer shirt with every outfit, and the same joke about a shimmering Angelrox dress.

I think she's noticing my attempts at making wichier outfits.. >.> 😍

HONESTY OR SEXY

Maybe? Thoughts?

I think that the antidote to a snake's venom is often made from the very venom itself.

I'd conclude it's therapeutic to nullify the toxic threats or violence that others cause externally, where you're empowered, trusted, & safe you do so. This is better than needing a dose of toxicity to come from yourself, as you've de facto enabling your shadow boxing opponent.

The villain is no longer your endless resourcefulness versus a fear of being underprepared that grows in response. The battle is containable, instead of leaking into your mind like ink in an aquarium.

This is related to idolatry from earlier: in giving any imaginative space to another's power, and continuing a "tet-a-tet" where they "find" "perfect" ripostes one after another, is enabling your own defeat.

I imagine with your first self-delivery of negative/toxic violence, you render yourself too feeble. Your opponent is "equal" to you by being you, & you might not give yourself a "that's good enough" since toxicity thrives on remaining threatening.

But where can we have an outlet for this addiction? Or for this muscle that's sorely awaiting toxicity to transform?

Outside ourselves.

Like the TMBG song "Lost My Mind," you are both the bag, and the boxing glove. We can espouse other metaphors for the duality and source of all projected perceptions, but here, the victim has turned on themself.

In giving yourself a "hit" of negativity or toxicity, you might expect to be able to create a retort and feel good about your smarts.
But it's much harder when you realize the speaker comes FROM INSIDE. This is just like abuse: someone you trust to never hurt you has caught you defenseless. In fact, I dare say being negative to yourself must be stopped before you're overwhelmed.

In this way, we can get addicted or "habituated" to the poison. Some drugs, when you go "cold turkey," can cause immediate shocks and other withdrawal effects. Being in toxicity is similar, and I feel that way through the mental reinforcement of habits.

If someone is on the outside of you, pulling you down, you have an external source of toxicity. You can stay "getting the hits" and either suffering or subordinating the intent of affliction.

But when you lose the source, this response turns inward. There's no thumb to continue living under, so how do you get a "hit?"

Yourself.

My latest thought was on poison and toxicity. Original: https://witches.town/@Filene/4161707

I've been pondering the symbol of the peacock, one that's been significant to me enough to be an alter & fursona.
The tale goes that peacocks get their pretty colors from all the poisonous beings they eat. The bigger a supply, and the fiercer the venom, the brighter their show.

But we also call people and situations "toxic." Matisyahu's song "motivate" & other creators describe attacks by others to be laced with poison.

In a way, we as humans--if not clear that this "bitter truth" might actually be name-calling--might accept the pain and internalize it.
(Continued)

First, let me link to one of my most recent hexes about ideas to put in my book of shadows:

https://witches.town/@Filene/4106403

I'll be adding more to the above thread for all my book of shadows insights. Such as below:
I have yet to physically write on the topic of poisons/toxicity:
getting addicted to them, getting withdrawal from them, getting immune to them/rubbery to them, and getting your fix instead of fixing the withdrawal.

Toxicity is only "bitter" like medicine at first, but it can build this bitterness inside you, or make you used to something that still has the threat of a lethal dosage.

I feel really like a #cutewitch with my long hair wig today. The sun helped me get a few glamour shots ;w;

https://witches.town/media/mlf8vI90zZ-FQqdlLJ4 https://witches.town/media/t71yDcTvrcoNdfIevHw https://witches.town/media/Gukq6Nluvwa7cSPqUuw https://witches.town/media/5pewIikwr3lFtj3Upqw

When I see the original flag that Gilbert Baker crafted, I really feel the turquoise and pink lines gotta come back.
To me, I see queerness in this original flag design, and I think we as fellow witches might agree on these two things being core ideals to pride. "Sexuality" inclusive of aces who might exclusion by the term as-is, magic/art inclusive of those starving in their practice.

Just feels so #queer

https://witches.town/media/4cy93PdRm0xXwrAITrk

I gotta write all this in my book of shadows. (Grimoire?)

The physical idol invites the mind to be reminded of an imagined or perceived image of an idol.

When I think about it, an idol or fetish invites the mind into paralysis. I've spent painful moments trying to forecast the actions of objects & fate based on my mind's image of consequences and knowledge of the object.

In this way, our mind runs a simulation we idolize and imagine ourselves unable to match the mind we idolize and fetishize. But the image of the object includes our inability to compare, which is already enough of a stain in our mind to take even the tiniest of mental resources from us.

I realized more about Ness's destruction & confrontation of an idol of his nightmares, in his own mind.

In a way, the only way that the godlike power this evil--or any evil--had power over him is because there was a place inside him that he had allotted for that evil's claims. What if Ness's nightmare was "the death of the universe? His failure? Unknown horrors he could never prepare for?"

Ultimately, this "image" conjured by Ness of the horrible, was his remaining idolization of those powers: taking the literal form of a "fetish," the Mani-Mani Statue: a hotline of evil that clouded idolizing minds with manipulative visions.

Sitting in the shade of the nice weather and thinking about an #iChing reading I got yesterday; mountain over water changing to tree/wind on a mountain. The first hexagram is about all teachers having been pupils somewhere along the line, and about the nature of teaching. The changing lines cover much, but convert to a hexagram about gradual progress.

I had asked it about my writing, and my progress in life in general, and the changing line I was told as dominant, talks about idolatry.

I just looked up the etymology, but it didn't reveal more than what I realized today. I've been idolizing all sorts of my fears, as if they might consume me.

Sitting here and thinking about everything. I had considered another way to get my writing done: dictate it to myself all day and listen and transcribe near the end of the day. But I worry about losing track of the last statement I made all day..

Maybe I'll get back into just writing on my phone, ATM.

Meanwhile, I have a buck of reagents I might be able to use in a spell, but the right use seems the most important to me. I wouldn't want to burn gifted roses I've dried, for example. Hmm..