Back to the time travel/avatars, I now got pictures made, thank you AI, of my great granny Mary Seagrove, alias Nanna Bane.
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From just one ancestral picture I generated avatars of my Irish great grandmother Mary Dolan, and it was so that most were repetitive, but still some I liked manifested. Somehow, at least in some pictures, the AI picked Mary out to be a black woman, looking rather Afro-American.
I decided it was my great grandma Florence Maxted's turn for the avatar and time travel experience, luckily having a few photos of her to work from, and now gaining so many delights. So happy I am for this. Florence was half Irish through her mother Mary née Dolan. I see from a photo of her mother that they have the same eyes, which my father also had; Irish eyes. Florence's fathers family came from Pluckley, the most haunted village in England. I did my grandfather Lyall Inkster's avatars and time travel; always a joy. Lyall was from a Shetland family and was descended from the Scottish king James V.
I now did my grandfather 'pop' George Harrison's time travel and avatars, always a joy for me. And other ancestors, I shall gradually do likewise. How wonderful is this technology. My pop was from the Welsh hills bordering onto England and he lived for 100 years.
I decided to try doing avatars for my other ancestors, despite a lack of photos, which can make for rough results, so I did this for my great grandfather D'Auvergne Bane, and yes, as expected, the results bore little of worth, but those that worked out were really cool, and when I shared them on social media were much liked. D'Auvergne was a gentlemanly artistic soul, whose family lived for a while in Barbados, though he was born in London.
Much absorbed in my oracle cards project, I wanted to generate Indian style goddesses via the AI art, as had been so with Harshita and Priyanka's avatars, prompted by the Indian jewellery they had worn at their weddings. So I donned a couple of sari's for photos and draped necklaces over myself, along with bindi and pendant dangling over my third eye. I was not rewarded with any Indian style AI goddess pictures at all, and what's more, my amber beads which I had worn around my head in some of the photos I'd taken, were replicated in nearly every photo. I wasn't so impressed at first, but then realised a few of those amber bead ones, particularly in the galactic and a few other categories, had come out well. And it dawned on me that I was looking at something known to our paleolithic ancestors. Amber was popular item of jewellery for our ancients, empowering, protective, and beautiful. They were considered to be sun ray particles, and even the tears of nymphs, and to have magical potency. Anciently amber was sourced from Sicily, and then from the Baltic, and was as if gold in value. There was a amber trading route down through the rivers of Europe, now being recreated as a cycling track. Our ancients absolutely adored amber and those AI pictures were as if they were reaching out to me to show me this. The AI generated pictures were beautiful really, some of the third eye pendants even being marked with fossilised insects in them, as is often the way with some types of amber. My own chunky amber necklace I had got from the Tibetans in Dharamsala. In understanding how special this was to my ancestors I now appreciated it all the more. Carnelian beads, which I also have, from my friend Akila, given to me by her son after her death, were also loved by the ancients. Green jade, another much liked, was also to be found in Europe. Garnet, another bead necklace I have, was another popular with the ancients. And not to forget seashells, like the cowries I liked as a child, ivory (gifted to me by an uncle living in Africa), tusk and bone, and birds talons. The amber, I was so loving it. AI had revealed something to me there. It was my goddess cards which had urged me with this idea to glam up ethnically for the photos; an intent I could not have forseen. Looking more at amber in antiquity, wow, an amber head of Medusa was one of the engravings these jewels would have, with her snake hair, and anyway did that not speak really of plaits and dreadlocks, for which snake hair has always been a trend. Amber was dedicated to female divinities and amber objects would be buried with women and their children. So it was that amber was special to the divine feminine. Pliny wrote of amber that the French Celtic women wore amber necklaces, not only for adornment, but because of its medicinal properties, healing tonsillitis and other throat ailments. As I have seen it that babies in France are to this day gifted amber amulets, so it was in ancient times too. Christianity tried to put an end to all this, declaring it to be diabolic, due to amber being considered to have magical properties. Sometimes amber beads were tear drop shaped and sometimes crescent shaped. One large amber bead with the head of a gorgon, as in Medusa and her sisters, had around it the heads of humans and wild felines. It was written of old that a mother would bless amber in the sunlight every morning and then hang it around her childs neck, thereby keeping her child safe, healthy and alive. For the magic of amber to be accessed it would be touched, kissed, stroked and rubbed. Of prehistoric caves, amber has been found in the Aurensian and Isturitz caves of the Pyrenees, and interestingly in the Cheddar caves of England it has been found, where was found the Cheddar man whom I share quite some archeogenetic dna with, as well as in other British caves such as Cresswell Crags and Star Carr. In the Isturtz cave not only was amber found as a bead but also as a horses head. The Cheddar caves people also used seashells as ornamentation. In the Isturtz cave, in which Neanderthals had lived prior to more modern humans, there have been discovered to be cave paintings. Flutes made of bone and ivory have also been found, this being the first known prehistoric musical instruments.
It was my nanny Eileen's turn for the time travel and avatar phenomena. To endure her hair was recognised as red, despite the old black and white photos not giving that away, I found a hair colour app to paint her lovely locks ginger and that worked. Cousin Steve loved the results and me too. This was all divine; so splendid for me.
I put photos of my granny Isabelle née Bane into the time travel app; oh wow, what a delight, what a diva, such marvellous photos of her; and then doing the avatars for her too. I was so thrilled by this.
I gathered together photos of my mother in her younger days and paid out to get her time travel done, - not so many were good really, but some I loved. I noticed how much my mother looked like Maria from the Sound of Music. When I told my mum, of course she liked that. How many times we went to see that film when I was a child.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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