During 1963-1965, excavations at Herod the Great’s palace on Masada, Israel, revealed a cache of date palm seeds preserved in an ancient jar. They had experienced a very dry and sheltered environment for centuries. Radiocarbon dating at the University of Zurich confirmed the seeds dated from between 155 BC to 64 AD. The seeds were held in storage for 40 years at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, until in 2005, the seeds were pretreated in a fertilizer and hormone-rich solution. Three of the seeds were subsequently planted at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arabah desert in southernIsrael. Eight weeks later one of the seeds had sprouted, and by June 2008, the tree had nearly a dozen fronds and was nearly 1.4 m (4 ft) tall. By the summer of 2010, the sapling stood at about 2 meters tall.
The plant was nicknamed “Methuselah,” after the longest-lived character in the Bible. Methuselah is remarkable in being the oldest known tree seed successfully germinated, and also in being the only living representative of the Judean date palm, a tree extinct for over 1800 years, which was once a major food and export crop in ancient Judea.
Don’t hide their perceived flaws ‘You don’t have stretch marks!’ ‘you’re not fat!’
PEOPLE ARE AWARE OF WHEN THEIR BODY CHANGES, AND WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. And lying just makes it seem like these parts of their body must be shameful or else why would you want to pretend they aren’t there? Accept them. ‘I love you stretch marks~’ ‘Your belly is so cute!’ etc
If your partner doesn’t want you to touch them in certain areas
FUCKING DON’T
If your partner does want affection and is okay with you touching them in the areas they feel insecure about,
Focus on those areas, lightly touch them, kiss them, say how beautiful every inch of them is.
If your partner wants to change their appearance
MAKE IT CLEAR THAT ITS THEIR HAPPINESS THAT IS IMPORTANT AND NOT THEIR APPEARANCE. If a hair cut, weight change, tattoo, whatever, will make them happy, support it.
When they speak badly about themselves
Listen to them, but also enforce how you see them. Look in the mirror with them, talk about their appearance. Let them see how much you glow just talking about how beautiful they are. They need more voices in their head that aren’t negative. Also never sound tired of it, never roll your eyes when they talk about their issues, because that will just make them feel like their insecurities are a burden and won’t share them with you and will suffer in silence.
When you bring up someone else whose beautiful, don’t compare them if they are complete opposites
Don’t tell someone who looks nothing like some model you’re into, that they do look like them. Enforce that yes, this other person is beautiful, but so is your partner.
It takes time
Everyone has good days and bad days. You’re not going to ‘fix’ them, they aren’t broken. This isn’t going to magically make them feel 100% about their body all the time. This is about making someone feel comfortable in their skin,
One of my favourite tropes is when two people hate each other but end up in a life or death situation in which they both save each others life and then gain a deep respect for one another.
Do you think anyone from Renaissance Italy was like “dammit Leonardo?”
