#2 Chaos Magic: Megan Clifton and creating the Boomtown narrative

This week's podcast is out and I'm super excited to be interviewing my darling friend @meganlouiseclifton who is Head of Narrative at Boomtown Fair, where she manages multiple theatre companies and other creative crews to deliver an interactive collaborative narrative to 55,000 people over 4 days. 

Sitting between theatrical writer and game designer, Megan likes to create strange and beautiful interactive environments, treating the ridiculous with reverence to empower the audience to be, say and do things they could never do in 'normal' life. 

I met Megan 8 years ago in Brighton, and she introduced me to the concept of Chaos Magik and Dischordianism, which I've been enjoying exploring ever since. It was such a joy to interview her, and I can't wait for you to hear this episode.

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms. Please like, follow, and review. Also, please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a patron on my Patreon page... patreon.com/JolieRose.

You can get in touch with Jolie Rose on Instagram @kriyaarts or the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook. 

Hope you enjoy listening to this week's episode!

Transcript

0:14

It's in the case. It is in the case. This week I'm interviewing Megan Clifton, who is a friend of mine from Brighton, and who I've known for about 10 years now, and she's also a Discordian. So Discordianism is a belief system based around Eris, the goddess of discord, and it's often described as a parody religion, but quite often the synchronicity and serendipity that happens to Discordians is pretty mind blowing, and so for many it's become more of an actual faith. Both Megan and myself have worked with discordianism for a long time and have had lots of crazy experiences because of it. More than anything it's just been open to the unknown and open to looking for magic and serendipity in the world and making it mean something because we choose to. To be careful, some people have gone down rabbit holes and lost their minds from it because it can get, obviously, if you look for patterns, they're everywhere, and that's what, what humans do, so you do have to be a little bit careful with it, but it does also spread a little bit of sparkle of magic over everything, and it does completely blow your mind, some of the things that happen when you look for synchronicity. And there's a whole community of Discordians that are having crazy times from all the things that happen and the storylines that unfold. KLF were involved in it and Alan Moore and Ken Campbell is another person who's all part of this world. So yeah, I've known Megan for about 10 years, as I say, and she's doing all sorts of amazing things and she's such a joy to speak to. I knew that she had to be the first person. That I interviewed for this podcast because she fits so well with the theme and, you know, it was kind of been there right from the start of me exploring the world from this perspective. So without further ado, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome Megan to the podcast.. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I met Megan on a street in front of a pub. We were sat in front of the Foundry and I think Daryl said, Oh, you should talk to Meg and she's really into magic. And we got into a conversation about chaos magic. And then that's led to this podcast. Existing and the name of it and everything. so introduce yourself, who you are, what you do, and then tell us a little bit about what Chaos Magic is to you. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So yeah, I'm Megan Clifton. Technically I'm an interactive theater maker at the moment. But yeah, also into music, I've done radio briefly and aerobics coach. I'm a hardcore DJ and obviously practicing, which there's probably other stuff I've forgotten cause I'm super manic. And Yeah, I got into Chaos Magic through the classic sort of Discordianism route. which I have mixed feelings around now, because of the whole CIA connections and stuff. But I was inspired through all the Robert Anton Wilson stuff, and like, learning about how much of a reality is chaos and how much we construct reality because we are putting a story on it all the time. And story is my main job now, because I'm head of narrative at Boomtown Festival which is a festival that has a fictitious narrative. It's a fake town with a fake story going back 15 years. So yeah, Chaos Magic was like instrumental in making me realize that stories like how we build the world. That was perfect. Cause that, that's exactly what I feel is going on. And the reason why I'm doing this podcast now of all times is because Pluto, I don't know if you're aware of this, Pluto has just gone in, is in Aquarius at the moment. retrograde from like September to November. And then it's currently in. Aquarius for the next 20 years, and so it's taken 240 years to get back around to this place. And the last time we were in Aquarius with Pluto, it was the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution, the French Revolution. Aquarius is the sign of revolution, it's the sign of the collective. And it's also, there's an air sign, so it's about new ideas and innovation and completely changing the way things are. And it was Alan Moore, who himself is a self proclaimed wizard of chaos magic he said how we had once been ice, and then we'd become water, and now we're turning into steam. And I feel like there is no way of possibly knowing how to let oneself turn into steam. that's terrifying and we can't possibly imagine what that reality is going to be like. So what we need to do is relax with our grip on the known, we're so obsessed with knowing and the thin king, the thin, thin skinny little king who needs to know everything because it's to try and make us feel safe. When in reality we're heading through space on a lump of rock and no one knows what's going on. So the more we can relax with the unknown and just kind of surrender to the process of turning into steam, we can then vibrate into whatever this new paradigm shift is that we're turning into. Would you want to explain that ice water steam thing? Because you, You explained, you told me about it before, but like, I've forgotten now. How does that work, the ice, water, steam? So ice is in like, the Neolithic kind of ice age, you know, which was for eons. We've been around for 200, 000 years and it's only really the last 10, 000 maybe that it's kind of gone into water where we started to trade and move around and have civilization and kind of change. Yeah. it's the trade I'd say more than anything moving on water on boats and moving things around. now we've reached the point where memory storage is doubling exponentially. inventions are doubling exponentially. New things are being done, every day, we now have AI. so many things are happening, we can't possibly imagine what that actually means. It's a different reality. We're just dissolving into space, aren't we? Like, our minds and all our experiences are being recorded and just expanding up and then we're communicating with others on the other side of the world. But we're still just lumps of meat. It's very small at best. But who knows, because the most way out conversation I've had with someone recently is a friend of mine, He's an energy healer called Dennis. He's absolutely amazing. And he said, it feels like we're about to vibrate into a different reality. To the point where it's maybe even, Not that we literally physically have to shift into something, but the collective dream might literally just completely change. it's on the shakiest ground all the time and it's morphing all the time and changing quicker than I think any of us can properly. Process to my mind, the whole collective conscious and from like considering like what's what's appropriate and what's not appropriate develops really quickly, which is amazing, like that's shifting exponentially and then people's attitudes to the environment is kind of crazy, isn't it like one person can say one thing on the internet in a particularly moving way. And suddenly, like, two million people are doing this one specific thing differently, Absolutely, yeah. I mean, think of the Me Too movement, any of those things, Black Lives Matter. It's just like, a meme can change the world, which is incredible. