seven interests

[terabient]

yeah, that bit about posting 'something substantial soon?' nooooooot happening...yet, at least.

instead, here's a meme:

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

Comments

[lustychan.livejournal.com]

me!

[theplaidsheep.livejournal.com]

Go on then, dude, I'm bored. :p

[terabient]

y'ok!

magick
therianthropy
pirates!
secret of nimh
wicca
tartan terrors
goffins cockatoos

[terabient]

ok~

bellydancing
fire-chains
poi
farscape
egyptology
real ales
paganism

[elbarto252.livejournal.com]

Count me in! The howling winds are creeping me out >__>

[terabient]

here you go!

astronomy
cosplay
drawing
epic poetry
harvest moon
lolita
pet rat

[lustychan.livejournal.com]

I'll post my answers in my own LJ after I type of Roslyn's birth story, but I'll leave them here for now :D

1) magick and 5) wicca
So, this sort of goes along with #5 (wicca). I don't really know how to describe magick except for it being the force that drives everything. I strongly believe in everything being connected and that magick is within everything as well. I suppose I see it as a life force, and as something that can be willed into use if you know what to do with it.
Wicca is a kind of Paganism. It's more modern than most other types and has it's own set of "rules", guidelines and beliefs. I became to identify with it when I was about 14 and studied it on and off throughout highschool. Now I prefer the term Witch as I find Wicca to be a bit limiting. Also, I'm an Eclectic With so I take what resonates with me from all sorts of sources and I found that using one term like Wicca just didn't work for me.

2) therianthropy
Therianthropy is the term used to describe those who are basically spiritual werecreatures. These people find they have another half, which is an animal (sometimes more than one), as a spirit. Some people believe the human and animal spirits to be seperate and others, like myself, believe theirs to be the same spirit, just with different traits. I've felt for my whole life that my spirit was something more than just human and came across this term a few years ago. I suppose it makes me sound a bit nuts, but it's how I feel. My animal side is wolf and I find I shift into that form sometimes. Some people have really dramatic shifts, but mine are more subtle. Usually it's just one side being slightly more active than the other and it often depends on the situation (for example, I might feel as though I'm 75% wolf and 25% human when on a walk in the woods, while at work I may feel the opposite).

3) pirates!
This originally came from a book by the same name by Celia Rees. It's a book about two female pirates that I really enjoyed. But really, it's also just an interest. I mean, who doesn't find pirates interesting?

4) secret of nimh
This is a children's book (and movie) that I absolutely adore. I used to watch the movie all the time when I was little and only got around to reading the book during high school (I enjoy children's books :p). It's darker than what I would normally expect of a children's book, but that's probably why I enjoy it.

6) Tartan Terrors
They are a comedy/music group from my city that typically play at renaissance festivals, although they have their own shows as well. They do comedy acts and also play various Scottish intruments (bagpipes, drums, etc). They also have highland dancers. Some of their songs (Scotland Depraved) are pretty hilarious. I first saw them when I was probably fourteen or so at the first renaissance festival I ever went to. I went every year after that, but now it doesn't exist D:

7) goffins cockatoos
A certain species of cockatoo, which is actually the smallest kind. This is the kind I have, and his name is Cyprus. I've had him since I was in grade nine and he's ten years old now.

Done! :D

[elbarto252.livejournal.com]

1) Astronomy
I consider this to be the oldest of my interests. When I was young, my uncle used to take me outside of my grandma's farmhouse to see the stars. At first it was just the pretty lights and the fact that my mom's family is obsessed with heaven (traditional idea, not the Christian idea) but when I grew older, I wondered why it was. So after 2 different research opportunities and a lot of other classes and telescope monkeying to study different aspects of this weird curiosity, I've decided I want to keep going until I know as much as I can about how the universe or "heaven" worked.

2) Cosplay
Something I credit my friend bianchi_chan for! She went to all these conventions in high school and got into it right away after seeing all the other cosplayers. A way to stand out in the crowd and show off your insane fandom in her opinion. Both of us had worked in theatre and I really liked crafts from the start, so it just happened.
The first and only cosplay I've done to date was my Toon Link costume. I plan to do the other incarnations but I'm not good enough yet to do any more complicated cosplays. I am picky about detail! I won't add an extra strap to the costume if the art said no.

3) Drawing
I've been drawing since I was younger than 5, and earlier, according to my relatives. They never told me why and I just liked it when I was young. Now I draw because I want people to see how I saw things and I draw the ideal. Outside of art assignments, I find myself drawing landscapes a lot, and Siegfried and Link, lolololol. I'm actually not bad at drawing, but I always try to improve!

4) Epic poetry
I got interested in this when I first read the Odyssey when I was 13. Everyone in my class hated the book, but it was nothing short of epic for me. This was really the first "real book" I considered to have read because I thought it had the most accurate world view, even if it had gods in it, because I saw religion/gods, sin, hubris, culture, sex (lol), human nature, war...I never got a picture like that from anything I read before. Plus, the way it was originally written just amazed me! I have read others since then, even the incomplete ones of Tolkien (English epic poetry?! It rhymes in English!) and I couldn't stop after that.

And that's why I also think so highly of adventures/epics. Poetic form means the mastery of the language, so both combined = epic win.

5) Harvest Moon
One of my friends introduced me to this. I had only played Pokemon up to this point, so when a new game came by that was the RPG of farm life, I got addicted. The later versions with more cute graphics and a marriage option was even more fun! But what was really addicting was trying to get things done, like every recipe, every degree, every fishing entry, etc.

6) Lolita
Oh to clarify, this is the clothing, not the novel XD
I haven't read the novel yet, and I think I should someday...not because it has anything to do with the clothing, but just because it's a book. I guess my anime-obsessed friends got me into this. Amy Sorel wears a lolita style outfit, I noticed!

