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sallymn posting in

mantra [man-truh]

noun:
1 (Hindu) a word or formula, as from the Veda, chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer.
1 an often repeated word, formula, or phrase, often a truism

Examples:

Maybe the 'us against the world' mantra is something that can drive the team on towards the heights that they have so far been unable to get to. (Andy Burke, Is there 'entitlement' around Scotland or has Townsend misjudged criticism?, BBC, November 2025)

Maharishi taught a form of meditation derived from the Vedas, the foundation of philosophical thinking in India, known as mantra meditation, in which a person silently sits alone with the eyes closed, and repeats in the mind a sacred Sanskrit mantra that is believed to be endowed with spiritual potency. (Syama Allard, Buddhist mindfulness is all the rage, but Hinduism has a deep meditation tradition too, Hindu American Foundation, May 2021)

Greenland is still a place where 'the weather decides' can be a liberating mantra - once we accept that we're powerless to do anything about the weather, we can give up control. (Gabriel Leigh, Greenland Wants You to Visit. But Not All at Once., New York Times, February 2023)

It was hard to find adequate space to run and stretch and even harder to find a quiet corner for my breathing and mantra ritual. (Ibtihaj Muhammad, Proud)

He was sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chest, and he was chanting the statement like a mantra, but loudly. (Dave Eggers, Zeitoun)

Origin:
1808, 'that part of the Vedas which contains hymns,' from Sanskrit mantra-s 'sacred message or text, charm, spell, counsel,' literally 'instrument of thought,' related to manyate 'thinks,' from PIE root men- 'to think.' Meaning 'sacred text used as a charm or incantation' is by 1900 (Online Etymology Dictionary)

denise posting in

dw_news

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

ysabetwordsmith posting in

newcomers

Today is Shop for Good Sunday. This holiday highlights businesses whose goods and services support values, not just making money and shuffling junk around.

If you know what your friends and family value -- whether that's fair trade or sustainability or women-owned businesses -- then you can buy treats they might not ordinarily get because the good, responsible stuff tends to cost more. Pay attention to packaging: some companies just slap on a seal or few and call it good, but others really highlight the values aspect of their goodies with text or illustrations so your recipient will definitely notice it. The same goes for cards or gift wrapping in companies that offer that service.

Shop for Good Sunday banner with hands making a basket

Shop for Good Sunday banner with hands making a basket

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

petra

I am reading Retrograde, an Old Guard story, off a recommendation from the Rec Center newsletter. It is charming, and I am more than happy to forgive it its comma splices for the well-told tale of Nicky waking up at a different point in his own history every time he dies.

What made me pause to cry laughing was actually a footnote in the fic that "'Snails" is a minced oath for "God's nails," as cited in Green's Dictionary of Slang from 1599.

I haven't giggled this hard at something snail-related since the Barricades Con did a snéance (a snail séance) to ask Victor Hugo a few burning questions.

I am also sad all over again that they didn't name the sequel 2 Old 2 Guard, and that it wasn't good, but that is a Doylistic set of concerns, and when I am enmeshed in the story, I don't care so much.

Current Mood: shakespearean
Current Music: Arm in arm in arm in arm

ysabetwordsmith posting in

dw_community_promo

allbingo provides a space for creative people to share their work, using bingo cards for inspiration.

crowdfunding is a community for creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity.

Further details below ...

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

yhlee

Saori WX60 + Clover Sakiori 60cm "feather" (reed/heddle thingy???) Frankenloom warping. This does work. It doesn't work all that well, but it works. Fortunately, the weaving is the fast part and this is a shorter warp, so I'll just finish this for exploration's sake and then return to "normal" warping. :)

Finished the 2-ply merino yarn!

elisem

He were brilliant.

Mr Ford took me to London (first class, yet, as he had to use up a lot of frequent flyer miles on a reorganizing airline, so we went fancy) to see Arcadia at the NT. It was stunning.

Glad we had him on the planet. He will be missed.

mecurtin

Purrcy likes all the people who visited for T-day, and no-one extra was staying overnight here, but it was just ... a lot of feet, and voices, and hands. Today has had to be very clingy and relaxing, to wind down.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is flopped on his side on a blue patterned bedspread, eyes half closed, partly stretched out, looking too tired to even curl up neatly.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is flopped on his side on a blue patterned bedspread, eyes half closed, partly stretched out, looking too tired to even curl up neatly.

