Nonsense in the Chaos

This weekly offering is an exploration into the unknown, as I interview one of the many extraordinary people I've had the joy of meeting on this weird and wonderful journey we call life.
Instead of having pre-planned questions, I pull three tarot cards, which we’ll discuss and share our insights on. This concept aims to support me and the listeners to learn to be at ease with the unknown, demonstrating how there’s something to gain from trusting the chaos of the universe.

All Episodes

Nonsense in the Chaos

#28 Volcanos in Your Blind Spot

March 07, 2025 • Jolie Rose

Jolie Rose welcomes you back to Season 2 of the Nonsense in the Chaos with this deep dive into the volcanoes that lurk in our blind spots thanks to the spell of privilege or social grooming. In this subtle year of 9 energy, it is a key time of purification and the perfect opportunity to clear up our shadow work, ready for turning our lead into gold next year in 2026.

In this episode Jolie mentions;

The Descent of Man by Grayson Perry (where he talks about the ‘Default Man’

RAP NEWS ¦ The New World Order by thejuicemedia on Youtube

Witchfool are You? Course starts in May. Email jolie@kriyaarts.co.uk for more information

La Beltane Festival Sat 3rd May - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/labeltane/

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

I make a mistake in the podcast when I say Venus goes into retrograde in Pisces on March 1st. She does go retrograde then and will be passing through Pisces, but she begins her descent into the underworld from Aries, then passes into Pisces during her 40 days and 40 nights of retrograding.

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms or you can listen to it here… https://nonsenseinthechaos.buzzsprout.com

I'd love to know what you think! If you want to get in touch with me about anything on the podcast then email nonsenseinthechaos@gmail.com or you can follow me on Instagram and Bluesky @kriyaarts or at the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook.

Please consider supporting me through patreon.com/JolieRose and like, follow, and review wherever you get your podcasts from. Share about Nonsense in the Chaos far and wide! The more people who hear about the podcast the better.