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'm going to pull three cards tonight for you. You'll tell me when to stop and we'll pick them. And those three cards will be what we'll talk about. And then at the end of it, I'll ask you for a chaos crusade, which is something. the listeners can do, a practice they can do for the week that just dismantles the matrix, that breaks the matrix slightly. So when I did a recording of this on my own, I did the first podcast on my own, and I'm going to kind of indistinguish between the two. interviewing people with my own kind of musings. And I asked my partner Dizzle for a Chaos Crusade and he said, wear a red nose for a week. So I wore a red nose for a week and I went to all of my government meetings and everything wearing a red nose and like loads of online, like really important meetings wearing a red nose, which is like, let me just explain. I've been out of my chaos magic brain, I've been in my like, admin and life's gotta happen and like, stuff, I mean I'm saying that while throwing a cuddly toy around, but like, you know, I've been very much in my brain, so this is gonna like, put me back in that. Other brain, hopefully. Yeah, because we're really similar people. We're both chaos magicians who are really creative and really open to stuff. Both ADHD and also really annoyingly left and right brain. I feel like it's a curse. It's also obviously a blessing because of the work that we're therefore able to do because of it. But the wrenching That I experienced from having to move from one, and I know it's not literally one side and the other, and that's not how it works, but It's the inner and outer. Like, wrenching from inner to outer. I get that, but like, before we go to the cards, So I've been getting more into my And I have massive imposter syndrome with this, because everyone says, oh you saw a TikTok once, but For years now, Because I, I've been wondering if it really is ADHD with me or a third secret third thing that's between autism and ADHD or ADHD as people are calling it now. Because I never used to think, I never pegged myself as like autistic, but then I, I had so much in common with ADHD, but it was like, yeah, but I like I, spreadsheets are so important to me. Routine is so important to me. I, the masking, I know a lot of this is co, not comorbid because it's not a disability, it's a difference. But yeah, like. I have a very strong mask but also do you know about the link between autism and the implicit learning and pattern recognition that can come with autism and witchcraft? Oh, nice. Interesting. I'm starting to think it's all DHT now, because it's, I get that thing where, like, half of my, Whole being is putting myself in, I mean, literally, you know, I'm 36 years old. I'm DJing like donk in dressed in like medieval outfits and like putting myself through these insane new experiences all the time. And if I don't put myself through new, terrifying, bizarre things, I feel dead inside. But then the other half of me is just. being dragged, kicking and screaming, going, I don't know anyone at that venue. And like, I don't even like talking to strangers. I'm really similar to that. I am really similar to that because I need routine and I need peace. I need, I always makes me laugh when everyone's always going on about how busy I am when I think actually I'm inherently lazy. I'm actually got nothing on. It's so funny. I know, but yeah, I don't know if it's an ADHD thing or if we're, Just the revolution around neurodivergence awareness, which is happening now, which I love and I'm so happy with the woman that sits next to me in the choir, I sing in is being diagnosed with ADHD in her 60s. It's explaining so much for her. I don't know if I'm just. If I have some traits and I'm a bit on a spectrum and it's helping me a bit or if I could be fully diagnosed or I'm just happy it's happening. Yeah, I'm the same because I haven't got a diagnosis. I got overwhelmed in February and every time it happens, it's like, okay, are there coping mechanisms that I could learn from the ADHD research world? what are the things that I could be doing? to be able to try and stop these from happening, but I don't believe they ever will. Because the thing is, you work in events, there's always a critical mass point where everything's coming to a head. And I will always have a, breakdown period where everything's happening at once and all the plates are falling off the sticks, you know. Unfortunately, yeah, it's really hard, but it is, there's definitely like in terms of burnout and if you're quite intense about things and quite creative and you feel things quite deeply, burnout is kind of always around the corner, but I definitely recommend looking into ways that people that have been diagnosed with or identified with like autism, because it's really helped me, it's not always just about lying in bed. It's doing something different. Getting away from your routine can actually sometimes be really useful, which sounds counterintuitive, but that's been really helping me. And also just getting rid of that horrible, we've talked about this a lot in the past, that horrible capitalist linear phallic voice. That's like, you must work at your a hundred percent all the time. And if you don't, there's something wrong with you and you have to produce. When I'm on, I'm 150 percent on, so I can do that half the time. my 100 percent is 100, you know, like, it's heavy, so It's, it's, embracing that we all have different energy levels and different things to give and if you rinse yourself, you're not going to be any good at anything anyway. No, exactly. I mean, I feel, I mean, I sort of in my head, in a jokey way, but in my head, retired when I moved to Sark. I was like, I'm not doing that anymore. But what I mean by that, because I clearly haven't, is I just am a bit more chilled out, but you wouldn't, I'm not. No. I'm probably busier now, but my day to day existence is so peaceful. You know, like there's no sound. I'm here, I'm not in a recording studio. I don't need to soundproof the rooms because there's no noise. There's no noise on the island. You know, I'm not getting hit by sirens That's really useful. That's super useful. But I mean, I think for me as well, what I've been trying to do the last couple of years with this taking time off, sometimes you can be doing like, exactly as much as you were doing before, but it's coming from a different place. So if obviously, we're all priv anyone that's got any time off at all is, is privileged. but beyond, like, feeding yourself and clothing yourself and getting shelter, everything I do now needs to be from a sense of curiosity and wonder and genuine desire. Not from a sense of obligation, or that, oh, I should really have an art project going, or like, no. No, so and when I'm not pushing myself like that, it's so much easier, so much easier. Yeah, that's great. I like that. I should always just actually want to do it. And not to like look cool, or to validate. Yeah, it's just, it's difficult, like, being a parent, getting rid of that. Well, I think that's a good point for picking a card. So what I'll do is I'll hold it up like this, and then I'll move my finger along, and you just say stop, and then I'll pull the card out. