Rev. Alcyone Daze
@facilitatrix.bsky.social
430 followers 380 following 3K posts
3 aeons in a trenchcoat. Accused of the Devil's work & praised for the LORD's work with roughly equal frequency; for legal & safety reasons it's just me on the business cards. Hedge priest, raconteur, bioethicist, part-time psychopomp. 🔞. (Ey/em/eir)
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facilitatrix.bsky.social
For nearly the past 30 years I've been haunted by an—as far as I can tell—specific-to-me cryptid, and I figure since I'm new to bsky I've never told this story on this platform.

I want to talk about the Pigeon Man.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
jenleepa.bsky.social
grave
grave(1)
grave(1) DRAFT
grave(1) DRAFT 20251014
grave(1)(1)
grave(1) DRAFT 20251013 JL edits 20251014
grave - FINAL
grave - FINAL(1)
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
funeralpig.bsky.social
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. One for practice and the other one is the "main" grave.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
October 14th's #DIYandDie isn't so much "practical advice" so much as "some favorite quotes I've come across."
[Background is a Miyazaki-esque city street at night, with telephone poles going into the horizon and lights on inside homes.]

Text reads: 

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.

In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?

[This quote is, unfortunately, by Richard Dawkins. Insert muttering about broken clocks.] [Image is a pseudowoodcut of a winged skeleton holding an hourglass in one raised hand, perched jauntily atop a headstone, less harbinger than "hey gurl."]

The text on the headstone reads: 
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.

If there are gods but unjust, then you should not want to worship them

If there are no gods, then you will be gone but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

—Marcus Aurelius [Image is another Miyazaki-esque seaside town at night, with lights on in the homes as we face downhill looking at the water.]

Text reads:
We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are
from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by 
the yet to be known.

—excerpt from The Humanist Manifesto III [Image is a woman walking alone down a street filled with neon signs featuring blurry Chinese characters. Her back is to the camera.]

Text reads:
I had thought I had looked at death before. I had seen her dance with the ones I loved who had died. I had suffered my own flirtations. This time, though, death is gazing back. Not just a glance, but a full, seductive stare. As if we are in a bar, and I am dressed in black leather, ready for adventure tinged with danger. 

How alluring to be chosen.

This is what she whispers: I can follow her with grace and dignity,
or I can resist and it can get ugly. Either way, she will win, she promises me. That is her story.

If she writes my story, I will be brave, beautiful, and dignified. The word “struggle” will be used, but with no incidents of sweating or cursing or thrashing. In her story, it will be as if i have fallen into a deep sleep.

As long as I am still able to write, this is my story: I resist the lure of dignity; I refuse to be graceful, beautiful, and beloved. I am not going to sleep with her. I am going home alone.

—Ruthann Robson, "Notes on My Dying"




—Ruthann robson
“notes on my dying”
facilitatrix.bsky.social
October 14th's #DIYandDie isn't so much "practical advice" so much as "some favorite quotes I've come across."
[Background is a Miyazaki-esque city street at night, with telephone poles going into the horizon and lights on inside homes.]

Text reads: 

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people.

In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?

[This quote is, unfortunately, by Richard Dawkins. Insert muttering about broken clocks.] [Image is a pseudowoodcut of a winged skeleton holding an hourglass in one raised hand, perched jauntily atop a headstone, less harbinger than "hey gurl."]

The text on the headstone reads: 
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.

If there are gods but unjust, then you should not want to worship them

If there are no gods, then you will be gone but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

—Marcus Aurelius [Image is another Miyazaki-esque seaside town at night, with lights on in the homes as we face downhill looking at the water.]

Text reads:
We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are
from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by 
the yet to be known.

—excerpt from The Humanist Manifesto III [Image is a woman walking alone down a street filled with neon signs featuring blurry Chinese characters. Her back is to the camera.]

Text reads:
I had thought I had looked at death before. I had seen her dance with the ones I loved who had died. I had suffered my own flirtations. This time, though, death is gazing back. Not just a glance, but a full, seductive stare. As if we are in a bar, and I am dressed in black leather, ready for adventure tinged with danger. 

How alluring to be chosen.

This is what she whispers: I can follow her with grace and dignity,
or I can resist and it can get ugly. Either way, she will win, she promises me. That is her story.

If she writes my story, I will be brave, beautiful, and dignified. The word “struggle” will be used, but with no incidents of sweating or cursing or thrashing. In her story, it will be as if i have fallen into a deep sleep.

As long as I am still able to write, this is my story: I resist the lure of dignity; I refuse to be graceful, beautiful, and beloved. I am not going to sleep with her. I am going home alone.

