#12 Birth, death & all that’s inbetween: Joanne Tremarco and the locations of portals

I’m chatting to one of my oldest friends this week, Joanne Tremarco, who’s a birth and death doula, a theatre maker and fellow fool. I met Joanne through fooling nearly twenty years ago. Our relationship was tempestuous to begin with, but we came out the other side with a sister-like friendship and deep understanding of one another. 

Joanne is a sensitive soul who, like Denis, works a lot with energies and the unseen world. Heralding from Liverpool, she also talks about the many portals that can be found in that fabulous city and the different ways that she and other magical folks in the area work with the land around them.

You can follow Joanne’s work @foolsizetheatre 

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 me on Instagram @kriyaarts or the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook.

Hope you enjoy listening to this week's episode!

Transcript

0:02

The mountains and the caves. Wicked witches. Crusting the unknown. Okay. Um, You know, Yeah. Welcome to the nonsense and the chaos. This is your host, Jody rose. This week. I am talking to a really old friend of mine called Joanne Tremarco, who is someone that I met through fooling and we've been fooling together now for nearly 20 years. I don't need to do much of an introduction because we introduce, uh, right at the beginning of the podcast, but I just wanted to talk about a couple of the things that happen in it, because we don't then reference who they are. So we talk about bill Drummon, who was the one of the team members of KLF, which were the band that burned a million pounds. And they are discordian. And if you want to know more about that story, then there's an amazing book by John Hicks called KLF. I can't recommend enough, but it's all to do with this coordinator, which has, because he was in a theater show with Ken Campbell. Many many years ago. And on the wall, it said, is this heroic, which is why, when I'm at Beantown, we have that on the wall of our temple. And I know Ken Campbell, you might well recognize him. If you Google him. He was the TV presenter when we were children for kind of scientific stuff. If you're my age in my forties. But I was really good friends with his daughter cause she lived in Brighton and we used to put on cabarets together and her name is Daisy Campbell. Now Daisy and Ken and bill Drummon. Women have all been involved in loads of discordian happenings. And I'll yeah, right in the middle of chaos magic. And I'm linked to them in lots of different ways and they keep coming up in my life. I met Canem Brighton and he's very good friends with someone I used to go out with. And yeah, Daisy, as very good friends with Papi K who's Jonathan Case. Daughter, which is how I ended up becoming connected to Jonathan Cain. The fooling. So this whole discordian worlds interwoven. I just wanted to explain who they were, because that might have been a bit confusing when you listen to the podcast. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the show. This is my dear friend, Joanne Chamarco. I have known her since 2005, we think, was when you did the first workshop. Is that right? I think so. Yeah, I think that's right. And then we were just trying to work out when we both started doing the Nomadic Academy of Fools. I think it was, 2007. The first year we both went around and did the weekend workshops, Oh yeah, that's right, so the Academy started in 2006, and then we joined in 2007. So it's been a long time, we've known each other Wow, it's nearly 20 years, that's amazing. Um, like we've been through a lot, you almost are like a sister to me. And, I feel like we know each other on a really intimate level. both of us have taken, I mean, anyone who's done fooling with Jonathan makes it their own, like you kind of have to at some point, I think, don't you? And we've both gone off and done different things with fooling. but worked a lot with our archetypes. do you want to share a little bit of some of the things that you do? What's the kind of work that you do? The moment I'm doing a lot of, I'm working with a theater company for social change and I'm teaching fooling to this group. They've asked me to teach an in pro course. So I'm teaching it as a fooling course. and that's a group of women with all kinds of different access needs, but really brilliant. amazing performers. so that's taking up all my time at the moment and my head space, but I'm also a painter and I try to allow kind of archetypal presences to come through when I paint, and look at the relationships between these presences and me and, allow for some healing. I use the fool when I work as a healer. I consider myself fool as healer rather than healer as fool. Because that really helps me keep bringing it back and allowing it to pass through me, the healing. So I'm just a conduit, and it really helps actually perform better healings as well as, not get wrapped up in the idea of who I am. I keep going back to zero. I also work in textiles and I run lots of different women's groups, mostly working with. women trans women and non binary women as my main practice. And then of course, we both converged on your pilgrimage practice as well. Yeah. So Joanne did the pilgrimage last year where we walked from Edinburgh to the Isle of Wight along the spine of Albion following the Bellinus and Ellen energy lines. And we performed a play called Arthur's awakening, which was based on the legend of King Arthur or some knights who were asleep in a cave at Alderley Edge near Manchester, who when the land is in need will wake again and will ride forth and come and help us, defeat whatever the issue is. we were, suggesting that maybe the land really is in need at the moment and that it would be great to awaken these knights to support us in our hour of need. it was an amazing experience, wasn't it? Mm hmm. Yeah, surely was. Also your doula, talk about your doula. Doula, that's right. And again, fooling and doula work really, really well together. in the unknown really supports being in that birth space, which anything can happen. The babies, I tend to have a sort of psychic line with babies and pregnant women, really strongly available knowledge to know when, the women are going into labor, even if I've just supported them at a distance, that the babies wake me up on the inner world. they give me a message and ask me to share that with their mother, sometimes with their father, and that supports them to, have the birth that they are kind of, or get in line with their birth, the birth that they want to be moving towards, as well as in line with the birth that is coming through it may not always be what the mother is asking for. But yeah, I've supported lots of births, only a few in person, many online during lockdown, there was about 20. During lockdown, which is the end of life dealer indeed. Yeah. So that I