Live from the Welcome to Romanistan Festival: Stewarding Traditions Panel with Lilith Dorsey, Paulina Stevens, Jezmina Von Thiele, and Bimbo Yaga

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Romanistan .
Wear your friendly neighborhoodgypsies.
I'm Jez Paulina is on therecording you're about to hear
and I'm just here to intro theWiser Books-sponsored Stewarding
Traditions panel that Paulinaand I did with Lilith Dorsey, a
wonderful Wiser author, as partof our Romanistan Festival to

(00:25):
Celebrate Secrets of RomaniFortune-Telling, our debut book.
The panel is moderated by IlvaMara Razhizhevsky.
We had a really great time.
We talk about so many things.
There's a Q&A, so we reallyhope you enjoy and we have a
very loving request for you Ifyou enjoyed Secrets of Romani

(00:45):
Fortune Telling, please give usa five-star review and say
something nice on Goodreads orAmazon.
It's a wonderful thing to do.
For any authors you love.
It's a free and easy way tomake a huge difference in their
support.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
We love you, we appreciate you.
Please enjoy.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Lilith, would you like to introduce yourself and
your book?

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Yes, alright.
I started writing about voodooand African traditional
religions when I was anundergrad my second undergrad
degree in anthropology and I hada pale, stale and male
professor who said there was nosuch thing as magic in the
United States or divination, andthat was all fake and my girls

(01:49):
were little at the time and Iwanted to prove him wrong.
I wanted them to have powerfulimages of their heritage, from
both an academic and a practicalperspective.
So that was pretty much wherethis book was born.
I used to have the OshunAfrican Magical Quarterly, which
we used to go to the copy placeand fold it over and hand it
out to people for free, startingin 91.

(02:11):
So that's how long this hasbeen going on.
But yeah, I am a NewOrleans-style voodoo priestess.
I also have initiations inHaitian voodoo.
I have initiations in La ReglaLa Kumi.
I do have a degree in HaitianVodou.
I have initiations in La ReglaLa Kumi.
I do have a degree inanthropology.
I have my own spiritual househere in New Orleans.
We've been going for about 15years and I don't know.

(02:34):
There's a lot of other things.
I do a lot of other things.
I'm in a play, it's great, comesee it, and I rewrite my bio
every day, so this is wherewe're at right now, but for the
purposes of this I have beenstudying and practicing for four
decades now, so it's a lot.
It's a lot and it's beautiful,and it's taught me to really

(02:56):
understand things from thesacred feminine perspective,
which was not given to me or mydaughter when we were growing up
.
So I think it's an importantvoice and people have told me
this book saved their lives andeven if I don't make a dollar,
that's important enough for meto keep writing and keep talking
about the religions.
Thank you so much.

(03:17):
Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Anything else to add?
No, I think that's great.
No, I don't think that's greatJasmina, will you introduce
yourself and impart yourrelationship to this book?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Hi, I'm Jasmina Von Thiele.
I'm so grateful to be here.
I'm so grateful you're here andI'm so grateful we do these
things, and so grateful to youtoo.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
So much gratitude and thank you for being here.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Everyone we really it means so much to us Really
really does so.
I grew up in New Hampshire.
I'm mixed and assimilated,which means that only my
maternal grandmother is Romani,and she also spent an enormous
amount of her time raising meand teaching me what her
relationship was to her Romaniculture.

(04:09):
She grew up in Nazi Germany,hiding her ethnicity in plain
sight.
She was not allowed to speakher language and at the same
time her grandparents riskedtheir lives to teach her their
cultural practices as much asthey could in secret, and so
when she came to the US, she didnot raise her children with a

(04:29):
context for the customs thatthey grew up with and told them
when they were adults that theywere Romani.
And my mother and my auntie, Ithink, maybe got a little more
information because of gendernorms within Romani traditions,
and my grandmother was raised todo what she would call women's

(04:50):
work in quotation marks and shewould also be like but my
grandma was so progressive Likeshe knew I was queer before.
I did it she also was very proudthat her grandfather also read
and she saw I don't think shethought a lot about restrictions
and um.
So I was fortunate because herrelationship with her adult

(05:12):
children was strained for a lotof reasons and definitely not
helped that their culturalcontext was hidden from them.
So I was incredibly fortunatethat, as a really small child,
she decided to just pour all ofeverything she knew about her
fragmented relationship with herculture into me, and so I was
really lucky to be connectedwith Paulina and we've been

(05:36):
working on Romana Sun podcastsince 2021.
And we really wanted to make ita place where we could uplift
Roma from all different walks oflife, whether you are
traditional or you're a mixed,or you're assimilated or grew up
in culture, if you're queer,whatever your relationship is,
if you're adopted.
And we interview folks from Roma, but also non-Roma, who are
doing really cool things that wethink intersect with Romani

(05:58):
community interests, likeland-back movements and things
like that.
And we wrote this book togetherbecause we kept getting
questions about where do peoplego for resources, about romani
fortune telling, and we werelike, well, we guess you have to
talk to some people about itand then we were like we should
write this book, um yeah becauseyou all are the people that

(06:20):
most people prefer people totalk to about it and so this is
a book of cultural andhistorical context of fortune
telling.
It's a survival trade, but it'salso a how-to and it's also a
memoir of how we grew up infortune telling traditions in
different families, in differentways, but also with a lot of
similarities.
Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Thank you and Paulina , will you introduce yourself
and your relationship to thebook that you and Jasmina have
written?