—Ruthann Robson, "Notes on My Dying"




—Ruthann robson
“notes on my dying”
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social
1-in-100 year rainfall rate in Oakland this afternoon as 0.53 inches fell between 4:25 and 4:35 p.m. at San Leandro Creek near the airport. NOAA estimates 10-minute precipitation rate of 0.52” to be a 1-in-100 year event.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
sarahgailey.bsky.social
books should have an anti-acknowledgements section where the author talks shit about all the people who fucked them over while they were trying to write the thing. not bc I personally want to write one but bc I love gossip
rachelfeder.bsky.social
Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat
facilitatrix.bsky.social
Awh <3
I hope y’all both have wonderful evenings (and you look great!)
facilitatrix.bsky.social
Is Good Kat also dressed as Good Kat?
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
thetransfemininereview.com
"You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you."

- Miss Major, 2023 💔
One of the things I hear with some younger trans people I know is they feel, "I'm gonna get this surgery, and I'm gonna learn that way of speaking, and I'm gonna be done." You're never done. If you're a straight, cisgender person, you're never done. Things are always happening that have the potential to change you. So all I am today is not who I'm gonna be tomorrow, because of the things that happened to me today and later tonight. People forget that. "Oh, after I transition, I'm gonna be through." Well, good luck with that. 'Cause if you're through, then it's time to leave, you know, and I don't wanna go anywhere yet.
I'm in my seventies. Why didn't I stop? Number one is community. My gurls. I've had moments of thinking about stopping, but I didn't. I made sure I would step back, reju- venate myself, and then got back out there, and that's how you make a way. Our stories are not all the same, but the destination is: to get some place where we have some peace and harmony, and we can be at ease with ourselves and the people around us. You make the best of it all and hope you can help make it a little better for the gurl after you.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
hausofholes.bsky.social
guys im not "having sex" i am doing witchcraft
facilitatrix.bsky.social
I think the OG point is "it's not on you to solve another person's grief, it just sucks & having someone to commiserate with helps." But if holding space for someone else's loss is a key component of your job, *holy fuck do you need a way to not take other people's feelings home with you.*
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
My alt-text filter didn't catch that last image, but Tenet 11 is "Companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being; it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out."
Which.
Um.
You are absolutely responsible for finding your own way out.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
(3/3) And I also get pretty suspicious of anything that frames "oh, the person grieving is *teaching me* something" because in that way lies, for example, death doulas who become determined to make every client's passage about them. Ugh. Yeah. I don't know y'all, there's wisdom here, I'm just salty.
[two pictures, one of a very pretty series of cliffs covered in greenery, one of a beach at sunset with a bunch of coastal rocks and soft pink lighting on the water.]

TENET 8
Companioning is about bearing witness to the struggles of others; it is not about judging or directing those struggles. [A pinkish-red rose in full bloom]

TENET 9
Companioning is about being present to another person's pain; it is not about taking away or relieving that pain. [A swirl of deep green fern leaves]

TENET 10
Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion; it is not about imposing order and logic.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
(2/3) I also kind of rankle at the idea that expertise (tenet 2) isn't valuable for grieving folks, due to being the de facto "deathcare logistics" person in my own family. It's a useful set of skills, but they activate in the worst of times.
[A nice picture of a waterfall into a lagoon]

TENET 4
Companioning is about walking alongside, it is not about leading or being led. [A lone tree growing on a verdant hillside, with sunlight filtering through mist]

TENET 5
Companioning is about being still; it is not about frantic movement forward. [Three closeups of different types of flowers; one has an orange butterfly landing on it.]

TENET 6
Companioning is about discovering the gifts of sacred silence; it is not about filling every painful moment with talk. [A bunch of lilypads with brilliant red-pink flowers about to blossom]

TENET 7
Companioning is about listening with the heart; it is not about analyzing with the head.
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
For October 13th's #DIYandDie, "Companioning the Bereaved," by Alan D. Wolfelt, which I struggle with due it it being taught as unnecessarily binary—to me, the head and the heart are coworkers, not adversaries, and they can learn to champion each other's distinct skills. (1/3)
[image is a background of autumn trees on a misty mountaintop, all bronzes and greys]

Text reads "Companioning the Bereaved, by Alan D. Wolfelt, transcribed by S. Euphemeo for DIYandDie, 2025." [All of the following images in this thread are a charcoal grey background with white text. This one also has a closeup of a snowflake resting in brown moss.]