Thank you for all your support -x-

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

0:04

The mountains and the caves. Wicked witches. Crusting the unknown. Uh, Uh, Yeah. Welcome to the Nonsense in the Chaos. I'm your host, Jolie Rose. This is episode one of season two of the Nonsense in the Chaos. If you're new here, then might I suggest going back to the start of the podcast and listening to them in order so that you might come to understand the narratives and lore of this podcast. I do tend to jump all over the place with my ADHD brain and I'll reference previous episodes, so it will help you to know what I'm talking about. But also the universe or chaos element of the structure does appear to be revealing some kind of story. So to appreciate how that's unfolding it's better to listen from the start. It's so good to be back. I've missed you so much. I'm ever so happy to be here. How are you my sweet thing? I hope you've had a gorgeous yummy creation hibernation winter months period. I think that it feels like time's speeding up, it feels like that to me. And I've actually heard some esoteric thinkers stating that this might be a thing, that time is speeding up. Which I've found useful to consider because I'm no longer thinking of a year in the way that I used to in that I think of as a year is actually more like six months and that's useful in terms of planning and therefore I'm not getting caught up or stressed by feeling time pressured. And it could be just conceptually it feels faster because news and everything moves so quickly nowadays, so our experience of time might have been changed by that, or it could be that it actually has sped up Whatever it is. I cannot believe how quickly January just went. That was the fastest January I've ever known. I was looking forward to losing myself in that slow dead time of January and we're already halfway through February now I feel like we should be halfway through January. So yeah, I was gutted because I was having a great time. I love January and February now, which is mad. It's such a turnaround. If you'd seen the state that I used to be in, in January and February, like 2006, 2007, wailing at the sea, gripping onto the barriers at Brighton seafront, just completely in despair. And now I'm like, Everyone keep away from me. I'm sitting and writing. So this is my creation hibernation time. Don't come anywhere near me. It went fast, but it has been amazing. And I actually feel I have mastered something, which was what I set out to do. It's a nine year. And the last time we had a nine year was 2016. And that was the year we lost all of our masters like Prince David Bowie, Alan Rickman, George Michael, Victoria Wood, Ronnie Corbett. There were so many people. It was such a big year and it was the year that Brexit happened. And it was the year that Donald Trump first got elected. So it feels like there's a bit of a cycle, that we've come back to this year, it's interesting because it's not that I, it's not that I believe in astrology or numerology. per se, although the more I follow them, the more I do end up investing in them because I keep seeing so many connections, but I also fully believe that humans find patterns and connections. So I straddle both sides of the fence. I'm absolutely committed to Wawa and I'm also to complete cynicism and scientific Factualness. So but in 2016, we lost all these masters they transcended. And so that means that that level of mastery transcended into the ether, leaving there. echelon of free. Is that the right word there? Whatever level they were on, free for new people to step up And it's interesting because that year was the year that my performing career took off. Hopefully you've listened to the nine year podcast, So you would have heard all about this on the last podcast from season one. if not go back and listen to that, but otherwise there's a quick recap. It's the year of purification. So if you imagine doing an alchemical process you stoke the fire in year eight, which is the life force energy. And then year nine, you clean and cleanse all your apparatus and get yourself fully ready To then gain mastery to then turn the lead into gold. And so next year is the year when that happens. And in 2016 was the year when I wrote my show hip and took it to Edinburgh, which if you've listened to the podcasts previously, you'll remember from episode 13 in season one, where I talk about Ann Clarke, who's now my guardian angel and the play that I wrote about her life that I created. And I actually do a recording. Of the play in that episode and then also in episode 14, I interview a daughter, Nikki, which is a brilliant episode. It's one of my favourites. I highly recommend listening to that one because the story just keeps unfolding with even further revelations. So yeah, that episode's almost become part of the play and part of the story of my relationship to Anne. I took that play to Edinburgh. in 2016 in August. off the back of that I toured the show and went all over the place for a couple of years all over Europe and then wrote my second show Sisterhood and then by that point was fully immersed in the theatre world and the Edinburgh game and was part of all that that felt like I became a master of theatre during that time. I literally won the Edinburgh Fringe twice with the shows that were the biggest hit which was amazing. being the biggest show at Edinburgh Fringe is unbelievable feeling yeah, you feel, you feel pretty chuffed and I pulled it off twice. so I did feel like I mastered fringe theater. that was brilliant. since moving here to Sark and the Channel Islands in 2020, during the pandemic, I felt I've needed to shift a gear because. I was finding the whole theatre world quite toxic. it's become a privileged place to be. The only people who can afford to be artists now are from a certain level of comfort and privilege that isn't particularly pleasant to be around, to put it bluntly. like, I just felt that everyone was always looking over my shoulder to see if anyone more important was there, and no one was gritty or, edgy or exciting. I was just finding it ever more toxic. there were lots of things happening that I was really not cool about as well. Like people who didn't have any life stories or experience because they just had really comfortable, easy lives using other people's tragedies and Horrible stories to profit off of basically, because they would tell the stories, the theatre company, but then they got all the accolade and all of the money. they wouldn't have got all the money, it would have been shared somehow, but they were getting the accolade and the kudos, which would mean they would get another booking and other shows. as a company, they were financially benefiting from doing these heartfelt stories that weren't their own. And and I just saw it happening. And when I moved, obviously my life completely changed anyway, living in the middle of nowhere. I moved from Brighton to the Channel Islands It just couldn't be any more different. for those of you Sarcs one mile wide and three miles long. it's in the Channel Island. So it's just off of France, down south. has just under 600 people living here. We've got no cars. no streetlights. We're a dark sky Island. We're sort of like an independent country we're part of the Bailiwick and we're part of the Channel Islands, but we have our own government, which I'm part of. I'm the chair of education. the deputy of the tourism committee and a member of the policy and finance committee. yeah, which is mad. I never expected that I would be going into politics at any point, but that's what's And. Moving here has been the most mind blowing experience I've ever had. when I first moved here, I had crazy dreams, about being at media parties at the Shard, or at huge warehouse parties in Berlin, because my brain just couldn't, like, except that everything was now green and fields and trees. And it was like, this is too much green. This is not reality. What's going on? it can't just be silence and sea and fields. And I'm like, no, this is it. This is what it is now. This is your reality. And now that this is my reality, I look back at what we used to in the modern world. And it seems absolutely insane to me. And so foreign and weird already. the last time I went to London, my brain was completely blown away by how many words I was reading constantly and what they were making me feel I wasn't aware of really, so used to them before moving here. And now, because there's no advertising here, I'm not getting that bombardment all the time. When you're experiencing it again from a fresh place, it's quite shocking. I feel really happy to be out of that kind of rat race and I, and I feel free. That's what I feel. I feel like we have a sense of freedom here that, I didn't, Realize was lacking until I moved here. this creation hibernation process, I've gone through a process of making, creating mastery over something that I've been working on for a while. So it's my greatest pleasure at the moment, which is writing and living here as a writer is literally the dream. Because, absolutely is the dream, I couldn't be more idyllic and it's quiet and yeah, you get to go out for these beautiful walks with stunning views and it's the most inspiring place to be a writer. I've been honing my craft over the winter period, which has gone annoyingly quickly, as I said, but also feels like it was a deep process and a deep dive. I feel like I've made the most of the time, even though it's felt fleeting. and I feel that I'm just starting to emerge from like what, what's felt like a big quest, but the way that I did it has been through listening to a podcast actually. this podcast I would recommend it's amazing. I would recommend though, listening to it from the start. Like I'd recommend listening to my one from the start.. It's called writing excuses and it started in 2006. Now what's been fascinating is I feel like I've been in a kind of time machine going through culture, like a stop frame animation where I've got to watch. Culture develop, sped up by listening to these podcasts because they're only 15 minutes long. So you can churn through them been fun because I've been, WhatsAppping my, my best mate, Saffron, sending her like updates as I go along of I almost feel like I could do a degree on this now. It's worth studying, I think, because it's so interesting watching, well just listening to this cultural development in, in, uh, high speed. It's just been fascinating. So back in 2006, when it starts, we're still referring to the whole of humanity as masculine, which just seems mad thinking about it. when they're talking about publishing or any kind of job that's of any worth, it's always he. That they're referring to doing it. So he, he might respond to you if you send a letter to a publisher, he might respond to you with a yes or a no. And, things like that. Just they're imagining it's a man. And it's just that I find it interesting because when I think back to 2006, I felt so empowered and capable and unlimited as a woman. but then when I listen back to these podcasts, I'm realizing just how many social barriers were actually in place. That were hiding in plain view. yeah, listening back to the podcast, I'm like, Oh my God, there was so many barriers, You don't realize what an effect it has on you to hear all important jobs being referred to as a he, and then just the whole of humanity being referred to as a he. I do love it. I do want to say they're lovely people. They're not doing anything maliciously, but it is three white men who are white cis men who. Especially at the start in 2006, I've got that funny, sarcastic, cynical, don't care, nonchalant tone that everyone used to use on the internet, if you remember like when Twitter first came out, just everything that's that sarcastic, don't really give a shit and laid back. voice that we, I, I used to use it. We all adopted it. It was just the voice of the internet. because now we've reached 2011 listening to the podcast and they're just starting to crack open and be more vulnerable. And I used to describe the Edinburgh Fringe as, because there's a saying that the