Chalk Revelations

Other names: Borvo, Bormo, Bormanus, Bormanicus. He gives His name to the Bormida river in Italy and to the Bormio city (also in Italy).

Meaning of His name: maybe His name share the same roots with the Indo European words that mean "boil". So perhaps His name means "the one who warms the waters", or "the one who boil".

Éléments : He is strongly connected to the waters and the idea of the curative rivers. Many inscriptions with His name was found near rivers around all the Europe. He is a God associated to the healing process, but also (maybe) with pestilence. In fact, Gaulish people call Him also for battles, and in some regions of the continental Gaul He was associated to Mars.

For His healing role, I suppose that He is a God of Life and of Its sacred flow. He is a God of purifications, of phisical and psychological strength.

Maybe, for His role of protector of the rivers, He is also a guardian of the Threshold. Rivers revest a magical meaning in the Celtic lore, as a natural line which devided the mortal world with the spirit world, the Other Side.

Sacred animals: unknown. He can maybe be linked to the bull/cattle (He is the consort of Damona, the Celtic Cow Goddess) or the snake, animal strictly connected with the waters.

Sacred plant: uncertain.

Symbols: waters, rivers, wells, springs, fruits, sometimes moneys, helmets and shields.

Maybe cauldrons/cups, for His name: hot waters and boiling waters was used for healing people.

Realm: Bitu, Dubnos.

We don't have so many representations of Him, but we have found His name in many inscriptions near springs and rivers. We know that He was linked to Damona, a Goddess of fertility, agricolture and healing, so we can imagine that He may share some roles with Her.

We don't really know how He can appear "physically", but He can take with Him a cest of fruits, which represent abondance.

Interpretatio Romana: Apollo, Mars

Called for: healing for yourself or your loved ones, protection from illness, purification, prosperity; maybe called in battle.

Offerings: Gaulish people used to leave to the waters items (as weapons or money) as an offering. Actually I do the same thing, giving to the waters little coins. I also give flowers or food or beverage. Be careful that what you donate to water is not polluting.

Other links:

https://faireroseswitchygarden.wordpress.com/2018/11/18/211/

tl;dr Amanda Nelson of Amanda's Mild Takes (substack link) has made a spreadsheet of one action you can take every day from Monday, 3 August until midterm election day, 3 November. if you'd like a list of concrete actions to take to help get cheeto guy's enabling cronies and shills out of office, here it is.

(people whining about electoralism and doom-replying about how nothing will change and bitching about "bOtH pArTiEs aRe tHe sAmE" will be summarily blocked and also sent to hell. do something or shut up and get the fuck off my post.)

If I ask you for help then I demonstrate you can ask me for help.

That.

help then I demonstrate you

can ask me for help.

This is a shrine space I’ve had reserved and meant to actually start forever, but I never felt like I had the time to start it the way I wanted, so I put it off.  But I want to begin by telling their story.  

Once the Tuatha Dé landed in Ireland, a war began with the Fir Bolg who already inhabited the Emerald Isle.  Thought the Tuatha Dé won, 100,000 of the of them were killed, including the king.  Nuada would have taken the thrown after the king’s death, but he was injured in the battle, losing his hand, which left him unfit to be king by Brehon law.  

Learning of this, a silver hand was crafted for Nuada by someone whose name I don’t like to mention quite frankly, but who is the father of Airmid, Miach, and their two brothers.  However, Miach wasn’t satisfied with this silver hand, even though it had complete functionality.  So, taking the skills he’d learned from his father, he went to the hand and said “joint to joint of it, and sinew to sinew”; and he healed it in nine days and nights. The first three days he Nuada held it against his side, and it grew skin. The second three days, he held it against his chest. The third three days he would cast white wisps of black bulrushes after they had been blackened in a fire.

This made Miach and Airmid’s father furious, so he attacked Miach with a sword.  He hit him in the head and split Miach’s scalp, but Miach was able to heal himself.  His father struck him again, this time to the skull, but again Miach healed himself.  His father struck him a third time, this time splitting the skull, but Miach’s skill was still great enough that he healed again.  Now blind with rage, Miach’s father stuck his son a fourth time, this time killing him.  From here, I’m sure you can understand why I don’t like to use their father’s name.

After this, Miach was buried and from his grave sprang 365, one for each joint and sinew in his body.  Airmid, grief-stricken, spread out her cloak and began to gather the plants and herbs so she could use them to heal and so Miach’s death wasn’t in vain.  However, their father, came and grabbed her cloak, slinging the herbs into the wind scattering them all over the earth so that no one person could ever know them all again.  

From this story, my own UPG associates Miach with aspects of modern medicine like advanced surgery, prosthetics, skin grafts, etc.  Airmid, on the other hand, I associate with folk medicine, pharmaceuticals, nursing, hospice, etc.  Because both aspects are part of my daily life and because they’re siblings, I honor them here together.  I’ll do this by sharing a wide variety of imagery that remind me of them as well as information on folk and traditional medicine.  

Russia is deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians in a deadly drone strike campaign that aims to depopulate large parts of the country, according to a new United Nations report. The probe by UN human rights investigators found that Russia’s actions in southern Ukraine amount to the crimes against humanity of “murder and of forcible transfer of population.”

Fresh details of Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine’s civilian population were presented this week in a new report produced by the UN Human Rights Council-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. The investigation focused on Russian drone attacks in an area spanning more than 300 kilometers on the right bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine including parts of the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv provinces. Based on large quantities of publicly available video evidence and interviews with over 200 Ukrainian citizens, the report concluded that Russia was guilty of “systematically coordinated actions designed to drive Ukrainians out of their homes.”

Russian military drone operators in southern Ukraine were found to have routinely targeted individual Ukrainian civilians along with public transport, cars, private homes, and civilian infrastructure in a bid to establish a “permanent climate of terror.” At least two hundred Ukrainian civilians have reportedly been killed in these drone attacks since July 2024, while thousands more have been injured. Some are the targeted areas in southern Ukraine are now “almost entirely vacated.”