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October

L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea, Carole Maso - The Art Lover, Louise Gluck - Averno: "October," Leif Enger - Peace Like a River, Van Gogh - Avenue of Poplars in Autumn, Personal Photo, Mary Oliver - Song for Autumn, Dulce María Loynaz – Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems (tr. James O’Conner), A screenshot from Over the Garden Wall, Carol Bishop Hipps - "October," Angela Carter - Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories, Personal Photo, Cy Twombly - Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke - "Autumn," Alejandra Pizarnik - Extracting the Stone of Madness (Tr. Yvette Siegnert)

How do you fall back in love with life?

clean your room.  clean space, uncluttered space, space that doesn’t have miasma clinging to it can work wonders.  clean the dishes.  sweep.  take out the trash.  peel the clothes off the floor and wash them, and then actually fold/hang them.  take a long shower.  scrub behind your knees.  brush your teeth.  (this can be utterly exhausting, but try to get it done in a day, if you can.  the end result is worth it.)

pull out your notebook.  it doesn’t need to be a new notebook, but preferably one that you don’t usually write in, or that you haven’t touched in a while.  fuck moleskins.  the yellow legal pad will work fine.  sit in your room, or in the park, or in the library, and write a list.  count clouds.  describe all the colors that you see, and note patterns that arise.  sketch the cracks in the walls.  note the shape light makes when it enters a space.  talk about what the air tastes like, smells like.  what sounds are there?  even the white nose, break that down: air planes, fans, cicadas, anything.  remind yourself that you are sitting in the middle of a space brimming with detail.  remind yourself that you are not in nothingness and emptiness.  your world is fathomless.  it has potential.

drink cold water and try to eat something that isn’t processed.  it does not need to be fancy.  buy yourself an apple with the change between your couch cushions.  eat it outside.  if you’re someone who walks, walk somewhere afterwards, just to stretch your legs.  take your fucking meds.  remember that its a good thing that you are inside your body.  your body is a fantastic and endlessly intricate machine, and even though society has smacked a bunch of poisonous ideas on it, that doesn’t change its inherent worth and splendor.  take care of it.

read a novel.  underline your favorite lines, and write phrases that twist your heart inside your chest on the back of your hand with an ink pen.  read a novel like it’s poetry.  read poetry, something decadent but unpretentious.  watch a movie you haven’t seen before.  if there are free art galleries near you, walk through one.  take your time.  let yourself bask.  if there are patterns in what makes your soul ache, write those patterns down – marbles arches or soot crumbling bricks or dandelions or descriptions of dresses or whatever it is, write them down.

your chosen family is important.  remember, they picked you as much as you picked them.  the love has no obligation.  it is given freely and it is given from a place of compassion.  you are not a burden.  if you need to breathe, take a minute by yourself and just exist, but remember to go back to your people.  when they need you, listen and be gracious.  always be gracious.  the universe sometimes remembers things like that.

listen to new music.  link jump on youtube or related artist jump on spotify or ask the chap beside you in the cafe what their favorite band is, and listen to that.  listen to something that you don’t usually listen to.  we tend to tie up a lot of memory with music.  we are falling in love again.  the soundtrack needs to be specific to that.  

allow yourself to indulge in romantics.  press flowers in old books.  play movies with subtitles and mouth the words.  dance in your room.  wear something that makes you feel good, even if you wouldn’t wear it in public.  write your chosen family letters, even if you hand deliver them.  write poetry, even awful poetry.  revel in its awfulness.  eat dark chocolate and when your chosen family want to go out, try to go out with them sometimes, even if its just to the market.  

So many TV shows/movies depict the Epi Pen as a total solution for anaphylaxis...it's not. The Epi Pen gives you 30 minutes to get to a hospital where they can save your life. TV makes it look like you just have to use the Epi Pen and then the crisis is over. Do people without allergies or a loved one with allergies know that an Epi Pen only buys you time? The more I see this on TV the more I worry...

**Maybe you should reblog this because I'm actually worried that most people don't know.

I bound my first book! It was so much fun and I plan on making more as gifts for my family. The stitching is a little wonky, and I cheated on some of the smaller pages but I love how it turned out! I learned so much about books and how they are made from @sealemon 's YouTube channel. Please check out her content!

Here's the first spread I've done:

I hope to fill the whole book with journal spreads based on my favourite quotes, books, and songs. I love @olivebreezy 's blog, it's full of beautiful journal spreads and great inspiration!

bro not to start again on names but do u ever think abt how some names have been used for centuries, millenniums even…like how many times has the earth heard a mother calling, ‘krishna!’…how many times have the stars caught a lover whispering, ‘miriam’…how many times has the ground we’ve walked on and continue to walk on felt vibrations of a friend excitedly yelling, 'asiya!’

Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened every day and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breath in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.

You said you could talk all day about Welsh castles. Handily enough, I brought a pen and paper to this lecture, so Imma pull up a chair and wait patiently for it to start. :D

this is SUCH an exciting ask thank you SO MUCH for letting me talk about castles. okay im gonna talk about my favourites

Caernarfon

built as residence after edward 1st conquered wales in 1282, after he killed Prince of Wales Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

edward sought to consolidate power and conquer independent Wales, and built the "iron ring of castles"

caernarfon castle was built in 5 years and was primarily built for 🌟 show 🌟 so edward could basically show how much money he had and how powerful he was

he liked roman history and built the towers with colourful stone, reminiscent of constantinople. the colour has since faded tho

however! just because it was built to show how extra edward was, it was also defensive. the only entrance are the 2 gatehouses, the queen's gate being at the shore for supplies and the kings gate

the kings gate was fearsome and built with holes to pour oil and boiling water down on attackers (also known as "murder holes")

if you survived that, you'd have 4 doors and 5 portcullises to deal with

the castle was briefly seized by a welsh revolution led by my man Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294, but taken back by troops later.

the welsh were deeply angry about Edward and how he conquered wales and killed the Prince. we hate being conquered

it was challenged again in 1403 + 1404 by national treasure Owain Glyndwr but he didn't manage to take it.

it was built on the docks and caernarfon is a walled town so its really very useful for defence.