future exists in a science lab somewhere. So the AI robots that are going to become our overlords and destroy us already exists. they've been built, they're in a science lab somewhere. And I always used to say the same of, Edinburgh when it comes to culture, that the future of culture exists at the Edinburgh fringe. for example, I took two shows to Edinburgh that won, the two shows that won, and I saw them ripple out and affect culture worldwide. that happened. one of them was about disability, and the person who was performing And that one had severe Tourette syndrome. and they had to use a wheelchair and they couldn't be on stages that were raised because there was a compulsion to push themselves off the stage in their wheelchair. And when we went on tour, we went like all over the place and it, because it becomes such a big hit, everybody wanted us and we'd go play at the barkin. Like we went all over the world'cause we got picked up by the British Council. So we, we literally went all over the place and it was brilliant because as a production we were. unrelenting in not making allowances for people being thoughtless about space and, and for spaces not being adequate or conducive for our performer to be able to perform. And so we embarrassed the hell out of some theatres where we had to perform on the floor in front of the stage because there was no way for, for our performance to get up onto the stage and there was no wheelchair access to get onto the stage in the first place or like sometimes we performed in the lobby, like we didn't care. We just embarrassed the theatres and it highlighted the issues that, you know, people with disability and people who wheelchairs face every day. And so we'd often invite like the local council to come along and they would see the issue. And off the back of that, not only did theatres. Like because of the front of house, I think most of us are used to seeing the front of house as being wheelchair accessible, disabled toilets and that kind of thing. It's almost as if everyone forgot the actual nuts and bolts backstage area of buildings, like law courts or, like the lighting box of a theatre. I mean that, what happens if somebody's disabled? Or someone who uses a wheelchair and wants to be a lighting engineer. there's no reason why they shouldn't be one, if that's their dream. It's just that they can't get up a ladder and get into a lighting box. But lighting boxes don't have to be designed as being up a ladder. and it's the same with everything. Like, all municipal Community buildings could be redesigned so that they were fully accessible, front and backstage. And so off the back of this show, doing so well and us going to all of these council run venues and them seeing the impact that badly designed spaces have, they all started to redesign their buildings, which And we know that they built them differently after us because quite often we were invited to come and open them. So that was amazing. And then another show that I worked on was with a trans female to male person. This is what I was mentioning earlier. They were somebody who shared their story and it was more about toxic masculinity, which is what's coming through for me. when I'm listening to this podcast that I've been talking about, writing excuses, that's the thing that I'm witnessing and like I say, it's not them being awful, like they're not awful people, they're good people, it's just hearing the shift and the change of toxic masculinity has been interesting and this play was right at the forefront of that shift and so because we knew that there were going to be trans people coming to watch the show. And the person whose story we were telling, told us that trans people often have bladder issues from feeling that they aren't safe to use toilets in public. People are holding on longer than they should and it's causing them bladder problems. we said to venues who wanted us that we wouldn't come and perform there unless they provided a gender neutral toilet. And now you see gender neutral toilets everywhere. Now that directly came from our show. it was the big hit in Edinburgh that year. Over the following year, we insisted on gender neutral toilets at All the council run venues that we visited across the country, who all desperately wanted us to perform there for them. And from then on, gender neutral toilets got included in venue designs, and now they're perfectly normal, and they're just a normal thing. we saw how these shows, literally rippled out across the land, across the world even, and we saw changes happen. And that's how I know the arts not only change the world, but is one of the best starting points for doing so, because you're beginning with an emotive experience. Because if you want those counsel people, these like dry people in suits who, very logical people, And you told them, you just got in touch and told them that wheelchair access and council run spaces wasn't adequate. they probably tell you to sling your hook, like they're busy. They've got other things to worry about. it's not something that they've, you're not at the top of their to do list, but if you do something, if you do something creative and you share something that tugs at people's heartstrings and induces empathy and understanding, and then off the back of that, they're much more open to the idea of change. And. I also lived in Brighton, which was completely at the forefront of culture because it's one of the most, it is, there are other places that are like it, but it's one of the most liberal places in the UK, absolutely at the forefront of trans debates and political correctness and the use of language, which I used to struggle with myself when I first moved to Brighton. even back like when I was at university in Nottingham as a working class person from Essex, I had lots of words in my vocabulary and ways of expressing myself that came up against people being shocked or looking down at me for talking that way when I knew I didn't mean it in a derogatory tone. It was just the language that I'd grown up with. And so my initial reaction was to be very defensive. I was like, I know I don't mean it nastily. this is just the word I use. Just because you're posh and you read The Guardian, don't tell me how to speak or what I mean. it felt classist at the time. And I, it wasn't until I was on the road for a couple of years with my friend who had Tourette's that I saw when I said words or said things that were to do with disability Which, thankfully, are more commonly eradicated from the English language these days. which again, I think this show was part of the reason for that happening. But I would slip up and I would say words back then that my friend would physically react to. That you would actually see a physical outward reaction to the inward discomfort that this word had caused them. I'm realizing that I realise that happens to all of us. when I'm listening back to this podcast and I'm hearing things from the past that they don't mean offensively, every time they say he when they're talking about a publisher or, anyone of importance, it makes my insides react. from this place now where it's shocking to hear that. and because I'm used to having visually seen someone react, I now notice, whereas I think we're groomed socially to not notice these inward reactions when we hear things that are against our demographics. it might be because. it might be because of your colour, it might be because of your sexuality, or your gender, or class, whatever it is, you're having these little mini reactions inside without realising, and language, thankfully, has changed without it being a big deal, so we stopped saying he. And there was no huge song and dance about it at all. You know who, no one's mentioned it. We just stopped saying he, cause it stopped being relevant because women started being in places of power and it just started seeming ridiculous, you know? this thing with people kicking off about pronouns, it's not that big a deal. Like, it really isn't that big a deal. Just the fact that there's a space available for someone who doesn't fit into the he and she category is a really nice thing. why not wiggle that space into existence? Because it's been there forever. eunuchs have been around forever. Ancient Greece had eunuchs. I mean, it goes all the way back through, you know, like, ancient history, hermaphrodites have been around forever. even just like androgynous people have been around forever. I mean, I'm pretty androgynous. I'm not a girly girl by any stretch of the imagination. And my friend who did the play, who transitioned from female to male, they said it was because they didn't do a good enough impression of being female. they got beaten up all the time. They got beaten up for by women in the women's toilets because they thought that it was a man sneaking in there and they got beaten up by men who were just confused as to what they were and they just said it was exhausting. And actually they felt after transitioning, they actually felt that they'd let the side down by transitioning to male because they completely passed as male. You would never know that they'd ever been female. And he said to me, I feel a bit like I let the side down for the androgynous. Brigade, because we shouldn't, why shouldn't we be allowed to exist? I chose to, so he chose to transition to make life easier and it has done, but actually he felt he could have possibly thought harder to be allowed to exist as a third sex and there'd be this third way, and the third way I'm always saying in magic, Well, and also, I think not just in magic and life in general, it's is the third way? The third way is normally the answer. And I always say, when I cast a circle, I welcome in the masculine, I welcome in the feminine, and I always welcome in the third way. And I always say, this is where the fool resides. And the fool is genderless. The fool is everything and nothing. It's all the genders and none of the genders. And. that's where the real magic is and that's the unknown. And yeah, just generally when you're more like stuck in a position where you're trying to work out what option to take, should I do this or should I do this, if you can stop for a moment and go, what's the third option, that's normally the better option because you've got yourself stuck in this like binary thinking, normally the third way is, is the, the best course of action and yeah, I think. The third sex has every right to exist. So saying they, and then there's no skin off my nose whatsoever. And what I noticed from listening to this podcast and what it brings. up as, yeah, so what I was thinking about was the idea of monoculture. So it's known now that we've screwed ourselves over through monoculture, monoculture in terms of farming. by only growing a certain type of wheat, if anything goes wrong, which it keeps going wrong, if you have a wet year or it's a scorching year and that's not what that wheat's been designed for, then we lose, everything. Like, I've walked through the fields that we lose, right, when I do the pilgrimages. And I can spend a whole day walking through one field. And if that one field has one type of wheat in it, which they, they all do, you have a day's worth of wheat just from that one field. And the one next to it! It's exactly the same. It's full of exactly the same completely useless crop and the field after that. And so biodiversity is absolutely key. What we used to have back in the day is you would have within the same field, you'd have some grains that enjoyed wet conditions, some grains that enjoyed dry conditions and some that were in the middle. And you had different grains for, even for different, Well, for different conditions, but different counties even, because they have different conditions because you've got different soil. the grain in Lincolnshire would have been different to the grain in Norfolk and Essex and Suffolk. So we would have all had our own grains and they would have been a mishmash, like they were in a mixture. And there would have also been a blanket crop that would be there once you'd harvested the wheat or like barley or whatever it was. there