#85 Gathering of Roots; Witchfool Reflections

This week on Nonsense in the Chaos, I’m gathering the roots.

The Witchfool Are You? journey began on Monday and already something fascinating is unfolding. Sometimes we think we’re leading the ritual, holding the space or guiding the path, but then life quietly turns and reveals that something is leading us too.

In this episode I’m reflecting on the threads, synchronicities and whispers that are beginning to emerge through the course... the things the universe seems to be showing me through the people gathering around it, through the archetypes appearing, and through the deeper roots beneath the surface of what I thought this journey was about.

An episode about listening beneath the noise, trusting the universe and letting the flow carry you. 

Tea in hand recommended.

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.

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Thank you for all your support -x-

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Nonsense in the Chaos. I'm your host, Jolee Rose. I apologize for this podcast being a little late. I started recording it yesterday. I recorded a whole podcast, and I sat down to start editing it to get it out so it'd be ready for you this morning. And I had touched the microphone that was a lovely new microphone that my husband got me for Christmas, and I had muted it. I didn't realize there was a mute button on the back, and I muted myself, and I recorded the whole hour with me being muted, and then realized at the end, and then had somewhere else I needed to be, and that was that, and I couldn't do anything about it. So I'm ever so sorry, and I'm really disappointed 'cause I was, it was one of those, you know, oh, I'm pleased with that one podcast. So... And I, I think, you know, 'cause I do these improvised and it's, the nonsense in the chaos the whole premise of this is for me to just talk from my heart from where I'm at and what's going on for me. It's gonna be... I, y- yeah, I need to shed that that happened, start again. But the crux of what I was talking about was that I'm trusting the universe. So I'm even trusting that, that that was well, and all is well, and that, uh, it means that something new will come out today because of that, and that it's okay that it's out late, and all the rest of it. So I apologize for it being out late and let's see. Let's see how this ends up being. So trusting the universe, yes. I am, uh, in the beginning of the Witchful Are You cycle for 2026 with a group of people, and it's a lovely group of people, and I'm really happy that they're there, and I assume probably m- many of them listen to this. So thank you, sending you my big squishes and love. And what I'm doing with my own process is, it's, I've gone into ceremony now. So I'm in ceremony for the next lunar cycle, and we start with the Gemini dark moon because it's the twin effect, and we're looking at the inner and the outer and working with this twin effect. And I am this cycle very much trusting the universe to lead me to what I need to step into, and things are revealing themselves all the time. So even today, as I was listening to a podcast about astrology, the person was talking about the menopause and how that they would never want to be 20, 30, 40 again, that they love being 50. And it was really good to hear 'cause I'm 47. I'm absolutely fine with being 47. So my tussle with aging came very young because I thought I was going to be a famous ingenue actress like the Scarlett Johansson when she first came out. You know, I was... I thought I was gonna be a young, attractive star. Um, partly because I knew I had a kind of timeless, photogenic face, and so, like, I had the looks to go with it. I felt like I was unusual and stood out, which I did, but I think now that I'm older I can see that that's more neurodivergence than it is being particularly talented. But my... Yeah, I stood out a bit from the crowd. Being, being neurodivergent and standing out from the crowd, and then also being quite traditionally pretty m- means that it can be... Well, uh, myself, I think it was misconstrued for talent or star quality, and maybe that is what, um, a lot of star quality is because probably a lot of stars are neurodivergent. But I was also very lucky generally, and lucky breaks kept happening. I had a, um, lucky break where I met Julie Burchill who's the journalist who used to do a column every Saturday for the morning for the Saturday weekend newspaper for The Guardian, and that's when I met her. She was a writer for The Guardian. She then went completely crazy and became very right-wing and I was friends with her whilst that was happening, and then had to, like, put a stop to our, our friendship 'cause I just was like, "This is... You've gone a bit, yeah, dark side," which was really sad because I'd, I'd loved her. She was a dear friend. We met because I started an online web zine, feminist web zine, which was the first, I believe. I'm pretty sure it was the first. It's hard to know. Probably there were other ones out there if you did a Wikipedia search or whatever. But, um, it was called Flow for Women who Bleed, and 2001 I wanna say, uh, we brought it out, possibly 2002 But it caught the attention of Julie Burchill who wrote about it in The Guardian, and it was called Against the Flow because it was Flow w- uh, Flow Magazine for Women Who Bleed, and it had a red splodge on it, and then it had like se- Sex Pistols, you know, ripped up newspaper lettering saying Flow, and then it said For Women Who Bleed underneath. And she was like, "What happens if you don't bleed?" And what's the problem? Why have you got why, Her point was that we '80s feminists had fought hard to disassociate their bodies from being reduced down to their biological m- mechanisms, and that they were equal to men and able to