By  Svetlin Velinov

“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett

Favourite Designs: Zuhair Murad Spring 2013 Haute Couture Collection

the first people to ever use terms of endearment for each other must have been so in love i'm in tears just thinking about it

calm down edgelords, the whole point of society is that it’s not survival of the fittest. literally the point is that we’re leveraging our collective strengths to lead to better outcomes for everyone. we’ve been doing it for a couple thousand years now

i hope you heal from the things no one ever apologized for

the difference between romantic love and platonic love is mostly intent

Here’s the second part of mindfulness I learned in therapy that helped me to function after a breakdown. If you, like me, were taught growing up that some emotions were unacceptable, you may need to learn to handle them now as an adult in order to be healthy. All emotions are important indicators that are there to help you. Mindfulness 101 Comic °˖✧*•  Shop, Patreon, Book, Mailing List *•. ✧˖°`

the concept and idea of “you can always start trying to be a better person” is extremely important to me both in media and irl and i continue to be deeply deeply disturbed by the trend on this site pushing that these ideas in media are bad writing or even morally reprehensible

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

it’s fucked up. 

If you make progress on your doctorate degree during the COVID19 pandemic, you get to claim the title of Plague Doctor upon degree completion. True Fact. I don’t make the rules, that’s just how it is.

not to be dramatic but i would die for this cat