Strange Women Lying in Ponds

A fortune-telling 'number oracle' wheel, early 19th century, a parlour divination game, with original painted numbers and starburst design punctuated by a brass spinner, the underside carved with apotropaic 'witch' or 'protection' marks, with a suspension ring (22.2cm diameter) Footnote: Such devices were used in the home, both as parlour amusements and for more serious consultation, reflecting widespread early modern beliefs in fate, luck and hidden knowledge. A chosen number, pointer, or spin would correspond to a printed key or booklet, revealing a prediction, warning, or answer to a question. In this way, the numbered segments acted as a simplified oracle system, akin to other contemporary forms of divination that reduced complex symbolic meanings into accessible numerical outcomes. The protective mark on the reverse is particularly significant, reflecting the enduring belief that objects associated with divination might attract harmful influences, and that protective symbols could guard both the owner and the household from misfortune or malign forces.

“She rushed out of the palace…and came to the upper world.”

Summer Kimono, Taishō Period, 1911-1927, Japan

Silk, plain weave, hand-tied warp and weft kasuri

Excerpt from this story from Earth Island Journal:

FIVE YEARS AGO this summer, one of the most destructive wildfires in California history burned a 40‑mile swath across the Sierra Nevada Range as it launched towering plumes of smoke and ash into the stratosphere. Today, the Caldor Fire is largely remembered for the “Christmas Valley Miracle” — a legendary tale of firefighting prowess and bureaucratic foresight that supposedly saved the resort communities on the south shore of Lake Tahoe from incineration.

Since then, the US Forest Service has transformed the story into a powerful PR weapon. Through slick videos, celebratory press releases, and congressional testimony, the agency highlights its mechanical forest‑thinning projects — bureaucratically branded as “forest health treatments” — as the reason South Lake Tahoe survived.

The Forest Service’s Caldor Fire narrative is now steering federal wildfire policy. An order signed in April 2025 by US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins authorizes the agency to thin up to 112 million acres of national forest land across the country — or nearly 60 percent of the national forest system. Congress is considering codifying the mandate through the Fix Our Forests Act, which would fast‑track logging projects by shortening environmental reviews and restricting judicial oversight, even within national parks and wilderness areas. The bill has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate.

Not surprisingly, industry groups such as the American Loggers Council are aggressively promoting the bill. But some conservation organizations are also in favor of the measure, including The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and the National Audubon Society. They are gambling on the idea that they can trade away elements of public oversight (like limiting judicial review) in exchange for logging that focuses strictly on thinning small-diameter trees.

Many other conservation groups, like the Sierra Club and Oregon Wild, are strongly opposed. “This legislation would hand over more authority to Trump’s agencies managing public lands at a time when that is the last thing we should be doing,” says Erik Fernandez, wilderness program manager for Oregon Wild. “This bill has all the right buzz words about fire but is really all about ramping up logging on public lands.”

The Fix Our Forests Act and the thinning directive from Secretary Rollins are part of a broader effort to dismantle decades of conservation policy and clear the way for the industrialization of America’s forests. On March 31, the Trump administration dissolved the US Forest Service’s decentralized regional office structure — a system dating back to Gifford Pinchot — and shifted authority toward state-level control, heavily aligned with timber-industry priorities. The move closed 57 of 77 research stations and zeroed out the forest science budget request for fiscal year 2027, eliminating the agency’s capacity to conduct independent research. The Trump administration has also proposed eliminating roadless area protections across 44 million acres of national forest and ordered a 25-percent increase in national timber production.

More Beetles. 1922. Title page.