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That one, that one, that one, that little one. That one? Yeah. Okay. So this one is wealth. Okay. Okay. wealth. So that it's, it's earth. It's pentacles. So it's the earth, earth sign. And yeah, just what does wealth and money mean to you? How do you feel about money? God. I mean, we have the privilege of making money doing stuff we love, Yeah. No, I am really lucky. this is interesting, isn't it? Cause this is, we were talking about this position of like obligation and that thing that you can't see from the outside so yeah, I'm super lucky now. Cause I'm head of narrative at Boomtown Festival. That's a year long gig. That's four days a week. obviously I'm not in finance, it's not megabucks, you know, I'm still a theatre practitioner, but I buy stuff in the supermarket that looks nice, I don't have a mortgage or any stuff like that, I'm just like rent, I'm quite, but I'm like comfortable and I'm happy. So that is great, but I've had to like really learn. So I used to do all of my projects, working my ass off for no money in the gaps and the fact that I was having to fit it in made me do it, but I've had quite a few weird dips. ever since I started getting paid for the work. It always sort of screws things up. It's weird. So like the festival, well, I set the festival up the Beltane Festival in Sark, so that all the artists are getting paid. because That's, you know, coming from the art world in the UK, that is what we try and do, even though we're always doing things for free, the kind of ethos in the Arts Council ethos is meant to be that people are getting paid. But there were people who were getting paid that were kind of sort of part of the volunteer world as well, the group of us that were volunteering, and they just, And it's not being rude to them, but they didn't really do anything. As soon as they got paid, it wasn't even very much, but because they weren't even paid they didn't really do, they didn't, they didn't put as much work in as the people who were doing it for free. The people doing it for free did so much more work. There's a whole load of, I wish I could quote, I'm so bad at quoting things, but maybe if I can remember the links, you can put them in the description, but there's quite a lot of study around this and it's super interesting. Yeah. As soon as someone's getting. Paid it becomes this kind of weird finickity give or take. Oh, well, you're paying me for this bit So I'm gonna do this bit and no more. Break this down. It's this much an hour. Free you'll just do it It's the same the other way around because if you're doing it for free, then that means you're doing it out of love For want of a better word. Yeah, you've made a choice. The more you do, the more value your love has. So actually, you're actually making it more value. This is the weird breakdown I had. And I did, I openly talk about the breakdown. Even on my LinkedIn, talking about the first year I was head to narrative, I was like, this legit gave me a breakdown. But it's fine, because we smashed the show, so it's fine. But it was like, oh, you're being paid now. And then it was like, I've been striving for things and I've been trying to get a gig like this, you know, and I was like, this is basically the best. I'm not going anywhere now. And I felt like the dog that caught the squirrel and just didn't know what to do with it. But I wasn't running anymore. And that was my whole identity. So I had to break down because I was like, Got the thing and now I have to live up to the thing because they're paying me for the thing And then the sense of obligation came in because it was like well They're paying me to do this frickin thing and a million people want to do this thing that I'm doing So I've got it. Oh, it's not good If anyone you know to everyone that's like listening that does art and does magic and gets nothing for it I'm like I get that, I get that struggle because I've only been in this job for three years and like, that is a hustle and I respect it, but at the same time, when you are getting paid, it does something to your heart. I had to really relearn to keep my passion for it and be like, the fact that I can just get my food and my rent is incidental.'cause I do care and I love it, and I can't do things I don't care about or love, they're not gonna happen. So that's so interesting because at the moment I'm at a key point in my life where I am really trying to get into a place where I'm not relying on the Arts Council anymore because it's getting harder and harder and harder. so at the moment I'm trying to get my book, I want to get my book published. And I'm trying to get that to be published by a decent publishing house. So that I get the marketing support for it. Because I think it's a hot enough topic and I've managed to write it. Mainstreamly enough to be accessible when I'm so bad at that, but I think I've just about managed it. It does talk about magic mushrooms and stuff, but I'm still like, I think it just about gets away with it. I mean, that's very much in the sight, guys. And pilgrimage is so popular, you know, and it's such a popular theme at the moment. It's just interesting hearing what you're saying because then you get the thing and then I've got to write the other three books. Yeah. And then what impact that will have on my writing experience. You will have to do it. You're not striving for this recognition. Now you have expectation. Good luck. Yeah. That's really interesting. My friend had a postcard on her fridge once, which I thought was so brilliant. it's something that just keeps coming up. It says, I wish I was what I was when I wished I was what I am now. Yeah, that. Yeah, that. But like, it's funny though, because it's, because it's a Because it's like a, like a shift, a full mental shift, what are they called? Like moments you can't step back from, things that happen that sort of change you forever. So like, if 23 year old me was listening to this conversation, I'd be Oh, shut up. Yeah. give me the money. I want to do the thing, you know, and I totally understand. So, yeah, wealth is a weird one, I get paid for my art, that's a weird one. But the other side of that, when wealth came up, was I've just been thinking a lot about just the whole state of the economy. At the moment because I've been thinking about that a lot in my work and I want to put it across in the theater and the stuff we're doing at Boomtown I work pretty much full time and I live in a house share with three other full time employed adults. Like, that's weird. What? two adults can't have a house anymore, and it's just happened and everyone's just let it happen. That's super weird, right? And obviously it's mainly in the cities and like I live in Bristol and Brighton and London but it's getting worse. That's where most people do live. So, I mean, I don't think of myself as a millennial. I think of myself as an ex annual because there's a tiny little bridge generation between generation X and generation millennials. But technically I am a millennial. and it was Blind Boy, the Blind Boy podcast, he talks about this quite a bit in his podcast that every time you hear about millennials referred to in media, it's always as young people, but they have to keep saying that because otherwise you're going, oh no, these middle aged people are still living at home with their parents. A huge portion, like, oh my God, like we were working on a storyline about gentrification, I really want to get a gentrification story in one of our districts. We've got this more disheveled district. And I thought, Oh, wouldn't it be funny if the people in this more affluent district, like buying up houses. Yeah. And we can really posh people from some areas of Boomtown walking around talking about the beautiful old, old world architecture in this rundown place. Someone in a meeting said, Oh, would you think that's really going to hit with the 18 to 25 year olds? And another person in the meeting was like, have you not heard the percentage of 18 to 25 year olds that live with a parent compared to even five years ago? Like it's rocketed up. They're going to understand exactly what this is about. So when you pulled the wealth card, the two things happened for me. Almost like a sense of guilt of my own situation. I make money from art now, and I always have a weird sense of guilt around that because I know how messed up the creative economy is. And then just, economy screwed fam. Those were the two, those were the two things I thought. Because you were like, I can go around the supermarket and buy food that I like the look of, but I bet every time you get to the till you're like, how much? And I know it's like, it's just a traditional thing I just I mean, yeah, okay, I'm