would be something else that would grow on the soil, like clover or something like that. that would become animal feed or something else, but it just meant that the water wasn't evaporating. you never had these empty tilled mud fields. It was always covered. it was actually my friend, Anna, who I'll be interviewing at some point. So she'll talk about this more, but I learned all this when we walked on our pilgrimage to COP 26 together. But basically monoculture is just bad news. It's bad news for the, in terms of sustainability and, but I think we're a bit like, I think that word has kind of lost its impact a little bit because it just sounds like, I don't know, environmental, well, well, whatever people have become numb to it. But what that means is monoculture is bad news for our survival. Like that's the word. We can't survive with just having one type of grain, especially when the climate is, Completely, unpredictable and extreme. it's making us completely vulnerable and it's a single point of failure. You have a single point of failure in the food chain by having just one type of crop. And that's the same as culture. So what's been interesting with this podcast I've been listening to is. They had a single point of failure by only having one viewpoint. So there was three hosts, they're, they're three men. And then finally, I think it's 2008, two years into doing the podcast, they finally got some women on, two years into doing the podcast. it's just men and male perspective. the first one's quite, the first woman they had on quite low down in the food chain in terms of the whole, Her role in publishing, and they were quite, they were a bit patronizing towards her and she was really shy and embarrassed to be there and felt intimidated by, because they had a lot of bravado and in jokes and, they're like bros, and she's there right in the middle of them. And then they got someone who was smarter than them, a woman who was smarter than them, and she's amazing, massive girl crush. her name's Mary. I don't know what her name is. I need to read her books, actually, because they're all authors. I should read her books. she's extremely smart, and it's really satisfying to listen to, because she's incredible. She's a puppeteer, and she sees things completely differently to them. And the freshness of her perspective. It's like when you suddenly realize that all of the podcasts you've been listening to up until this point have all been in one key, and then suddenly she makes a change in the key by adding this new voice and perspective, and it suddenly opened up this whole world of other possibilities, because just that one change is like, Oh, music, music's not just all in the same key. Oh, oh, that's exciting. And oh my God, like there's a whole new way of seeing things. And then they. Eventually invite her to come on and be a host. Like they, they realize, and you can tell it's, some sort of marketing analysis that they've received. they almost say it on the podcast that they've been told what you need is a woman in the team. And the fact, yeah, the fact that it's just three white men isn't working anymore, but this is by 2011, which is just mad. Like it, this it's so mad to me thinking back to how I felt. at that time and and how invisible these barriers were. So from 2006 to 2011, I think even still, yeah, even up to where I'm up to now in 2011, they've only had five or six women on it at the most. at the absolute most, I think it's more like four or five. And the majority of them have been between 2010 and 2011. so yeah, most of them have been in the last couple years and this one woman, Mary, she was on it several times, and they kept getting her back and then they eventually asked her to be a host with them and, and they didn't, they don't, they're starting to talk about female authors, but for the first three or four years they weren't even mentioning female authors unless it was J. K. Rowling and they never talked about her in a positive way. it was always in a derogatory way. they're doing things like they just did one that was them. Oh yeah. they just did one where they're doing like a role play, coming up with excuses for not writing. Cause obviously it's called writing excuses and it was really performative. And it was this really fun thing that they did that was completely different to anything they'd done before. And you could tell it was Mary's idea. one of them's possibly a narcissist, like he's, he was definitely the authority before she came along and he's a little bit threatened by her, but I also think they're gonna have an affair. and is very, he's very in awe of her intelligence because she is mega smart and like she's won the Hugo award and she got him to go and do a writing retreat, which completely cracked him open and made him vulnerable and it's completely shifted the way he now talks. So even the way that. They talk like the whole cocky blasé internet voice that they had before started to crumble and they're opening up more and they're being more authentic and I think that could only be improving the way they write and yet there's so many things that they've done. I've done a cringy today, like talking about race and the appropriateness of writing other people's race without at all considering cultural appropriation, like that, those words have not been used once yet. So I guess that's not part of the collective culture yet in 2011, um, and they were unashamedly doing Scottish and Mexican accents and were basically saying, you need to remember that people are people, not just their race if you're writing them. So make sure you write them as full people rather than just. if someone's a Jewish person, they're not just Jewish. They might not fit all the expectations of that culture. give them a bunch of foibles, make them break the mold so that they seem like a full human being. And that is true. And I mean, in a, in a way, both this episode and one they, they did on gender identity are from a simpler time. And so some of the debate feels freer of emotional charge. that possibly clouds some of today's discussion. So there is something relieving about hearing a more innocent discussion on these topics in a way. however, they haven't to invite a person of color on yet. And it's 2011, like everyone's been white so far. And when they invite on the person who's trans to talk about gender, but they actually say in that episode that it's Mary, that was Mary's idea. Yeah. So she started. Yeah, she brought them on and she's the one who's interviewing them in that episode. she's the person who started to bring in other voices and make spaces for other voices to be heard. So that's interesting as well. but yeah, they have, through listening to this podcast, I've learned so, so much about writing. my writing's improved tenfold. It's another world. I feel I've gone through studying for a degree or something like that, which is awesome because it was free. So I do highly recommend it. It's 2011. I think they're making them still. I'm excited to hear how it keeps developing and to discover how it Yeah, how much I will continue to learn about the development of culture and also to continue to improve my craft. And I feel like, wow, by the time I finished listening to it, I'm going to be incredible because, because honestly I've, yeah, it's been a whole new world. I've, I've been working on two books consecutively during the creation hibernation process. So the first one is about the pilgrimage I walked on my own when I walked from west to east across the UK, which is 500 miles. And that one's my personal epic journey of breaking up from a toxic relationship and moving to the Channel Islands. And so I'm happy with the shape of this book. How it is now, where I've got it to, has been vastly improved through the edits I've done over the last month and through listening to this podcast. It's just, yeah, they've taught me so much about fine tuning and editing a manuscript, like a finished manuscript. I'm still looking for a publisher, but I'm confident. I'm going to get one now because I think it, it just gives off an air of professionalism that it wasn't a month ago. when I started at Christmas, the quality was nowhere near as good as it is now. I can see that I've significantly improved the manuscript and I'm, I feel proud of sharing it now. I'm not, I don't feel embarrassed about it. I feel like. Yeah, this deserves, recognition And I'm also in the process of beginning the second book, which is a much bigger beast of a book. And the Writing Excuses podcast has been useful, kind of more for the cultural timeline aspect that I've been witnessing, for helping me to shape and understand the narrative of the second book, because the second book is about me going to COP26. I'm walking this pilgrimage from south to north was with 28 pilgrims. I think it ends up being about 36 because there's loads of them in the end because people keep joining us, but yeah, like I say, it's going to be, this is just a beast to write because I didn't write a journal. One of the few times in life that I didn't keep my journal writing up and it's because I was just shattered and I was spinning so many plates and holding, it was, it was, eight, seven, eight, oh no, it's longer than that. It was two months. It was over two months. ceremony. I was holding a ceremony for over two months and holding this space for all these people who were, absolutely going through the mill physically and spiritually. so, and there's just, there's so many more people involved, it's a much bigger book to write, so I'm exploring how to do that. Which is the more technical side of things, but also the crux of the story is to do with privilege. it's been interesting looking at this journey. in the podcast of seeing privilege from the default setting. if anyone's ever read Grayson Perry's The Default Man, it's a really good book. I highly recommend it. I'll put it in the show notes. in that he argues that white cis, men, like a white cis man in a suit is the default perspective from which we're all meant to base our lives. Like that's the way we're meant to experience the world and understand the world is through this group's mentality and disposition. But this default group is itself a minority group. And so if you're, if you step into another minority group and look at the world through their eyes, the world will be a completely different place. But that's not the world that owns the media and owns the narrative. And it, This particular group, it's this particular group that owns it all and they're a minority group and that's what you see happening in this writing podcast is you can see how culturally we have shifted from that one default setting and have begun to crack open and let in and explore other cultures and other viewpoints and it's just a useful thing to know that because with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, it can feel cool. It's very doom and gloom and, it feels awful and scary. but actually I'm here to say that the cat is out of the bag. So you can't put, I don't know if you've ever tried to put a cat in a bag, you can't put it back in again once it's out. Once there's been this kind of cultural shift, you can't undo it. once people have seen Behind the Veil, they're not going to forget what's behind the curtain, are they? So don't fret. It's just, where some people are at is the stage that I was at when I left home, where I was ruffled by people challenging me and thinking, how dare you make me feel bad about myself for using these words or thinking these things. That was just through lack of exposure and lack of experience and having not yet realised how nuanced everything is. Everything just continually gets more nuanced, the deeper in you go. Like the more I learn, the more I understand people and humanity, like it's, it's fractal, you know, and it just, it gets more fractal. It just feels like it goes in forever and it's fascinating and something to be interested in. But it is challenging initially when you first, start on this journey, it feels like a really big deal. And it's not that it's not a big deal now to me, it's just that it's become