Open Post and Toilet Challenge
May. 29th, 2023 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kimberlysteele
For whatever reason, I always appointed myself as official toilet-cleaner of our house when I was a girl and though I wasn't forced, I cleaned all the bathrooms once a week or more despite not liking the job. Nowadays, I understand the value of that sort of etheric labor, and I have learned to tolerate the work a great deal more and detach myself from the gross-out factor. Having become an amateur gardener has helped because gardening steels you against freakouts over gross things -- plunging one's hand into mud and compost has that effect.
A surprising list of fabulously successful Japanese entrepreneurs and entertainers have kept their toilets clean despite being able to afford maidservice. Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda, believed in cleaning his own toilet until the bitter end. He started his company out of a wooden shack. When his shack days were long in the past, Honda commented that he could tell a good company by the state of their toilets, and that dirty toilets were a likely indicator of bad management. Director Takeshi Kitano is rumored to have sworn by cleaning his own toilet, and J-pop singer Kana Uemura had a hit song about appeasing the toilet goddess to honor her grandmother.
Ususama-myoo... yeah, he's not what I expected either!
The Clean Toilet Challenge
I am hosting an informal experiment: the Clean Toilet Challenge. I am looking for people to join me in keeping at least one toilet in their house sparkling clean from the Summer Solstice of June 2023 until the Winter Solstice of 2023. This means that said toilet will require daily cleanings, preferably with mild, all natural cleansers: I suggest 2 parts water to 1 part white vinegar in a spray bottle. in my case, I add a dash of Florida water and a few spritzes of my favorite Eau de Toilette (see what I did there?) but use what you see fit. Please make a note of the state of your bank account, debts, and general state of neediness on June 21st. There is no need to get specific or divulge the information -- all I am looking for is the general vibe of your personal finances. When December 21 arrives, make a comparative mental snapshot of your fiscal state. Is it any better? The same? Worse? I figure the only thing we've all got to lose is a sketchy and neglected toilet, so it's a win-win no matter what happens.
Lately I have been keeping my toilet very clean, both out of the desire to live the principles of the book I am writing, Sacred Homemaking, and out of sheer curiosity. Does keeping one's toilet clean actually result in business luck and earned wealth success? I haven't hit the big time since a couple of weeks ago, but I have seen a decent uptick in music lesson clients and donations for my creative works.
Terlets
Date: 2023-05-30 04:36 am (UTC)Annette
Re: Terlets
Date: 2023-05-30 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 04:40 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
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Date: 2023-05-30 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 12:21 pm (UTC)She never attached any deities to it, but I can see where that adds an element of external accountability that wouldn't otherwise be there. My kitchen is grubby lately-- maybe it is time to finally get an icon of St. Euphrosynos the cook to hang in there.
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Date: 2023-05-30 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 01:54 pm (UTC)I like your recipe for the cleaning solution. But what is Florida water? I am in FL and haven't heard of it.
Heloise
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Date: 2023-05-30 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 03:34 pm (UTC)One morning, Levi's words on cleanliness were on my mind, then your challenge and I decide to go clean our toilet. The thought came to me I should do the same to the guest toilet. We never use that toilet and hadn't been in there for a few month. I go and find the bowl is empty of water and this wasn't a surprise, but to my disgust, a couple of roaches had set up shop and had started a nest in there. If it wasn't for your challenge, we would be dealing with an infestation and I'd be wondering where the roaches were coming from. Probably would have been a few weeks before going into that bathroom.
Anyway, all that to thank you for your challange and to Ususama-myoo!
no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 09:52 pm (UTC)Your idea created tangible benefits on my end, not just a clean toilet. In fact, I'd say this is a text book case of good magic. In the Preparations chapter of Levi's Ritual of High Magic he says that "Magic is exercised at all hours and at all moments".
You had the idea and you acted / willed this idea onto the astral light via posting it online in which many readers could choose to act upon it or not. For those that act upon it, at the very least we get cleaner toilets. I immediately realized additional benefits and I'm sure the benefits will only increase, even if only subtlety.
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Date: 2023-06-04 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 06:11 pm (UTC)https://toilet-guru.com/japan-gods-demons.html
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Date: 2023-05-30 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-30 07:50 pm (UTC)I'm definitely in on the challenge!
Blessings to you all!
