ancestorsalive

[ancestorsalive]

In the 1800s, taking a photo of a dead body wasn’t creepy, it was comforting. In an era when photos were expensive and many people didn’t have any pictures of themselves when they were alive, post-mortem photography was a way for families to remember their deceased loved ones. This was especially true for children, whose mortality rate was much higher than it is now.

- Source: Vintage History page on Facebook

[ancestorsalive]

Let the Light In: The Summer Solstice — the Longest Day of the Year — Is Nigh 🌞

June 21 is the summer solstice — the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere (June 20 in some time zones — and the winter solstice if you're in the southern hemisphere).

In the UK, the sun will rise at 4:43am and won’t set again until 9:21pm, giving us over 16 hours and 38 minutes of daylight.

But over 5,000 years ago, people on what is now Ynys Môn (Anglesey), Wales were already marking this day with astonishing precision.

At Bryn Celli Ddu, a Neolithic burial chamber whose name means “the mound in the dark grove,” the inner passage is aligned so that at daybreak on the summer solstice, a beam of sunlight shines directly into the heart of the tomb, illuminating the back of the chamber. Light touches the place where the dead were laid to rest.

Originally built around 3000 BCE, Bryn Celli Ddu likely began as a burial site and later took on a more ceremonial or ritual function. Its alignment suggests a sophisticated understanding of the solar cycle — and perhaps a belief that on this longest day, the boundary between worlds could be crossed by a shaft of golden light.

To stand here at sunrise is to witness something ancient — a connection to the past that only nature can switch on.

Let there be light.

- Mark Rees

[ancestorsalive]

(via Ancestors & Archetypes,by Iona Miller, 2017 - Home)

[ancestorsalive]

"WOVEN"

© Leonard Freed photographer

New York City 1975

Leonard Freed (October 23, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York - November 29, 2006 in Garrison, New York) was a documentary photojournalist and former member of Magnum Photos.

Freed had wanted to be a painter, but he started taking pictures in the Netherlands and discovered a new passion. He traveled through Europe and Africa before returning to the United States, where he attended the New School and studied with Alexey Brodovitch, the art director of Harper's Bazaar. He dedicated his life to photographing his Jewish community and working as an independent photojournalist.

[ancestorsalive]

Everything answers the call to home...

Georgy Kičigin (Rod. 1951)

[ancestorsalive]

👑 On this day in 918 CE: Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, dies.

Aethelflaed (r. 911-918 CE) was the daughter of King Alfred the Great of Wessex (r. 871-899 CE) and became queen of Mercia following the death of her husband Aethelred, Lord of the Mercians (r. 883-911 CE).

She is best known as the “Lady of the Mercians” who defeated the Vikings and established English rule which would be consolidated by her brother Edward the Elder (r. 899-924 CE) and lay the foundation for the reign of the first recognized English king, Aethelstan, who was king of the Anglo-Saxons 924-927 CE and King of the English 927-939 CE.

Her reign was so effective that she would eclipse those of contemporaries such as her brother Edward the Elder in Wessex and, in her own time, she seems to have been more widely respected than even her famous father.

Aethelflaed continued the policies initiated by Alfred in accord with Aethelred but, after her husband's death, ruled on her own as she orchestrated the policies and practices which resulted in diminishing the power of the Danes in Britain and allowed for unification of the land under Edward and later Aethelstan.

📝 Article by Joshua J. Mark.

📷 Photo by Elliot Brown.

[ancestorsalive]

[ancestorsalive]

Clay figurine depicting the Great Goddess dated ca 5000-4500 BC. It was found in Gradeshnitsa, Vratsa region, Bulgaria. On her body/garments are depicted geometric symbols associated with femininity and fertility, cosmic balance and natural cycles, as well as the cycle of life and death.

Location: Vratsa History Museum, Bulgaria

Photographer: Nikolai Genov

[ancestorsalive]

Lithuania is a land of crosses 1967, Antanas Sutkus. Lithuanian, born in 1939

[ancestorsalive]

Touching words by Donna Ashworth and beautiful artwork called 'Timeless' by Lisa Aisato.

As time goes by,

You will loosen your grip on that rock,

The one you always thought was home,

And you will realise that home is not a place,

It’s a state of mind.