do whatever men can do. And I s- what I saw that as was the Margaret Thatcher shoulder pad-wearing queen. It was actually Angela Carter said this. This is a quote from Angela Carter. God, I'm really dusting out the, the old corridors of my, uh, university and feminist, um- memory banks here. Uh, so I feel like a, a senile person going, "Ooh, I've..." Anyway, um, yeah, Angela Carter said that the queen in the game of chess can make all the moves, but she's still playing chess. She's still playing the king's game. And that that was the issue with '80s feminism, was that Margaret Thatcher and the Queen being the queen and all these people, women being in power, but they were still playing the king's game, and the king's game was bullshit. And it wasn't like we'd overturned chess and played Twister instead. And my point was, I, and this was very much the Tampax advert, blue liquid, women roller skating and just being like, "La, la, la." And I was like this is bullshit. This isn't what the female experience is like. What's wrong with blood? Uh, if men were bleeding, there'd be blood everywhere." And Loaded had just come out, so the guy zine, man zine, whatever they're called Loaded, which was, uh, huge in the early 2000s, that had just come out and it was all about men taking drugs and being cool and, like, doing all these, like, adventurous, amazing things. And then women's magazines were just so, how to keep your man, how to, you know, b- have the perfect skin, how to stay young, da, da, da. And so I, I was... That's why I started Flow, 'cause I'd finished university and I'd finished doing a feminism degree. And I'd come to Brighton and I met this guy called Steve Glazier who is a film director now, or, like, music video director. He's quite a well-known one now in, in that world. And he lived in Brighton, and he was a right old geezer, real dodgy wheeling and dealing, uh, which was what managed to finance all of us, which was great. Uh, appreciated his, um, support. He was in his 30s, and we were all in our early 20s, and he was just really good at talent spotting and scouting. And if he thought that someone had something in them that seemed star-like or interesting, then he would just be like, "I'll support you." And me and him hit it off straight away, especially 'cause I was more- Working class than a lot of the people in Brighton were. I didn't go to uni in Brighton. I went to university in Nottingham Trent, and then all of my friends from Kentwell Hall, the Tudor reenactment that I grew up at, had gone to Bright- well, some of us had gone up north, and we would all go to each other's parties up north. There was someone in Leeds, there was a couple of us in Nottingham. We would all see each other up north. Uh, some in Manchester and Liverpool. But we would go down to the parties in Brighton, and I just was like, "Mm, this is my spiritual home. I belong in Brighton." I, I wanted to move there as soon as I finished uni. So I moved down to Brighton, and as soon as I got there, I was staying with some of my Tudor friends, uh, Kentwell friends, and Steve, They were in a house that, um, Steve would come to each day because in the loft there was this a- almost albino, uh, pure white, 'cause he never saw the light of day, dreadlocked, computer g- geek who could just code nonstop. Like, his fingers were just like da-la-la, and he would just be there writing code. And the whole WW dot thing had only just begun. Like, we were at the forefront of it. Um, uh, Dreamweaver had just come out, Photoshop had just come out. Like we w- I was there as all these things came into existence, and we were the, the kids straight out of uni learning to use it and to create with it. And so all of us everyone had dreadlocks, we were all listening to techno, everyone was smoking weed, and we were just sat in this office just smoking and, yeah, listening to techno. But what he did was he rounded us all up and, and took us to this studio that he had, which was, um, a few floors high, and he rented it, and we would get fr- free rental space to just create. And there were people there making websites. Predominantly it was web- website and website design, but then there was a bunch of us that then were also more interested in performing and doing stuff in front of the camera, and we had someone who was training to become a, a cameraman, a steady cam cameraman. He's now a really, really big successful steady cam cameraman. Lots of artists painting and making things. And me and Steve did stand-up comedy together, so we would write stand-up comedy, and I, I did really well for a bit with that. That's probably the thing that I could have become famous from. Like, that was probably the most likely success thing I could have, you know, like the kind... No, it's not a regret. I don't regret it 'cause it's my life's been amazing and I love everything that's happened in my life, so I wouldn't swap any of it. But, um, I got through to the regional finals of the BBC New Comedy Awards, and then I got through to the semifinals of the Channel 4 So You Think You're Funny Awards, and that meant that I performed up at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, and it was huge. Like, it was funny, the first time I ever p- performed in Edinburgh it was in, like, the biggest venue, uh, the, in the like what, the biggest kind of Fringe venue. There were bigger venues, but it's the biggest kind of, um, on the Fringe network venue. Uh, so I started at the top and then crawled my way back down. Ever since just been in smaller and smaller venues now. Not quite. But, um, yeah, it was funny. My first performance in Edinburgh was in this huge venue, and I smashed it. I did really well. Like I, I really did it well. I- it was one of my top gigs. I bloody smashed it. But I was- someone had told me before I'd even gone there, another woman, that