so kaleidoscopy that I kind of, my brain, you know, I don't know, the, the ego bit pops at some point and you're like, ah, whatever, we'll just go with the flow. and I've just started working with some people to do, yeah, so I'm really noticing it. this resistance that people have. I've just started working with some people to do some marketing that needs a bit of refreshing, for stuff to do with the island, for tourism. And people, involved, jumped immediately to the conclusion that something's wrong. Like they've got to be concerned that they're going to lose their jobs or someone's out to get them and they're, they feel threatened. And part of what I'm trying to do is get them to see that it's not about that they're doing anything wrong. It's that we don't always have to do things exactly the same way. And, That if you crack open a bit, the new things can come in and you'll discover they're exciting and not scary. And, I just think people feel that they don't want to get it wrong so much that they'll completely controlling about something and be fixed about it because They know how to do it that way. And yeah, it's just fear. It's fear of the unknown. And that's the whole point of this podcast is that we need to start embracing the unknown and not feel that the unknown is an attack or an affront. For you to not know what you're doing or to get it wrong is just not a problem. It's let's just keep experimenting and being curious and excited and fearless about the unknown, which is easier said than done. to practice. This is a discipline, which is what half of Buddhism like that, you spend your whole life. In fact, you should spend your whole life developing the skill and devoting yourself to this practice. And there is no end goal. There's because there's no end to it, which is what I mean by the fractalness of it. The more you open yourself up to the nuances, the more nuances appear and the more open you are to the unknown and the more relaxed you are with the unknown and, Yeah, letting, letting go of control. It's just, yeah, it just, you just, you just keep on doing it. You keep trusting the universe and trusting the unknown. And the more you do it, the more you, it's relax is the word. like you just find life in the universe less stressful. That's definitely what I've mainly got from it, is it's less stressful. I don't feel like I'm meant to be achieving or presenting and performing something the whole time. What I'm doing is for me rather than for some round of applause or accolade. I still enjoy receiving recognition. it would be weird doing a performance for something people not clapping at the end of it. But that's not why I'm doing it anymore. I'm doing it for my own self development and curiosity and interest in it all. And a kind of openness to what's possible. how, how far can we push this? How far can we go with this? let's see what happens. And yeah, with the book that I'm writing, this one going to COP, privilege is the issue. I'm kind of giving away what happens in the book, so I don't want to say too much, but yeah, that was the thing that came out from that whole experience was getting to Glasgow and we were all staying in a place together and there was people who were very, very wealthy. We're talking royal family level of wealth, old, old money. all the way down to people who literally lived in the Amazon in hammocks and didn't have any kind of houses. so we have people from castles to hammocks and all those people in between. And we were all there for the same reason. We're all on the same page. You know, we were fighting, fighting for the same thing. We were all there because we cared about the planet and we wanted to help stop climate collapse. And what became extremely apparent through the whole experience was that privilege was the problem. And. Was so invisible. Like we just don't see our own default settings. It's impossible to, like these, these lads doing the podcast, they don't see it. They're not, that's what I mean when I'm saying they're not being malicious. They don't see how. toxic or default setting y they are being. It's only once things have cracked open and moved on that you go back and listen to it. Cause I'm the same at the time in 2006, I didn't see it either. And it's only listening back to it that you're like, Whoa, okay. I mean, it is, it's. almost impossible to see your default setting or your privilege, until something shifts. And the people that were at COP and were in this whole situation just didn't see the irony or the damage that was happening in the way that people were being treated and what, expectations we had of each other and how, just how much we all had blind spots. And I find it fascinating. It was something that, came up with me with the Me Too movement. that was where I got my kind of big revelation with it, which happened in 2017. So again, this feels like part of this cycle because there's a link to the Venus cycle with this one, because she's just about to go retrograde, in Pisces on the 1st of March. And that's the first time that she's retrograded in Pisces since 2017. And she's the goddess of the femme, so women's rights, femme issues. And this was a year after Trump's first inauguration in 2016 and was the year that the Me Too movement happened. So you see, I'm just finding, I'm just finding patterns, but the more I follow them and the more I'm aware of them, it's just, it does get quite spooky how much they line up. why not just finding patterns because I'm a human, but interesting. when the Me Too movement happened, I had a massive epiphany because. I realized there was a volcano in my blind spot and I was someone who was intently tilling the soil of my inner world, like always looking for things to work on. I'm always excited if I find a bit of shadow work to do. but, and it's become exciting. So I think when you first start doing shadow work, which is basically just admitting. Your foibles, like your, the things that are shit about you, which are, we all have, like we spend our whole time pretending that we're not, but actually, I remember being, seeing a sign outside a church once that said, look into the light and you'll see the truth, and I remember thinking, if you look into a light, you can't see a fucking thing, it completely blinds you, what you need to do is turn your back to the light, and look into the darkness, and then you can see, and that's what I feel like about shadow work, I think, We spend so much time like facing the light and going, oh, don't look behind me. Don't look behind me. And then when you turn around and look, it's like, ah, I mean, alright, yeah, I'm a dick, but that's not that bad. I'm not, I'm not a fascist Nazi I'm not a, I'm not a malevolent, awful person. Yeah. I can be a bit thoughtless and I can be forgetful and I can be a bit egotistical and I can be a bit this, that and the other, whatever it is that I do. but it's not that bad, you know? But when you first do it, that first turning around from the light and looking into the darkness is really scary. Like that first bit of work is really scary. And it's normally like, like the big story of your tragic life that you tell the partner when you first get together with them. the whole, here's my baggage conversation that you have when you first get together with a person. And that's your, biggest, shadow work, thing that you do. And that, and it, and that first one is really big. so I started working on that story in my mid twenties and did a load of stuff with that through different courses and like therapy and things like that and cleared things up with my dad, which was, you know, obviously the, he was the hero of my tragic story and just did the kind of obvious stuff and sorted Um, it no longer had a hold over me anymore. I'd done that work. there was still when you dig up weeds where the roots break off and they grow new shoots, like stinking onions, three quartered leek, which we have over here in abundance that you could dig up the bulbs, but there are so many millions of little bulbs that a couple will always escape and then new plants will grow and it easily spreads again. So I think that's what our emotional landscapes like, but you can till the soil and you can clear it. But you need to kind of keep at it because there's always going to be a few bits and bobs left over and they'll take root and they'll grow again. So back then, at the time when Me Too happened in 2017, I was in my thirties at that point and I felt like I'd done like the big bits of work. And so I was at the point where I got excited if I found a rogue bulb, as a thing to deal with. In fact, I'll stick with the rock analogy because Because I'm talking about volcano, um, finding little pebbles. I'd get excited about finding little pebbles where when you first start dealing with it, always the big rocks and then, yeah, you get down to the little pebbles and, and the Me Too thing happened That was in my blind spot. And that was created, that blind spot was created by society, which is what's happening all the time with privilege. So that's what privilege is. We're blinded by what the normal is and what the default setting is. we're not doing it on purpose, we just aren't seeing these other, other ways of thinking. we're always missing huge things and that's what happened with me too. And suddenly I was like, Oh! That thing that I sucked up and ignored and pushed to the recesses of my mind because society told me that's what I should do and society said that what had happened was okay. I've missed that with all this work I've been doing on myself. There's a giant fuck off volcano about to blow up and go off that's right behind me. And I was filled with so much fury. And it made loads of pennies drop, uh, about like my troubles with anger management, for those who are really close to me, that I was incapable of, you know, I was, I, I blew up really easily with people that I knew well, but was completely incapable of having difficult conversations with people I didn't know well, because I had so much pent up anger in me that was repressed, repressed, that I couldn't express anger in a healthy or level headed way, because I was, it was like, I was sitting on the lid of a, a saucepan that was bubbling underneath me. Like I just felt like it was gonna blow up. the whole thing was threatening to blow up the whole time. And none of this was conscious. And all of this revelation was what led to me writing Sisterhood, the second play that I wrote. Because I didn't know what to do with all that anger when I discovered it and I was trying to work out how to direct it and that is what's brilliant about creativity and being an artist is that's what you do with something like that. I didn't want to do anything legal about it because it was all from a long time ago and like that's another way of doing things. It's another course of action and it depends on what sort of person you are. Totally respect Root, but as an artist, my vehicle for dealing with difficult situations is to put it in a play or in a book and do something creative with it. And so I wrote the play Sisterhood and having had this experience of discovering an unnoticed volcano, I'm now fascinated to discover what other things are in our blind spots. And then Black Lives Matter happened. With which was a host of other biases and behaviors that I'd not looked at from an objective outside perspective, and that also revealed a bunch of stuff. So, like, what else is there? You know, what, what are we missing? And with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, with fascism and all the mono, monoculture narrative that we're kind of working towards, That there's this push or drive for the white American patriarchal perspective to write the narrative once more, trying to squeeze that cat back in the bag. And so it's vital to remember all we've learned already and keep owning our need for diversity as a necessity. As a survival necessity, as well as a key part of our humanity. But also to just know that once the cat is out of the bag, it's out of the bag, baby. You're not putting it back in. And we will never go back to referring to humanity as he