began that when, I had a very beautiful and powerful experience with my mother when she was end of life, 12 years ago. And I really, was lucky enough to be present with the process from the beginning to the end of her dying. And, also very lucky that she wanted me to be there to give her energy healing. I was a little child that was really upset and stubborn and didn't want her to die and was bringing all kinds of far fetched ways to save her to the table, but able to see all of those parts of me playing out. to have all these different perspectives helped with that, to be able to move my, I am between grieving daughter, supportive healing friend, priestess, doula, and allow for this more rounded experience. And to forgive myself for not being able to show up sometimes. this beautiful kind of elaborate process of being with someone at end of life helped me to, yeah, helped my mum to, you know, be able to, I believe helped her to be able to let go not feel so afraid and to face her fears. I trained as an end of life doula with end of life doula UK. It's a lot paperwork though. So I never actually completed it because I'm not. I'm not great with the old paperwork, but lots and lots of training and how to support various different people at end of life. I often do it, at a distance, people call me and ask for support and messages It's a process of supporting people to find their sense of ease, which I think also comes from our work with Fooling and the work we did around Richard II as a text. can we be eased with being nothing? when coming into the world, when sort of having to surrender to, birth or when leaving the world, you're in that space where you have to be okay with being nothing, being powerful, being amazing, but, also being nothing. I made a show I mostly make solo theatre shows around things that are difficult to share and talk about, like death, grief, sex, which is, and these things are now becoming easier to talk about but when I first began it really wasn't the sort of thing that people were able to share deeply about, but you know, that was 12 years ago, things have changed it's great. And then also, the other thing that, I wanted to, mention is Eris, the goddess of discord and discordianism and Liverpool and you being a scouser and all the stuff that goes on up there to do with discordianism. I'm kind of on the periphery as I am with many things, but I have been to lots of the Talks of Day of the Dead events and, met with those events. Bill Drummond, and I've got a brick for the Toxteth Pyramid. some of my ashes, if I ever get burnt, I'm going to decide, maybe they'll have to just chop a finger off and burn that and put my ashes in Toxteth Pyramid, which is this whole kind of absurd. discordian idea that we're the people's pyramid and we'll start building it. It's going to take a long time and people in my area. So I live in Toxteth where it's happening. So I'm allowed a brick for a pound, but anyone else it's a hundred pound. and then you, every year on, the 23rd of November, people come together and the bricks get laid on this board and the board gets carried, around a pilgrimage around Liverpool, It takes most of the day. We walk around the bounds of the city, beating the bounds, and doing ceremony en route, and then in the evening the bricks get laid. that's a Daisy Campbell kind of thing. I'm definitely on the periphery of that world, I can very strongly relate to Eris, I'm not someone who works consistently with goddesses or deities but I have a strong awareness that she works with me. I'm a complete chaos myself, chaos monkey. It was a really fun conversation that me and Joanne had once, where we were, suggesting each other's deities or each other's archetypes. I suggested Eris, the goddess of discord to Joanne, and she suggested Bao Bao, the walking vagina on legs to me, which was really fun. I think they were both quite accurate. Brilliant. shall we put a card and see what the universe wants us to talk about? I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Right, you tell me when to stop. it will probably be a bit of a lag, so it won't be necessarily the one exactly that you want pointing, but there we go. Oh, it's the Prince of Cups and it's a very Watery looking card with a bird drinking from the water. Is that an eagle of sorts? not really sure what sort of bird it is. it's interesting, Liverpool's the pool of life, isn't it? And we have the liver bird. young had a dream about Liverpool and the pool of life and the liver birds coming in and the magnolia tree of the city. talk about that. I don't know this story. Tell me, I wish I could remember all the details, but we'll give it a go. Daisy Campbell and her gang of discordians, took a pilgrimage from Cern Abyss to Cern in Switzerland. at some point they also went to, Jung's house. that was a pilgrimage to mark the fact that Jung called Liverpool the pool of life. he had this dream. many years ago, about the liver bird, which was already here and that this pool was just, the bird drinking from the pool. there was a magnolia tree that sprung up magnolia trees are a symbol of China. And Liverpool has the oldest Chinese, quarter in Europe. Young wasn't aware of this about Liverpool, but it just kind of came through the collective unconscious, and then it became a very important place. so his bust is on Matthew Street. on a rock from Young's house. the discordians working before Daisy Campbell. probably alongside Ken Campbell, already had this relationship with. Matthew Street it's meant to be a cosmic ley line. So it bounces down. I think it bounces, this ley line bounces down in New Guinea and then in Iceland and then again in Matthew Street. So these three locations and then it's meant to go back up to the cosmos. So everyone thoughts about Matthew Street as this kind of portal that Jung had spoken about. And isn't there a manhole cover that's a portal that you can time travel through somewhere. That's right. That is on Matthew Street. That's in that area. I think you can weave these stories as you like them really. Many years ago, you mentioned working with Jonathan Kaye when I was living at his house with his partner and children. I used to accidentally end up on the astral highway to parts of Liverpool. there's no major lay lines mapped by anyone through the city, but honestly there's something going on I totally agree. Liverpool's one of the most amazing, it's got this bird and it's like the phoenix kind of thing, where it's very watery, so it's the opposite. But there's something very fiery and phoenix y about Liverpool. Like, it feels like when we went there with Jonathan, it was the only time I've ever seen him really challenged and questioned. there's something very everyman about Liverpudlians. They're, you know, scousers, off the earth people that are, you know, not posh, but they take no prisoners. They'll talk to anyone. they have no time for pretension