Ancestry

As a family history researcher I know a lot about my ancestry. DNA has shown me a lot more as well. Luckily I don’t seem to have any ancestors who rampage in other countries or had slaves or made money from trading in slaves. But not everyone else is so lucky.

Going right back to our origins, we all had a dark skin and it was only as we moved into different climate areas that our skin colour changed to adapt to the climate. Cheddar Man who lived around 9000 years ago had a dark skin.

We are all one and come from the same source and it is time to acknowledge our ancestry whatever it is. I did not study history at school but have learned much more about Great Britain since then. Some of it is not good reading. How can a man live with himself knowing that he had captured natives from another country and sold them as slaves? I suspect it was all about power and money as much of England’s wealth came from slavery. I have researched some slave plantations in Barbados and Jamaica and what I find is heart breaking. When slavery was abolished the owners were compensated for the loss of their slaves and many received thousands of pounds in compensation. Yet the slaves were still not free and served apprenticeships for very little pay.

Today many are looking back at this history and want past injustices seen and heard as well as the injustices of today towards people who are a different colour. Many are beginning to understand that what we were taught in school or read in books and newspapers is not always the truth and these people are now looking to find the truth. This is a good thing. Governments cannot push things under the carpet and hope the public don’t notice. This applies to many other facts ans figures. If you have time to research some of this you can see for yourself how many lies have been told about the past as well as in the present.

The Druids prayer talks about knowledge and justice and the love of all existences. I feel strongly about all three. I know that we are all One, we all share a spark of the divine whatever colour or creed we are. We all come from the same source. Let us treat each other as equals and share love and respect for all.

Approaching the darkness

It is very noticeable now that the mornings are darker and the evenings start to get dark  earlier. Some trees are already bare while others are still green. But the flowers are nearly all gone and there is a noticeable lack of insects around. The birds still come to the feeders though and the starlings are coming back looking for peanuts and fat balls.

I am not yet sure how I feel about the coming winter, the period of darkness. I find it hard enough to have to stay inside now so what will the shorter days be like? This week though I saw one of the first spontaneous offers of help I have received for some time. Someone offered to pick me up and take me to a meeting even though she was not going herself and also lived the other side of town. Genuine offers like this are few and far between. What does this tell us about people in our world?

Earlier this week I was reading about slavery in America and also how convicts were sent to America before the Civil War. Looking at their stories brings a feeling of shame. How can we treat others this way? And yet slavery in some form is still apparent in our world. The days of darkness should be over yet looking at the world news, I feel that the darkness is approaching again as we do not seem to learn from our past mistakes.Should we make more effort to learn from these mistakes so our world changes for the better? Or do we want to destroy our world?