Speaker 7 (06:46):
Yes, so everything that Jess said about gratitude,
I also feel that way.
And so, yeah, thank you guys forbeing here.
This book has been such aninteresting process.
We actually learned so muchwriting it and it talks a lot,
lot about.
We talk a lot about ourhistories, but also we go into

(07:07):
some of our trauma, some of ourhealing.
Um, sometimes, to be honest,it's even triggering reading
from this book.
So there's a lot of likedeep-rooted history that goes
into it.
I grew up in a small, closedRomani community in California
called the Majwaya community,and I was taken out of school.

(07:29):
I actually rarely even went toelementary school kind of
throughout my life and I wasengaged at 14.
I was married.
I actually did turn my phoneoff, but for some reason, that
wasn't a alarm.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
I was letting you know we were getting started.
Yeah, time to start.
Thank you all for being hereokay.

Speaker 7 (07:50):
So, um, where was I okay?
So, yeah, arranged marriage,and then we were actually only
allowed to do fortune tellinggrowing up.
It was just one of the tradesthat Roma were able to do kind
of on the go throughout, kind oflike persecution and like war
and stuff like that throughoutthe world, and so that's kind of
how I got into it, since, sinceI was a child and all of my

(08:14):
ancestors before that have alsopracticed it, so we held on to
fortune telling and I decided toleave my small community, but I
I'm obviously still Romani, andso I felt like, yeah, I felt
like we really just put all ofthat information into this book
Some closed practices we do notshare in this book, but some

(08:38):
practices we do share.
So that's what it's about, andI stopped fortune telling for a
little while and I took a breakand I came back to it.
I also did a little podcastwith the LA Times called
Foretold that talks about Just alittle podcast.
A little podcast, just a littlepodcast with the LA Times and
they just talk about my storyand leaving my community and

(09:01):
kind of walking between bothworlds, and so that's where I'm
at, and none of this would bepossible without Jess.
Jess, honestly, has been mypartner in crime, but I don't
want to say that because youknow we're gypsies.
I don't want to say that buty'all know what.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I mean though, and that is it.
Thank you so much.
I want what I mean, though, andthat is it.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Thank you so much.
I'll introduce myself too.
I'm Ilvamara Radjushevski.
I go by Bimbo Yaga.
I am also of mixed Romaniheritage.
My mother is Romani she's mixedRomani, sinti on her paternal
side, and Romangro and CroatianRom on her mother's side, and my
father is a Polish andassimilated Ashkenazi Jew.

(09:49):
We were raised very OrthodoxCatholic, and so the context
that I bring is somebody whogrew up in two, three very
distinct cultures of diaspora,within an American context, but
also within a semi-closed,assimilated family system.
So I feel like I sometimes pingaround, I don't often know

(10:14):
where I land, and so for me, inthis conversation, I'm going to
be asking questions of the threeof you that I personally want
you to answer.
I love that, because nobodygave me any questions.
So now Mama is off the leash,that's what we wanted.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
So I'm going to present a little context for
each question and I'm going toask the question.
I want you to just answer themhowever you want.
So are you okay?
Yeah, question, and I'm goingto ask the question.
I want you to just answer themhowever you want.
So, okay, oftentimes, as acultural bearer, um, I, I think

(10:58):
that there is a misunderstandingfrom non culture bearers that
we learn these ancient secretsin these arcane systems and
these arcane methods.
And you know there's, there's aI.
I often get asked the weirdestquestions about the roots and
source of my knowledge.
However, in my experience, themost profound arcana that I ever

(11:24):
learned is from observing themost mundane tasks of, often, my
grandmother, my aunties and mymother.
So my question for you all iswhat mundane tasks that you grew

(11:50):
up with, observing people inyour family or elders or mentors
in your life, taught you thedeepest secrets that you carry
with you?
Does that make sense?
so another way I would say thisis um in the, in looking at the
foundation of your personalpractice, um can you share a

(12:14):
little bit about and if that'strue for you you know, if it's
true that you know the mundanereally teaches the foundation um
.
Can you speak a little bit tothe inspiration from the mundane
and how you transmuted thatinto your personal practice of
cultural stewardship?

(12:34):
Mm-hmm, okay, whoever wouldlike to start?
I'll start.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I like to go first.
Sometimes you can start, jess,I love to talk.
Thank you for letting me talkhere today.
Um, yeah, so I the first thingsthat come to mind.
Um, I got to spend a lot oftime with my grandma.
I slept over her trailer all thetime when I was a kid and it
was really special and I'm happymy mom, had that child care and
um so the biggest thing that wewould do is talk about our

(13:05):
dreams every morning, which isso interesting because I oh
hello, welcome in.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
We're so happy to have you wejust asked the first question
yeah, you're just in time, willyou will?