or hierarchy or grandeur, they'll just talk to everybody. it's almost a baptism of fire to go there as an artist because it doesn't matter how great everyone else thinks you are, you might not come through Liverpool unscathed. And that was what we saw with Jonathan when we went there, he was ripped to shreds, which was the only time I've ever seen that happen. And people always say that it's like a national thing, isn't it? don't do comedy in front of Scousers. Everyone's a comedian. Cause they'll be funny. It's been a long time since I've performed at home. When I did, I was like, Oh my God, I can do it. It's like a miracle if you can get Scousers laughing. it's a very heartfelt city. someone said, It's a scorpionic city. So that would relate to your water symbol as well, wouldn't it? But that is like, it's just got such a sting in its tail. And if things, take here. They can take anywhere. Things kind of take off here. And what's your connection to Liverpool? are you from there? Yeah, so my family are from a place called Cantle Farm, Stopbridge Village. it's just outside of the city, but they were born in, My dad and my mom and all my other family were born in the city center, they did these city clearances, of the working class, areas, not all over, because there's still pockets of working class houses, but they cleared everyone out and separated everybody. So my nan was one of five sisters and they all got separated to different parts of the city on the outskirts. where my nan got sent was in between two very posh estates, Lord Derby's estate and, Lord Sefton's, I go walking around and you find peacock feathers and things like that. it was just, you know, proper 1950s style. Prefab, council houses. It's a huge, huge estate council house estate. and it's, you know, it's got the reputation of being one of the roughest places in the country, but my family, my mom and dad were the first to go to university. so we moved away from the city very early on. I think I was two, but even before that we moved across the water to the Wirral. So all my family are here. So it's always had a big magnetic draw. I've always knew I'd come back here. I was always deeply grieving to leave here, not just family though, but to leave the city as a child. It took a long time to want to go. I moved back around the time that we came here as Fools. I think that's when I decided I was definitely going to move back here. I started living in a bookshop on Mount Pleasant. Recommend going to that bookshop. What's so good about the bookshop? It's just, I think Jerry is what's good about the bookshop is it antiquarian bookshop. I used to know what was in there. He hasn't got a clue what's in there. Sorry, he'll probably tell me otherwise. Or he just isn't interested in certain customers and when they ask, he's like, no, we haven't got it. I'm not quite sure, but he's very foolish, he opens when he wants to open, Yeah, it's amazing that Liverpool's still able to be like that, because it feels like the high streets are not really flexible in that way anymore. when we were up there, there were kind of empty spaces we were able to stay in, What was the name of the place that we performed in? The Mellow, it was a cafe years ago, and then it became Mellow Mellow. So, 2008 there was a, a organization, a housing, not housing association, property developers called Frentzens, they, Had loads of properties and the most wise move they made was to let loads of artists stay in there and compost. So we had an incredible nightclub, an incredible cafe, loads of artists studios. I did a walk recently with a group of people showed them all the places we were sharing, all the places that used to be. ours used to be artists. So now they've all gone. so it's that kind of thing of getting artists to do the composting of the city. But that network and artist community is still really strong as a result of that. often it can feel quite abusive in these situations where you get given a property and then get kicked out. It actually feels like the artist community gained a lot from that experience. And that lasted in 2008 Probably about 2013, so there was a good five years in those properties. It was amazing. And do you feel like the Irish connection as well is part of why Liverpool is so unique? I think so. I mean, it's got like my, so my ancestry is Scottish. I don't think we've got any Welsh. We've got Scottish, Irish and Italian, from those generations, like a few generations back. But yeah, you still feel them I still identify as Scottish, Irish and Italian, less, less Scottish. But, even though, you know, you know, it's way, it's back a good few generations. I think people do identify as not being British here. very much. all those communities are known for being storytellers. but obviously it's got this really traumatic history as well. You know, 75 percent of slave ships came out of here. it's a huge, huge scar on the landscape. and they're trying to, but also a lot of people say to me, that they come here and think, although it's really difficult, it's one of the cities that is most actively trying to, acknowledge its history and its past on a day to day basis and find ways to move on, Yeah, because I didn't pick up on that from Liverpool, whereas I did in Bristol. I felt like Bristol had a really dark, heavy energy from that, but I hadn't actually picked up on that in Liverpool when I'd been there, It feels like there's so much going on in Liverpool. it's very cosmic, isn't it? Yeah, there's so much going on, absolutely. And although we've got lots of kind of Beautiful park. There's a lot of people do ritual in Liverpool. The back of my garden opens up to a park where, some people grow food and do community food projects, every, every solstice, equinox, every, every festival, they do ceremony and I was joined in the park by an oak tree. And then they also do it down. the road just outside. So it's got two cathedrals, Liverpool on Hope Street, and Anglican and the Catholic Cathedral, but it's a much older ley line. Although it's not on any maps, like I know for sure it is a much older ley line. their squash nutrition, project, With the community gardens the community cafe and the community shop is all on there. then this line continues to the park where I am, where Damanhur community, the Time Lord time travel community, they've created a labyrinth in that, a spiral around a tree there's a woodhenge and there's so much going on there because it needs to be going on there. as if it already was an energy portal, but needed lightworkers to go and keep, like, instead of closing the port, but keep the portal open, but keep it connected and, So what's done has connection to Liverpool. How come they're there? I think it's through Greg who we stayed with in Liverpool the first time when you came. also I know Daisy and those folk, went to Damon Hair on that pilgrimage too. explain what Damara is