the women... She'd been put on first, and she was a character performer and so was I, so I was a character comedian. And in any lineup in any comedy gig, you never put the character comedian on first because you need the audience to sort of warm up a bit because you're not only asking them to laugh at the comedy, but you're asking them to use their imagination as well. So you would normally put the character in the middle. But she was the only woman, and she was put on first, and so she felt like she'd been used as a warm-up act in a placement that's known not to really work in terms of a comedy layout. And she was really furious about it. And I thought, "Well, it sounds a bit, like she's just a bit bitter, and maybe their names were pulled out of a hat or whatever." And then I got there, and I was the only girl, and I was a character performer, a comedian, and I was put on first. And I got... And I straight away was really angry 'cause, uh, they didn't pull any names out of a hat. They just told us what the lineup was. And I was like, "Why have you put the only female on first? And I know this isn't the first time you've done this." And then the guy who was on last, which is always, like, the, the most warmed up headline spot, was some toff from Oxford or Cambridge University or wherever, and he had had to go on last because he was coming from a gig. So he was already gigging as a comedian and had a show up at Edinburgh. And, uh, well, the rest of us were properly new, so it also was like, well, he doesn't really feel like a newcomer, and that doesn't feel fair. But also, off. Like, this posh toff just came on at the end, and I was furious. I was so cross. And I did really well, but he stood up before his name was even read out to accept the prize for the winner. He stood up before his name was even read out. And I saw him do it, and I was just like, you... the... And it felt, it felt rigged. It felt like he already knew, and I was really cross. And so, I turned my back on comedy, having also defaced all the posters at the venue before I left, and went for a wee in a bush. And Alan, not Alan Carr. Oh, the one, he's- Got done for tax dodging. Not the happy, smiley man who's the presenter of the design program and was just in Traitors. Not, not Alan Carr. Is it Al- Alan Carr? What's his name? Anyway, you know who I mean. He's got, like, sort of slightly got a monobrow, has a weird laugh, posh guy who always wears blazer suits and got done for tax dodging at some point. He caught me. I'd just weed in a bush, and I came out of the bush leaving the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh, and he caught... he just saw me come out the bush, and I burst out laughing. And then 15 years later the Fringe Festival in Brighton, I once again weed in a bush. It's not something I do that often in a city center, wee in a bush. Just, uh, only occasionally. And, um, I was coming out of the bush, and he walked past again, and I pissed myself. I was like, "That's hilarious." That's twice he's caught me. He doesn't know, and he won't even remember. The s- you know, he's probably got people laughing at him all the time for various reasons. this studio space I shared with Steve Glazier, he, he heard me one day at my friend's house saying, "Oh, women's magazines are shit. I've always thought I should just write my own." He said, "Well, why don't you? Um, if I build you a website, you'd be my cleaning lady." I was like, "All right." And then I moved into the office, and they built me the website, and I never, never did any cleaning. And then I ran that for- a while. It was probably a best part of a year. It wasn't that long, but for, like, a year sort of doing it every month. And in the process met Julie Burchill, and she was a scowled at me and scribbled- I gave her a flyer for it, and she scribbled out the title, and she scribbled out the slogan, and then she goes and wrote her email address. And she said, "If you get rid of the name and the tagline, I'll write for you." And I was just like, 'cause I'd gone up to her 'cause someone had said, "Oh, that's Julie Burchill." I didn't know who she was. I'd never heard of her. And they said, "Oh, she's a famous journalist. You could, um, tell her about your magazine." So I just literally was going up there just to say "This is my magazine. Have you got any advice?" And she scribbled everything out and then said, "If you get rid of that, then I'll write for you." And I was like I didn't ask you to write for me but thanks." So I sent her an email saying, "Look, I don't agree with you about the name. I think that in, You know, if it was, if the roles were reversed, the men, there would be blood everywhere. It would be something no one was ashamed of. It's just because it's women, and it's the other, and we've been othered that we're meant to be ashamed of our periods and our blood." And, um, it was based on the idea of loaded. So loaded as loaded with a gun, your cock's loaded, like this whole idea of loaded. I was like, what's the female equivalent? Well, flow. Women flow. We flow when we talk, we flow when we bleed, we flow when we come. Like, we're flowing. And we had this back-and-forth email exchange, and then she went, "Yeah, nevertheless, I, I like you. I'm gonna write about you in The Guardian." And then wrote this review called Against the Flow, and there was a little cartoon. She had this cartoonist that used to do cartoon drawing for whatever it was the theme of her column for that week in The Guardian. So I was in The Guardian as this little cartoon character. And she, reduced me and objectified me. So she said I was like looking at the center of a pomegranate or looking out over the Maldives, but the second I opened my beautiful mouth everything that came out made her seethe with hatred. So I then responded to her through The Guardian saying that if