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Link: Witch Bottles on Wikipedia
In America: https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/halloween/witch_bottle.html
Via The Museum of London: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/sorcery-display-witch-bottles
Instructions via Sabbat Box: https://www.sabbatbox.com/blogs/sabbat-box-blog/what-is-a-witch-bottle
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Spotted this around the corner from Oso Negro in Nelson - The Thingery. A lending library for things. I've thought of the same for Calgary, for any suburb where you have the endless repetition of leafblowers, snowblowers, rakes, shovels, commonly used garden tools - who's common usage might amount to 4 or 5 outings per year - makes more sense than everyone in the neighborhood filling up their garages with the same, mostly unused tools.
But in Nelson someone had the bright idea and it gets done.
Link: www.thethingery.com
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Now this is something that occurred to me, what with our increasing liberalness around Marijuana and the Opioid epidemic, is that safe injection sites should offer free drugs. Treating addiction as a crime clearly does not work, however our criminalization of it has the effect of creating a culture of crime that accompanies it. Canada, as a country, could purchase heroin from second and third world suppliers at pennies per dose - given the costs associated with safe injection sites (needles, nurses, staff, rent, etc) this would be the smallest expense associated with our tolerance of addiction, and would ensure that addicts received quality "medication". Benefits to this would include - lack of crime surrounding both the dealing and trafficking of drugs (how are you going to sell crap drugs when quality drugs are available for free), a decline in overdoses and an incredible reduction in crime related to addicts attempting to subsidize their habit.
Upon the slightest consideration the only objection to this is a "moral" one, in which addiction is perceived as a moral failing or weakness and not an illness - which is clearly wrong - and by changing our thinking we can improve the quality of life for everyone living both with addicts, addictions and in the cities in general. Treating addiction as an illness is the first step towards curing it, and any costs associated with "Free Drugs" will be recovered a hundred fold by the associated reduction in crime.
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Visiting an old graveyard and I noticed the salt cellars placed on the graves.
Intrigued, I googled it, no relevant results, the answer is in the image above - the three symbols of the Doukhobor faith are a pitcher of water, a loaf of bread and cellar of salt. Naturally, as graveyard offerings go, only the salt remains...
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The daughter, conversations, the big bang, the extinction of the dinosaurs, ... our own, seemingly inevitable extinction, trying to find, distill some meaning from it all ...
What matters.
I don't know.
Or I do, I think I do at least, have an intuitive grasp of beauty and those smaller - and larger moments, all too often alone, it would be nice to share them, but it's seldom worth the risk, to apprehend beauty in the company of fools - well, it makes it ugly, it in some ways devalues it, better to find it on your own. Which then maybe is a separate post, on the nature of beauty, not merely the sum of harmonious colors, symmetries and shapes, but ...? How to describe? Mathematicians describe beauty as well, and it has none of those qualities, and certain words, languages, have to the ear the same quality, and so there's a more worthwhile thought I can return to.