Indi Latrani @indi@awoo.space

@starkatt Another wrinkle that I do want to mention about the cultural-construct stuff is how recurrent some of them seem to be.

One could MAYBE argue that all European 'trickster fox' myths have a common source, and the same for North American 'trickster coyote' myths (Though I wouldn't do so personally)

But then one has to contend with how foxes and coyotes share a similar ecological niche on different continents with a vast cultural separation, and end up with very similar story tropes.

@starkatt This has been a conundrum since the early days of therians; and coyotes and foxes are the poster species for it. ;)

I would argue that we can't NOT experience it through a cultural lens, and cultural constructs are totally valid things to base even a spirituality off of.

Having strong cultural-species-trait ties only really become a problem when you're trying to argue for things like p-shifting or very essentialist implementations of reincarnation. And those have other problems. ;)

@starkatt Go for it!

@starkatt Would it please you to know that Glowtide is technically the intercalary days of the Neptunian and Downwarp calendars? ^.^

@nventous @qualia Yeeeah, when I was in New Mexico I lost count of all the places I saw sage bundles for sale. And white sage doesn't even grow there. :P

@literorrery @qualia Yeah, this is what I keep wanting to say, there's some equivalent of "no ethical consumption under capitalism" here. Or, ultimately, it's PART of that. What we're doing here is all harm-reduction.

@literorrery Not EVERY time, but I'd be interested to hear it, myself. ;)

@qualia @qualia Another way to complexify this is to consider that "burning plant matter for ritual purposes", broadly, is pretty universal. Mugwort, frankincense, dragon's blood, and on and on, across the world.

If I want to practice this in a bioregional way, using the fragrant plants around me, and those happen to be white sage and cedar... what do I do? Importing something from elsewhere could be seen as a different sort of appropriation.

@qualia @vahnj This doesn't mean I can't do it, but it does basically mean I need to have the Big Appropriation Discussion every time I'm visible with it. c.c;