Rev. Robin Wells (they/them)

Since the rebranding of the Department of Defense is now the Department of War, can reporters please start calling "defense startups" "war startups" instead? It would really help with clarity for the reader. Thanks.

A virtual certificate with text "Celebrating 10M users on Bluesky, #2,732,330, Rev. Robin Wells (they/them) ‪@roblation.bsky.social‬, joined on Dec 25, 2023"

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #2,732,330!

Never too many!

Text graphic displaying WE heart JOE over HARRIS WALZ

Thanks, Joe. And please cancel my student debit. #USA

Puffball mushroom in grass. 🏐

Puffball mushroom approximately 5" in diameter. It's gonna be tasty on the grill!

#FungiFriends🍄📷
#FungiFriday

Miniature lupine (Lupinus bicolor)

Location: coastal Monterey County, CA, USA

#NaturePhotography📸🌿🌱🌸🪻🌼📷

Barometer earthstar in grass

Barometer earthstar in grass with a growing spore.

Collage of three barometer earthstars

Collage of four barometer earthstars

Barometer earthstars after a rain.

Location: Monterey County, CA, USA

#FungiFriends🍄📷

Prickly pear cactus in bloom after a light rain. Location: Monterey County, CA, USA

Prickly pear cactus in bloom after a light rain.

Location: Monterey County, CA, USA

#NaturePhotography📸🌵🌱🌿🌸

It was!

Cut Amanita velosa mushrooms dry cooking in a skillet.

Cream of mushroom soup in the pan.

Cream of mushroom soup in a bowl on the table

I made a cream of mushroom soup with the springtime Amanitas I foraged today.

Springtime Amanitas are basically field calamari.

#FungiFriends🍄📷
#cooking🥣🍄

Peach colored Amanita velosa mushroom in the ground with dirt on top next to dry grass.

Blue basket of Amanita velosa mushrooms next to a mushroom in ground and a pocket knife.

Some of the Springtime Amanitas (Amanita velosa) evaded the lawnmower. We get rain again tomorrow, so hoping for another flush before the season comes to an end!

Location: Monterey County, CA, USA

#FungiFriends🍄📷
#NaturePhotography📸🌿🌱

8/8 Spiritual warfare is as real today as it was with the ancients.

And that's why I'm not commenting on Twitter/X regarding #UMCGC as I have done for the last 4 #UMCGC s.

Bluesky is my refuge in a time of healing. May the voice of God resound.

That's it. That's the skeet. 🌈 💕
#UMC

7/? Have some of those toxic voices been on a lower volume since the exit of churches to the GlobalMC? Yes. Has #UMCGC been less contentious since their exit? By all reports, yes.

Does this instantly resolve all the spiritual wounding and moral injury inflicted over the past decades?

No.

6/? Do I still have my twitter handle? Yes. It's the same handle I have here. Have I been an X voyeur during this #UMCGC? Absolutely.

But I'll be damned if I'll post any responses there. The same toxic personalities and puppet masters are lurking there: Mark Tooley, The IRD, WCA, GlobalMC, etc.

5/? As more people found Twitter/X, especially anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups, the commentary there just devolved and was particularly toxic in the 2019 Special General Conference.

Now that Bluesky is an option, this is a much better choice for me during #UMCGC than continuing to engage on the tweeter.

4/? For example, I used the hashtag, #MoravianBoatRides for a particularly rocky and contentious time at #UMCGC in 2012 or 2016. I can't remember which. (TBH, everything is kind of a blur pre-pandemic.)

Hashtags were more of a descriptor of the weird and wild happenings of #UMCGC. Anyway..

3/? Mind you, this was way back when there was a much smaller character limit per tweet and we had to resort to all sorts of abbreviations to communicate what we wanted to say.

It was as though we were speaking some sort of code. Hashtags were used not so much as indexing as for commentary.

2/? It took a while before UMC Communications finally got it together to finally use Twitter/X as a form of social engagement.

I can remember when we on the Tweeter had no social media guidance from the #UMC and several hashtags emerged, causing tweeters to say: Can we settle on a hashtag?

1/? Old Methodist yarn ahead.

I started tweeting (on the platform now known as X) about #UMCGC way back in 2008 when only tech-savvy kids with cellphones were doing it.

There was so much concern from conference folks about the truth-speak and anti-establishment commentary coming from the tweeter.

Offering a non pharmacological psychedelic experience (sound bath) for friends in the psychedelic-assissted therapies and research program.

Location: Emeryville, CA

Photo credit: S. Rezaie

Late Cal, NFL quarterback Joe Kapp had advanced CTE: ‘His brain was really under siege’ Late Cal and NFL quarterback Joe Kapp was posthumously diagnosed with the most advanced form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), his family said.

Abolish football.
#NFL

www.sfchronicle.com/sports/colle...

California poppies at dusk.

Monterey County, CA

#naturephotography🌿📸
🌷🌸🌹🌺🌻🌼🪷🪻🏵️💐❇️

one of the worst parts of capitalism is it steals the joy & hope of technology. we should be excited that robots & computers are stealing our terrible, boring, dangerous jobs, because we won't have to do them, but we know capitalism will abandon us. we should all be living comfortable lives by now.

A large springtime Amanita mushroom (Amanita velosa)

Take a look at this absolute unit!

Did I slide this bad boy into my boo's DMs? Yes.

Did my boo admit to being jealous?
Also yes.

Springtime Amanitas are delicious!

#FungiFriday🍄📆
#FungiPhile🍄♥️
#FungiFriends🍄📷

☝🏻Yes. This. It can be risky to correctly identify an Amanita in the egg stage because you can't see the gills or if there is a skirt on the stem. However, a springtime Amanita in the egg stage will have a V shape toward the bottom, whereas other Amanitas will have a bulb shape at the bottom.

Springtime Amanita emerging from "egg" stage

Yes! That is the egg stage. Here's another photo of one emerging from the egg stage.

Spruce tooth fungus held in hand over patch of grass

Underside and side views of spruce tooth fungus

Spruce tooth fungus in soil.

Spruce tooth fungus in soil

This is a fungi first time find for me: Bankera violascens aka spruce tooth fungus. The first photo is the most true to the mushroom's violet color. The other photos were taken in low light shortly after being dug up from the leaf bed they were under.

Ryan Ranch, Monterey, CA

#fungifriends🍄📷

Brown elfin saddle fungus

Brown elfin saddle fungus

Brown elfin saddle fungus emerging from the soil

Brown elfin saddle fungus

A flush of young brown elfin saddles

Monterey County, CA

#mushroomMonday
#fungifriends🍄📷

Blue basket with springtime Amanitas (Amanita velosa)

A tiskit a tasket. I have wild mushrooms in my basket.

#MushroomMonday
#fungifriends🍄📷

More springtime Amanitas in the yard and headed to the table.

Monterey County, CA

#mushroomMonday
#fungifriends🍄📷
#naturephotography📸🌿