that had been a man talking about me, then everyone would be in outrage that I'd been objectified, and she should know better 'cause she's a, an older lady feminist, um, why are you objectifying younger women? Like, uh, so we ended up having a fight over that one in the paper as well. And then she asked me to come for dinner, and I was like, "What?" I didn't know what, why but I went, and I was also freaking starving. Like, I was so poor at that point as a st- Well, no I wasn't, I'd just, out university, was doing an online magazine, but I wasn't making any money and, uh, was so I stopped paying rent and then started squatting and, uh, moved into a squat so that I could live 'cause I just, I didn't have any money at all to pay rent. So, uh, that's when I squatted a house and all this woman's belongings were still in there, and I've done a podcast about that, um, Anne Clark. Uh, you can go back and listen to them. And yeah, that was amazing, this incredible house that I moved into that she came to. Julie Burchill came there to visit to a party. And she yeah, invited me to The Gingerbread Man, which j- won a Michelin star, I think it was. It had become a Michelin-star restaurant in Brighton. And she invited me there with a few other people that were all quite famous, um, an actress called Jackie Clune and Timothy something who wrote the play Julie Burchill Is A Way. And then another woman, I can't remember her name now. And yeah I T- took me out for dinner. She paid for the meal, and I was, like, starving and poor, and so I was really excited about the meal. And, um, yeah, had been, like where I was so poor I'd seen someone throwing out a load of bread for seagulls, and there was a pile of bread on the floor, and there was a sort of s- perfect slice on the top that, that was just whole and on the top and wasn't touching the road, and I, like, picked it up 'cause I was really hungry and I didn't have any money to get any food. Um, that's the s- the, probably the lowest point of my life financially. And yeah, she, she then in the end paid for me to go to drama school, which was amazing and also it con- ruined our relationship and was the beginning of me discovering that whenever money gets involved in things, it seems to screw up relationships. Um, we were such good friends, and then it, yeah it did change things. I didn't, I asked her first of all- Uh, first of all, I went for a scholarship at the drama school, and I probably or possibly could have got it, but I did a performance of Julie Burchill's Away as my piece, and they said, "Why?" It's 'cause I knew her so well, like I was able to copy her mannerisms. And they asked me why I'd chosen the piece, and I said I knew her, which was a mistake. I should have... If I hadn't said that, things might have been different. But because I said I knew her, they said, "You should ask her for the money," and that older women are mentors. They want to support, they want to help. You should ask her. So I asked her and she said no, and I told the school she'd said no, and they Yeah, still didn't respond saying that I'd got the scholarship. And then me and Julia were out one night, and out of nowhere she just turned around and went, "I'll pay for your drama school." And I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay." And so that was amazing, and she did. And we were still friends for a year, probably a year or two after that, but then she started saying really dark stuff and being very anti-Muslim in a, like, not ni- like, really horrible way. And I... And then became a Bride of Israel. And I was like, "Yeah, I think, I think we're done. However, you have just paid for me to go to drama school, so it'll say feels awkward." I was always gonna pay her back as and when I ever became successful, but I haven't done. And then we did make contact again more recently, 'cause she, I think she went through... Well, she's been through all the things she's been through, and she actually has gone through some really tough times as well. And I knew about you know, because I knew her more behind the scenes, I knew about how tough some of those things have been, and I have a lot of love for her, and I appreciate the fact that she supported me the way she did. And, um, and so we did reconnect a little while ago, and that was nice, and we had a bit of interaction. But we don- we don't have much in common anymore, so it didn't last very long. Yeah, we're not, we're not really in touch again now. But, um, I very much appreciated her supporting me. But it just meant that it felt like I had all these lucky breaks. I got called into the BBC quite a lot to do things, and then none of it went anywhere. And yeah, this comedy thing, like, at the time, even though I didn't win that competition, if I'd carried on, it was just before comedy became the big thing that it is now. I mean, it's a bit old. It's a bit... I'd, I'd say it's kind of gone past being a big thing in a way. Well, in a way it still is big, I guess. But, like, I would have been the peer of, um, Lucy Porter and Nina Conti and that, that wave of comedians. I was... If I'd stuck with it, I would have been coming through with them, and I would be, an old hat and an old hand, as they are now. So that's one thing I feel like if I had of stuck with it, that probably would have been where I would have had a bigger success, in terms of my career. In te- But, like, I went to drama school and it really, it was amazing. I loved the training. I loved the training that I got. It was brilliant. And, um- Had an amazing year. We were all really good. It was a, it was one of those, like, you get particularly years at school that are the kind of bright, shiny years. We were the bright, shiny year, and we had a great time, and it was amazing. But I came out of it, 'cause by the time this had all happened, I was like 26 when I started