I was able to let go completely and have E&P do almost everything for T-day because of a combo of pain & exhaustion from pain. We ate at 5, so early in the day there was dining room table clearing, and giving bills to me in my study to look at and pay. And I remember asking Dirk to bring me the shoulder-shaped ice pack, and later him coming in to ask me a question and all I could was just ... stare at him, because even as the pain went down the exhaustion from it surged forward and there was nothing left.

So Purrcy & I had to lie in bed a lot of the time. I couldn't really fall asleep, but I continued binge-reading.

This week's binge-read was Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinths 4-book series, now re-issued under her Katherine Addison pen name, the better to pull in fans of The Goblin Emperor and the other books in The Chronicles of Osreth. I found them a quick read and enjoyable enough, though partly because I could see how many elements there are in these early works that she re-worked for the Osreth books, and which elements she decided meh, don't have to do that again.

Reused elements: stories within the story; labyrinths; lower-class people having important POVs; palaces being full of servants who know stuff & who you'd better get to know; theatrical costumes are a great way for a woman to get upper-class clothing even if she's not upper class; aristocrats are mostly assholes.

Element she realized she didn't need to reuse: POV character who's an asshole. OMG Felix is *such* a yaoi character, I now see why when Melusine came out & I was hearing about it 2nd hand your opinions were *so* divergent. Because on the one hand, he's just the Maximum Poor Little Mew Mew ... on the other hand, when "sane" he's a total jerk and bully toward Mildmay & anyone else in range of his tongue.

So the series as a whole feels like her working out, can I develop Felix's backstory enough to show how he was shaped into a charismatic abuser, and then can I believably show him becoming a better person? And I dunno if I'll read the series again, because it just is too many chapters from Felix's POV. I 1000x prefer Maia and Thara, both of whom absolutely abhor picking fights, *shudder*.

kore

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

elisem

I test negative for COVID these days, and feel a lot better. As directed by many people who learned some of it the hard way, I continue to rest LIKE A POTATO. And no, the giggle-inducing power of that phrase has not worn off. Juan has a way of intoning it at various sleeptimes that brings even more amusement due to the solemnity. And these things are good.

HOWEVER, what is not so good is that I'm considerably behind on getting things into the Etsy store.

Also what is not so good is that a new computer is needed. (Shopping will be done, the passive voice will be employed, and so forth.) Also, since other debts are also had, the means to pay them must be acquired.

YOUR KINDNESS is hereby requested in the form of sending people to my shop (or going yourself, yes please!) so that I may exchange the fruits of my labors for money that I can then give the computer-making people and the other-stuff-I-have-to-pay-people. If it works out right, we're all happy. (Also it will help me not freak out about money, which turns out to make resting LIKE A POTATO a little harder.)

The shop is: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LionessElise

Also also, being at the workbench is the most calming thing I know, so I'm doing a tiny bit of that, but I need to put things into the shop for people to be able to see them. Commerce does not work so well otherwise. (I am reminded of Patricia C. Wrede, who upon receiving a sheepish negative answer when she asked me if I had sent a certain story in yet, declaimed in ringing tones, "PUBLISHERS DO NOT CONDUCT HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES FOR PUBLISHABLE MANUSCRIPTS! SEND IT IN! YOU HAVE TO SEND IT IN!")

Anyhow, yeah, I very much need to make some moneys happen, and the most direct route for me is making shinies happen for people that want shinies, so if you can help them find my work that would be awesomely helpful.

You have my deep gratitude, and if there's anything I can do for you, please let me know.

petra

Also open to people for whom it is Not Dark Outside in the Southern Hemisphere.

Let me know if you'd like a holiday card, with or without short verse or prose, or a short piece of fiction in your inbox.

Even if you know I have your address, if you want a physical card, I would appreciate your leaving it in a comment on this post -- all comments are screened -- so I don't have to hunt for it. I'm in the US and have a pile of domestic and international stamps just waiting to come see you.

Please format your request like so:

I would like [a physical card/just a physical card, no fiction/just a piece of fiction or verse sent digitally], please.

If you want a physical card:
Envelope Name
Address formatted the way your country likes them done

Card Name (if different from envelope name):

If you want some words:
Please write me a [drabble or poem], [silly or serious or smutty or author's choice], for [one or more of these fandoms (the fandoms I know)] on the theme of [my favorite trope(s)]. Please avoid mentioning [winter holidays I don't celebrate].