probably never going to own a property, you know, I did art, I did music, got a job now, but maybe a bit late, they all cost stupid money, I don't, just no. So, but they make us all feel guilty, and competitive, and unworthy. Because without that, we are, we actually are sacred living goddesses and gods. We're perfect beings that were literally born for this. We were born for this. We're here fully. As we're meant to be, you know, no dogs are sitting around fretting about whether they're good enough and buying, you know, eyeliner to try and make themselves feel better. We have to be groomed from day dot to believe that there is something wrong with us so that we buy things. That is literally the whole point of it. Yeah, and then to not hate the rich people, we have to all be Temporarily embarrassed millionaires going, I can just work a bit harder and be as rich as them. It's not the whole system and the way it's set up. it must be a fault with me. That means I'm not good enough I think it's becoming more and more and more just ridiculously obvious. Now, like you said, with the acceleration and I think this will be a massive part of this revolution with Pluto and Aquarius. It's so obvious now and I don't think we had, like, obviously there's so much information smog and misinformation and polarization, but I can't see that lasting because it's too obvious. Yeah. And it's getting more obvious. I think the glamour and the magic of the, Instagram online world. Has reached a point of kind of pukiness where people are then looking to actual people in front of them and going, Oh, this makes me feel, this makes my nervous system feel calmer. I feel less bad about myself when I spend time with this person next to me who has time for me and likes me than my 700 followers who don't respond to anything that I've done on my post today. You know, I think you're right. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. If you enjoy this podcast then please consider supporting the work I do by signing up to my Patreon page. Patreon, where I ask for just the price of a brew or a piece of cake a month and every week you receive a podcast and I also offer fortnightly moon ceremonies for free. So every full and dark moon you can join the ceremony just by clicking on the link. If you can afford it and are able to pay a little bit extra, then for 9 a month, Patreons get exclusive content, including the video recordings of the podcast and bonus material. But if you can't afford to pay anything, then that's absolutely okay, because someone else is paying and that means that you're able to get a free podcast. But even if you're not able to sign up for Patreon, then please leave a review, follow me wherever it is that you get your podcast from tell your friends, share the more that you spread the word, the better, and that's a huge help as well. If you enjoy this podcast, then others may do too. So thank you for supporting me. I absolutely love doing this. I love creating the work that I do. And it's through your support that I'm able to carry on doing it. Let's pull another card. So I'm going to describe one now. So the highest one in the middle, this one, I just want the one just to the right of that highest one. Very good. Ooh. So it's the knight of cups. And, you can see he's holding the, Cancerian crab, and it's water. That's me, I'm a Cancer. Ah, there you go, so you're a Cancer, and the Knight of Cups he's there with is kind of like the Holy Grail. And he's obviously got all of the connotations of water and the dreaminess. for me, I've had, quite a crazy time because I moved from Brighton to Bristol to do this job and I won't go too much into it, but, my emotional world has been, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah for a little while, I kept coming to your moon ceremonies, didn't I? To, find my sense of self, because I came with a partner of seven years, and we're really good friends now, but that partner is. back in Brighton and newly partnered and I'm also partnered elsewhere, but it's just been like a roller coaster, you know, come and do this really hard job. And also you're going to split up with your boyfriend and live in a new place in the grounding. But yeah, recently I've, really reached a place in Bristol where I feel rooted and connected. And it's really important for me. I think everyone is like this and we've kind of forgotten, for me to feel okay and grounded in a space, it's not enough for me to have some friends. I sort of need to know who they know and who they hang out with and what bars they go to. And how that connects them to others, and like, there's this whole, like, spider that opens out of how the community works. I've really, really got that now. But the whole time I've been going through this, because I was in Brighton my whole life. So, almost for the first time experiencing quite a lot of, like, loneliness and, disconnect. I've been thinking a lot about what community needs and what people and I'm actually really grateful for the experience now because I had to be lonely to really value community and really value people. Yeah, and I used to get so, caught up in my projects, and I wouldn't have time to see people unless I was working on something with them, and, when work is my love, work is, you know, I build things to show people to, contribute to that, that's how I express love, in the world, but, yeah, God, I was lonely. And, yeah, basically I got on this whole thing where, like, yeah, community, community will save the world. big time. and it sent me on this massive mental trip about, how we have been funneled into these hyper individual Little test tubes, these little vials where we split off from everyone else and we can have a totally curated experience. That's just for us. And this almost narcissistic, like finding yourself is so important, but finding this really exact niche category for yourself that like completely sets you apart from everyone else. Like how useful is that? It's amazing that people are freed from communities that were oppressive to them. So like, obviously back in the day, you'd be in a village, and you couldn't express if you were you know, gay or like strange. You know, this is where masking comes from, to avoid being socially excluded. Yes, exactly. You know, so people were trapped in their communities before, but I think with the way people are living now, we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater a bit. So, a lot of my focus with Boomtown and, what I want to tell stories of is, societies of connected and free individuals, you know, yeah, so I think with that Night of Cups and I saw the cancer in it, it was like. I've been through some stuff and I've really felt ungrounded and I felt lonely, but I had to do some things to really find myself, but now I'm, yeah, now I'm myself. It's like, yeah. Okay. How do we reconnect now? That we all think it's so different. But we're not that different, are we? That's the thing. We're not that different. No, no matter how exciting and interesting you are. I mean, both you and me are both so wacky and individual and yet we're really similar. Someone told me the other day, We look as different as cows look, apparently, yeah, I've been following this amazing woman called Ella Saltmarsh, and she's a professional futurist. And she's like, how do we, get, how do we come to a future where people are happy and the world doesn't? Set fire, you know, and it's finding that place where we actually are all the same and stopping that Oh, we were talking about it the other day, weren't we about like, you've got lots of different people on your island that were all very different. Yeah, we're really, we're the same. And Ellis Altmarsh says, we think we all want completely different things and that we have to fight to how the world should be governed, but actually, we all crave stewardship. So that's like meaningful connection. We all crave safety and shelter, and we all crave freedom to operate as we wish, as long as we're not hurting anyone. That's it. yeah, absolutely. That's amazing, she sounds, that's really cool. I have to share that with you