drama school. Was in it for two years. So I came out of it and suddenly I was 28, and then the next thing I knew I was 29, and I was like, "Oh, I'm not the ingénue famous actress that I thought I was gonna be." And that was a bit of a shock. And then suddenly realized that I was, o- old. And like my friends were all like, "We're not old. Like, shut up," like, turning 30. Like, "We're still really young, what are you talking about?" But for me, I knew I hadn't achieved what I thought I was gonna achieve. I thought I was going to be famous as something performative by the time I was 30, and the fact that I hadn't meant that I hadn't done that. I know that you could still become a famous actress or succeed in that world later, but it's much less likely, and it isn't the kind of career that I'd imagined because you'd be more of a, something else, like a character actress or, you know, it's, you're not the starlet thing that I was imagining I was going to be. And I'd had so much good luck, and I'd had so many opportunities, and it just felt like it was going to happen, and then it didn't happen. And partly, talent is in there to some extent. I'm not an extraordinarily amazing actress. I can't, I'm not triple threat. Like, that, that thing didn't even exist luckily at that point. I'm really glad that wasn't a term, because I'm an okay dancer but not an amazing d- I'm not very loose. I've got good timing, I've got good rhythm, but my flexibility's rubbish, and I can't sing at all. So I'm a one and a half threat, and I'm not even the best actress. And I, I mean, I've always been noticeably one of the good ones. So I was within my year, I was, I was definitely one of the standy-outy ones in my year, and I'm one of the ones that's had a full career as a performer artist and, still am. I'm, it's, uh, 24 years later, and although I am, I have been a barmaid for the last five years, which is the only time I've had another job otherw- other than being an artist in that time. That's because of me living here, and it's you know, everything's changed. The whole landscape's changed literally in terms of being in the Channel Islands, but also since the pandemic and just everything. And I ju- I want to be independent, and part of that is needing some sort of trickling money coming in each month just to cover me, which is what the pub's doing. But I'm also then trying to create work myself that means that I'm able to survive off my own back, which yeah, in the UK I was able to get funding and things that were able to support me in a way that I can't get here. So yeah, just trying to be more commercially viable and on my feet in a way that I never had to worry about so much before. But, um, yeah, and that just meant that turning 30 was a lot more of a that was my hard, that was my dark night of the soul moment. And then I was like, "Oh, fuck it, I'll get married and have kids." Uh, which was never on the radar because if you wanna go for it with that kind of work, you have to just give it your all, and anything else is like, once I've done that, I'll think about doing something else. And so I had, that was all I'd done, was just given it my all and taken every opportunity, and I'd really gone for it. And then it hadn't happened, and so then it was like, "Oh, okay, well maybe, maybe I'll have kids then." And then that didn't happen. And when that didn't happen, I was like, "Okay, plan C." Don't have a plan C. Definitely was very thinking about, ending my life kind of vibes, and was very depressed, and felt like I just completely failed and, yeah, it was, that was the... Yeah, so from basically 29, 30, to 35, I was in the woods, and it was, it was a long time. That was a long time to be depressed, and down, and feeling rubbish. And When I came through that, like it was the last round of IVF and we found out that hadn't worked, that was when I took the fool's leap and I said to the universe, "Okay, you're in charge. You're in charge, and I, I don't know what I'm doing now. I haven't got a plan C, so now you have to create this for me." And then ever since, life has been insane. And so the trusting the universe and letting things unfold is what I am doing and what I continually keep trying to do. But what I, some- you know, I, as with all these things, with all life lessons, one needs to keep reminding oneself of what you've learnt already and where you're at, and what your kind of eternal unanswerable question is. And so I'm f- I'm really following the signs at the moment. So the fact that I heard this podcast today and she talked about being 50, and I'm going through this transition, I'm going through this change of the menopause, but I'm enjoying it and I'm also observing it. I'm observing how I'm being quite nuts. I feel like last week my my podcast was pretty insane, and that I did overreact to the situation to some extent. However, I think when you're in your wise woman phase in your cycle each month, it's that you're less tolerant of bullshit. You know, your, there are, there, your skin is less thick, and th- that's still a truth. It does, it's just that you're less able to put up with things, and that's a truth. And I utilize that in my cycles when I'm not going through the menopause generally, before I would utilize that as a time to have the difficult conversations. You know, there are conversations that one puts off having because they're awkward and unpleasant, and I would do them during that week because I wouldn't even need to plan it. It would just happen in that week because that was when I couldn't cope with it anymore. I couldn't put it off anymore. But once I sort of consciously supported that, it meant that I did kind of have that extra oomph to do it during those weeks. It'd be like, "Look, now's the time to do it because you're emotionally raw, you mean it, you care. T- y- you, just do it now