Optional if you want to reciprocate:
I'm planning on sending holiday cards and don't have your address. Please provide it [at this link or in a reply comment].

Current Mood: festive
Current Music: I want a la-la-la-la-latke every Cha-Cha-Chanukah night

lannamichaels

Summary: The titular girl turning 12 is Katie, a homeschooled girl in Kentucky in summer/autumn 2004. She is enduring the beginning of puberty -- having to wear a bra*, growing leg hair, getting her period -- while her best friends have temporarily moved to Wisconsin, she is getting bullied at church** youth group, discovering her budding feminist rage about dress codes, and, worryingly, might have a crush on a girl in her theater club. A midgrade graphic novel.

( Read more... )

pedanther

. Having finished last week's post by saying I was feeling well-rested and energetic for the first time in a while, I immediately came down with the Dreaded Lurgi, which has been hanging around all week trying out various combinations of coughs, sneezes, and interesting mucus. ( Read more... )

. Consequently of the lurgi, I had to miss the weekly board game meet again this week.

I did, in the brief space on the weekend before the lurgi struck, get to play some board games with friends, including Hellboy: The Board Game. ( Read more... )

. On the plus side, I got a lot of reading done -- which is just as well, because I signed up for an unwise number of reading challenges this year, and had fallen badly behind on several of them. Apart from the progress on the Book Chain, I also caught up on the Buzzwords challenge and made up some ground on the monthly random challenge.

For the September Buzzwords prompt ("Events"), I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, an Australian classic I'd never read with a famous film adaptation I've never seen. ( Read more... )

For the November Buzzwords prompt ("Never"), I read The Man Who Never Was, Ewen Montagu's memoir of his involvement in Operation Mincemeat, a deception operation carried out during the Second World War ( Read more... )

This made me curious enough to check whether there were any more recent and complete accounts available, and Libby had Ben Macintyre's Operation Mincemeat, so I went straight on and read that as well. ( Read more... )

For the October random book selection, I'm reading The Deeper Meaning of Liff, "a dictionary of things there aren't any words for yet, but there ought to be" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. ( Read more... )

. I've been vaguely intending for some time to expand my exercise repertoire beyond a brisk walk, and one of the things I've been considering trying out is Zombies, Run!, an app which makes your exercise part of an ongoing story about a small group of humans trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.( Read more... )

. On an evening when I didn't feel like reading, I watched an episode of The Muppet Show -- which turned out to be the one where they have to try and keep the show going without Kermit because he's at home with the flu.

petra

There is currently a meme going around Tumblr of looking at the AO3 to see which of one's fanworks has the fewest hits. Mine is currently a drabble of Shakespeare/Marlowe titled from Stephen Sondheim.

As Jack points out, said fanwork could only be more on-brand for me if it involved mentor/student or one person/everyone else.

BRB, contemplating Kit/everybody and/or Will/everybody.

~~Oh thank goodness, I have the right icon for this post!~~

Current Mood: silly
Current Music: I am somewhat imperfectly me

watersword

Finally committed to buying myself some solid gold flatback earrings that I can keep in, and got the Maison Miru pavé lightning bar pair, which are almost identical to the Mateo bypass studs, except not diamonds, and about 20% of the price. (Christ, when I bookmarked those earrings, they were almost a hundred dollars cheaper.) I have managed to get them into my ears all by myself (look, I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 30, and push pin flat backs are even harder), and I am pleased to report that they are delicate and sparkly and I look forward to wearing them for the foreseeable future.

It's a shame that Saturday is my long cardio session at the gym, because damn does my hair look great on Sundays, when it is clean but the curl has fallen out juuuuust enough that the ringlets don't look fake. (My natural curl texture in the front is, genuinely, Shirley Temple curls. It is absurd.)

I have made cranberry-apricot cake and poppyseed cake and am restraining myself from making a miso-maple cake. The cod with artichokes and saffron broth did defeat the bag of artichokes that had been in the freezer since the dawn of time, but I actually think the broth isn't great — oddly bitter? — and won't be making it again. (I have leftovers and will eat them, but I won't be happy about it. Thank goodness I didn't waste the second cod fillet on this.) The pesto + white beans, on the other hand, were delicious and will become a new staple.

Sir Tom Stoppard's death is extremely upsetting and I am watching "Shakespeare in Love," "Enigma," and "Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead" and reading Arcadia, The Invention of Love, and The Coast of Utopia about it. And re-reading the cricket bat speech from The Real Thing.

petra

It is definitely time for the ceremonial Watching of the Comfort Movie.

