#personal study

My fucking online bank account is REFUSING my clearly changed password (changed before retrograde the only good thing). Proceeded to fail eleven recaptchas, ELEVEN FUCKING BUS AND BICYCLES BRO WHAT. Tried all passwords I have, failed until I was locked :(

The entire house had arguments with my dad. ALL. except he keeps winning every single one of them (he's natal Mercury retrograde...sigh)

Few days ago, I was trying to do my lab report and the professor asked a question and I answered, she ended up misunderstanding my entire answer and proceeded to give me a whole life lecture on why I suck in the 'nicest way possible'. (Fuck uni omg just call me a hoe stop being passive aggressive)

Had a data structures test, but it was TOO EASY. TOOOO MUCH. 3 including me asked the professor (pure fuck evil) if there's some trap and why tf is this thing is easy because in the last test, she completely ruined my entire life ethics. It was actually just easy :O

My dad (the retrograde Mercury AGAIN) ended up finding my secret money stash I worked so hard for my entire year. Made my 2h Moon do something good for once and hid it extra hidden-ly. Later he told me to find it because he couldn't find it again (because he checked it again and wanted to give my brother 'SOME CHANGE'). (This is more of a 2h thing, but when HE get detective skills!?)

As a Pisces Mercury, I low-key did good in a lot of tests recently which is so fucking weird and my headaches lessened. Detriments mercuries do receive some blessings here but it's like, 15% lol, but now I don't understand any new concepts in shit I study💀

Miscommunication and a lot of words mispronunciations. My brother asked me about his school project of a 'Booklet' but I kept hearing 'Bookleet' 3 fucking times and I was like wtf dude and instead of simply resolving it, he kept blaming me for not understanding (this bitch).

I wrote some cheating sheet (sorry ethics) for my french test on a table. And I positioned myself very well to also hide and see from my phone some shit too (on my thighs while wearing a long shirt)... We changed classes out of nowhere🧍and due to the unfortunate lack of placement I sat first place💀💀💀 (everyone loves taking the last places)

I use the tram for my short travels, almost three times I heard a fight in here in a single week, verbal mostly tho (load of screaming and insults apparently. yes it's about the damn tickets. Tbh fuck those supervisors that work in trams they can go suck their boss' dick too omg🙄)

We had free hours in our college and we didn't want to wait any longer in this hell. Our class president CONFIRMED that there'll be no lecture that's literally the last last hour, but presence is mandatory...Until 70% left we saw the message that we actually had that lecture because the professor just 'came late'.

ChatGPT keeps crashing more than usual despite downloading the latest version. It still WON'T WORK. (4 days)

My younger sister (Mercury 1h + Virgo rising) is fucking DYING. She's only third grade and her education level is depleting these days, her concentration levels are low and instead of my family supporting, they just keep blaming her for being stupid and not knowing things intuitively. (Sad yeah. My Virgo rising brother is also dealing with this, but at least his case is less severe because, well, misogynistic patriarchal household).

My right ear actually bled from wearing earphones for only 2 hours🧍 EXCUSE ME I SEE PEOPLE WEARING THEM FOR 6+ HOURS AND MORE. TECHNOLOGY STOP.

My brother ended up FUCKING SHORT CIRCUITING OUR ENTIRE HOME BECAUSE HE WANTED TO USE THE PRINTER, out of fucking nowhere.

I keep forgetting STUFF EVERYWHERE. ESPECIALLY PAPERS ON GOD I CAN'T CONTINUE.

IT BROUGHT ME AN EX BEST FRIEND I GHOSTED FUCK ME😭😭😭 Mercury retrograde brings people back from the past sure but dang. it happened in the most anime kdrama way possible too because wdym we just met randomly outside when the tram was closing and I was out and you got in? Ridiculous (it's not funny bro I got spooked because just earlier today I imagined it lol haha what if we met?...Yes it's a karmic relation kms).

Our engineering professor ditched our lab session for another normal session for a class "that's better than us". The news were so absurd but apparently the other class didn't even come lmao😂😂😂 (he brought his ass to us yes). Lab sessions are more important than normal sessions and harder to repeat idk wtf was he thinking.

Went with a colleague to check her account and get money from an ATM. All 3 that were around her area were FUCKING BROKEN OR EMPTY HELP (everyone is suffering wtf dude)

Somehow all trams are recently super strict or super super crowded, like usually it ain't that crowded but now it's Japan level crowded...(Someone stop my intrusive thoughts about hentai molestation over there damn it).

Trams have been hectic recently and I DON'T KNOW WHY (actually I do, astrologically BUT—). I can't even breathe in this hoe anymore😭

My will to study officially died and omg even good professors are making shitty ahh mistakes.

Met an old classmate (another one, I also met her during the last retrograde lmao) and she apparently met a lot of our former classmates these weeks lol.

