Commission For Michael For His Wife For Christmas, To Match With A Commission From Earlier This Year.

New almanac side blog post. This has been really satisfying since I learned it. I'll look up and go, yup there's south, and then idk, feel like I've successfully touched grass for the day. Highly recommended.

Navigating with Orion

Orion is a highly recognisible constellation and is most visible in December and January. For this reason it's considered one of the Winter Constellations. The stars that make up Orion are usually still visible in areas of moderate of light pollution so it's a great constellation for practicing navigation.

Find South

The line of stars that will help us find south are known as Orion's sword. Imagining Orion is another person, you'll find it as a little line below his belt on his right side (your left). As Orion travels across the sky, his sword will point roughly south. This trick is more accurate the further from the horizon and the more upright Orion is.

Find East and West

Orion's belt can also be used to find the east and west. When Orion rises, the belt rises due-east (meaning exactly east) and due-west. The most northerly star on his belt/the star on his left side (called Mintaka) provides the most accuracy, rising and setting within just a single degree of these two compass points.

Bonus Info for Your Stargazing Pleasure

The middle star of Orion's sword is not, in fact, a star, but the Orion Nebula. The reddish star on his right shoulder is Betelgeuse and is showing signs of an impending supernova.

References and Further Reading:

Collins Night Sky (Wild Guide series published 2004)

Wild Signs and Star Paths by Tristan Gooley

Tristan Gooley's website, two pages on the topic: https://www.naturalnavigator.com/news/2010/09/finding-south-with-orions-sword/ and https://www.naturalnavigator.com/find-your-way-using/stars

Merlinktober Day 11 (on Day 15): To Bear Golden Fruit for a Golden Age

Allow me to offer you all merthur fanart… referenced from La belle dame sans merci, 1893 by John William Waterhouse… I love them so much

I need to do more merthur fanart soon 🫶

Thanks @achillesuwu for the tag!

I was listening to I Might Float by Syd Matters for maybe the thousandth time and I suddenly realised I'd never looked up the meaning (it has some fairly unusual lyrics). So my last googled thing was "Syd Matters I Might Float meaning." The search was a little fruitless and I only found a few people speculating on Reddit. Oh well!

@breadkween and @liviapeleia tagging ye if you feel like doing it!

last google search, go

um. Tag four people.

what do they make sewer tunnels out of

@ncc1701ohno @affixjoy @the-magpieprince @twinkboimler

learning about plants in ur area is wild. like you also learn about the histories of the plants. Like oh! Thats garlic mustard! That was brought over from europe as a crop! it smells just like garlic and you can cook with it!  And thats yarrow!  Its been used for tons of stuff and pollinators love it! Oh hey! Thats hemlock! They killed Socrates with that! 

Are there any poems that inspired TSV? I know I asked a similar question about plays, and I really loved the ones listen!

Well, there's a huge amount of Seamus Heaney in the landscape and vibes of TSV (particularly the bog-sacrifice poems for obvious reasons, the early Death of a Naturalist work trying to make sense of his childhood and parents, and his Buile Suibhne translations), and generally speaking we're sort of riffing off symbolist knight-errant narratives which includes poems like Faerie Queene.

They're almost too obvious and famous to be called influences, but I don't think you can write anything about religious and apocalyptic dread without feeling the looming shadow of The Waste Land, The Hollow Men and The Second Coming, and I think there's a lot of buried Rime of the Ancient Mariner homages in Carpenter's story (like one who on a lonesome road, etc) and Kubla Khan in Faulkner's.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS UNDERRATED TRIO??

the lady of the lake

arthur’s death