![]() When I have danced and enjoyed all eyes upon me, that is my gypsy spirit; when I have enjoyed the attentions of those men who would adore and spoil me; when I have carried my babes around, slept with them and breastfed them; when I live happily in nature, fine with chaos, not chasing work and profession, when I am singing, being arty, poetic and philosophical, all that is known as bohemian. This can annoy so many gadjo's, as those of settled conforming society are known (non-gypsies basically), this freedom I have from a need to follow rules or of being bound by structures. This is, as I now know, my gypsy spirit, and imbues a love of life which I cherish. And I am in love with my ancestors, and who can even understand that. In a world that can be so ruthless, and can break one, I am a light. I am my light, I am healer, I am radiance. And this is why some people love me so. Its just the natural way of being. This is how it is that one can be subjected to anything in life while still being free. This is attuning ones soul to love, bliss, wisdom, energies and vibrations, everywhere, and anyway, of which we are a part. Sometimes one has to be for a while on a religious journey to realise this, or even simply to take a stroll in nature. Love your life, for it is such a gift and is the greatest treasure. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees.
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![]() Luke Owens art gallery up at Rennes le Chateau was open and so I went to say Hi, and when Luke asked me how I am I couldn't be totally positive about that, well, I'd thought I was OK, but really my status as a village reject was sensitively exposed and paining me, and then tears were in my eyes and I jolly well told Luke of many things and he tolerantly and kindly listened to all. The conversation with Luke became very interesting. I was tying into my explanation that I am an outcaste that theory I have about one reliving and feeling so deeply what was also the way for the ancestors. I told Luke why, even without any proof, there are clues to my having a gypsy heritage, such as my Mediterranean DNA, the outcaste lives of my ancestors in Greenwich, the distinctive appearance of my ancestress Maria, and such talk got two responses from Luke. Firstly, he confesses that like me he is only ever on the peripheries of society, for he is shy of such worlds, and is content to avoid so called civilised places in which there is yet so much judgement and hypocrisy. Secondly he reveals that he himself is a gypsy. He totally identifies with my dilemma, while with emphasis telling me I should not conclude that by this treatment I am a 'reject', but rather that the outskirts of society in which he dwells, as do the gypsies in general, is the best place to be. When one has no need to conform then can arise the arts and more natural ways which do then end up improving the society which itself had easily rejected us. And does one ever really want to be in such judgemental spaces. He necer accepts a word such as 'reject' and neither should I. Although my own family, somewhere along the way, covered up their gypsy past, so it may never be rediscovered, his own is recent and he totally knows it. His father was an out and out gypsy. He'd not told me this before, leaving his fathers side a mystery. But that exceptional appearance of my ancestress Maria Harrison, which had so long both fascinated and puzzled me, his aunts had totally that same look, exactly the black hair and alabaster skin, and it is one of the known appearance of some of the Irish gypsies. The gypsy folk have not only that look, they vary a lot, one of his aunts having a darker olive complexion. And it makes sense now, how it is that I'd previously thought him to have some middle eastern influence on his fathers side, it being the gypsy influence, those brown eyes and his eastern look. It just fascinates me to know he is a gypsy, and if I'd not been babbling on about my own theories he wouldn't even have told me that. His fathers side still travelled in caravans and even his mothers side was of gypsy heritage, though further back, being people who had tried to settle and conform into society. And of course they wanted to hide their origins in order to avoid societies prejudices, which is what my own family has done. This so aligns with Maria's appearance, so Luke confidently asserts, that she was a gypsy. Even her daughter Mary Ann's chestnut hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones and sucked in face is another look of the gypsies, this Luke tells me. In conversation with Luke I do feel I have found one of my lost tribe. Totally calm, content and radiant he insists I should embrace this separateness and non-belonging, this being our great ancestral heritage. Luke is total gypsy, whereas my own gypsyness if of undefined amount, mixed with Shetland Viking and some Welsh. It is quite something to reflect on this more. Elder family members had told me my Greenwich ancestry was 'rough and ready', which was maybe a way of saying 'gypsy' without totally giving it away. Somehow 'gypsy' is a secret never to be mentioned to younger generations. Just how much had they known but not been able to say. Like my nanny Eileen who had summed up her mother Florence's family as 'Irish', when really it was only Florence's mother, and not her father, who had been born in Ireland. Maybe what my nanny meant to say, and yet could not, was 'gypsy'. I so wish I had known more when my elders were still alive. I could have talked with more depth and unearthed so much more. So many clues are there too that my fathers side was gypsy, but never anything within records to confirm this as fact. The Irish-Mediterranean DNA I have from both my mother and father, and such a weak English element that wasn't even passed onto me, cries out gypsy all the more. Florence was not at all accepted by her husband Percy's Dovercourt and Harwich based family, and when my nanny Eileen had talked to me of this she stopped short of saying, while maybe part of her wanted to say it but did not dare, that the reason she really was ostracised was because she was gypsy. Only on this day do I understand what has been between the words which no one else would tell me. "There are many gypsies all around us" Luke told me. "One just has to know what questions to ask." AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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