to people. You dunno. So the thing, the thing that I remember about it is that it was a community that started, in the sixties, wasn't it? it set up as a community that didn't use money. so they had their own money. they have this underground temples, which are, that's the thing I might remember the most, beautiful stained glass, extraordinary stained glass window, underground temples. and they work with time travel. everyone there considers themselves a time traveler. I don't know enough about it. For some reason, I've gone like, oh, that's amazing. I'm not going there. the one thing I know about it is it's an ex volcano and they have a time machine it's only people who are part of the community you're allowed to use the time machine or, or know, you know, know how it works. but it's like an integral part of their community and it feels like that's one of the communities that's lasted longer because Often communities, it seems like a really lovely idea and it's something that I was really passionate about, wanted to do, and was looking into, it's really difficult for a community, more like a commune kind of thing, like an alternative community, because if it's based on a set of ideals, the, Best case scenario will be that it lasts as long as that generation lasts, the children will rebel, but quite often it doesn't even last one generation because people fall out with each other it only takes one person to move or dynamics to shift, you know, a partner who doesn't fit in quite right or whatever. so having a community based on ideal seems to falter. Obviously somewhere like Brighton or Bristol where. A lot of people are on the same page. You can have a nice community where people are all kind of into the same thing. the thing I'm reflecting on a lot in Stark is that we are, a cross section of society, we've got everyone, billionaires, Sun readers, Guardian readers, we've got Brexiteers and Remainers so it's just got everybody living in one little place and there's not that many of us, it just feels balanced. it's challenging because you're so close to people that you wouldn't normally hang out with or have anything to do with. And yet it means it's a really functioning space because you've got everyone covered. You've got all the humors covered. You've got the clerics, the phlegmatics, which is what we did with Richard II when we were working with Richard II, we worked with the humors. the idea that people are like cleric and sanguine and phlegmatic and Melancholic. it just feels like we've got a balance of everybody here. But the thing that I like about Danganronpa is that, it's based around a kind of creative idea. And that seems to have made it last longer because it's A mad idea And just that concept, that thing about time traveling. And when people say to me, can you read the future? I'm like, sometimes I time travel because time and space isn't linear. Sometimes I fall through the gap. but they've actually gone, no, we're going to work this. We're going to figure it out. How do we do that? How do we cross timelines? How do we fall through the gap from the little experiences I've had? It's like, oh yeah, it's actually really, you know, Feels quite normal, doesn't it? I am. I'm in tomorrow and I don't know how my husband's going to fail his driving test. But, yeah, those sorts of things. So they've just chosen to do that and like really intentionally doing that. And so it's not a joke, It's their thing that they're doing, it's the work that they're doing. although I sat by the tree where they've done their spiral, just after I'd had the embryo transfer, when I had IVF, And I sat under it with my partner, I meditated and met with the soul of, the being that had said to me, no, I am coming. And, and IVF is a great way for me to come. so I met with them and we both worked energetically on the embryo, on the dish together. And I knew there was only one. I saw her in, It was very full. it was like, I'd moved through time and another friend then contact me at Lucy Baker, our friend, and said, yeah, you've got one embryo is strong. So I get to hospital and I have got one strong embryo, but then they didn't put it in actually, they didn't put it in. Well, I knew they didn't, they put, use the wrong catheter. And then it was like, They used a soft catheter and I've had, cervical trauma through assault. I wanted them to use the hard catheter. But they were like, your records, you know, which is the opposite of working with someone consensually with their body by not giving them the catheter that they want. they had to come away and put the embryo back in the freezer. I knew by then it was already gone. So yeah, that tree, that time travel tree, I think it really does work. I was about to say, but it didn't work because I didn't get pregnant, but actually it did work. There was just a point where it didn't work. it didn't go through. I wonder how they work with time travel because I believe you can travel through time, but there is the chaos of the human world too, isn't there? Like that was just, it was all in order. It was all like moving. And then the chaos of the human world of someone coughing all over me. it's almost like the human world is the chaos. Jonathan sort of said something like this, which was that it's a lot less chaotic than you think, it's just that we don't understand it. my friend whose husband passed away, saw him in a dream. she saw him in a dream and she said to him, oh, you're dead. And he was like, yeah. And she said, well, what's it like? And he said, it's a lot more organized than you'd expect. And I feel like, what he meant was that nature is more organized than you'd think. It might seem like chaos and a mess and we think it needs tidying up or, arranging better, but actually it knows what it's doing. it's just like Jonathan says, it's less chaos than you think. And exactly what you're saying, the time machine or the connection or the portal was there. everything was lined up and it was all up for doing it. But the chaos of going, Oh, I think I know best. I'm going to do this. And just not being sensitive attentive compassionate or connected, That's what gets in the way and messes us around. Yeah, exactly. It was there a couple of times like the acupuncturist I had beforehand to relax me. She was amazing. She put all the needles in. It was perfect. I was energetically lifting. And then she was scared that I didn't look comfortable. I kept saying, I am fine. She left the room and she came back and no, no, no. You're not comfortable. I was like, I am comfortable. She took all the needles out quickly. because it wasn't what she knew to look, what she thought was right. And it reminds me just then moving me onto, a beautiful story. I heard about a hands off doula who said, you know, she made this pact with herself. I do not touch midwife, hands off midwife. I do not touch the mothers. I trust them no matter what. One mother