again. that's been and gone. You know, that, that language is archaic now. And so it's realizing that these things are archaic and it's only that some people are a bit further behind and feel terrified and threatened by it all still. Which I did, you know, and that they can't make us suddenly wipe our brains of the volcanoes we spotted. So don't worry about their noise. They're just catching up and it's difficult. And they're going through a process having gone through it myself. I know it isn't easy. Like it's not fun. you have to, cause I mean, let them have their process. It's their ride and they will work through it in their own time. And I know it's difficult when they're hogging the news and the airwaves, but just don't look at it, like ignore it. That's, and that's where I'm at in. My process is I want to know, I want to know what else is hidden in the blind spot and the big key thing in chewing over, that I'm chewing over at the moment in my second book is the idea of privilege. So where is my privilege that I can't see and where I'm situated in the new world order pyramid? So there's a really awesome rap news video, it's quite old now, which I'll share in the notes. It's about the New World Order and it's done to a De Antwerp track and it's brilliantly done. It's got this wacky conspiracy theorist scientist who's talking about the Illuminatis and the eye in the pyramid and everything like that. And then there's Russell Bratt, like a Russell Brand spoof character, where he's just getting more and more naked as he talks and saying revolution is the only answer. Along with signing sign and subscribe to his channel subscribe here subscribe here. and this video it was made 10 ago It is old But still completely relevant and then the actual new world order guy appears and he's a spoof of William to bag build a bag who's started like a lot of the conspiracy theory wheels turning. and in this video, the guy's rapping, he appears and he's saying, yeah, it's all true. We're all, but we're all awful. like the new world order is true, but we're all awful and we are doing all these things and we're stripping the last resources from the planet and exploiting minions to serve us. And what you're not seeing is where you are in the pyramid and you don't realize how up. how high up you are. So if you look through the eyes of a slave or an indigenous person or a farm animal or a starving polar bear, or a sickly monocultural crop or a melting ice cap, and you look up at that pyramid, you'll see actually we're right up there at the top in that golden triangle with the eye in it. And it's a real punch in the gut, And at first you can be, it can make you feel defensive, like people are being, like I say, I was when I first got questioned about the way I was talking about people, but it's how to open that up and look at it head on and meet those shadow parts of yourself. what are the things that make you get defensive? And this is what shadow work is, is the stuff you don't want to know or think about. But this is where the real gold is. And the gold is ease, feeling at ease with oneself and with the world. So for us to accept all the parts of ourself and keep being less monocultury in our, in our, in our inner worlds, as much as the outer world, to improve our own resilience and develop the richness of the gravy that is our inner world and our personality, then we, that's going to influence our creativity and everything else that we do. it's worth it. It is the gold. It just, we just need to face up to The things that are difficult to admit. And that is where we are in the pecking order. And, try and see what those things are that are in our blind spots. So yes, that's, what's been going on for me in my world during my creation hibernation process, um, so I'd be interested to know if anyone's been doing a process themselves and what they've been up to, I'd love to know what you've been thinking, what's been going on in your heads. I mean, the world's mad. I would, I actually genuinely do really want to know what you. How you're feeling and what's going on. So definitely get in touch and let me know. my email's in the show notes and you can reach out to me on social media. I'd love to hear. yeah, now I'm going to pull a rune. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. If you enjoy this podcast, if it feeds your soul somehow and nourishes you in some way, then please consider supporting it to continue by pledging a few pounds a month to my Patreon page patreon. com forward slash jodie rose For the price of a cup of coffee, you can help me keep this podcast going. And if you can't afford that, then it doesn't matter because someone else is making that donation for you. And so the podcast is able to remain free for everyone to enjoy. And it means that I'm able to keep putting the time and effort it takes to make this podcast. cause it does take a lot of time and it just means I'm able to keep on doing that because someone's financially supporting. Making a living as an artist feels like this ethereal mythical thing that people don't really understand and I'm not really sure what people do think actually what they think we do but I know here on the island on Sark people don't have a clue what I do and the kind of work I do feels foreign to them I've actually got a guest coming up who will delve into this with me, but something I always use as an analogy is that there are savannah animals and there are zoo animals. Zoo animals know where their food is coming from. They get free healthcare and they they know that they're safe, but they're in a cage. and are not free to do what they want. Whereas savannah animals are free to go wherever they want but they don't know where the next meal is coming from and if they get sick or lame then there isn't any safety nets to catch them. And I'm 100 percent savannah animal. I experience constraints on my time as shackles and would rather starve to death than have these kinds of limitations put on me. and consequently, I have lived on the bread line for 23 years. In a way I've lived the life that parents fret about when their kids say that they want to pursue a career in the arts. I am penniless and I haven't made it as some kind of household name, but I have like the old adage says, never worked a day in my life because I've loved what I'm doing every moment of it. And I think that is worth more than all the money in the world. so I don't mind living meagrely, I'm still pretty luxurious compared to most people in the world, which is what I'm talking about, realizing where you are on the, in the pyramid. I am living on the breadline, uh, in a Western way. And when I say every pound of support to my Patreon makes a difference, I'm certainly not exaggerating. Your support makes a world of difference and means I'm able to create and keep creating podcasts and other extraordinary happenings that you're able to come along and experience. some of these that are lined up this year are Labeltone Festival in May, so tickets are now on sale Labeltone Festival Sark to get your tickets. At this festival we'll celebrate the birds and the bees and the merry month of May traditional celebrations like Mama's Plays, Morris Dancing, Maypole Dancing and the burning of a wicker man. Sark is very wicker man which is, you know, it's like give the people what they want that's why we've created this festival. We also have a banging line up of bands and the island of Sark at spring in May time is covered in bluebells and three cornered leek, the whole island smells of onions. It's absolutely stunning. the whole island feels like it's a festive feast. So come along and enjoy it with us. And that's, the 3rd of May. Also, we have the Kooky Club coming up on March the 27th, where I interview a surprise guest each month and we get to enjoy a variety of delicious foods and zero proof cocktails. All created by the lovely Joni Free and Kuki Events. These nights are amazing. The guests are always inspiring, lovely people to meet. I really enjoy interviewing them and yeah, just search for Kuki Events and you'll find the tickets, but it's a divine evening, a divine decadence evening, I highly recommend. This is in Guernsey and the Witchfaller U course starts up again in May. So this is a four week program that I run that supports those interested in discovering their archetype. And becoming a priestess or a priest of their archetype rather than being run by it as a puppet. And this is some of the deepest work that I do. It's not a quest for the faint hearted. So you'd need to be willing to the depths and really ready to meet your higher self, which means, you know, shadow work, you might not like the archetype You are quite often. We don't in a weird way because I don't know because our ourselves are in our blind spot and it depends on how far along the work you've, you know, how self aware you are, but yeah, quite often it's quite hard to meet your archetype. but if you'd like to learn more about this course and reach out to me through career arts on Instagram or Facebook or through my email, which I'll put a link to in the notes, and we're also, doing a pilgrimage for peace Walking from Kernelbowl in the West Country in Cornwall towards Hopton on Sea in Norfolk, on the Norfolk coast. It's 500 miles. It's going to take about eight weeks and we are walking for peace and the line is called the St. Michael line, which St. Michael is the archangel of the Holy Land, because he's the top dog angel. So he's the angel of the Holy Land. And so we're walking along his energy line. from west to east, sending our love in that direction through this angel energy. And talking to those we meet, listening to the land and listening to people we meet, to discuss how they feel about what's going on in the world and about war and about peace and our enemies and how to love our enemies. And so this is an opportunity for us to performing a mama's play, which is George and the Dragon, which is the UK's traditional mama's play. But it's about the Holy Wars and the Saracen Knight and, you know, the Muslim, uh, Night and the Crusaders that's what the play's about So with that being the traditional play and offering like we're a bunch of traveling tribules performing but then to stop and actually pick it apart and pick apart these archetypes and and talk about it and talk about the conflict that's been there for you know, a thousand years and it's And yeah, how, how we move forwards and how we feel about everything that's going on. So that's what we're doing in September, October, and is an opportunity for you to become involved if you would like to. So if that's something that's of interest to you, again, email me, reach out to me and, I'll send you more information. that's all from me for the moment. Now on with the show. the rune for this week's rumination is Answers. Okay, Answers, which is the rune of sound waves messages from the inner world and the gods, which is interesting that this is the first rune I've pulled for 2025 for this podcast, with it being a nine year because the intention I set for this year was the mythos of sound. And this rune is the rune for that intention, in a way, at the point of recording this podcast. I've not done it yet, but it will be happening. It would have happened by the time you listen to this and it's happening next weekend. But as part of this intention setting, I've signed up to do a weekend workshop with Nessie Gomez, who I will hopefully be interviewing for this podcast and who's going to help me reconnect with my inner emotional landscape, discovering feelings that I've silenced and buried. So again, shadow work, um, she helps as well with past life regression and blocks that might be there because of these. And I feel like I've got some kind of past life that involves drowning and my voice because I have a very weak emotional voice, but a belly full of fire. So I never let it, I never let it stop me, which I'm happy to do podcasts and things like that. I find it really hard to sing. Singing makes me feel very vulnerable and I've nearly drowned six times in this lifetime. So it feels like there's some kind of connection there