Conwy

one of eddie boys iron ring of castles, finished construction in 1287 on conwy River

intended to be a mirror of the now ruined Deganwy castle

this was built purely for defence. its pretty much impregnable, due to its steep walls and the fact its on the river so you'd see an army coming a mile off. the bridge was the only way to march over

it was mainly a garrison town. the english kicked the welsh people out of most of the iron rings towns and made it illegal for us to live there. theres an old law thats never been struck out that you can still shoot a welsh man with an arrow off the walls if theyre in the towns. that's right folks, it was illegal for us to be in our own country.

it had 8 towers and 2 barbicans

it was attacked by Madogs rebellion the same time as caernarfon castle but they didn't take it

it fell into disuse but was hastily reactivated during the civil war in 1642

in 1646 it was besieged and ultimately surrendered

Deganwy

there aren't many images due to the fact it's in complete ruins but here's a digital reconstruction

this site has a lot of history due to its highly naturally defensible position. evidence of prehistoric, iron age and Romano-British forts

situated on volcanic rock, and possibly the seat of Maelgwyn Gwynedd, circa 520-547

in AD812, it was damaged by lightning, then in AD822, what was left was destroyed by saxon invaders

robert of Rhuddlan rebuilt it in 1080. the history is vague and murky after this but it was in Welsh hands by 1191

in 1211, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth rebelled against king John, who previously let Llywelyn keep the castle. the castle was pre-emptively destroyed by the welsh to prevent it from falling into English hands (as I said, an enviably defensible position). Llywelyn rebuilt it again by 1228, THEN pre-emptively destroyed again

1245-54, Henry 3rd built it into a medieval fortification, but it was captured by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

along came edward 1st and he built conwy castle instead, Deganwy fell to ruins

nowadays, you can visit the few ruins, but apparently you have to be careful because the history is so rich and long and bloody you might accidentally come across human bones

Gwyrch

while beautiful, the castle itself is actually pretty new. it was built between 1810-1825 by Lloyd Hesketh, to honour his wife and their ancestors. (forget a wedding ring, build me a castle as a romantic gesture)

the aforementioned ancestors were the Llwyds (anglicised as lloyd) of Plas yn y Gwyrch. gwyrch was their ancestral home. situated in the castle estate are 2 iron age hillforts, a roman shrine, lead and silver mines, and medieval battle sites. the reason I include this castle is because of the surrounding history.

built directly on the coast, nestled into a huge hill, with a watchtower, very hard to capture. the watchtower is further along the hill and would give fair warning via flaming arrow if an army was coming.

during the WW2, it was home to 200 odd Jewish refugees

was abandoned was was renovated and then became the film site for im a celebrity

Beaumaris

another one of the colonisers iron ring castles, built in 1295

edward built it on an entirely new site, and is known as one of Britain's most sophisticated medieval military structures

almost geometric symmetry

practically impregnable due to the defences shown in the image. high inner defences with low circuit walls

ironically it saw very little action till the civil war and the construction wasn't completed

the first line of defence is an 18ft wide moat, and the dock is protected by a shooting deck

the sea gate had murder holes

if you managed to get through that gate, you'd be faced with 11 obstacles, including a barbican, more murder holes, 3 portcullises and several sets of doors. you had to get through this while dealing with arrow fire and boiling oil from all directions.

Once you get in, there's 6 massive interior towers, and then you're dead

Abergavenny

built in 1087 to the traditional motte and bailey configuration

it was initially timber but was rebuilt with stone at around 1100

by 1175, the castle was in the hands of William de Braose, who wanted to defeat his welsh rival, Seisyll ap Dyfnwal. he invited Seisyll to the castle along with several prominent Welsh men who opposed saxon rule, to propose reconciliation. the men and their armies were brutally massacred once inside the Great Hall. I think I read somewhere it was inspiration for the Red Wedding in game of thrones.

in 1182, Hywel ap Iorwerth of Caerleon attacked and severely damaged the castle

several rebuilds, most notable addition in the 1400s which was the barbican gatehouse. this was placed to defend against our Lord and saviour Owain Glyndwr and his epic rebellion

known as a very very very difficult castle to penetrate

Denbigh

another of edwards iron ring castles, built in 1282

walled town, colonised and populated by the english after booting the welsh out

naturally defensible position

the work wasn't completed in 1294 when Madog ap Llywelyn seized it

the castle kinda passed hands until the 14th century when it came into the possession of the mortimer family

it was attacked during the wars of the Roses and the town was burned

held by royalists in the civil war but taken in 1646 after a parliamentary siege

seized again by royalists in 1659 and they lay waste to the towers and walls of the castle

the town lay pretty much abandoned until the 19th century

the castle has 3 octagonal towers at the gatehouse, which was constructed of impressive decorative stonework to symbolise Royal authority

it also has 8 mural towers, barbicans and defensive terraces to protect it

I've hit the image limit and I can't think of other favourites rn but if I remember ill reblog and add!! thank you so much for letting me talk about welsh castles theyre a special interest of mine i hope u enjoyed

A little in love with this video taken from my dorm window 🌩️