startwithaseed:

The Long Beach Water Department has a service to replace wasteful grass on residential yards with drought-tolerant and native plants. Pretty cool!

Welcome to our Lawn-to-Garden (L2G) website. We’ve created this site to help you, our valued customer, replace a water-guzzling grass lawn with a beautiful water-smart landscape that is in harmony with our region’s semi-arid climate. Conserving the vast amounts of water normally applied to grass lawns is more important than ever, now that our region’s imported water supplies have been permanently reduced.  From Beautiful Long Beach Lawn to Garden

One thing I like is how they even include lawn designs with a plant list on their site.

artemisdreaming:

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

thefrogman:

I would have sold this house too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.

[reddit]

josephtheskraeling:

bathsabbath:

iamnotthedamselindistress:

bathsabbath:

I know they make a nice Heavy Metal “mascot” but man, some light reading on the subject would be nice. A condensed response to some of the images I’ve seen lately:

-Vikings raped MEN AND WOMEN. It was not “sweet, let’s bone all the ladies we’ve just conquered” it was “I just conquered you and I will have ALL of you submit to the worst form of humiliation and depowerment.” And to further shatter your hetero world, Vikings had male prostitutes, sex with anyone was awesome and great as long as you married and produced children. Though a male being in the submissive position was fiercely looked down upon, hence vikings raping men after battle. However, once men reached a certain age and had produced their heirs, they earned the right to be submissive in sex without being judged.

-Santa Claus was based off Odin. The Beard, the pointed hat, the general appearance is based off Vegtam the wanderer. The eight Reindeer is the eight-legged Horse Sleipnir. The 12 days of Christmas? The Midwinter Feast. Your Christmas ham is the annual boar sacrifice to Frey. Your tree, stockings, wreath, mistletoe, yule log and carolers are all based off Viking Traditions. 

-No horns. The majority of people know this already, but they don’t really why the myth of the horned helmet still persists. Well firstly, there may be some truth to this, as decorated headpieces were often used in ritual practices (in many cultures), but never in battle. It’s been said that archaeologists when uncovering viking burial sites, saw the drinking horns placed in close proximity to the helmets and assumed they fell off. They may have felt secure in this assumption because of Celtic discoveries like the “Thames Helmet.” Greek & Roman historians wrote of the headpieces of the Vikings and Celts and made all sorts of claims, but this is always taken with a grain of salt as they were not clear on the usage of such headpieces. And of course you can blame artists, who started depicting Vikings based off these writings. They added Greco-Roman influence to “lift” the status of Vikings and the Norse Pantheon into Classical Antiquity.  

-Vikings did “convert” to Christianity. I know this seems like basic history, but people really don’t seem to understand this fact. The majorityof Vikings converted to Christianity by the mid-1100’s, they were among the last of the pagans to convert. However, the Sami people held out a whole lot longer, not converting until the 1700’s. This is “convert” in theon paper sense of the term,  they most likely continued their beliefs in the Norse pantheon, but each Scandinavian realm had their own Archbishop by then, and the sieges and raiding were replaced with Christian Crusades, which were basically the same fucking thing. And of course, the belief and worship of the Norse Pantheon is still alive and well today. 

-Vikings were not filthy. I’ve wrote on this subject before, Vikings washed their faces and brushed their hair every morning. Every Saturday, or Laurdag, literally meaning “washing day” was reserved for bathing of the entire body (for reference, the Anglo-Saxons bathed annually). Some of the most common items found at Viking sites were combs. Also found were razors, tweezers, ear spoons and a type of soap that doubled as hair bleach. So don’t feel bad if you bleach your hair to get that Viking blonde, cause they did it too! They took great pride in their hygiene and appearance and this myth persists because of Christian, Muslim and Roman historians who had a particularly biased view on the matter. Fun fact: when one was baptized into Christianity in the Medieval period, you received a set of white garments, Vikings would often get baptized, slightly alter their appearance, and get baptized again, just for the free duds. 

-To be a Viking does not mean White Pride. And if you think it does, then fuck your stupid face. Be proud of your heritage (and everyone else’s!) not your skin tone. Why Vikings have become the mascot for White Nationalists is beyond me. They had many peaceful and profitable trading relationships with most Europeans, as well as Native Americans, Africans, Mediterraneans, Arabic and Slavic cultures. Not all their relations were peaceful, there were definitely conflicts, but these arrose because of actions not appearance. And of course, mating and breeding with these various peoples was frequent. Vikings were tolerant of other people living on their land and respectful when settling (not raiding) on other’s land, often trading sea-fairing knowledge for agricultural. They valued these relationships highly and were known to be buried with the gifts given to them by other cultures. Yes, the Vikings kept slaves, but they kept slaves from their own culture as well, and these “thralls” we able to purchase their own freedom. Once the slave purchased their freedom they were often adopted into the Master’s family, regardless of origin, and granted citizenship. So, the idea of the “Pure Norse” is pretty farfuckingfetched, and I get increasingly pissed at the claims of Asatru being a “white religion,” and the douches that insist people of color have no claim to it. 

Done. Come at me bros. 

I just wish this post had sources.

Ahh I’m so sorry this took so long! I completely forgot, and I should have done it initially, but I definitely posted it as a heat of the moment rant, but here they are!

A History of the Vikings by Gwyn Jones - Source on Viking Conversion, relations with other cultures, etc. Very dense though!

Gunnora Hallakarva- On Sexuality

Warlords by Tim Newark - On fighting, raiding, arms and armor. Not strictly viking, nice illustrations. At least in my version, which I can’t find online, this is the closest I could find.

Roberta Frank - On the invention of the horned helmet.

Skandland- On Yule traditions. Wikipedia has a lot of info/resources on this subject too.

Hurstwic.org - More in depth on Viking hygiene rituals.

The Artifice of Beauty by Sally Pointer - Discusses Viking beauty and hygiene practices a little bit.

The Viking World - A ton of sources on Viking Women, gender roles, sexuality, clothing, etc.

All of these are true. If you pick up any good book on the Vikings, you’ll learn a lot more than you think.

I remember when I was younger, maybe fifteen or so and just getting into the Norse world, I had a lot of misconceptions on the Vikings and Norse mythology. Those were easily corrected by reading the sagas, Eddas, and other related literature.

I

castielsminions:

bucketofchum:

fuckskinnyletsgetfit:

Advertising’s image of women. Watch this and get your mind blown. 

This needs to stop.

I am not female but I really don’t think that matters. EVERYONE needs to see this.