#eurasian

Three girls from across the vast Eurasian steppe, and their really, really tall headdresses!

From left to right: the Russian kokoshnik, the Kazakh saukele, and the Mongol boqtaq.

"Black Bird"

It just occurred to me as I was setting out the Rhozanitsa and Her Daughters Midwinter embroidery, and for the first time the dolly (I actually made her as a gift for someone with whom I’ve lost touch so I’ve never before worked with her), that when I encountered Mama and Baby in the glade in late summer that she was reaching out to me in her Mother aspect.

Northern Slavic/Baltic Finnic embroidery I designed by grouping Russian and Karelian patterns featuring Rozhanitsa and her daughters, bordered by suns (life) at the top, and grave markers (death) at the bottom.

She is an ancient, powerful, antlered goddess archetype in Slavic and broader Eurasian mythology, embodying fertility, fate, and the cycle of life, often depicted with antlers resembling the Tree of Life, bringing the sun back in winter, and linked to modern Midwinter figures like the Deer-Mother (or Antlered Mother) who guarantees animal security, rebirth, and is a culture hero for hunters. Rozhanitsa specifically is a Slavic fate spirit, sometimes depicted with antlers, linking her to this ancient archetype of rebirth and the solar cycle, often associated with women's roles in weaving fate and bringing light.

@jayeltontoro

WMAF Hapa # 15 - Fei Xiang 🇨🇳🇺🇸🇹🇼

Born in Taiwan, on 1960's Christmas Eve, Bart Hsiao Luan Phillips, also known as Kris Philips or Fei Xiang (費翔) is a singer, actor and opera performer who became one of the greatest Chinese music pop icons in the 1980s. After graduating in the USA, he moved back to Taiwan and started his singing career, later winning The Best New Artist of the Year. He then moved to China where he would become even more popular, selling millions of records and performing in dozens of concerts all over the country.

Xiang was a heartrob of his time. He's 190cm (6'3) tall and his light blue eyes were and still are a rarity amongst Eurasians

He's also a successful actor, having played in various Chinese blockbuster films in recent years

Xiang's father, Wade Philips, was a retired US Army airman who took a temporary job teaching basketball in Taiwan. There, he met by accident Lina Bi, a woman from Beijing. Wade had accidentally taken a photo of her as she was walking and then asked her out, saying that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

They eventually divorced in the 1980s when their son was in college.