Ancestor Money 411 [Part 1]
A closer look at the Ancestor Money I designed in reimagining the dollar. Come listen. Come read. Come view. Come experience.
I heard the Ancestral call to begin a project about three years ago as I deeply moved in my journey of practicing Ancestral Veneration. I do a lot of work centered around offerings towards uplifting and honoring those who have paved the way for us. One of the offerings that I started towards the beginning of my practice is through offering Ancestral money to the Ancestors. The money carries the intention of lineage healing, reverence, and empowerment.
Most bills currently in existence mirror existing money with old white men upholding systems (the patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy) that have and continue to cause harm. In wanting to continue to honor my Ancestors and guides through offering Ancestral money, I was signed to start creating my own. This sign was amplified by my frustration of Harriet Tubman not yet being on the twenty-dollar bill. I centered on generational healing, a celebration of each Ancestor, and recognition of the impact and justice for their consensual or non-consensual giving of themselves as I began creating my list of Ancestors to include in the designs.
Visuals I looked at when starting to imagine the bills:
Note on Burning:
This money was created first with the intention of communal Ancestral healing. We have so many Ancestors who put in the work for the community and even more whose contributions have gone unrecognized. Before working with the money, ensure that you first pay homage to the Ancestor on the bill and send gratitude and revival in all that was given in their work on Earth. Then call forth that the loving, liberating, and uplifting, energetic impact of the Ancestor(s) be amplified. Read aloud a list of all of your family names that you know of while physically linking with everyone participating in the veneration and the money to be used in the offering. Acknowledge Ancestors who chose to take their lives rather than a life of bondage or enslavement and those whose lives were taken in bondage.
There are so many Ancestors who have yet to receive their flowers and I speak that the bills can be a testimony part of that Ancestral restitution.
The Ancestors currently included on bill designs are Harriet Tubman, Chadwick Aaron Boesman, Fannie Lou Hammer (a direct Ancestor of mine), Henrietta Lacks, Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, James Baldwin, Bessie Coleman, Madame CJ Walker, and Pata Seca as well as Ancestral bills towards opening roads and removing blockages.
So, in the next post on the Ancestor Money, I am going share the details of the bills, what I intentionally did in creating the bills and what I have added to amplify their intent. There are some aspects of the bills that every bill has, and then I have a lot of personal details for each Ancestor that are added to each bill to amplify their energetic vibration and their honor Ancestral connection on earth. So, if you’re curious about those little details, I had someone amazing make and design sigils for the bills.
If you want to know about all of those details, the following post will definitely be one you’ll want to check out.
Phenomenal! I love the intention and artistry put into the ancestor money!
I love this! I leave money in my altar and I wonder how my ancestors would like it if I made money that had their faces and favorite things on it rather than dead white men that have nothing to do with us.