Let it go.

As times goes by,

You will learn to see yourself more clearly,

The girl who was always too much of one thing,

And too little of another, was actually

Everything she needed to be.

Let her out.

As time goes by,

You will let the simple things become the big,

And you will allow the big things to become the simple,

And that readjustment will be,

The day you really start to live,

Let it be.

As time goes by,

You will be forced to say goodbye many times,

And your soft little heart will shatter but,

It will still beat and that will bring you,

All the purpose you need.

Let it beat.

As time goes by,

You will stop choosing wealth over peace,

You will stop choosing money over time,

And you will see that the treasures you need,

Are in the smiles and the laughter.

Let them in.

As times goes by,

The moments you remember when your life flashes past,

Are never the awful memories my friend, it’s the joy,

The summer nights, the lazy days with loved ones,

The midnight chats and the morning hugs,

Let them happen.

Let them all happen.

[ancestorsalive]

In loving memory of my Scottish Great Grandfather Henry and his two precious grandaughters, Jean and Dorothy.

September 1926.

Forever loved and remembered. ❤️💙🙏✨

[ancestorsalive]

Farm labourers on their way to Woodbury Hillfort, Bere Regis, Dorset. In the medieval period it was the biggest hiring fair in southern England. In the medieval period, and from the 1300's, it was the biggest hiring fair and market in southern England. Farm labourers would travel from as far as Exeter (Devon) and from Winchester, Hampshire. Medieval hiring fairs, often known as Statute Fairs or Mop Fairs, were a central part of the employment system in medieval England. They originated in the 1300s, during the reign of King Edward III. The aim was to regulate the labour market as the country transferred from a feudal society, where labour was attached to specific manors and estates, to a money-based economy in which labour was more fluid. King Edward III, in an act of law known as the Statute of Labourers, ordered that such fairs be held in a variety of places across England to ensure fair wages and maintain social order. This was necessitated by the drastic drop in population and resulting labour shortage after the Black Death, where surviving laborers were putting up their wages beyond what landowners could afford. It is hard to comprehend how significant this place was. The poor came here in hope to find work for year. There is a farmhouse in the middle of the hillfort, and it is now abandoned. The hillfort features in Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, fictionalised using the name of "Greenhill". In Chapter 50 of Hardy's 1874 novel Far From the Madding Crowd, the hillfort is the setting for the South Wessex sheep fair.

[ancestorsalive]

"We cannot simply replicate traditional spiritual practices and expect them to work -- not only because they may not be ours to employ, through cultural or ancestral inheritance, but also because their forms were created in response to the world as it once was, and embedded in a context that has changed significantly since these practices were first developed. The work that our ancestors did forms the ground on which we stand. And the work we do today, will become the ground on which our descendants stand. We are the ancestors of the evolving world. We are being called to cultivate deep relationships with the subtle energy beings that hold the essence or soul qualities that gave rise to these traditional forms. And then to partner with them to create patterns and forms of practice that are directly applicable to the world as it is now, and the world we are in the process of shaping for our descendants and on behalf of all the beings with whom we share this planet. To do this effectively requires us to develop power, sovereignty and strength, because the Devas will not partner with us if we are unable to meet them from a place of inner sovereignty and equality. The age of gurus has passed. Each of us is a source of the world in which we want to live. In what ways do you diminish your power and sovereignty? If you believe that who you are -- your personhood -- is not enough, then chances are, you surrender your sovereignty to others whom you believe have greater knowledge, wisdom, power, or some other quality that you believe you lack. Self-doubt erects barriers to communion with your own soul, and with the Devas. It is not benign; it is dangerous, and insidious. Be proud of who you are. This is not hubris. Rather, it's a celebration of the truth of your being, and essential to effective, generative partnership."

Hiro Boga

#DevaAlchemy

[ancestorsalive]

[ancestorsalive]

Another beautiful Gradeshnitsa figure of the Goddess, dated ca 5000-4000 BC. It’s made of baked clay and found in Gradeshnitsa, about 35km from the Danube river, Bulgaria. The symbol on her belly can be seen in different variations on other figurines as well.

History Museum, Vratsa, Bulgaria