I Know This Isn't My Normal Posting Habit But I Wanted To Share My Grandma's Flower And Early Arrival

I know this isn't my normal posting habit but I wanted to share my grandma's flower and early arrival of spring.

I wont be back home for 8 days and here's what's she's going to deal with!.

Dreaming of meadows

Budding spiral

Summer nights delights

Indoor "jungle" or eternal summer

Waiting for spring!

Unexpected winter blooms!

I can only imagine what's going to be like around Holy Week! :D

Hope you enjoy it and wear it with proud!

If in two years I still like tattoos then I'm going to have one too; don't know where but i'm dying for a traditional one.

And If Odysseus has inked an olive branch; I'm dead, absolutely dead or a dear or something!

Oh god what a about matching tATTOS???? Aahhh!!!.

Ody's inker comes to Ithaca and the two have a matching one where only can be formed with the two together and it looks like a scar or something when not together. I'm not sorry this is my new Headcanon for now on!.

I have had my first tattoo yesterday ☺️ and that had me thinking about the Odyssey hahaha 😆 (I have had an Ancient themed tattoo to connect me with my homeland Greece)

Tattooing in classical Greece was kinda shady subject and usually it was linked with prisoners slaves or foreigners (for example Skythians ) but was this the same in homeric times or much more to bronze age Greece? Hehehe

And now I imagine Odysseus had gotten inked while he was at war or going to war and returning and Penelope giving him a shady look 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

(Of course she would smile if our boy told her it symbolizes her and Telemachus 🥰)

That's a good question, where the hell am I too?

where am i

“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.”

— George F. Burns

She was degraded by the Aeniad, she was a powerful queen of an important kingdom (Carthage) and she was a good one even so being under the mentoring of Juno (most important olympic godess); but as always Aphrodite's (Venus) shipping reflexes went a little to far, uniting her son (Aeneas) and her; reducing her character as another vapid women who decides to unalive herself and while doing so cursing Rome to be enemies of her kingdom. Rendering her character to a 2 dimensional charicature of her true self.

I apologize for using also the greek gods names, in my opinion Venus is in this part mostly Aphrodite's. Her syncretism with Venus (a roman fertility goddess) is still really recent in the Aeniad and to be honest is still very much her greek counterpart, in some parts she is Venus Generatrix but in Dido's tale she is still Aphrodite Pandemos. The Aeniad if you look really closely in it's structure is really similar to the Illiad and Odyssey and more obvious in it's final part, not mentioning the protaganists of this epic are Troyans.

So to sum this up, Dido was setted up as a really good character that lossed most of her agency after meddling with Aeneas.

Sorry for the ramble but is a pity what happened to her; if he could have been a bit more clever and set sailed with her, maybe nothing bad could have happened; founded Rome (not really, down the line Remulus and Remus where the ones, mostly Remus); then after settling move back to Carthage and supervise everything there, with a loving wife, a great kingdom and more.

But then we will forgetting that the Aeniad was written by Virgil as a foundational tale and Dido's role was to set up an excuse for the rivalry between Carthage and Rome (that will sublimmate in the Punic wars); so either way she is bound to lose because of the narrative, making her a tragic character to an unforgiving narrative.

this could be a very niche post but i mourn dido. she was a refugee who built a civilisation from the ground up!! she was a queen!! she was everything aeneas needed to be!! when we first meet her, she's compared to diana. diana goddess of the moon, diana goddess of the hunt. dido was so radiant and loving and warm, even without venus' fatal meddling, she opened her arms to the trojans and welcomed them to her land.

dido of carthage was such a powerful woman, she was the epitome of a person - she was pious, she was strong and she was so, so beautiful. venus ruins her. venus is a real villain of the trojan war and it does not get talked about enough‼️ yes the whole helen thing but cmon!! dido!! venus ruined dido's life - this rational, calm-headed woman is rendered a helpless victim to Love and its follies.

she believes her and aeneas to be married and then he just turns around and walks out on her. (I don't blame aeneas, i actually really like him. he too was a victim of the gods' whimsies - "I seek Italy not of my own will.") but it ruins her. aeneas has up and left and with it venus' interest in dido wanes but the arrow of desire remains stuck in her very soul, staining sticky red love all over her life.

when i think about dido's death i honestly get so sad because the last cry for help to diana when the priestess is performing the death rituals is just fucking heartbreaking. it's a jarring reminder of how dido used to be before aeneas, before the gods sunk their claws into her life.

beautiful dido, who glowed like the moon, now lies dead and burnt to ash on a pile of clothes and carvings of a man who never even loved her.

Posted by Steven Payne to Facebook group British Medieval History:

People in the Middle Ages valued sweet smelling breath and bodies, seeing them as desirable, so there is a great deal of evidence from the period of tooth pastes, powders and deodorants. Contrary to the typical Hollywood depiction of medieval peasants with blackened and rotting teeth, the average person had teeth which were in fairly good condition, mainly due to the rarity of sugar in the diet. Most medieval people could not afford sugar and those who could used it sparingly. Archaeological data shows that only 20% of teeth had signs of decay, as opposed to 90% in the early twentieth century. The main dental problem for medieval people was not decay but wear, due to a high content of grit in the main staple, bread. For deodorants, soap was available for the wealthy, but a variety of herbs and other preparations were also used. Soapwort is a plant native to Europe and Asia which, when soaked in water, produces an effective liquid soap. Mint, cloves and thyme were also extensively used by simply rubbing into the skin, and alum (hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate) was an effective deodorant. I am trying to keep to 14th century technology on my pilgrimage to Canterbury, which gives me various options when looking at hygiene. In the middle ages people generally cleaned their teeth by rubbing them and their gums with a rough linen cloth, or the chewed end of a stick. There are various recipes for pastes and powders that could be put on the cloth to help clean the teeth, but I have chosen simple salt to whiten them and to aid fresh breath. I will also be using the stick method, and will be taking along a supply of liquorice root sticks for that purpose. I also have a few blocks of alum, which when rubbed into wet skin has a deodorising effect. Alum, like beeswax, was used extensively in the middle ages for a variety of purposes, also being useful: * in the purification of drinking water as a flocculant * as a styptic to stop bleeding from minor cuts * as a pickling agent to help keep pickles crisp * as a flame retardant * as an ingredient in modelling clay * as an ingredient in cosmetics and skin whiteners * as an ingredient in some brands of toothpaste The photograph shows my wash kit including home made olive oil soap, salt for the teeth, a block of deodorising alum, cloves, a boxwood comb made for me by Peter Crossman of Crossman Crafts and some liquorice root sticks, all on a woollen ‘towel’. Note that the cloves are kept in a ventilated box….this is because insects hate the smell of cloves and so a perforated box will keep them out of my kit and food bag when I am sleeping rough. TIP: If you steep some cloves to obtain the oil and put the liquid around the doors and windows of your house, it keeps spiders and insects out.