Taomeow

A cat in Istanbul, named Tombili, used to spend a lot of time watching the goings-on while sitting in this relaxed pose in this particular spot. A sculpture of him erected in that spot honors his life.

Echoes morning's fire, then hides her rage in a sheath. The Way of the Sword.

A bad hair day. Serval mom evacuates her kittens from an inundated den in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya.

A cat photographer, Robert Sijka, trying to be as cool as his cat

"Lake Baikal is huge. Even if you drowned all the people on Earth in it, its level would only rise by 3 centimeters." -- Mikhail Grachyov, Director of the Limnology* Institute of the Russian Academy of Science. * Limnology is the study of inland aquatic ecosystems

No English translation, unfortunately. Apparently there's just one Russian Herbal in existence in English, at least that's what I found on Amazon, and that one seems to be (according to reviews) very good but beginner-level timid and somewhat generic -- which is unfortunate, considering the magnitude of the tradition, one of the strongest in existence. Not as theoretically systematized as classical Chinese herbalism or Ayurveda, but as mature and time-honored, and in possession of materia medica of the same stupendous magnitude. Besides, it's taught as a fairly extensive course in nearly all Russian medical schools, and a lot of it has been widely and systematically researched by modern scientific methods, so a conscientious MD typically has (or at least used to have, don't know about now) a clue and is free to use it too. I don't know how things stand today, but "in my time" it was neither encouraged nor discouraged, it was just part of medicine, and a doctor could choose to go deeper in that direction or not go there at all. Which I think is a better model -- also used in China -- than what we have here. My initial early exposure, besides the ubiquitous folk knowledge and family tradition, was via MDs who suggested (and explained) herbal treatments as readily as they prescribed pharmaceuticals.

Interesting. I have to check out vervian, Venus is my planet in the Western tradition and Water is my lucky phase in the Chinese. I have a couple of books on witchcraft plants, and also a Russian encyclopedia of medicinal herbs that includes astrological (and some magical) considerations and procedures for each of the listed herbs. Neither is my go-to cup of herbal tea though, but the idea of using herbs in a magical/ritual infused way is quite appealing. Although I would resort to the taoist methods of course. The cleansing/consecrating stuff I use for the altar and to clear the space etc. is my favorite resins, copal and frankincense.

Not for internal use I hope.

I have Frater's book on spagyrics. Do you actually use a still? Simple as it is, I never got around to using one. A double boiler is as far as I would typically go, have also made some simple evaporative concentrates, fermented decoctions, emulsions for medicinal baths, stuff like that. I think a still might be my next endeavor.

A very worthy pursuit. I made my last batch of herbal tinctures about a year ago. This time around I followed the specs of a very competent herbalist and author, Stephen Harrod Buhner -- I was studying his "Herbal Antibiotics" and "Herbal Antivirals" at the time (the heyday of the first wave of you-know-what), among many other things, and came across the best explanation of what the concentration of the extractive alcohol for a particular type of plant material ought to be and why, so I decided to follow his protocols for my own extraction endeavors. They're different for dry vs fresh herbs, and then there's individual nuances based on the individual herb and the shape and form it's in (cut or powdered or whole, etc.). Since "Everclear" is impossible to buy in CA, I experimented with ordering this and that online and settled on pure cane alcohol from Mexico -- the bonus being that it is suitable for people whose grain sensitivity extends to even grain alcohols (I have such folks in my human environment). For some of my tinctures I was a bit at a loss as to the correct concentrations -- the task of figuring out how exactly to dilute 95% alcohol to get to, say, 55% or 60% proved not as mathematically straightforward as I hoped it would. I wound up consulting two top-educated mathematicians who do math-involving stuff for a (very good) living and each arrived at a volume of water to add different from the other ...so I didn't feel so bad about my own lack of sure mathematical footing. (In my own calculations I did get the numbers that were the same as those of one of the mathematicians', and the other one quickly acknowledged the mistake and confirmed, so it was settled.) What are you planning to make tinctures out of?

Yeah, at first glance I couldn't fathom what kind of mandanimal* a lynx the size of a lioness might be. *mandanimal -- a term people use to describe animals attributed to the so-called "Mandela effect," which are not indigenous either to the current timeline or to the timeline of the persons switched to this one from different ones.

A Wildcat in Switzerland

Caracal/Desert Lynx

Goose bumps with goose bumps, but he's not cold, just bumpy, that old toad. Ribbit.