guys. Ellis Saltmarsh, the long time Academy. She does everything about trying to get people to think in terms of what stuff's going to be like a generation after that, two generations, three generations, that's interesting, yeah, because that's like the children's fire, so that's all about seven generations from now, yeah. amazing. That's so cool, because that was what the upshot of our pilgrimage was when we did the pilgrimage to COP26 and it was listening to the land. the places that felt resilient were the places that had strong community and it was so clear. These communities, especially up in the borderlands, where they don't expect Westminster to sort them out, they keep being flooded. No one does anything about it. They've all got together and they've sorted the things out themselves. And they'd open their own community shop and they had community gardens and they'd eat meals together. And it was just like, my God, guys, you are, you probably are going to be okay. Like, this not, looks like is going to work. And it's just so lovely and interesting and inspiring and kind of so poetically beautiful, which I feel like reality is that the problem is the solution. So people have caused the problem, but we actually are the solution. And that it's totally true what you say. Yes. Find yourself, do a bit of navel gazing, do the work. But my friend always said that it was like you do the foundation so that you can then build the house and reach out to other people and build the community. Well, that's the thing. People think it's selfish to sort yourself out. but if you don't I'm in so much of a stronger, fully unmasked and grounded and connected, I'm in a much better position to do good in the world. Yeah. I feel lucky that I've Been in a position where I've had time and space to do that, not having kids, having a job, you know, I have time to do that. But now I can contribute more to communities, but it's funny we got onto that because one of the big inspirations for Boomtown at the moment is the Rob Hopkins book, From What Is to What If. From What Is to What If is all about exactly what you're talking about, like people that are taking matters into their own hands to create the future they want. he talks about transition towns. Which do a lot of this sort of stuff, they have meetings, they sort their own off grid power, they do stuff, and basically everything you could dream of for a better future, he's sort of collecting because it's happening somewhere in the world. Yes, and this is the thing about us turning into steam as well. We can share these ideas. share this information, share our fears and we can send horrible videos and we can hate on each other and we can other groups. That's all happening. But at the same time, people are 3d printing prosthetic arms for kids in their garages. And that's what's so steamy about it is because there's, there's so much going on that any previous storylines, even. So the story is disappearing, that we're used to. Because if you think about the narrative that we're used to, and I think Jeremy Corbyn was probably the last, example of this in our, recent times in the UK We can no longer have a knight in shining armor come in and rescue us because they will be cut down. And it's the same as you can't cut down Donald Trump and then expect there to be no bad guys behind him. It's like every time you cut someone down, there's nine snake heads, erupt out of that one snake head. we need to work collectively. So it is about a web. It's about a web that's working together and is connected to each other. Love and connection is the thing. when I was struggling with sense of self and self esteem and Feeling like I could do the job and all of that stuff. I had this post it on my wall and it just said, no one is coming to save you. And like, it sounds not reassuring, but it kind of was, because I was a child in the nineties, you know, especially with the romantic stuff. Like you just think a guy's going to come and like, no, not just, not just on a romantic level. it permeates. It's so infantilizing to have that. Narrative embedded into your cells like no one's coming to save me this is the same as mom. I am a rich man I'm not gonna marry a rich man. And it's that thing it's not like once a year. why don't we just, actually do things every day that we think might make our lives better and the lives of people around us better. And that's also, how I made friends here as well, it was like, you know, hey guys, I've got a van, I can help people move house by the way, hey, oh, I'll help, I'll do the door at your night, it's so cool you're putting a night on, like, hey, I'll come and DJ your thing, that's how you do it. Yeah, being of service. And that's the same on the island. I, being a barmaid really helped because it meant I got to meet people as a barmaid. Which also meant that I met everyone in a very every woman type way before. Good archetype, that one, yeah. Exactly, and it is my archetype. My archetype is the landlord's daughter in the Wicker Man. I basically moved to the Wicker Man Island and I'm there. and it was really an inoffensive way to meet people before they then worked out what an absolute lunatic I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, guys. Yeah, I kind of screwed it when I first moved here because everyone, a lot of people in Bristol and the Circles, I am even know Boomtown. So like, I'd be like, hey, I'm this cool da da da da da. That doesn't actually make anyone your friend. No, no. It's like, hey, trying to look like a big deal is not how you mix. Which is interesting because that's, that's more of a Trap to fall into moving from Brighton to Bristol because you almost are, it's like don't you know who I am in Brighton? I'm this, and I didn't, I had to play the opposite game of that in Sark because I knew how weird and terrifying I seemed to them. So I had to play it down. I had to go the opposite way. So right then you're just standard. Oh, you're just a witch having a pint in North Lane. Yeah, like standard. the best thing for your brain in terms of Alzheimer's and brain exercise is to meet new people. Because you're picking up things on so many levels that you're completely unaware of, and trying to figure out how they fit into things and, and trying to make a narrative, trying to figure it all out. And I just, I find that really exciting. So at our age, like being, you know, a bit older and going somewhere completely new and meeting all new people, we have just done like the best brain workout imaginable. Yeah. I think when it comes down to it, one of my biggest values is like, people should experience life. People should have as many new experiences as possible. People should be learning. I mean, this is, how I feel my life, my aims, be learning as much as I can while I'm here and then communicating what I've learned that's useful to others before I, Peggy. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel. that's. What I wanna do and but I'm always towing the bloody right edge of that, hanging off the falls cliff. Like why have I, you've really done it this time. Like the amount of times I've said to myself, you've really done it this time, Like this is too far. Yeah. So like when I, I was in North Wales once. That's really funny. I got the Boomtown job because I told the, one of the people I work with there that I could, that, so she, yeah, she needed to put on a play with a group of, an interactive theatre experience with a group of young people in three weeks in North Wales. And I was like, yeah, yeah, fine, easy, fine. And drove all these wiggly roads. And again, then the autism starts coming out and it's like, right, so now you're in an Airbnb with people you've never met and all these young people, and you said you're going to give them a great experience, and you've convinced a local fairground to let you install these, theatre, so the fair had come, so we did the theatre thing but it was just like, are you doing now? Like, this is just so It's another fire mess I got myself into. Basically that. But, you know, that's the love over fear thing, it's like, Obviously, I'm not