Down to Earth Healing

18/08/2025

On the mornings ahead, beginning Monday, six of our relatives — the wandering stars we call planets — will walk together across the dawn. Some will shine with their own strong light, like Venus and Jupiter, who appear as bright messengers in the east. Mercury, the quick one, will follow close to the horizon, appearing just before the sun. Saturn, patient and steady, will watch from the south. And though our eyes cannot catch them without tools, Uranus and Neptune will still be there — unseen but present, reminding us that much of creation is beyond our sight.

But it is not only the planets that call us. A waning crescent moon will rise, her silver light glowing softly, carrying Earth’s reflection upon her face. This “earthshine” is the breath of the waters and the ice, the clouds and the forests, shining back into the heavens. On Wednesday, she will walk very near Venus, the morning star, in a dance of beauty so delicate it could quiet even the busiest heart.

If you look closely, you will see Orion, the great hunter constellation, stepping once more into the sky before sunrise. His belt points to Sirius, the brightest star, who rises with the dawn. These old star stories return each season, reminding us of the great cycles that bind us.

Such moments remind us that we are not separate from the sky. Just as our ancestors once prayed to the dawn, sang to the stars, and read the signs written across the heavens, so too can we stand in wonder. The planets, the stars, the moon — they are our kin, walking their own sacred paths.

Tapwe,

—Kanipawit Maskwa
John Gonzalez

15/08/2025

Terracotta bust of Isis-Aphrodite dated ca 300-30 BC from the Ptolemaic period (the years after Alexander became pharaoh of Egypt). It is 16.2 cm high, unrestored and of exceptional quality.

This fragment of a large terracotta statue of Isis-Aphrodite is a very graceful depiction of the syncretic deity with noble features, full lips and a straight nose. The hair cascades in four long corkscrew curls to her shoulder, shorter curls cover the ears. The face and neck with Venus wrinkle are framed by leaves and fruits. The bare left breast is still preserved. Isis-Aphrodite wears her typical, opulent headdress with a central rosette on an encircling diadem. Above a high rising feather crown with a sun disk. Isis-Aphrodite is a Ptolemaic-era syncretic deity of the great Isis associated with the fertility aspect of Aphrodite. She represents marriage and birth and, following the old pharaonic model, also for rebirth.

In a French private collection of Madame D.

15/08/2025

This 1905 photograph captures a Bedouin woman from Oman wearing a traditional face mask known locally as a *burqu* or *batoola*. These masks, crafted from cloth or sometimes metal, served both practical and cultural purposes across the Arabian Peninsula. Beyond shielding the wearer from the harsh desert sun, wind, and sand, the masks were deeply tied to notions of modesty, identity, and social status within Bedouin and tribal communities.

In Oman, the burqu was typically dyed with indigo and stiffened to hold its distinctive shape, creating a striking and recognizable form. The designs often carried symbolic meanings and were treasured family heirlooms passed down through generations. Variations in style and decoration reflected specific tribes and regions, reinforcing communal bonds and heritage.

Photographs like this are rare windows into a way of life that has endured for centuries, long before the formation of modern nation-states. They preserve the resilience, traditions, and cultural richness of desert communities whose customs continue to inspire and inform their descendants today.

14/08/2025

"Among the Aztecs there were women diviners called tetonaltique who evaluated the condition of a child's soul by examining its image reflected in a jar of water. If the reflected image was light, then the prognosis of the child's illness was favorable. If the image was dark, then the prognosis was equally dark and the remedy required that the missing soul be located and returned, and more than health might be at risk because the word tonalli or tonal used for 'soul' was also understood to mean 'fate' and 'fortune.'"

Hall, Robert L. Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian belief and Ritual. University of Illinois, 1997, p. 56

Picture from the Florentine Codex, with a speech scroll coming from the woman counselor. Note the text in Nahuatl. Aztec scribes continued to produce books in their language, including histories and herbals, using European characters, through the 1500s. I've put another relevant picture in Comments.

The concept of soul loss, often through what curanderas call ("fright"), is a concept found in many parts of the world. Most famously, in North Asia, Siberian shamans would do ceremony with drum, dance, and invocatory chant to enter into profound states of consciousness, often sinking to the ground, and journey in the spirit to retrieve the flown soul.

The Manchu, who speak a Tungusic language (from which the word originates), have a longpoem called Nishan Shaman, about a woman whose healing power was so great that she was able to bring a boy back from the world of the dead and revive him. Korean mudang have similar traditions. See my article Raising the Dead: Medicine Women Who Revive and Retrieve Souls (I'll put links in Comments.)

13/08/2025

This unique blade, which is called za, ndo, or ndumo, originates from the Ngbaka Mabo communities of what is now the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Beyond their use in combat, these greatly designed weapons held social and economic importance, often functioning as ceremonial items, symbols of status, and even as a form of currency.

They are distinguished by a curved central blade resembling a sickle and two side extensions, one noticeably larger.

13/08/2025

Bashar on goosebumps

12/08/2025

11/08/2025

“Becoming a person of the plants is not a learning process, it is a remembering process. Somewhere in our ancestral line, there was someone that lived deeply connected to the Earth, the Elements, the Sun, Moon and Stars. That ancestor lives inside our DNA, dormant, unexpressed, waiting to be remembered and brought back to life to show us the true nature of our indigenous soul.” ~Sajah Popham. ~Artist Mandy Johnson