The essence of a selfie

A black panther in India To me this kitty looks like a working model of our yin-yang universe

The Babylon Bee agrees! U.S. Project Veritas Shunned By Journalists For Practicing Journalism December 1st, 2020 U.S.—According to sources, a small band of guerrilla journalists known as Project Veritas is coming under fire for practicing actual journalism. "Apparently these guys didn't get the memo that 'journalism' is just a funny word we made up so people will think we're important and listen to us," said CNN President Jeff Zucker after hours of his morning conference calls were leaked by Project Veritas. "These guys actually think journalists are supposed to do journalism when everyone knows that journalists are just here to write the narrative that serves our own agenda! These guys are doing it all wrong!" Brian Stelter wept uncontrollably after hearing the news of the leaks. "Who do these so-called 'journalists' think they are?" he said. "They don't wear nice suits or have expensive sets. They don't even dox random private citizens!" Sources say that this strange group of citizen journalists has somehow been able to find incredible news stories about corruption and criminality without any of the resources of massive news corporations. "We're not sure exactly how they do this, but we're pretty sure it's not real journalism," said Zucker. "Please -- do not pay any attention to them. We're pretty sure they're discredited according to official sources that we endorse. We hope you'll stay tuned to CNN for authoritative news stories on when to get your first colonoscopy and why the orange man is bad."

You may be right -- he's actually a prince, and according to many ancient sources, many royal dynasties did have some kind of alien progenitor. Which might explain their blue blood.

Mohamed Mahmoud Al Khaja, the first UAE ambassador to Israel.

Thanks for posting. Allow me to get a bit critical though if you will... Not much by way of wuxing/Nine Flying stars analysis, unfortunately. The "animal" analysis is very peripheral to the traditional authentic bazi -- some of the serious masters don't acknowledge this relatively new system as worth their while at all -- others use it as a minor footnote, more of a tool for psychological assessment of limited depth. Whereas the bulk of analysis focuses on what really has the bulk of impact and therefore the greatest stochastically predictive power. (The bolded disclaimer -- "Astrology is not fortunetelling; we’re in the business of symbols here!" is particularly amateurish. No, we are not "in the business of symbols" here. We are in the domain of the energies of the world, tangible and real, not symbolic and "psychological." We are in the domain of the fabric of reality itself. We are inside the science designed to empower us to both discern and extrapolate the behavior of cosmic qi as it interacts with earthly qi. We are not mumblers of platitudes sprinkled with "proprietary" terminology and symbology toward creating an illusion of authenticity.) So what we do analyze is the great power of the wuxing interactions of the Heavenly Stems and the Earthly branches of the year and of its Flying Stars. That's what forms the real nature of the Four Pillars of Destiny of the year (or of a life, or of an epoch, or of the month, or of the hour, depending on what temporal interval we're analyzing). This, alas, is dabbling. Being trained in acupuncture doesn't make one a bazi reader... anymore than being trained in bazi readings makes one an acupuncturist. The only thing that makes them fully compatible -- the foundational basic conceptual frame and cognitive notions that are the same -- doesn't make them the same thing, anymore than knowing the Latin names of diseases makes one a doctor, or being a doctor makes one Cicero or Catullus. Pardon the rant. So sick of those "cold readings" all over the Internet. Of folks discrediting one of my favorite taoist sciences with their dabbling.

The year of the Yin Metal Cow -- note it's cow, not ox (Ox is the yang animal of the species and 2021 will be a yin Heavenly Stem year.) The Earthly Branch will be Earth, so it's going to be Metal sitting on top of Earth. Earth produces Metal. Unlike in 2020, when Metal is positioned on top of Water, its Child phase (so the relationship is reversed and Child has to support Mother), in 2021 Mother will support its Child. Whatever that Heavenly Metal is up to, Earth will make it stronger. It's the 32nd year of the 60-year cycle, an alchemical number. (The location of the lower elixir field is described in some texts as "heaven above 32, earth below 32.") Yin Metal -- that's the gold elixir. Looks like a rather inviting year for taoist alchemy. Will be an interesting one to analyze, better start early.

Nah, I know too well whose payroll the "fact checkers" are on and have spent some time in the past diligently fact checking their fact checking, which has taught me to despise and ignore their trickery. In any event I didn't get this from the sources they "debunk" whatever they are. I don't watch any news. I got this from an African-American running for governor of California, Errol Webber, who posted a video of a mother of a diabetic kid returning from the drug store the other day with her newly priced insulin.

In CA, I'd say this is putting it mildly. An example from just yesterday from my neck-of-woods: a 13-year old girl took her mom's car and went on a joy ride with her friend, drove the car into some bushes and killed two homeless men who were sleeping there for lack of a better place to sleep. She was briefly (for a couple of hours) arrested and then released home to her parents, apparently end of story. There's so many homeless people in California, who cares if someone kills a couple for sport, there's more where these come from.

You have my support.

Year of the White Cow