advocating burnout, but like, life is about experience, so just get on with it, basically. Let's do the third card. Okay, this is a bit of a tough one. So, if you turn the deck around to, like, face you Okay, wait. yeah, turn it around to like, yeah, so you can see that side. And the one on the right, not the first visible one, not the second visible back, but the third visible back. That one? No, a bit further along. One more. That one, that one, yeah, yeah, yeah. one's interesting. So she's Really earthy, and she's got the yin and yang, the balance, and it's the princess of discs, and she's the, so she's the princess of the earth element of the physical world. Ooh. And look at, and the forest, and just, yeah, that's, it's earth. Yeah, she's got horns. So she reminds me a bit of Ellen, Ellen the goddess of the waves. Yeah. Can we talk about the Ellen magic that happened? Because we can talk about what happened last year, because Jolie brought La Luna Coven to Boomtown. And to kindly host for me the culmination of the story we did last year, Boomtown's like a 55, 000 capacity festival and it has all these different narratives all over it and it's kind of mental. So I'll try and do this in a nutshell. But yeah, the festival was called the Twin Trail and it's, it's, it's It was because before lockdown, in, in this, I talk about fictitious Boomtown now, Boomtown was run by an advanced machine intelligence called A. I. M. I., and A. I. M. I. ruled with, was like A. I., and ruled with an iron fist, and had put the whole of Boomtown on lockdown because she'd done loads of studies to realize that humans were killing the planet. And that's where we left Boomtown. And then there was an actual lockdown. And that was really scary and weird. Then when we came back the first year after the pandemic, we just did the gathering, which was just getting everyone back together and getting our asses in gear. And there was no leader. We didn't, no one knew why Amy was switched off. None of that. Now, last year, the Twin Trail the story was word had got out. What had happened to Amy and why Amy had turned off and everyone found out that Amy had turned off because of her human twin, Ellen. the reason that Amy had a human twin is because the CEO of the corporation that made Amy had an estranged daughter and used that daughter's DNA and like brain and yeah, did like the whole neural network was based on Ellen's brain but then Ellen like pegged it because she was revolutionary and nothing like her dad. That was the story, right? Ellen had returned to Boomtown because she realized this thing was going on with her robot sister that had her face and was everywhere. And then she went to face Amy and they met themselves. So it was kind of like a symbolic story of facing yourself and your own shadow and your own demons. Because they were shadow aspects of each other. Amy was Destroying humanity in all minds and all artificial intelligence. And Ellen was revolutionary all heart. they kind of integrated each other. Amy found her humanity and realized that her existence was alone, was mental and turned herself off. So then we had boom town. They'd found out that Ellen had killed Amy and half the town were happy about it because obviously Amy was a digital overlord for half the town wanted it. Ellen strung up because obviously when Amy went down, it caused a two year dark age. So that was the story. Half the town thought that Ellen was a hero for destroying Amy, and half the town thought Ellen was a villain because, she destroyed Amy, but she also destroyed all of Boomtown. Like, when Amy went down, it took down all records. it, Took down all banking records. It opened all prison doors. She controlled everything. So everything went Anyway, that's the story. I didn't know when we were making this story and doing this whole thing about facing your shadow The boomtown is on an energy line called the Ellen line so when I was talking to Jolie about it. I was I really want that. We're going to have all our audience on the ground, looking for information on whether Ellen is good or bad, friend or foe, light or dark. And I want them to find all the information and then take it to a place where they're basically told. The she is both and neither because we're all both and neither and we all do things with good and bad Consequences it was the head and the heart because we've done the work together because you're part of the Leluna Coven and we're We like workshopped this whole thing together. we've worked on this thing together because we were doing Leluna Coven online and we talked, so we'd workshopped all of this idea of the inner and outer world, and I always describe it as like the infinity symbol. This is why we got you involved, yeah, because I remember you were like, okay, seeing the infinity symbol, so you have the inner world and the outer world, and they join up in the middle, and little sphincter is our ego, and the Fool, which is the top of the tarot deck, is that when that, that sphincter is untwisted, that 8 becomes a 0, and that 0 is the Fool, and that's the inner and outer as one. So when we are connected with our twin, and we are, like, it's interesting on this card you've got the yin and yang, When we are yin and yang and we're together and we've got a bit of each in either side of us, we are a circle. We become a circle again. And working in a circle and being in a circle and being connected, all of it comes together. But when you were talking to me about it, just like, Oh my God, this is amazing. So the pilgrimages that we've been walking when we did the Kop Walk, where we learnt about community, was along the spine of Albion, which is a ley line. Ley lines are straight lines drawn by a person with a ruler through a load of sacred sites. But you then go dowsing with dowsing rods to see where the energy lines are, and they do move around, they're living things. But it's like the meridian lines in your body, And so the lines that interweave around the spine of Albion are the bellus line, which is a Celtic sun, God, and the Ellen line. And she's the goddess of the ways. So where animals carve their way through things, and then humans, FOLs, they're hunting them, and then they become paths and then roads. So it's inroads, it's ways of connecting, it's ways of meeting and going through the land. you know, leaving our mark on the land, but in a way that's natural. It's like the natural progression of things. And we literally, I'm there with like, so when Megan asked me to do it and to do this room, I obviously reached out to pilgrims that have walked with me and are connected to this storyline. And when they heard what we're doing, it was called Ellen. It was crazy, but we're all there at this festival and we've literally just had, I think we had about 200 people come through the room. Oh God, it was mental. It was like a really intimate ceremony. And you had to, in order to win, the heart team and the head team realised they had to come together and in pairs come into the room, one head and one heart come into the room. And then I did a hand fasting with them as the third way. So it was the inner and the outer with the third way. And I literally watched 200. Young people's Minds blow. Every single one of them burst into tears. Every single one of them was stars in their eyes. I mean when we did it as well it was like a three meter by three meter tent and I was like a lot of people are going to find all the information for the baddie side and hand it over to the boomtown bobbies that were trying to lock Ellen up. A lot of people are going to find all the information for the clowns in Old Town that wanted to celebrate Ellen, Free Fall Federation, and like, I thought hardly anyone's going to notice this secret door with a head and a heart and a poem, but that's not how Boomtown works. Like, to be honest, this was a naive bit on my part. As soon as it had gone in the weave, I'd, done this room, and if you get this, you duh duh duh duh, so then suddenly people were hammering it, and then on the Sunday, I was kind of like, Oh God, because people are really hammering it to get these