was standing more or less on her head birthing and she was like, I've got to interfere. And she kept going, no, you can't interfere. I have made a pact to trust the mother. And then the mother, had the baby and then very quickly passed a lot of blood. She had hemorrhaged and if she had not done it in that way, she would have died. So she was able to support the baby to come out and for her to stay alive and then they were able to rush her to surgery. So that thing of, yeah, exactly. When humans can really surrender to like, this is, this is, seems insane, but trust it, trust it's happening. That's amazing. It is. and it's trusting. I mean, I feel like that's what this card is as well. It's this other world, isn't it? It's drinking from something profound. It's unexplainable. And beyond this world that we have to relax into yeah, jumping timelines. I've jumped a timeline and I know I did and now the path to Glastonbury tour is in a different place to where it used to be. it was actually the pilgrimage the year before you were there. when we did the Michael and Mary line last time I got to the back of Glastonbury and I already felt like I'd jumped timelines in 2020 when I'd walked around Avebury. I felt like I'd gone through, some river of ancestors and I knew something had changed suddenly I'm living a completely different life. I'm married to someone else. I'm no longer scared of heights. I jump off of cliffs for a living. So many things have changed. I'm action Jolie and I'm suddenly doing all these outdoor activities that I never did before. And went back to Glastonbury and the path to the tour used to be in the middle of the field and now it's to the right. And I was like, that's not where I left it. Like I knew that something had changed. I'm in a different reality. That's not where that path was. And of course it would be a Glastonbury tour. That's where it let me know. If you enjoy this podcast, then please consider supporting me through Patrion, which is www patrion.com forward slash Joe Lee rose. This is really kind and generous way for you to say thank you. And, to let me know that you're enjoying me making the podcast. All I'm asking for is the price of a pint. Then you get the video recordings of the show. but you can also support for just a couple of quid, which literally every single penny counts and makes such a difference. I am living in sock in the channel islands, which is a tiny island with just 500 people. And I'm looking for ways to make a living and, and create a Cristo as an artist. And had the ingenious idea of doing it through podcasting. And through the events and offerings that I create, which And the first offering that we have coming up is an immersion weekend for south lane. And that's from the first of the 3rd of November, it's nearly full. I think there's like one or two possible with one definite space left. And then And we will spend the weekend just losing ourselves in the deliciousness of this And it's the transition from summer to winter and we're going in and we're nestling and we're getting ready to hibernate and to create for creation. Hibernation. I see this as a time of immense creativity. So if you want to come and spend some time with me foraging and, connecting with the beautiful island that we live in and the land and with the seasons and the energetics that we are in the middle of. Then get in touch with me. Uh, you can do through social media. Or my email addresses, Joe Lee, J O L I E at Kriya arts KR. Why AR. A R T S. co.uk, and you can send me an email and I'll send you more information. thank you very much for listening. I love doing this and I hope that some of you can come to SOC and enjoy. The autumn immersion with me as well. And now on with the show. tell me when to stop. Stop. Ooh, this one's very out the moon. Aww. And they are, who are the figures? It's the, god of the dead, the Egyptian god of the dead, and it's got the, scarab beetle. So the scarab beetle follows the path of the sun and the moon, even when it's not out. So even when it's the dark moon, you can't see it, it will still follow the path of the moon. Going, east to west. but it always pushes the dung so it's seen as, connected to the god of Ra, because it has this, planet like ball that it pushes along. It's following the path even when it's not visible, it will still go in the same, direction as it and so it must be sensing it somehow, in some way that's not visual. And then those are the, dog gods, they're the ones that have the key. Yeah, they've got the Ankh key. So I think they lead you down to the underworld. the moon means a lot to both of us, but the moon cards is one of the last, you know, like the journey of the tarot, the moon is one of the last cards and it's the deepest, darkest night of the soul before the full, I think it's before the universe, which then turns into the full, so I think it's the last, Dark night of the soul before the ultimate, bing, you've got it all kind of thing. And then you start again. You start again. Oh well, new beginnings are pretty long. Yep, and begin again. Yeah. It's one of the most useful things that I've heard recently Which was that, and this is what Jonathan means, I guess, with the eternal great beginning, is that, enlightenment or, whatever this thing is that you move towards or are striving towards of getting it or understanding better, it's not a plateau that you suddenly get to and you get to sit in a deck chair and put your feet up and have a pina colada and it's all over. You will temporarily be there. And then you will be thrown off again and you have to start again. that it's only little glimpses and moments of. enlightenment, on your journey that will spiral forever and ever. Yeah, I think that's what I feel like the moon. for me, as a gardener, as a vegetable grower and a herb grower and flower grower, I still grieve when the sage loses its flowers. Oh, cause the sage is that first like, hello, spring, the sensational purple flower that comes out. And I just want it to hold on until the lavender comes. So I can see them both at the same time, I'm always in grief. So that's another way for me to acknowledge. lunar cycles with my plants and, trying to quickly get out in time to gather my rose petals when the moon is full or to, fit things in. And yet, that cycle of the moon and that cycle of birth and death, I find it sometimes, even though it's been maybe, 20 years or more that I've been trying to live with them. I still feel that practically I'm always chasing to do it. I'm always trying to like, Oh my God, I've got to get out there. I missed it again. I didn't gather my roots. I think that's what it means to me. There's this kind of. Constant reminder. I mean, I'm so glad I'm able to, bleed with it successfully and have a really regular cycle so I can explore that. but yeah, it's really good the way that you work with the moon every month, without fail, you do your