I guess that being the short, childish looking type of person I'll probably be stuck looking like until I'm 30 (thanks, mom) I figured this type of clothing would look better than the other clothes my classmates wear, which I consider too immodest. Besides, this is the only time where I've gotten clothes that fit and I don't look like everyone else!

I'm not too much for the excessive frills or the sweet lolita style though. I just like the bit toned down ones (like the classic style)

7) Pet Rat
LOL! This is actually a nickname for my old pet hamster. He was the cutest thing ever! Just like a very small puppy but makes relatively little poop. He would beg for food, do tricks and I would let him play around without be scared that he would escape even though he's really small. I didn't like him at first but when we (my sisters and I) started to spoil him, he started acting really cute and friendly. I would go on, but I have so many cute stories about him! (like watching him dance to Thriller)

Oh, he died last year on 12/31 at an age of roughly 150 hamster years, and I still think about him.

Wow, this came out about a few hundred words longer xD

Ok so I've had to do this in two parts - I just keep babbling on!

[theplaidsheep.livejournal.com]

1)Bellydancing - I've done this on and off for several years, and it's never been strictly belly-dancing as it was a mix of different cultural styles: Indian, arabian, egyptian and eastern european with a bit of spanish flamenco thrown in too. Now I absolutely love to dance, most especially when a deep and steady drum beat gets my blood going and I'm very much an intuitive dancer, and my style changes with the tune. I've had various bits of formal tuition but could never stay put for very long. I like nothing better than dancing round a fire to the beat of a myriad drums and a digiridoo droning in counter point. XD

2)Fire-chains and 3)Poi - These are actually one and the same, except for the former is the latter set on fire! Poi is Maori in origin; as an object it is a tasselled ball and cord woven from plant fibre, as an art-form they are swung in pairs or more by Maori women. It has developed from there into streamered balls on a line, and into balls of kevlar on chain, which are then dowsed in parafin, or some other fuel and set alight. At it's base, it's just twirling balls in a circle and moving them about and around your body. As a dance and an artform, it looks and feels amazing and it can be used if desired as a form of meditation or trance working. I love it for all of these things, but it does requires discipline, stamina and rhythm and a healthy respect for working with fire. I would highly recommend youtube to witness the glory of poi and fire chains.

4)Farscape - my first love in fandom. As a tv series it is second to none, the concept, the writing, the cast and characters... it's just insane and technicolour! It is the story of your every-man cast down the rabbit-hole (or in this case worm-hole) to the other end of the galaxy and finds himself in the middle of a prison break and a giant living starship called a Leviathan. It has just the right mix of humour, seriousness and insanity that you would expect would a person from the back end of the twentieth century end up in this situation and it just expands out from there. It also features the most amazing animatronics that you will ever come across, two of the main cast are puppet aliens, but my god so life-like that you forget they're not real. Also the soundtrack is cracking! I'm not sure I have the words to express my love more than this.
For this tv series I attended conventions, for this tv series I became an active part of a small forum and met some amazing people, one of which who became my best friend. For this tv series I wrote letters of complaint to the tv station who produced and then canned it, and that was in the US. I wrote letters of complaint to sponsors of the channel. Hell, when the head of the station said that scifi was the province of teenage boys, I sent my bra in support of my goddamn gender in protest! It makes me sad that I may never be that crazy about a tv series ever again, but there several years of my life which will be remembered very fondly.

Part 2!

[theplaidsheep.livejournal.com]

5)Egyptology - I've always loved ancient cultures, there's just something alien yet familiar about them that just hits my kink-button. In the past human-kind has done some amazing things, and some quite horrifying. There beliefs and worldviews especially can be quite fascinating, and sometimes you are just left thinking: omg why?? I think ancient Egypt is one of the most unique cultures in the word, for their entire existence depended upon and developed around a single river and very little beyond that. It was their life and death, for without that river there would be no life. And they became from a nation of independent, almost disparate, entities into one of the most famous cultures in the world ever to exist. Who doesn't know about mummys? Or the great Pyramids of Giza? Or the strange animal headed gods which they worshiped? And the more you look into it the more human, yet strange it becomes, I love it!

6)Real Ales - ok, so I lifted this bit from wiki: Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1973 for a type of beer defined as "beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide". What it means to me is beer and ale with body and flavour which can vary from brewery to brewery: it encompasses pale, porters, stouts, milds and bitters. It's just so much better - and often cheaper - than the mass produced crap that serve out of taps or bottles, give me draft any day!

7)Paganism - Ah, this is actually the difficult one. I can say with certainty that I am polytheist and this would qualify me along to be pagan according to the monotheistic religions in the world. What I believe though has changed and developed over the years through my many forays into ancient history and cultures (I have two degrees to show for it!). Like many pagans though, I started off in wicca as it was almost by default the only active pagan religion available to the public. I came to paganism like a good number of people desperately seeking something that resonated with the barely formed philosophies of my teen years - and that just clicked, and it was quite joyfully that I came across an active faith devoted to the feminine aspect of deity and I through myself in whole-heartedly. It took me many years to finally come to the conclusion however, that no matter how I tried I just couldn't make the robe fit. So, my philosophies are very pagan, I believe in many gods, I believe in the latent power of the world around us that has been variously described in physics as potential and kinetic energy, and quite wonderfully by the ancient Romans as Numen. I believe that some of us have the ability to manipulate this power. I believe we are all apart of the universe physically and spiritually, yet we are still individuals in our own right, reflections of the creation we live and the gods and spirits are equally apart of that. So I will continue searching until I finally the right robe to wear - or discover I shouldn't be wearing one at all!;)

Re: Part 2!

[lustychan.livejournal.com]

Your reply about Paganism was much more eloquent than mine! Kudos.