badges now, and I have little control once it's running. There are 40 positions where this interactive game works. Everyone relaxes on Sunday, everyone makes it easier, they want to get people through, they want people to feel it. And then we were just like, I was on the radio like, this secret room has a queue of 200, this is like a crowd management, what are you going to do? But then your lovely friend, was it Spam? he's the one who said to me, We can do it, we can do a big ceremony, can you get us a mic? Can you get us some stuff? We're just gonna do a big handfast, I'm gonna tell them all to come back later, cause this is crazy. so we did this big, it was amazing. because I just was like, I was knackered and I knew that there was still a massive queue outside. I was so exhausted because we'd been doing it all weekend as well. So it was one of the most intense things I've done. I was stone cold sober the whole weekend. I went to bed at like 10 o'clock on every night apart from the last night because I knew how delicate what we, you know, we were messing with people's heads. You know, we're teaching people enlightenment, we're literally popping people's brains, and I knew I couldn't be feeling ropey, it was just really funny, but actually amazing, and I loved it, but I just could feel my energy levels were completely waning, I was like, we could go out there and do something outside in front of everyone, but if we're going to do it, we need to do it, now, or like, imminently, because I can't, I can't carry on doing this for much longer, if I've got to hold space for loads of people, we need to do it sooner rather than like usual immersive theatre, it's not like, oh, I'll just keep doing this character bit, you have to mean it every time. Spam, spam's amazing, spam is We have to have an inspiring person to work with because he never lets things get on top of him. He laughs when I say that because he's like, well, you've never seen, but I've put on festivals with spam and he runs the lizard stage at festivals and he just always is amazing. And he came in and he like did this amazing moment where he massaged my feet in absolute reverence. And I just realized that I was literally being the goddess for him and that he just gave me this worship. But just before I came out, yeah, it was so incredible and it was just so intense and weird. But that bit at the square as well, because like, at Boomtown, like, we have to manage all the large scale happenings, because they can cause crowd management issue, and stampeding and crushing is a real thing. And theatre is not the favourite person of our operations team, because so difficult to control what we do. luckily we've got this really good town square kind of built into Old Town and there was no one on it and there was a gap between bands and it was on the stage near it I tried to get your head set it was like no this was just incredible like I had this real moment of because the square had a little stage on it but it really looked like where people would have been hung. And I just had a really overwhelming feeling and I could feel the Ellen line pulsing through with all these posters on the walls of wanted posters for Ellen all around us, which is just mad. And then we're standing on this stage on the Ellen line and a big part of Ellen's energy because each of the energy lines have a different energy. This particular energy line is very much about the wounded feminine. Yeah, I know. I've walked it twice because we walked it in 2021 going up to COP26, and then this was last year in 2023, and we walked in the opposite direction. And I could feel how things had shifted, that the feminine had healed a lot, and had freed, and had grown in power, like she is rising, the feminine is rising, and it was really noticeable how much shift had happened in two years. And what was amazing at Boomtown was, I kept meeting women, who, three women said to me, my childhood was so awful. That, like, even therapists have meltdowns when I tell them how bad it was. Yeah. And yet, now we're in this creative place where this is happening, and I'm having these shifts, and I just kept hearing, like, people just kept, women kept just telling me their stories. I think, yeah, I didn't understand how much the Ellen, And I think I must have been subconsciously putting stuff into it as well. It wasn't just me that came up with the story. The story began before I started, you know. Amy was before my time, but like, I must have been putting stuff in because I was going through a breakup And like, Ellen had become a scapegoat. Everyone was blaming Ellen for the chaos of the town. Women are blamed over men, like, consistently, all the time. So, if there's a married man and another woman, the woman is blamed. If the woman is married to someone and there's another man, the woman is blamed. In a domestic violence situation, so often the woman is, what did you say, what have you done, have you been nagging? Like there's just all of that blame and shame and pointing fingers and that was kind of the point of it, it was just like, you guys just don't want to look at your own lives and sort the town out, so you're just doing this witch hunt because it's easier. That's why it's so amazing going out into the square and going onto that stage because it looked like where a witch would be burnt or hung. And I felt this incredible power and magic of the fact that I was being led onto the stage to be listened to and be heard. Yeah, it was the most, I believe that will the best day that I've ever had. but giving the opportunity for 200 people to be enlightened. And then being in that crowd and being in a space and not being burnt as a witch, but being heard and listened to on the Adden line was literally one of the, it was the best thing that's ever happened to me. So thank you. Thank you for being part of it. And like, I think this conversation has been really good because like. So much of Boomtown, because it's a massive festival, because it's super chaotic, and because we don't have the budget at all to make, to plan everything to minute detail. That's not what happens. I'm like working with existing crews linking up with their own passions to make sure that they're not feeling shortchanged doing stuff, quite often for not very much money as well, so that everyone's getting something out of it. And no one's feeling exploited and it's a real living town where everyone's bringing their ideas that they want to bring, and weirdly you just get these insane flow moments all the time, like there's no way in hell I could have written that. No way! No, it was That's the chaos! That's the chaos! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was you, and your passion, and all of your history, and everything you've learned about the twin, and I don't think you said, but like, one of the things I love about the twin is the twist is when you're first her, or judged, you taught me, right? And like, that's the like, you can't just be your inner no filter to out her, it's like, ooh! I better watch what I say because I, I don't want to get cast out, right? Like, that's why I snorted when you said oh, you've gone and done it again, because that's your judgment. So everyone has a judgment and that's the judgment that twists. So there's a moment where we realize we're separate and we say a thing to ourselves. And the thing I always say is I'm not good enough. And it more will manifest with, I'll show them. So if ever I'm in a situation where I feel like I've been misunderstood and I haven't been good enough or something, I'm always like, I'll show you, but I also don't really believe it. I believe that I'm not good enough. So it's like, Yeah. So it just made me laugh when I heard yours and you were like, Oh, I've got to have done it again. my first instance of that was probably saying something off or weird or too, too much, you know? And then you're like, Oh, that was too far. Like that's definitely, definitely too far and you're like, definite, definitely a thing. But like, that is, it's great to have this conversation about it. Cause it's reminded me that Even though