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Date: 2023-05-31 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-05-31 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 01:54 am (UTC)https://naakua.substack.com/p/dont-listen-to-the-plastic-trees
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Date: 2023-06-01 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 09:28 pm (UTC)--Sister Crow
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Date: 2023-06-02 04:06 pm (UTC)I was not involved with them enough to formally resign, but I may end up writing a letter to Dana asking if she is on board with the current direction of the org.
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Date: 2023-06-02 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 05:06 pm (UTC)I doubt I'll have time to write a formal resignation but if I do, I will post it here.
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Date: 2023-06-02 07:53 pm (UTC)I joined AODA several years back, but after doing a deep dive into the organization's literature, and I decided not to get involved.
The overall tone left a sour taste in my mouth. I saw a whole bunch of red flags and got the overall impression that AODA had become yet another Neopagan group; any "Mesopagan" retro Druidry from the earlier phases seemed at this point to be heavily diluted with the usual doses of new agey wiftyness and other forms of pop culture pandering. I realize that the leadership is forced to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator in order grow the membership base, but maybe the desire for "growth" is the main problem (a seasoned druid should have no problem seeing the error in this type of thinking). The broader the appeal, the more the core materials get watered down, and the more they have to accommodate every new flavor of snowflakeism that hits the market each month.
About a year later I start hearing stories from members about the org being infected by wokeness and other stupidity. It just seems inevitable that nearly every alt-spirituality group, including AODA, would eventually succumb to the same corrosive fads. It's the same PMC and PMC-adjacent demographic that tends to populate these groups. On top of that, there is no deep tradition underpinning these groups. When there's no real tradition, there's only the ever-shifting fad-sands of pop culture to fill in the gaps.
So yeah, hard pass.
I do think the current incarnation of Revival Druidry (as far as being a viable group activity) is probably dead-man-walking at this point. I would hope that another form of Druidry can rise from the ashes here in North America; one that isn't dependent on imported "Celtic" themes, and is free of all the obnoxious boomerisms that has doomed the currently-dying version.
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Date: 2023-06-03 05:37 pm (UTC)--Sister Crow
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Date: 2023-06-04 05:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, the Celtic stuff can be seriously problematic. Even the Ogham trees have gotten a re-working from me because many of the ones from the Druid Magic Handbook don't grow around here. And then there's the not-small matter of pronouncing Gaelic or Celtic or whatever language is being used in DMH. Freaking Mandarin Chinese is easier to pronounce on many of the words! If I ever start my own church (probably not going to happen in this incarnation) I will probably make it a temple to the Greek gods that does the Sphere of Protection, teaches discursive meditation, and makes formulating one's own personal Ogham a condition of initiation.
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Date: 2023-06-04 09:11 pm (UTC)On that second part, what you did with the Ogham is exactly what I had in mind as far as properly adapting Druidry to a local ecological context.
On language: with the exception of the Ogham names (which are Irish Gaelic), all the Celtic terminology in DMH is Welsh. And yeah the way Welsh is written looks totally alien when compared to how English is spelled out using the same script. Most of the Welsh words used in Revival Druidry have easy one-word equivalents in English, with maybe the exception of nwyfre (life force), a concept which no modern Western language has a word for. I think JMG kept strange-sounding terms in his Druidry books because that's the tradition he inherited from his teachers and possibly he didn't feel justified in changing up the language wholesale. But yeah I agree it creates an unnecessary barrier. In Welsh most of those words have rather mundane meanings.
I'll probably do a blog soonish on the many issues I've found with the supposed Celticness of modern Druid traditions. Not that I'm advocating reconstructionism as an alternative, as I think both eclectic romanticism and pedantic reconstructionism are failed pagan approaches. Your church idea sounds like a lot more interesting a way to pass on the Druidic torch. My own take is that every local area should have its own Druid tradition, even if it's just 1 or 2 people practicing it.
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Date: 2023-06-02 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 05:20 pm (UTC)Cleanup and Willpower
Date: 2023-06-03 03:36 pm (UTC)Ordered the FL h2o, already been using vinegar for cleaning (will start diluting!). Glad to hear you are still working on the Sacred Homemaking book. As a recently widowed oldster seriously lacking homemaking skills I've been waiting for my copy ;-). This experiment sounds like a good practical way to implement JMG's will training (I did not do to well with that LOL) that hopefully will grow in scope.
Light and love to you and yours
Re: Cleanup and Willpower
Date: 2023-06-04 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-20 07:17 am (UTC)