RIP, Tom Stoppard. And may you not have to do it all over again and again and again, because life is neither a rehearsal nor a play.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: Postulate

pedanther

#33: Read a book that is newer than the previous book.

If I wanted a sign that I should read the sequel to Imperium, there might not be a clearer one. However, there was a waiting list for it at the library, so I went with a book I could borrow straight away:

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang, art by Gurihiri. Also my pick for October ("Violence") in the Buzzwords challenge.( Read more... )

#34: Read a book that is shorter than the previous book.

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho. Also my random book pick for February.( Read more... )

#35: Read a book whose cover matches the previous book.

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop. Not a book it would ordinarily have occurred to me to look twice at, but the covers really are remarkably similar.( Read more... )

sholio

I signed up for

rec_cember, a new reccing challenge comm for posting recs in December. I am going to at least TRY posting bite-sized daily recs, but my track record at daily anything is pretty dismal, so it might turn into weekly posts. I'll make an effort to do roundup posts over at

recthething as well.

This will probably be mostly Murderbot and Babylon 5 (also Biggles? is there any point to posting Biggles recs, in a fandom that small where everyone has probably read anything they're interested in already?). I've actually got a B5 question. I still hope to drag some of you into watching it with me if possible, but I don't want to spoil any potential watchers for major developments in the series, which is really best unspoiled (if you are inclined to enjoy things that way) and doing recs in this particular way is probably going to be spoilergeddon.

So I am curious if people care about this or not.

Poll #33891

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 15

Would you like me to put Babylon 5 spoilers under a cut?

Yes please, that would be appreciated.
2 (13.3%)

I would prefer that you don't, so I can read everything without clicking a cut.
1 (6.7%)

No preference/answer too complex for your binary boxes.
12 (80.0%)

(Results are viewable only to me, so you're not committing yourself publicly to watching the show or anything. I would just like to know if there's any particular reason to be careful about spoiler-cuts or if it doesn't matter all that much at this point.)

psocoptera

It's amazing how much faster reading goes when the book is good. Also when stuck in a car for hours. Have a book roundup.

Cinder House, Freya Marske, 2025 novella. Marske continues to be writing as if aiming for me personally; this is a Cinderella retelling and it is fun and clever and different and well-put-together, definitely recommended if you like that sort of thing.

Don't Sleep With the Dead, Nghi Vo, 2025 novella. Vo wasn't done with Gatsby, or felt Nick wasn't done with Gatsby; I didn't feel like this added much.

This Princess Kills Monsters, Ry Herman, 2025 novel. Back to fairytale retellings. This was so fun and funny and successfully meta, also recommended.

sovay

If you knew the algorithm and fed it back say ten thousand times, each time there'd be a dot somewhere on the screen. You'd never know where to expect the next dot. But gradually you'd start to see this shape, because every dot will be inside the shape of this leaf. It wouldn't be a leaf, it would be a mathematical object. But yes. The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is. It's how nature creates itself, on every scale, the snowflake and the snowstorm. It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing. People were talking about the end of physics. Relativity and quantum looked as if they were going to clean out the whole problem between them. A theory of everything. But they only explained the very big and the very small. The universe, the elementary particles. The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about – clouds – daffodils – waterfalls – and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in – these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks. We're better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it'll rain on auntie's garden party three Sundays from now. Because the problem turns out to be different. We can't even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular. Each drip sets up the conditions for the next, the smallest variation blows prediction apart, and the weather is unpredictable the same way, will always be unpredictable. When you push the numbers through the computer you can see it on the screen. The future is disorder. A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It's the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.

—Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993)

Current Music: English Teacher, "Good Grief"

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Ricky Buchanan

Not Done Living!

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Sunday Word: Mantra

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Shop for Good Sunday

Recommendation: Retrograde & my new favorite minced oath

Allbingo and Crowdfunding

much emotional support fiber

Stoppard.

Purrcy; Turkey Day; Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison

Sleep for grief

Still resting LIKE A POTATO but with small bits of work in between, and ASKING YOUR FAVOR

It's Dark Outside Cards - 2025

Turning Twelve by Kathryn Ormsbee, illustrated by Molly Brooks (2024)

Week in review: Week to 29 November

I just gotta be me

(no subject)

Tom Stoppard is like unto Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Book Chain, weeks 37 & 38

How is it almost December

books

And me? Well, I'm just the narrator

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