Non-Titled

I logged into Soundcloud for the first time in years and I will now be officially abandoning all hope.

The irony of Amazon putting out such a great fantasy series about how power inevitably corrupts isn’t lost on me, but recruiting Fiona Apple for the soundtrack is a low blow.

If you have children please be sure to give them lots of attention so they don’t end up as adults who pace in public places while having loud conservations on their Bluetooth headsets.

Is energy vampirism less prevalent in other societies or is it universal??

“Alaya.—An abbreviation of Alaya vijanana. Alaya is a sort of eternal substance or matter, creative and containing all forms; when considered as a whole, it is non existent, or contains nothing; when considered phenomenal, it fills the universe. It seems to be of the nature of materialism. It is the store or totality of consciousness both absolute and relative. It is described as the fundamental mind consciousness of conscious beings, which lays hold of all the experience of the individual life, and which stores and holds the germs of all affairs. It is the last of Eighth Consciousness from which the Wisdom of Great Round Mirror is derived.”

I typed “The Michelin Man in the style of Zdzisław Beksiński” into MidJourney

I learned about the deity Palden Lhamo for the first time today and I’m amazed.

“Palden Lhamo means "Glorious Goddess" and can feature a wide range of wrathful female protectors and dakinis. Usually, Palden Lhamo refers to the Gelugpa version of her as a wrathful emanation of Saraswati, otherwise known as Magzor Gyalmo and Remati.

Magzor Gyalmo was said to be named Remati during the time she was married to the evil king of Lanka, both of them rakshasas according to one version. Remati vowed that if she failed to convert the king to Buddhism and dispel his wickedness, she would end his dynasty. She tried many times to convert him to avoiding the killing of dharma practitioners, but failed along with their son being raised to kill Buddhists. With no choice, she slaughtered her son while her husband was out hunting. She ate her son's flesh, drank his blood with his skull as a kapala or cup, and flayed his skin to make a saddle. Thus, she escaped out towards the north. Just as she left on a mule, the king returned and found out about his son's murder. Enraged, he shot the rump of the mule that Remati was riding. In response, Remati healed the wound and transformed it into an eye by stating, "May the wound of my mount become an eye large enough to watch over the twenty-four regions, and may I myself be the one to extirpate the lineage of the malignant kings of Lanka!" There, she traveled onwards through India to Tibet to China to Mongolia and was said to have finally settled down on the mountain, Oikhan in eastern Siberia.

When she died, she was reborn in hell and fought her way out of the hell, stealing a bag of diseases and a sword. When she escaped to the charnel grounds, she found no peace and prayed to the Buddha for a reason to live. The Buddha Vajradhara (tantric Shakyamuni) appeared before her and requested her to protect the dharma. Astonished, Remati agreed and thus arose as the dharmapala she is, only using her weapons against enemies of Buddhism. She was also appointed as a guardian of dharma by Yama, lord of death. Her retinue consists of the lion-headed dakini Simhamukha (Sengdongma) behind her and the Makara-headed dakini Makaravaktra holding the reins of the mule in front of Palden Lhamo. Surrounding them are the 4 Goddesses of the Seasons, the 5 Sisters of Long Life, and the 12 Tenma goddesses.”

I literally cheered at seeing Lucas read The Talisman in the Stranger Things season finale

I got a loud-ass fuckin’ car

Peelin’ out in front of a school

Your conversation is over

Now you must talk about me and my car

I went to the Met today and minorly lost my shit after walking into the Byzantine section and seeing a piece of jewelry with iconography celebrating Christian marriage on one side AND FUCKING ABRAXAS ON THE OTHER!!! The plaque only described him as a “solar pagan deity” which I thought was pretty insulting.

“In the year 786 an English council forbade the use of a drinking-horn as a chalice for the administration of the Eucharistic wine.”

-Richard Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe

Pictish stone cross slab with an equal-armed cross at the top with two clerics on each side of its shaft, and below a panel with a lion, from Papil, Burra, Shetland, 700 - 900 AD

The lion is believed to represent St. Mark but the two bird-humanoids at the bottom are inexplicable.

HOW DID I MISS THIS!!