because if you wait till next week after you've bled, you're not gonna care that much about it again, and it's not gonna bother you until it starts building up and bothering you." So I, I utilize that time. And so seeing how- That's become like a more bigger wash by it being the phase that I'm now going into. And so I'm saying goodbye to a phase. I'm saying goodbye to the mother, and I went for a big journey with that whole phase, you know? And, and there is a hard drive full of sadness that I separated. You know how you have twin hard drives in a computer, and I do have a hard drive of sadness for not having had children, of mourning and, and, despair and loss and sorrow, that I just separated and went back to my 20s, you know, the Joely of my 20s who wanted to be an actress and wanted to be a, a, a artist and that sort of thing, and just went back to that. And so I, I separated that hard drive and left it over there. But with going through the menopause, that is the point where you're gonna take that hard drive out and really bury it. That's the end of that. There's no possibility that I might end up having a child, even though I totally don't want one, but that's because I'm existing on this other hard drive. And yeah, so it's sort of saying goodbye to that hard drive. It's a mini death, and I think everyone goes through, all women go through the, the death of their youth when they have children and/or you know, don't have children, and then the death of, of your youth again, another phase of youth as you go through the menopause. It's so interesting that we have these milestone moments in our evolution as beings that men don't experience. It's just so cool being female, isn't it? I am a gay man trapped in a woman's body, and I do all of this from a very ob- observational perspective, where I'm like interesting." And I do feel like of all of it, I'm just like, "Oh, this is, this is mad. Being a woman's mad. How do you guys do it?" Like how do you... But obviously, you know, everyone's going through their cycles in whatever number of cycles they've been through. And that's one of the things that's coming through a lot for me at the moment as well, is, um, past life stuff. So I feel like as I'm entering into this wise woman phase and the change, my past lives are feeling more present, and a lot of stuff's coming up around that, which I will possibly talk about further. But let's first of all pull a rune If you enjoy this podcast, then please consider supporting me on Patreon, which is patreon.com/jalyrose. At the moment I'm struggling with finding out or hearing about how awful the world is with Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire, and the barrage of... And, oh God, yes, the barrage of stuff that's happening, and knowing that we're being tricked and duped, and the right wing rising, and it's a lot. It feels like a lot. And one of the things that I know is happening is that there's manipulation going on with the algorithms to try and force podcasts into being visual and being more short, short form, so more like TikTok and things like that. Because It's from a bygone era, like books and, uh, records, um, vinyl and things like that, that the powers that be know that they'll get more marketing and more data collection from shorter form, quicker visual stuff than they do from long form pieces of work. And so any artist you know who is creating work that you love and that you think is amazing, it's so important that you support them right now because we're being pushed more and more into just being content creators rather than actually creating work. Like I just... I don't see how there's gonna be musicians in 20 years' time. That's one of the things that I think about the most, 'cause that just takes so much just repetitive time. I know it's sort of just in your blood. It's not in my blood, sadly, and it's something I wish had been. But for, I mean, but for me, like as a, a fool and as a theater performer as a fool, I have spent... 2002 as well, so 24 years developing my technique and my challenging myself as a, a fool, and that is like doing a martial art, and that's been continuous and I'm still doing it. You know, even doing these podcasts, it's always about how can I open up, connect, share something archetypal, be vulnerable, and then the same with my ceremonies and everything. It's like how can I deepen them? How can I let archetype arrive? And part of that is doing the rune readings and just opening up spaces for something else to come through. And so I'm always working on it, and that's my practice, and I've been doing that for 24 years, and I'm where I'm at with that. And if that is something that you find insightful or supportive or interesting and you want me to keep doing it, then financially supporting me is key because everything is against us doing this. And I'm so nourished by the people I follow, who I support, and I want them to carry on, and I want them to carry on doing it in the shape and form that they do it in. So I'm always buying artwork from my friends who I love their artwork, and, um, I pay subscriptions for podcasts that I listen to all the time because they give me sustenance. I know that I'm getting something from them, and I would rather them existing than just sort of free content data collection tappy, scrolly, scrolly, doom scrolling bullshit. I'm not up for that. So I mean, I, dip into it f- 'cause I'm an addict like everybody else is. But yeah, I'm, I make sure I read books. I make sure I switch off and do other things that are more long form. So to support that, get on there, support them on Patreon and whatever platforms they are using. Buy their books, buy the work, and, uh, make sure that the trillionaire assholes don't destroy everything that's beautiful in our reality. So there you go. And now on with the show Well, the rune I have just