that I'm looking forward to exploring and I've been intending to face head on for some time. Definitely feels like something that's in my blind spot. So that's exciting. the ring looks like an F with the lines pointing down. What would I say about answers? It also means that, yeah, with this, it's looking at what the outer world is saying to you. So if you witness your life as a form of sign language for your inner world, so what's happening in the outer world, like, not necessarily far. Well, yeah, I mean, this is what I mean by being curious about how far you're willing to go with concepts. So like the concept of you create your own reality, create or be created. I think on a close level, it's easier to. see that because the way you treat people shows up in your life, like if someone's horrible, if someone robs you or something, it's frustrating because, you know, the police aren't going to do anything about it. And all you can fall back on is the idea of that karma will get them, you know? So if you're the sort of person who goes around doing awful things like that, then your life's going to probably be quite shit. And actually you can have quite a bit of compassion for these people because, because you can see that from, from this perspective of karma, you can appreciate that. Probably their lives are quite rubbish. That's why they're behaving in this way. you can appreciate how in close in your world, you can see how your outer world is a reflection of your life. So if you're surrounded by lovely people who are supportive of you and, and, you know, say positive things to you, then you're obviously putting that out in the world. if you think everyone around you is really inspiring and amazing, that's because you're surrounded by people who are really inspiring and amazing. So it's to own that and, realize that you're creating that. if you were a wanker, then those people wouldn't be there. as much as you might think that they're like comparison is the thief of joy. You might think they're amazing over there, but they're only there because they want to be around you like a moth to a flame, but the further away you go, the harder it is to imagine that you're helping to create the outer world. So like, especially at the moment, far at the moment, it's like a child on, he's had way too much sugar. On a huge amount of cocaine and driving extremely fast in a car towards a brick wall. And, and that's why you're probably feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by it all, which I completely understand. but if you come back to believing that we're creating our world and can create our world. Then you can see that you're a pixel in this picture and you're able to change your pixel. And if enough people change their pixels, then eventually overall the image will shift. an indigenous leader I once heard speak, a conference said that it takes less than 10 percent of fishes or, You know, starlings in a murmuration for, for that murmuration to shift or for the school of fishes to, to, to shift and change direction. So it only takes like 10%. It might even been 2%. I think I can't remember. I always forget these things. They'll go with 10%, but it's still not many. So if enough of us change our pixels, then, you know, remember that car going speedily towards the brick wall is, you know, Is trying to steal your attention because if it steals your attention, it needs you to believe in it to exist. If you stop believing in it and stop giving it attention, then you, then you might get around to changing your pixel because your attention is actually the petrol that fuels that car. the more attention you're giving it, the faster the car's going to go. bring that attention back to yourself and just look at what's around you and be present with the world that's in front of you. And your nervous system will relax when you do that and it will feel more manageable. And I mean, I've not been on social media for the last month and a half and oh my god, it's good. Like, yeah, it's made such a difference. I'm, I've decided, yeah, I'm probably going to carry on. I have to have some interaction with it, obviously, because of this podcast and market the things that I'm doing. But I've also decided to have a dry year. I mentioned that I was thinking of doing that. And one in the last season, but I am doing it. And again, that also feels great. I'm not planning to give up drinking forever at all. I enjoy drinking and I don't feel like I've got a problem with it, but in lieu of it being a year of purification, I just felt like it was a, a good year not to drink. I had been thinking about it for a while and especially with everything that's going on in the world and this stupid car that's hurtling towards the brick wall. I'm glad I'm not dealing with any of that with a hangover. and I'm glad that I'm not looking at social media because I'm just not aware of all these awful things that are happening that just want your attention. That is the commodity that they're after. And the way that I'm managing it is I've taken Facebook off my phone. so I have Instagram on my phone because practically I need. To be able to upload photos for my phone. God, Instagram's gone rubbish since I've been off it. Jesus, what's it done? Like they've tinkered with it recently, haven't they? And it's made it so much less like pretty and user friendly, but, that's an aside. So, Facebook off the fame and I'm also not looking I'm just not looking at it. my posts automatically go on there from Instagram, and once every few days when I go on the computer, I'll open it up and check my notifications to see if there's anything important going on. Again, Facebook's just bullshit now, isn't it? Most notifications are just pointless. the whole algorithm thing does my head in. And I still have Messenger on my phone, so people can get in touch with me through Messenger. But I just don't care about the notifications, and I'm not scrolling on it. Instagram, I have it on my phone and I just open it up, check the notifications, deal with the posts on there and messages that are on there, but I don't scroll. I'll look at the first post that opens up, that's kind of like my treat post. So the first post that's on there and I'll look through some of the stories to keep abreast of what my mates are doing. Because actually that's closer to what social media used to be. you're directly actually seeing your friends, what they're up to. then I stop because as soon as I start looking through the posts, my emotions start. Um, they start getting bounced around the place by different things and I don't want that. So I'm just not doing any of it. I've stripped all of this stuff back and I'm bringing myself back to myself. And this is what I suggest you do. And you can change the bigger picture by changing your pixel in the picture. And then we will collectively change the picture. So you do create the world by how you talk, how you treat people. There's a girl that I was chatting to at a party on Saturday. Her name's Freya. She listens to this podcast. Hello, Freya. Lots of love. she's lovely. Um, my advice to Freya, because she was talking about, like, how to do these things and, and was very, she's very Virgo. And I was talking that, We need to break free of the thin king and the thin king is the Cain aspect of our personality. So you imagine you're a parent of twins, you have Cain who's the thin king, no matter how much he learns or knows, he'll still be hungry and wanting to know more because he's scared of the unknown. And that's the aspect that murders and it murders his brother Abel because he's jealous and scared of things and compare, you know, compares himself and all that stuff. And then Abel is the silent twin and Abel is the bit that has the abilities and is creative and is the artist and is the bit that falls in love and makes love and has, gives birth. It's the animal part of you before we got conscious and had this consciousness come into being, which is when language came about, which is why Abel's silent. So if you're a parent to these twins, you need to look after both of them equally and share love for them. equally. And if you've got a really noisy one, it's, it's easy for your attention to be pulled that way, like the fast car. What your job is to do is to spend time with both of them and give love to both of them. And a really good book for this is the artist's way, which I've definitely mentioned before, but I'll put it in the notes again. Um, of the morning, Pages comes from that. So you might've heard of morning pages, which is a way of clearing your brain out every morning and it's brilliant. I don't really use it as a tool because I write my journal more from a perspective as a writer. So as a daily practice, cause like if you practice a guitar every day, you'll eventually become a musician and I've been practicing writing every day. cause I've been writing a journal since I was eight, except for when I bloody did the pilgrimage that it would have been really useful to have. Written for because I'm writing the book. But anyway, so for about 15 20 minutes every day, I practice writing by writing my journal. I've developed a completely unique writing voice, because when I write now, the turning point for me when I first started writing back in 2006 was when I realised that I shouldn't try and sound like a writer, I should just write with the voice that I'd developed through my daily practice. And that was huge, and it means that I don't sound like anyone. I've got a completely unique writing voice and it's the first thing everyone says about my writing. They always say it's really open and authentic and brave. Like people always say it's brave and I'm like, yeah, I'm just being me. I'm like, it doesn't, it doesn't feel brave being me. It's not an act of bravery to, to be me as much as it might seem like it is. I'm just cracking And this is what the spiritual message of this rune feels like, is the more you become present, and the more you become conscious, and the more you give yourself permission to find pleasure and enjoyment in the things that you love, not what TikTok or Instagram and rather than comparing or competing, like the comparison is the Thief of Joy thing, remember that By writing your morning pages, like you clear your brain out every day. And then the other thing you get told to do in the artist way is to go on artist dates. And artist dates are going to like stationery shops and buying your favourite stationery or throwing glitter everywhere or going and buying a sticky bun like you used to do with your nan or whatever it is. doing a ballet class because you've always wanted to be a ballerina doing things like that that are with your able where Kane's not invited so going on an able date they call it an artist date but I think of it as able it's going on a date and doing one of these things The Artist's Way is a really good book because it's got lots of exercises for supporting you to develop a relationship with this aspect of yourself and just keep doing it and just keep Just keep doing it and spend so much time with like I spend so much time with Abel now But my cane is way more chilled like he's no longer hurling towards a brick wall in a fast car he's totally chilled out. I almost don't notice a struggle between them anymore But it's an ongoing thing. I'm being a bit slack at the moment about Exercising and going outside and I know that That's a big part of Abel's, life force necessity, and I'm not tending to that part of me, and I need to. So you have to keep an eye on it, because it's easy to get slack, I've been inside all winter, pretty much, and writing, and I have been going swimming, but I should, you know, I should be going out for walks way more than I am, and you know, it just seems like time's going so fast, like I said. I just don't seem to actually have the time to do everything, but you know, another major thing is don't beat yourself up for anything ever. take that out of the equation as well. Don't beat yourself up. This was something I was saying to Freya on Saturday. Like the coulda, woulda, shoulda. Just wipe that shit away, instead just be