We were doing design work in PCs and we got stuck (it was like 4 people left and the ones who finished their work left!) and apparently it was not our problem it was the problem of the stupid ass old program..🧍

As a Gemini rising (Mercury ruler and a malefic in 3h), the last day of the damn retrograde, the tram service all STOPPED just when I headed there, so I had to go all the way around to a bus stop, on the way I almost got hit by a car and also my vocal chords scared the shit out of the poor bus driver💀

Witnessed the most 'angelic and kind' professor lost her shit because someone asked a stupid question💀💀

Slept way too much.. Lol

Why is this Mercury retrograde strong bruh what did I do😭

Inspired by @midwestbramble 's Personal Study of the Witch, here's what my current curricula's looking like! I'm thinking of updating this post as time passes to reflect what I'm currently working on.

From the original post: {The idea is that you make a course for yourself on a topic you want to learn more about. It can literally be anything.

With how many people are saying that they don't recommend any witchcraft books, this can be a fun way to share what we are learning that doesn't necessarily scream "Witchcraft!" but can definitely impact it. I'll go first.}

First Course: "The Methodology of Ritual"

{status: completed, organizing notes} This is a course I took from November through December with one of my Elders, who's currently getting a degree on education and, as part of her work as a cultural educator and ceremonialist, offered a full course sharing her findings on the intersection of Ritual As Communication, and particularly a form of cultural education. Including how to create, lead and adapt rituals (in the widest sense of the word) to different contexts: academic, intercultural, personal or collective, religious, etc. I want to share some of my notes from these here on the blog! It's also really interesting how this course helped me approach through a different lense the weaving course that I'm going through now: understanding that symbols, patterns and images are also a form of language, and how Ritual through the use of these symbols shapes our own cultural systems of Education.

Second Course: "Unkhuñas, Altars and Ritual: with a focus on ofrendas and leaf reading".

{status: completed, organizing notes} I was able to attend some classes of another course on "Andean Ceremonies", I've been re-watching the recorded classes and taking more notes, particularly about the structure of our altars, duality and quaternity in our rituals, and how these are used differently depending on what we're using the altar for: to make an offering, or to perform divinations and diagnostics, two acts that are intrinsecally tied since one wouldn't do an offering without a prior reading, and viceversa, most divinations recommend doing some sort of relational offering to maintain or restore balance.

Third Course: "Illa Pacha and the Summer Solstice"

{status: completed, organizing notes} These are technically three separate classes/events I've participated in last december, from three different Elders. I'm personally considering these to be part of the same course in this personal curriculum, since they're all on related topics. December is not the end of the year for us Andeans (that's June!) but it's still a very significant time in our calendar. There's two particularly special events for me in this pacha, one being the sacred time of Illas (that I spoke about briefly in here, if you're curious!) that extends all the way into April-May in some cases, and the other being the Summer Solstice, right at the beginning of this pacha. Special rituals are dedicated to both, in gratitude for this past agricultural-religious cycle, and in preparation for reaping future blessings. I've already been able to go through the notes of one of them (already posted some on the blog) and I'm still going over the other two.

Fourth Course: "Andean Weaving"

The Tower, In Defense of Its Reputation

The Tower is one of the most feared cards in the Major Arcana. It is often described as catastrophe, punishment, divine wrath, or chaos.

This reading is lazy.

The Tower is not evil. Calling it evil is like calling gravity evil, or the Sun, or entropy.

It is a function.

A structure collapses not because the universe hates it, but because it cannot continue to stand in its current configuration.

The Tower appears when identity has fossilized. When beliefs have become architecture rather than movement. When the persona has mistaken itself for the Self.

It is painful not because it is malicious, but because identity resists change.

Pain is the cost of updating structure.

If no collapse ever occurred, nothing would grow. A system that never breaks is a system that never evolves. A psyche that never shatters is a psyche that never differentiates.

The Tower is the nervous system responding to an unsustainable configuration. It is crisis as correction. Rupture as recalibration.

In human terms, it feels humiliating, disorienting, existential. In structural terms, it is maintenance.

The Tower is not a villain. It is a necessary catastrophe.

And necessity is not moral. It is mechanical.

The card is not here to destroy meaning. It is here to expose where meaning had become rigid.

Great house part I

Great house part II

“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith⁠, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works⁠, being led to glorify God.”

Ether 12:4

“Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope⁠, and a love of God and of all men.”

2 Nephi 31:20

Due to Ether 12, I feel I’ve been misinterpreting hope, thinking that it is all about the after life and millennium. Ether 12 is Moroni recontexualizing his hope from hope that his society could improve to hope about what comes after because his society had already died off.

The context of 2 Nephi 31 and specifically verse 20 has me realizing that it is meant to be about the here and now. It is meant to be rooted in our love of the people around us and building “a better world”.

Hope goes hand in hand with faith and faith without works is dead. Perhaps hope without works is also dead. We both need a vision of a “better world” of our society and to be working towards it to have hope.