pulled is joy. And I maybe have pulled this before in a podcast. I don't know. I don't pull it that often. It's probably the first rune I ever knew, though. In terms of... I don't know, it feels significant to me in that I think it was the first one that went in when I was learning the runes. And so it's sort of been in my, been in my s- yeah. It's, uh, I don't know. It's a, it is a part of me in a way. It's a P. It looks like a P, but it actually, in the alphabet, is W. And I learnt to read and write runes when I was seven seven or eight, because I'd read Anne Frank's diary, and I was so profoundly affected by it, and especially the fact that she didn't know how it had impacted people all these years later. And so I started writing a diary. Yeah. Seven, uh, seven or eight when I started writing my diary. And then we went to the JORVIK Centre in York and learning about the Vikings, and it's an amazing space. Really smelly. I always remember the smells. Anyone who's been there will know what I'm talking about. And at the back of the visitor's handbook, it had the rune alphabet, the Futhark, um, runic alphabet. And I learnt to read and write it so that I could write in my diary and my parents wouldn't know what I was saying. And then I realized I could read the map at the front of The Hobbit, which I was very excited about 'cause that was my favorite book, and I'd been reading it for years. And so it was something that just felt special and profound to me that I was able to read with these runes, and it wasn't until I was 13 when I found out that you could use them for divination. And that was when I pulled my rune, which is a diamond, and it's Ing, the seed the seed of sperm. So it's masculine fertility and masculine creativity. And I think of it as like an arrow p- p- well, it's the sperm piercing the egg, creating a baby. Your life is changed forever. But like a, you know, an arrow hitting a balloon, that balloon's transformed. It will never go back to what it was before. And that's what I think of as my essence and my archetype, is that I am one of my archetypes is Ing, which is the name of this diamond rune. And I am my name even originally was Joely Pierce, my maiden name. So P-I-E-R-C-E literally means piercing something, and Joely means pretty. So it was like a pretty transformation. It was like, ha, poof Make something like sparkly and different and change it. And that feels obviously very core to me. And then this rune also feels like it's part of my core, which is joy, and I think I do have a childlike, joyful outlook on life. I'm an optimist. And- Yeah, so I suppose I, uh, the things that are coming through at the moment that feel like the witchful that you are bringing through and just looking at the universe and what's happening is a, a regathering of roots and connecting to the full journey, the full story of what has gone on. It's interesting Ellie being here, my best friend who's moved over, who I was a bit grumpy with her last week, but I'm not at all now, and I know I was being a bit of a knob, so I apologize, Ellie, for me being a knob. She is someone who's been in my life since I was 27 26, 27, and she was like 18. And we became really good friends, and we've been friends ever since. And so she knows... But then, even when we're talking, she's like, "Yeah, there's so many things that you talk about," like me going to Australia and moving to Australia when I was 18. She's like, "I don't remember her doing that." And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that was before I knew her." And then she's like, "Gosh, you've done so many things." Like, even all these things that I did before. She knows all the things I've done since she's known me, but she's like, "You've done so many things. It's insane how many things you've done." And yeah, I think that's what has happened instead of, like, being famous, is I've ended up living a million crazy lives and I love the fact that half of them span pre-digital and pre-recorded times. Like, I've got no photos of my life in Berlin, not a single one, and I have a couple of photos of me in Australia. But yeah, no photos of me in Berlin and my life in Berlin. I don't have any. I only have my memory. And then university, there's a photo album downstairs with some photos in from my university days. But that, isn't that mad? Like, all of that, my teenage years and 20s are pretty undocumented. And then we get into 2006, 2007, 'cause, like even the early internet world that I was doing with the studio that I was part of, it, none of those websites are still up. They're all old f- they're gone. They're all gone. So Flow Magazine is gone. You couldn't find that. There's no trace of s- finding it. My name's changed three times as well, so it's almost like I've had the virgin, mother, and crone aspect of life as well, which is one of my archetypes. So my archetypes are Aphrodite, the sex goddess, like strumpet. That's my kind of overall main one, which is the one that h- has had to go through different phases in terms of desire and sexuality and attractiveness as it changes and goes through ages. I suppose, actually, you know what? I'm talking myself into what I think is going on for this witchful is- Exploring my archetypes that I know I have from the perspective of sh- of shifting and going through a new frontier, like passing through this veil into a new space and where they, how they come with me, how they shift and form in this new space. 