ceremony. Whereas I'm a bit different. I'm like, Oh, I'm out there. Thank God. Do a ceremony now. The errors part of me is like, Oh, well, I haven't banked on this, but like, Oh, okay. I'm writing an application. Oh, it is Virgo full moon. That is my ceremony. That is me working with the moon. Which works. Yeah. That's the way to do it. I mean, it's noticing that you do end up sort of doing things that are to do with that theme anyway. it might just be coincidence But when you are aware of it, you're like, Oh yeah, that fits. Like you say, you're doing a, an application on the Virgo for me. And you're like, the heavens are in my favor. I'm in an organized space and that's what energetically is happening. But I always like, cause I'm a Capricorn. And I'm half. sort of wah wah and half not. I see it as prompts. each moon is a prompt and a suggestion. And it's not necessarily having an effect, but I also believe it is I've had enough evidence. the amount of things that have happened, I'm like, that's exactly how I'm feeling. That's exactly what's going on. the more sensitive you become to things, And that's a bit like what we were just saying with how organized things actually are. The more sensitive you become, it just is what is happening, that is energetically what is happening. we can see it in the seasons changing and the crops growing. like you say, you want those sage flowers to last to the lavender. that happens because of the planets moving. the more we become sensitive and in more indigenous cultures where they are more in tune with things, all of this stuff makes total sense. it just seems crazy that we wouldn't think that this was what was going on and be in tune with it. I can kind of do both sides. on one hand, the more sensitive I am to it, the more it seems like it absolutely 100 percent is real. the other side of me is like, even if it isn't just stopping. Every two weeks I clean my house, change my altar, make things sacred again, and two weeks later the house is mucky, sticky, gross, like the cats are disgusting, everything's kind of gross again, to just stop and make it nice every two weeks, light the candles, light some incense, and reflect on what I'm doing with the prompt of whatever the theme of the moon is, just gives me some punctuation marks to my otherwise never ending story of life, otherwise it's just one long drone, but having those punctuation marks just give me a moment to stop and breathe, Unbelievably helpful. But you were the first person I met who had a relationship to the moon. When I first met you, you could tell when you were ovulating and were aware of the moon cycle. So it's something that you've been inherently aware of. Yeah, it was Mark that supported me. my mum and I used to, according to one line of, my, Nana's sisters were from a line of, Irish psychics and I'd believe it. We're all mad, but like, they have that madness if psychicness isn't taken seriously the fool's helpful because I probably would have taken it too seriously if it wasn't for finding the fool. so yeah, I think it probably was always in me. My nan was interested in the moon and my other antidote was too. So it was always there, but then Mark really helped me to kind of just open up and soften to it and just really allow, that was the partner who I was with when I first joined The Fool. So traveling around in a van with him, he was great at encouraging that, take time, stop, feel your body and tune into your body and its relationship with nature. And he really valued it. He really valued my rages as related to the earth and, like, you know, he was like, yeah, you're wounded. Yeah, you're hurt. And yeah, that's important. And we'd go to different spots in nature and we'd always work with the moon and just in our own energetic practices at the time, that was more Qigong work. using exercises to ground us because we were both very sensitive. Yeah, very lucky, really. often it's male teachers that have come to me and told me stuff, even though my chart has a lot more Lilith in it and a lot more kind of rage and challenging of the patriarchy, often male teachers have supported. That's really interesting. I would never in a million years guess that that was where you got it from. That's crazy. I think you touched on something there that is what I've, I don't know what my feeling is on what witchcraft is, or witchiness, is the, you know, so we have, a period of time each month where we just have testosterone in our bloodstream. So for a brief moment, we are male. And then this chemistry kicks off of estrogen and progesterone and we become something other. And that other is what I think is called which, and is the bit that men don't understand and is confusing and can be scary unless you're someone who's embracing it, which Mark was, which is amazing. But that's the bit that gets called mad that gets called scary because it's not part of the male experience, but that's the bit that is the female experience. some have got it more than others and some have got different things. some might be very sexual, some might be very psychic. Some might just be like absolutely crazy. can go like you're saying the rage, but also just confusion and not being able to keep up to the speed of the modern world. I think that's part of it. everything's too fast And being really sensitive all of these things that got put on the witchy pile, are basically the female experience that doesn't make sense to the masculine experience. Although it's interesting because my partner now, gets into my cycle. He's like, Oh, I feel this. I'm like, you can't, it's mine. Let me have it. But yeah, I think I told you that since the IVF, I was painting with blood. I haven't been doing it so much, but I did do a little bit this last couple of days and just initiating a very large painting where I'll work on it over some months. but yeah, that is an amazing experience to use that blood cause it smells so strong, especially as I store it as well, most people hate it, but for me it's like really earthy. It smells. dirty, but like of dirt rather than dirty. like really thick, rich compost almost. that feeling of being able to use blood and generate your own pigment made me really connect deeply in a very healing way with that lineage of painters, the first painters must have been people who had wombs, people who had a cycle. they had that pigment, there's no pigment like it, you don't have to mix it, you don't have to get water and mud together to mix it, you know, it's there. that's totally true. Whether or not it was the first pigment, I believe it was, and it totally dethroned the idea of, the male painter and the men owning all the galleries. I'd been angry about that and riled about the secrecy, but it just gave me such a sense of power even if they do own all the galleries, whatever, it really doesn't matter. You stole our idea. They always say your paint isn't actually magic. This