TENET 1:
Companioning is about honoring the spirit; it is not about focusing on the intellect. [Three pictures of trees on misty mornings]

TENET 2
Companioning is about curiosity, it is not about expertise. [A mountain range at either sunrise or sunset]

TENET 3:
Companioning is about learning from others, it is not about teaching them.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
My alt-text filter didn't catch that last image, but Tenet 11 is "Companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being; it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out."
Which.
Um.
You are absolutely responsible for finding your own way out.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
(3/3) And I also get pretty suspicious of anything that frames "oh, the person grieving is *teaching me* something" because in that way lies, for example, death doulas who become determined to make every client's passage about them. Ugh. Yeah. I don't know y'all, there's wisdom here, I'm just salty.
[two pictures, one of a very pretty series of cliffs covered in greenery, one of a beach at sunset with a bunch of coastal rocks and soft pink lighting on the water.]

TENET 8
Companioning is about bearing witness to the struggles of others; it is not about judging or directing those struggles. [A pinkish-red rose in full bloom]

TENET 9
Companioning is about being present to another person's pain; it is not about taking away or relieving that pain. [A swirl of deep green fern leaves]

TENET 10
Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion; it is not about imposing order and logic.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
(2/3) I also kind of rankle at the idea that expertise (tenet 2) isn't valuable for grieving folks, due to being the de facto "deathcare logistics" person in my own family. It's a useful set of skills, but they activate in the worst of times.
[A nice picture of a waterfall into a lagoon]

TENET 4
Companioning is about walking alongside, it is not about leading or being led. [A lone tree growing on a verdant hillside, with sunlight filtering through mist]

TENET 5
Companioning is about being still; it is not about frantic movement forward. [Three closeups of different types of flowers; one has an orange butterfly landing on it.]

TENET 6
Companioning is about discovering the gifts of sacred silence; it is not about filling every painful moment with talk. [A bunch of lilypads with brilliant red-pink flowers about to blossom]

TENET 7
Companioning is about listening with the heart; it is not about analyzing with the head.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
For October 13th's #DIYandDie, "Companioning the Bereaved," by Alan D. Wolfelt, which I struggle with due it it being taught as unnecessarily binary—to me, the head and the heart are coworkers, not adversaries, and they can learn to champion each other's distinct skills. (1/3)
[image is a background of autumn trees on a misty mountaintop, all bronzes and greys]

Text reads "Companioning the Bereaved, by Alan D. Wolfelt, transcribed by S. Euphemeo for DIYandDie, 2025." [All of the following images in this thread are a charcoal grey background with white text. This one also has a closeup of a snowflake resting in brown moss.]

TENET 1:
Companioning is about honoring the spirit; it is not about focusing on the intellect. [Three pictures of trees on misty mornings]

TENET 2
Companioning is about curiosity, it is not about expertise. [A mountain range at either sunrise or sunset]

TENET 3:
Companioning is about learning from others, it is not about teaching them.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
I then got to watch about 30 seconds of her yelping (while wearing headphones) attract notice of other people in the office, hear her explain what happened, and hear *her* description hit the psyches of at least two other coworkers.
facilitatrix.bsky.social
Me: I can hear cursed shit in my own head; I don’t need to inflict it on others using AI because my verbal descriptions are usually enough for mild psychic damage.

Coworker: Wait, I’m game, try me.

Me: You’re now hearing the Imogen Heap “mmm, whatcha say?” covered by Sean Connery.

Coworker: AUGH!
Reposted by Rev. Alcyone Daze
facilitatrix.bsky.social
For October 12th's #DIYandDIE, a memorial ritual from Shiva Honey's "The Devil's Death."
[Background is a bonfire burning at night; there are sparking fading towards the top of the page.]

Text: Dracaena—A Memorial Ritual
By: Shiva Honey

Create a playlist that reminds you of the departed. Then, find a private space outside where you  and other mourners can build a large fire. Once the fire is lit, start the playlist and pass out parchment to all assembled.

For each of the following, once you’ve finished, read what you’ve written 
out loud, throw the paper into the fire, and say “Hail, [name]!”

1.  To begin, write down your favorite memories of the departed, 
your favorite things about them, and how they impacted you. 

2. Next, write down something you want to let go of 
in the wake of that person’s death.

3. Finally, write down a pledge or commitment you’ll 
make in memory of the departed. 

Say “Hail, [name]!” thrice more, becoming louder each time. 
Jump, dance, sing, and scream around the fire in honor of the departed.
Continue until you’re exhausted and/or achieve catharsis.

(Transcribed by S. Euphemeo for DIYandDIE, 2025)
facilitatrix.bsky.social
Thank you! I don’t know if you’re already a knitter, but after the initial start (the lavender here) it’s stupid simple, just time consuming. (And full disclosure—I don’t like starting from the dead center out, so a friend helped me with the first 10-20 rows.)