'Cause the strumpet in Aphrodite feels like she's meant to be younger. So who is she as older? You know, who is she as older? Then Hecate, who's my triple goddess aspect where I've got a real childlike, joyful innocence. This joy rune is my youthful, optimistic side. And then there's the central bit, which was the mother bit, which is very nurturing and creative and loving, which I have also got in me to be a teacher and to support and nurture and help people find their path and find their archetypes that be part of who, who I am as well. But that's the part that I'm saying goodbye to now. And then Hecate's old, you know, the crone is what I'm stepping into, a baby crone, so I've got that, that triple goddess aspect. But then I've got Ing, who's the fertility god, and that's my masculine gay man trapped in a woman's body aspect, and he, he's becoming an older, an older, like the mentor older man, artist guy who has the young boy, lover or whatever. And then w- weaving within it is the warrior. So I am a warrior, but it's I say I'm less of an Artemis-y archetype in that there are some people where that's very strong with them. I'm more Aphrodite, but I definitely have a warrior aspect to me, which is I'm fearless. I have a fearlessness, and so it's more like- Prostitu- or like whore as warrior rather than warrior as whore. Although there's a bit of that. I don't know, yeah. This is for me to start unpicking, but, um, I feel like the work that's coming through for me is about gathering in all of the bits that I've got and exploring them in this new space that I'm stepping into. And it's interesting because my earliest kind of life thing, which was moving to Australia, is really coming through, and I'm reading a book called Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta. I'll hold it up to the video. I'll put a video, a photo of it up on social media as well. And it even refers to, "Like Dark Emu on acid, an extraordinary invitation into the world of the dreaming." And Dark Emu I read when I was in Australia in 2020. That was very much part of the story that led to me here, being here in Sark. So when I did the pilgrimage, I'd just been in Australia, so I was super fit and I was able to go off and do the pilgrimage on my own and felt strong enough to do it and fit enough to do it. And that was, yeah, really interesting because I didn't wanna go to Australia, but I ended up being pulled there and while I was there, I learnt about the rainbow serpent and, uh, and realized a, a connection to the land that I think is a past life and that's why I find Australia so vacuous and actually gives me panic attacks. I I really don't like it. Uh, but it's not, it's the culture that's there now, it's that the land, as soon as I got my hands in that soil there, 'cause there'd been, um, forest fires and I didn't wanna go. I didn't wanna go to Australia at all, and we got paid stupid amounts of money to go there because I kept saying no. And in the end we had to go, and then because we were flying and there was forest fires going on as we were going, and I'm like, "We're literally adding to the problem by flying there," I said, "Can we please do something connected to the forest fires to help when we get there?" And so we did, and we went and, um, helped replant gardens where people had been in the fire, and we were taken to this landscape that was just black as far as you could see. It was so- Armageddon. It was unbelievable. And then in a day we turned it green around this house. We've just replanted this garden and cleaned the house down, power jetted the house on the outside and just brought some life back into this space, and met amazing people. And as soon as I put my hands in the soil, I was like, "No, actually, this land is incredible. I love the land." And s- and I f- everything that I've done in my life has been connected in a way to sort of Aborigine beli- oh, no, t- the work of Aborigines of walking song lines. I walk the energy lines with my pilgrimages, and the fulling is all working with the dreaming. And I know that these words and languages are not the right words for it. It's all a bit abstract. You know, the language doesn't really work for it. But I feel, I can feel that they're similar things, and it's interesting that it feels like that's all coming up again for me at the moment, especially now that I'm here in this valley, and there's something about me being here that feels like I'm doing... That's what I'm doing now. That's what this has all been leading towards, and now I'm here doing something here with the energy line that I now live on, and that feels important and like I'm meant to be here. So it feels like it's all come to, like, you know, the the storyline's all making sense. There's, uh, plot lines that are running through that are connecting. So let's think about the Chaos Crusade My chaos crusade for you this week is to create something that is out of your comfort zone. So, uh, using a medium that isn't your usual medium. So if you normally are a musician, or you normally paint, or you normally write, to use a different medium and to create something. And I want you to explore both how it comes across, like what you... what it looks like, what it feels like. There will be a way in it or a flavor of it that's always you, that you're like, "Oh, this is how anything I create always looks." And to look at that and be like, "Okay, what is that? What's that flavor? What does it..." Looking at other artists, like who might do something similar, who are they and what are they like? And also to just observe your criticism and your, your inner critic, and to just ex- just notice it. And that's all it is. I just want you to just notice. So I want you to create, create something in a different medium to what you normally create in. Observe it. Observe how it's... you can still tell it's you that did it, why, what that is, and just to like look at that and pick that a bit. And then also just to observe your inner critic and how they are about it. And that's, that's what I'd like you to do this week. So thank you so much for being here. Sending you huge love and I'll see you next week, and I promise I will be on time. All right. Thank you. Lots of love, and I shall see you then all.