is magic I'm painting with, mine's moon magic. Yeah. That's really cool. Right. Let's do another card. Okay. You tell me when to stop. stop! What have we got here? Completion. So it's a wheel, a bit like the wheel of fortune. It's got the Aries sign on it and Mars. it's a completion. So is there something that you feel like has been completed recently? What does that mean to you? never completed a report, which is something new to me. Like I wrote a report as a researcher, but I don't think that's what it is. actually, I think maybe there is that kind of I I was an artist reviewer on an MA course last week with a friend from Kenya so there was a completion of a cycle actually with the artists who you knew from Birmingham, who unfortunately, passed away. things have changed. so Ceoia from Kenya has now come back to Liverpool. she was here a couple of weeks after our Kenya trip last year. there was a lot of angst about What happened in Kenya? Explain what happened. it had a lot of pain, in that the artists, who were there were really being asked by the, Kenyan based artists, all of them to, Acknowledge that they feel, they felt that they're being racialized, especially young, younger, but still like in their thirties, black males on the trip. there was a lot of white fragility within the organization, who had come from Birmingham as a host organization. A lot of anger, a lot of shouting, screaming. they'd returned to Kenya to, try and clear something of their post previous colonial life. one of the women had grown up in Kenya and been there for five years, as part of the colonizers community at a time where it was very, very brutal, the treatment of, Kenyan people, all of the different tribes, specifically Kikuyu. all the tribes had been very. Brutally treated by the British government. her family were part of that. So I was invited on that residency with the impetus that I would support some kind of healing. the male partner of that trip was very resistant to healing and any work that we managed to do with the female, would be undone by the male very quickly. It was like, he was, Covert narc was what somebody called him. And I can understand that this kind of like, couldn't allow things to change and to shift and to grow. So it became very, very nasty to me, very nasty to all the Kenyan artists that were there. Very nasty to the other young black male that came on the trip, who was in his twenties, Yeah, it was just really, really horrible situation, but, and then I had to go back and work with them and created that beautiful big textiles project that I created. I had to work with them attacking me constantly, psychically and physically. so recently I've covered my house in rowan trees. Rowan Berries, as soon as it came out, I was like, thank God. all of the portals, all of the doors in my house, everything is covered. I wear it in my hair all the time. Rowan for me protects me against psychic invasion. It really works and I've worked with it since I was, you know, in my twenties, found it one day found myself wrapped around a rowan tree when I was desperately in need of psychic invasion, tiny little sapling. And there was a tag on saying protects you from psychic invasion. And ever since that it's been the one that's kept me safe. And when we were at cop 26, after the pilgrimage there the rowan tree invited me to astral travel into that fire ceremony I was there on the astral plane with the other healers, the other healers. And, holding that space as, as the Romans kind of ally. Anyway, so cover this house in Rowan recently. And, CO and I, my friend and I, decided to talk about it. One last time down by the river, which is actually, we think the dock where, where the The slaves were brought in, to Liverpool, but it was sort of, we just went down there and that happened to be the place. And so we decided to never mention them again. And it just feels like to, with each other, to just like not let that be our relationship anymore. And so that relationship that I've got with her, she's an internationally successful artist. She's Utterly brilliant. She's funny as anything. And all that stuff made the Birmingham based artists very jealous. I feel like there is completion on the other hand. I was working with them and I was like, Oh my God, but my work is all community based at the moment, socially engaged practice. I realized I'd had a lot of shame around the fact that most of my artistic career is socially engaged practice, even though that's all I ever wanted to do, but, that I haven't kind of developed myself. Academically as an artist or got anywhere as an artist. And now it just feels like the cycles ended of that shame. And now it's just like, I'm interested in developing artistically again, to start, working in different ways, maybe looking towards a PhD or something in the future but actually really enjoying and celebrating my socially engaged work rather than like, Oh, I never, I wanted to be an artist. Yeah, well this is the thing we practice, isn't it? we put ourselves under all sorts of crazy pressure What's the point, we can tie ourselves up in knots about success and what success is meant to look like and why we're doing things. And then you do something really precious and amazing that has a influence on improving people's lives. people get amazing stuff out of it. I could have won the Turner Prize or I could have done Arthur's Awakening. Walking from, you know, Edinburgh to the Isle of Wight. Interestingly, I've met Sam Lee quite a few times this year. Who I first met through you on Hooley Hill, on that site. at one point I. went to his singing the Nightingale thing, which is amazing. In some woods in Sussex, he spends four weeks there playing music with the lighting girls, inviting audiences in having little gigs and then taking people on walks and exploring birdsong. And then some musicians play the night away with the nightingales and you hear the dawn chorus and, and, you know, feel, Deeply connect in a different way. I feel like I am aware of birds more, I said to him, what do you think happened? we did that ceremony on Holy Hill but there was the airport a petrol station and a McDonald's it was just on a big busy road and then the stone circle. it was intensely powerful. It was really awake and it was one of the most powerful ceremonies we did. it's the throat chakra and it was surrounded by a motorway but it's in Edinburgh where all that storytelling happens. So, you know, it's permeating out even though It's surrounded by a petrol station and an airport. It's like everything's been done to shut it up, but it still is powerful there. I just said to him, you know, this very foolish question, more naive, more silly really than foolish. Oh, have you been back? You know, has anything changed? And he was like, not a human cycle. We're not doing like, well, I don't go back to check what's changed. And I was like, Oh yeah, me