curious, treat everything as a game, as an interesting journey, and don't fret. If anything's causing you to fret or stress, like social media, just don't bother with it. And don't bother with that voice beating you up, that's just Cain being a dick. be a parent to it and go, okay, thank you. That's very interesting now, shut up. Be quiet. Just stop engaging with it. I mean, I feel with everything that's happened with the billionaires who are clearly putting their flags in the air on the fascist side of things, like Google removed from their calendar all the minority group days of celebration this week, which is great. Like Black History Month, Pride Month, Indigenous Peoples Day. Women's History Month named, but a few, there was more than that. So they've sent out a very clear message as to the direction they think that, that they're going in. And I just think this marks the end. Of the internet, personally, like if everyone knows it's a fascist space, why are we going to use it? And it's not because I'm starting to look at where I use Google. I use it, but I'm now looking at it and going, can I change that actually? Because it's, I said, it's annoying because I just got this podcast going as well, which is frustrating. And from an island, my career really is going to end up being quite, Online dependent, but I actually think we'll find a way around it all to create different black webs using the same technology, but creating new closed networks and stuff like I feel increasingly that if someone gave me the option to jump off of this internet and onto something else than I would, and actually even to get rid of the internet altogether, I'd be like, yeah, it was an interesting experiment, but it's got us into a lot of trouble, and I think that the benefits are increasingly becoming outweighed by the drawbacks, we got, we got on perfectly well without it, I remember life without it, I was in my 20s really when Facebook, the internet really became a thing like prolific in our lives. So it's only been 20 years. and I think it's actually what's responsible for speeding things up. it's reduced jobs, it's increased stress and it's given away all our privacy and made some people in the world so rich that they can literally destroy the whole planet and they are, you know, It looks like that's what they're planning to do and, they're the ones that own the science labs with some fucking creation in it that's going to bring about our demise. So yeah, I think weighing up the pros and cons, I'd go with no internet. I think it's probably going to start becoming a thing that people engage with less and less and, and I just say don't feel FOMO about that. You know, don't worry about it. Follow the spiritual messages, follow the, like a black bed. I did that once on a walk. okay. Actually, that kind of brings us on to chaos crusade spend a day when you go out and you look for things like, that feel like a message. following a blackbird or walking a route because, there's something there that reminds you of something and makes you get a feeling and, and you just think, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to follow this blackbird down this lane. Uh, and I did this once and it was awesome. I ended up having an amazing day. proper incredible magical day. So I invite you to do the same, to have a magical day by following the signs. go on an artist's date with your able and go do a whole journey where you're just following this inner compass of messages. And yeah, like I say, with being someone who's part scientific and part wah wah, like none of this is necessarily true. It's not necessarily a universe or an entity is sending you messages, there also might be, who knows, but for yourself, you'll find that your nervous system just will relax. as soon as you say you're spending time with Abel, you feel relaxed. And another thing that I was going to suggest as a chaos crusade that I thought about beforehand was, because the last one, I mean, that kind of naturally came out, but something we did at the Leo Full Moon, which was on Wednesday, that really calmed my nervous system down loads was time traveling, or it's called time gardening. what I told people to do was, go and treat yourself to a trip to the stationery shop and buy some lovely stationery and get a special journal that's like for time gardening and to get a nice pen and to write diary entries for the future. Actually, I'll read you one because I've got one here. I won't read you the middle one because that's a bit rude. but the other two I can read. Yeah, so I'll show you what I did. So you write the diary entries as if they're true. and I actually went and checked with what the moon phase was going to be on these dates and where I'd be in my menstrual cycle. And then In the third one, I realized I would have actually gone through the menopause, which was interesting. yeah, so what I've done is I've done close, middle and far, which I think is quite a good way of doing it. this is the close one. So this is like next month, Sunday, the 23rd of March, 2025, I just got an email from Curtis Brown saying that they'd like to help me publish walking with autumn. It's the book I've been working on. They're going to represent me and see if they can get me a deal, but they have some publishers already in mind and are going to reach out and hope to set up an audition and also an auction for the rights. so as an aside, I didn't know any of these industry terms before this creation, hibernation, immersion, and free listening to the, writing excuses podcast. So I've been learning how the whole industry works, which has been brilliant. it feels amazing to have someone validate all my hard work and give me the seal of approval. I'm over the moon. I've never been represented before and it feels that somehow I've managed to be accepted into the mainstream. Now as I wrote that, I then went Do you know what? Fuck it, I don't care. I'm more of a, I'm more of an individual than that. I watched Rocketman the other day, and I'm way more of an Elton John kind of gal. all those people who died in 2016, David Barry Prince, all of those people were doing things their own way. They were being themselves, and they weren't trying to fit in or beg for acknowledgement from a bunch of what I call the Beige Brigade. who gives a fuck what the it was really good to just, yeah, think about it from that perspective. then I started to write, I'm here to conquer them, not grovel and be grateful. I'm here to be my own flavor and carve my own path. It's just a relief that it will come with a bit more financial reward. They're talking about securing me 15k for Walking with Autumn and then 15k advance for my next book, which is so exciting. At last some money. And they've asked me to come and speak at the Hay Festival in June to talk on a panel of new and upcoming writers and another panel talking about pilgrimage, which I'm so excited about and I can't wait. that was useful because it calmed my nervous system, but also made me imagine being in the, like the shoes of that future person. And it made me realize. Things that I couldn't realize from this place where I am now where I'm a bit more grabby and Hopeful and it made me think of a postcard that was on my friend's fridge Years ago. This was probably about 15 years ago but it said I wish I was what I was when I wish to was what I am now and I always remember that and I keep coming back to it because You can wish for things and like wish for this and wish for that and then one day you get it and you suddenly left Feeling that you didn't think it would be this way. And actually realize how lucky you were when you didn't have the responsibility or stress of whatever it is that you've been so desperate for. I'm actually glad I thought about this in advance because I'm not going to be all, Oh, thank you. Oh God. Oh my God. I'm so grovelling and grateful. Thank you so much. rather, You're lucky to have got me I'm fully set up as an artist already. I could self publish and I've got enough people I think that would buy my book and support me, especially because all the people I met along the route, there's people that follow me and know me from doing the pilgrimage. And also then I'm going to be doing the pilgrimage again along the same route this year and we'll take the book with me on a book tour. And so I'll sell books along the route as well. If, if anyone's going to give me a writing deal, it's because it's worth it and I'll go with the offer because it's worth it for me and just to bring it back to that and not this sort of grovelling thing. I won't read you the second diary entry because that's the rude one, but this one's for 2040 and I thoroughly enjoyed writing this, this is right in the future, Friday the 23rd of March, 2040. And I'll have gone through the menopause at this point. Sylvia, now Sylvia's my six year old niece. Sylvia arrived today with mum. I can't believe Sylvia's 21. She's so utterly gorgeous and in her power. The moment they stepped off the ship, it was like a lioness had blessed our beautiful island with her presence. She's not been here since before her priestess training, and she couldn't believe how small Hobbiton seemed to her now. Bilbo remembered her right away, which made her extremely happy. Mum was in her usual great spirits. The trip had been blissfully calm, and the shipmates had all fallen in love with her, obviously. We sat out on the terrace and enjoyed some mead whilst Dizzle cooked up an absolute feast. We ate the last of Gertrude in scrummy steaks with some of the apple sauce I'd made. The Ostara celebrations start tomorrow with a procession from Little Sark, with the Perets leading it this year. Olive is this year's sun goddess. I think her and Sylvia are going to get on like a house on fire. Sylvia is dressing as a dandelion tomorrow, and Mum is in her usual sunflower costume. Standard. Can't wait. And that was just wonderful to write this because how are we going to dream a new world into being if we don't actually spend time imagining what it's going to be like? And in that future we are celebrating pagan festivals, we're living in a much more traditional way and my dream is to build a hobbit house with dizzle that's underground, so it doesn't matter if storms are bad. here on Sark and, be living completely off grid and all those things. And for us to just strip things back. So it's not saying that the internet doesn't exist. It's, and it's not saying that it's lacking, but it's kind of. almost like a steampunk version of reality where we're more folk and roots led and back to basics than we are now. that's my vision. And it was a real pleasure to write it. And I just, I think it's a great way of calming your nervous system. there's a couple of chaos crusades there to inspire you. And with what I did there, I did the close, middle and far, and it's good to keep doing that. There's, there's close, middle and far in the outer world. So close is your immediate. Friends, your loved ones, middle is your community and far is the political landscape and the weather and things like that. And then in your inner world, close is how you're immediately feeling. Middle is the stuff that's going on in your relationships and, the cluggy stuff that's knocking around and then what's happening for you in your community and your job and that kind of thing, and then far is your ancestors and your cultural lineage. And then further back, go right back. It's collective consciousness and the dreaming and. that other thing where we all join up the infinite. yeah, explore these areas and go and write the future into being and go on an artist's date with your Abel. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. thank you for listening. It's been great. Lovely to be back. I've missed you so much. I'm very excited about the guests that I've got coming up. I've recorded a few podcasts already and they're awesome. So yeah, I can't wait to share these interviews with you. So tune in next Friday and we'll keep diving into the weird wonderful world of this nonsensical universe that we've been gifted. until then, See then. Yeah. Please subscribe! I don't know.