#ancestors

Here it is necessary briefly to consider the question of the cult of ancestors before venturing farther. The spirits of the departed are believed to be possessed of supernatural powers which they did not enjoy in the flesh. They may also be dissatisfied or malignant in consequence of being suddenly deprived of life, and if they are neglected by the living, are apt to be revengeful. Therefore they must be cajoled and propitiated. Fear of beings belonging to a mysterious state or sphere of which he knew nothing continually haunted and terrified primitive man and induced in him what is known as" the dread of the sacred." It was every man's personal duty to attend to the demands or requirements of his deceased ancestors. At first he would succour his own immediate forebears with food and gifts; but it must have been borne in upon him that when his parents joined the great majority, the care of the spirits of their parents likewise devolved upon him... and, by degrees, he might even come to regard himself as responsible for the well-being of a line of spirit ancestors of quite formidable genealogy. These, through his neglect, might starve in their tombs; or, alternatively, they might crave his company. Because of vengeance or loneliness they might send disease upon him, for the savage almost invariably believes illness to be brought about by the action of jealous or neglected ancestors. The loneliness of the spirit-world is the dead man's greatest excuse for desiring the company of his descendants. ↗

— Lewis Spence

#ancestors #dead #fairies #fairy #food

Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties. ↗

— Pete Seeger

#ago #america #ancestors #came #dissenters

The people who have recently come to this country to work and better their lives should be given the same opportunities that our parents, grandparents, and ancestors were given. ↗

— Jose Serrano

#better #come #country #given #grandparents

My first name - I have no middle name - was chosen by my father, as he told me, on that solitary walk in the forested hills. He selected it from a verse of the seventh chapter of Isaiah; there was no Immanuel among our ancestors known to him. ↗

— Immanuel Velikovsky

#ancestors #chapter #chosen #father #first

Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors, even for patients who have not lost loved ones to death. We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history. (243) ↗

— Norman Doidge

#death #ghosts #grief #healing-the-past #loss

When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#ancestry #illumination #inspirational #journey #journey-in-life

The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past. ↗

— Anita Desai

#back #backwards #begins #believe #book

Crafts make us feel rooted, give us a sense of belonging and connect us with our history. Our ancestors used to create these crafts out of necessity, and now we do them for fun, to make money and to express ourselves. ↗

— Phyllis George

#belonging #connect #crafts #create #express

There is no escape - we pay for the violence of our ancestors. ↗

— Frank Herbert

#escape #our #pay #violence

More than anything, this place feels familiar. I bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our bodies and minds. Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation. I quietly thank this ancestor of mine for surviving the trip so that I could one day return. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#ancestral-continuum #ancestral-dna #ancestral-memory #journeying #life-journey