neither. The motorway is now a meadow. It's not anything different, different timeline. I realized that ego in me was like, have we done something different? You know, the amount of stuff that's, just, yeah, it keeps happening. It keeps unfolding that, and it, it is almost out of your side vision, you know, it's not something direct, like the airport's closed down or, the motorway's gone Dennis one of the pilgrims that walks with us and he's an energy healer. He was saying that he, in London, the word had got out to people that live near him, that he was willing to do energy work for free, if people are on low income and there's lots of high rise flats nearby. he said, he's literally getting hundreds. of people coming to see him. he said, he's never known anything like it. He said, even like in the height of the sixties stuff and, you know, different points in time where it's felt a lot more like there was a, I don't know, more, counterculture thing going on. He said, I've never known so many people doing energy work and, doing this work. it's on a different plane. It's on a different level that something's shifting and happening. And that's why I was mentioning discordianism and, chaos magic, because even with this podcast, it's ended up telling a story. the people that I've interviewed, it's ended up that, Megan, who I first interviewed does stuff at Boomtown we didn't know that Boomtown was on the Ellen line until we had already agreed that we're going to be working there and the narrative story had already been created then the narrative story ended up being about someone called Ellen, which was by complete coincidence, but obviously not coincidence. I was interviewing Jonathan he said, you're looking at the person who got the license for Boomtown. And I was like, what? the basin that it's in is a land temple, made by Neolithic people, to collect the chi and the land energy, it was a sacred site where they would fill up and drink the earth energy from this site. They would go there and hold ceremony and connect with the earth energy And that was what we felt when we were there, because we could feel the Ellen line so strongly. And then, your link with Liverpool and you being an embodiment of Eris on Earth. these things keep weaving into each other and it's a story even if it's not true. A bit like your partner Chris saying, how do we write this into a myth. We write this all into a mythological story. It keeps weaving into interesting connections. And again, my Capricorn head on, partly it's coincidence, but also it's magic. So is it in Winchester, Boontown? Yeah, it's just outside of Winchester. Wow. Amazing. Really close. St Catherine's Hill is part of the same land temple as Boontown. there's a whole bunch of bits that are connected. Yeah. Cause you stayed, you were there with us that crazy night, weren't you? On the hill No, I didn't go. my body just walked off. It was like, I didn't even say goodbye it just went, Oh yeah, you stayed down the hill. But that crazy night with all the rain, my God, that was unbelievable. That was the most wet I've ever been and putting up the tent and it just being a puddle of water was pretty amazing. So the last thing, is a chaos crusade. is there something that you would suggest to people to do that just change their experience of the week, just to mess things up a little bit? I would say put as long as you can aside between 40 minutes and two hours and leave your house and breathe deep breaths outside your house, outside your door and just get used to where your pendulum is and then ask your body, okay, so where's my yes? And usually a yes is forward and where's my no? And then ask your body, Where do I want to go? And follow that nose and really keep going. That's not what I expected and change directions and see what you get It could be just for 20 minutes but longer the better because you can really go in You know or a notice if you get oh, I can't go there because I haven't got enough time just tune back into that. find that deeply in the body rather than in the head or in the pre planning. And even if you override it, just go, okay, I override that. I don't want to go now and see what happens. That's wonderful. I'm definitely going to go do that. I love that. And I'm going to do it too, because I haven't been doing what I want for a long time. Well, no, that's not true, I've been prioritizing what I should do a lot more than I usually do, Thank you. I love that. Thank you so much. So that was Jones, Marco. Okay. I really hope you enjoyed the show. I love chatting with her. We have so many things that we can talk about forever. And there's so much depth and understanding between us. And I hope that came across and I really enjoyed listening back and editing it. So, yeah. Really, that was a wonderful conversation. I just wanted to explain when she was talking about the chaos crusade what she's talking about is using your body as a pendulum. When we were doing the pilgrimages, quite a few of us learned to start body dowsing. We do it in different ways for her it's to do with being a pendulum. So if you stand with your feet firmly planted on the ground and then just feel where the moving forwards and backwards feels like yes, or moving sideways or round in circles. To ask what's. Yes. And what's now, and to see what comes through, which is how you'd use a normal pendulum. If you were doing dowsing work so it's doing it with your body. And if you're able to do that, then you can then wherever you are, use your body as a guide for, should I go this way? Should I go that way? But also other questions you can ask as well. So that might be something that's useful for you going forwards in the future. Thank you ever so much. I think that I'm yeah. When I'm thinking about what to explore next, I've got a feeling that it would be good to delve into the discordian world a little bit more just because we keep referring to it and a few to understand what that's all about, but I'll see who comes up because I also have another surprise for you. And that is that I'm going to be recording. For the next podcast, which is normally me or my own. I'm going to start sharing the play that I wrote about Ann Clark, who is my guardian angel. Who's the woman whose house I squatted back in 2002, and I wrote a play called hip. And so I'm going to read that out as a podcast. And that would be. A new kind of slant on what we're doing, but then I'll because I keep letting the universe lead on where the podcast. Then goes, so I don't know what will happen next, but that's what I'm doing is next week's will be a little DEP into Brighton life in the sixties and seventies and this amazing woman that I encountered through squatting her house. And all her belongings still being inside, like a time capsule. So stay tuned for next week. I look forward to sharing that with you and enjoy your chaos magical week ahead. Not sort of see the Anon.