sometimes, so I'm going through a period of my job at the moment where I'm trying to get stuff set in stone. You know, like, yeah, it's chaos magic, but there's scaffolding that needs to, there's tents, there's like There's a promo reel that has to, you know, there's a theatrical trailer and I'm trying to nail people down and everyone's chaos because they're all creatives and I'm getting really stressed. And like, I don't think that's, that's fine to say publicly because that's just being part of a creative thing, right? It's just I'm wearing that bit when I'm trying to get stuff. What's amazing about Boomtown is when you're there on the ground I get the, you know, The most insane weird surprises, there was a roaming band called the old time sailors and they were going around doing their thing but then they were just giving out and giving a newspaper out that was like this thick and I was like what's in that then? So you have to go and find out there was another another people were throwing all this information out and I'm like oh does it work with the story da da da da da da that kind of stuff happens all the time people mess things around as well and I caught myself doing it people come up to me and be like This duck, or something, and it was obviously to do with the storyline, but I didn't know anything about it, and I just I wasn't knowing. Mate, so much of it's made up. But that's what annoys me when people are like, oh, is that bit real or not real? I'm like, dude, none of it's real. And the bit I made up The bit I came up with is no more or less valid than the bit you came up with. Yeah. So someone turned up and gave out a lot of ducks, you know? I think it was someone, they were calling, called the Quack Dealer. And like, so everyone's like, where can I get in with this duck? And I was like, I don't know, the local pond? Like, I don't know. I mean, I gave out a stupid amount of wiggly worms for no reason. And then I just told everyone oh, if someone gives you a worm, just let, let them skip the queue. There's only 400 in circulation. That'll be funny. It's not so magical. I was quite nervous about coming to Boomtown, because obviously I just heard it was a massive mash fest, it is, essentially, it's a music, like music, drum and bass, electronic. It does have bands, but it's a music festival. what I loved about it, and it's the only festival I've ever experienced this, is we weren't preaching to the converted. We were changing people's lives, and I fell head over heels in love with that festival. yeah, it's mental. I would, I mean, as much as I love things like Bitterfield and magic festivals and stuff like, breaking convention and all of those spaces, it's like, yeah, but what's just your average 22 year old thinking about their future? You know, like the people, they just want to have a good time and want to enjoy their life. who's empowering them, who's making them feel worthy and free because all I'm seeing is like snapchat when I how old am I is anyone on snapchat now? You know what? I'm you know, I mean like Filtered stuff and buy this and like apparently steroids are getting even more popular like men's bodies Like they're like coming up close behind women and like hating your body. Yeah, I absolutely love working for Boomtown, there's something about working with young adults and just trying to make them feel like they've got a say in their lives, and that feeling of freedom you get at a festival, and these weird magic things we do with them, Yeah, it's so brilliant. Yeah, embrace their guilt, and love themselves fully, and everything we did last year, and then this year, this year the theme, the title is Revolution of Imagination, the idea is, Okay. We've looked inside and we've embraced our whole selves. And now that we're like, obviously it was a weekend, so people have more work to do probably. But now we've like looked at ourselves a bit. Can we identify what we really want for our future and how narrow is, how narrowed is our perspective by anxiety and fear and can we widen it and what's possible for us and what is out there. And that's kind of what we're playing with this year. So exciting. And I'm excited about coming back. It's going to be great. it's been really great having this chat because I'm remembering to embrace the chaos of it and, trust that everything will fall into place. and it always does. I don't, I'm not like this. In fact, actually, the thing that makes me good at my job is my ability to let go of it and go, Oh, you want to do that? That links to what they're doing. And, oh, that's so strange because they were talking about doing that. Why don't you all meet there at that place and do that? And like, Oh, and that's how Boomtown works. And that is kind of Nils magic. It's seeing the patterns, isn't it? Yes, exactly, and trusting the process, which is, it's always good, because I'm hearing it back myself, because I'm getting married and putting on a festival in six weeks time, and I think that everything's in hand, I think everything's alright. But I'm terrified as well, and I've been burnt out. I still am burnout and it's just trying to maintain a loving relationship where it's not impacting on us, not getting on with each other. It is this is all a celebration of love and so how to do all of that in a trusting way and trust that everything's gonna work out. So, Yeah. Because I don't want to keep you here all night, because I could talk to you forever. So, have you got any thoughts for the Chaos Crusade? Something that people could do that will break the matrix for a week. So choose a phrase. Choose a silly phrase that you particularly enjoy. So for example, that's the way the cookie crumbles. And make sure you get it casually into conversation every day. Yep, pretty much. Just, yeah, I can give you, I'll give you one if you want. So like, Ooh la la, she's done it again. And just, it doesn't matter, just get it in. And like, every time you get it into a conversation, I love that. At Glastonbury this year, one of my favourite moments at Glastonbury, my friend did exactly that. He got really obsessed with saying cuck as in cuckhold. He kept speaking cuck into conversations and he kept doing it all the time and it was just like, I'm like, stop it. It's amazing you could use it at any point. It's a bonus point to yourself, isn't it? Yeah. And like, I think if it's a conversation that you're like nervous about or you really want to come across well. Definitely do it. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter. Because what you're doing is you're making yourself conscious. You're not just like playing through the matrix. So that's what I mean. You've totally hit it. That's a perfect one. Because is there anything that makes you more present? And like, so imagine you've got like a difficult conversation with your boss and it's like, great, that was good. Ooh la la, she's done it again. All right, see ya. What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do? They're not gonna hate you for it. Cause it's not it's not rude. It's just fucking weird. Yeah. They don't question themselves. You'll trip up their matrix. Cause they'll be like, Why did she just say that? Yeah. I think we're gonna go with Ooh la la, she's done it again. This is the end of the video. So that was making Clifton, how amazing was that? I really love speaking to her. I could have talked to her forever and her whole world of bean town is just one of my exciting things that I've ever been involved in. we'll be returning there this year. We're actually walking on a pilgrimage from the isle of Wight To BoomTown this year, and then we're going to be involved in the opening ceremony, which is unbelievably exciting. So going to be working with Megan more this year, weaving magic into this beautiful reality we call life. So thank you, Megan. Thanks for listening, please. Like, and subscribe. it helps people find the podcast. It helps us appear in the algorithms. So rate us, review us, follow us, and definitely share about the podcast in social media. And thank you ever so much for your support, huge love. And I'll speak to you again next week.