Speaker 3 (13:17):
you reiterate my question.
In the way that you do soeloquently, make more sense than
I did, baby girl no, you'reperfect.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, so Ilva just asked us in what ways did our
experiences of the mundane inour household, the kind of daily
things that we do in and out,teach us profound spiritual
lessons or parallels that arespiritual teachings as well?
And I was saying that I got tospend a lot of time with my
grandma and one of the thingsthat she would do is she would
always ask me what I dreamtabout.

(13:51):
I didn't know that this wasn'tnecessarily a typical American
experience.
When I was older, I found outthat it was considered a little
rude to talk about your dreamsbecause everyone thought that
was boring.
But in my family and probablylike lots of others, it's not
just a Roma thing, but it wasreally normal to talk about our
dreams, talk about what oursleep was like and what did the
dreams mean, and we would parsethem apart in the morning and it

(14:14):
was so interesting.
All of her dreams werehorrifying, absolutely
horrifying, and she shared themwith me and I was four or five
and I was five and we wouldanalyze each other's dreams and,
um, so that was a really bigone and that that's really, I
felt, like the cornerstone.

(14:34):
You know, paulina, and I writeabout this like dream
interpretation.
It's a cornerstone of a lot ofromanian intuition practices and
exercises and we we talk aboutour dreams now to make decisions
together, and so that wasreally special and magical and I
didn't realize I was learninganything special at all at the
time and the other things that Ithought I feel like are mundane

(14:56):
within Romani households.
And then when I got older, Iwas like, oh, I guess that is
something special is that wewould often go outside and
forage together and I thoughtthis was like a totally normal
experience and we would evenforage in places because at the
time we were living in Salem,new Hampshire.
I wasn't living there, she wasliving there and, just to
clarify, but there was thisplace that I always I was like,

(15:19):
oh, grandma, can we go to themeadow?
And she's like, absolutely,let's bring blankets and not
touch anything.
And I was like, okay, great.
And then I went back as anadult and there are hypodermic
needles, needles everywhere inour meadow, which was like a
scrap of land behind the postoffice.
It was horrible there but, therewere really beautiful

(15:42):
wildflowers that grew there andeven dandelions and other things
, and so she didn't let us eatthe things that grew there,
because we shouldn't.
But she did let us work withthem energetically.
And she would have us pick thedandelions and she would ask me
to kind of sit with them and letme know, like what does a
dandelion suggest for us today?
Like what's the medicine?
And then we would pick betterdandelions later at a different
place.

(16:10):
We would use them as, like youknow, the greens and everything
else, and so foraging, I think,was something that felt really
normal to me and even also waspassed down through my other
side of the family, the Italianside of the family, and so, um,
and lastly, there was one otherone, with tea preparation stood
out to me and, um, mygrandmother was really into, I
mean, she loved tea leaf readingit.
It might've been her favorite,I'm not sure, but um, the tea
preparation was always somethingshe did with a lot of

(16:30):
sacredness.
The idea is that scalding thepot with the hot water was a
blessing, that putting the tealeaves in was a moment to
connect with the plant and letthem know, like, what we needed
from them.
Pouring the tea was a time tobreathe and sit with our
meditation and reflection as itwas steeping, and pouring it and
talking was an opportunity,like through conversation, to

(16:50):
share the kind of energy that wewanted to bring into the
reading.
And it really was just makingtea, but then when I started
teaching these things I was like, oh, that was ritual and so
that was a really.
And there's so many things likecleaning our houses and all of
these things, but those were thetop three where I immediately
go Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 7 (17:10):
Thank you so much, paulina.
Yes, so I feel like when yousaid cleaning our houses, like I
was definitely thinking aboutthat Cleaning was so important
energetically to us.
So if you had like dirtyclothes, like it was always like
oh my gosh, like wash them likeasap, or whenever we were
feeling a certain way like wehad to wash our porches with

(17:34):
salt and soap, um, that was onething that I really do feel like
I can sleep better, better andbreathe better when, like, the
house is clean and it reallydoes help kind of, I think,
cleanse the energy out,especially if, like, something
happened in the house, like Iquickly clean something and then
it feels a little bit better.

(17:54):
Um, using food for medicine wasalso something that was really
um, I had thought that everybodykind of did that.
What we were eating every day,our very traditional food, is
just pork and lard and rice andtomato sauce and some vegetables
.
But when we were feeling down,it was pretty normal for us to

(18:17):
use food and herbs as medicine,just like some teas.
Sometimes there would be a lotof soups, just a lot of random
things, or putting whiskey inthe baby's mouth or teething and
stuff like that.
There were some things werehealthy, some things were not,
but the healthy things were aredefinitely something that I

(18:37):
still try to implement now andthen also one thing that I
thought was kind of weird butreally I think prepares me a lot
, was working at a young age andI also thought that I was
working like other kids atschool.
When I did go to school, um,when I was present, kids would
say like, oh, you know, I wentwith my dad to work today and I
was like oh yeah, like I workwith my parents every day like

(19:00):
we're on the streets every dayLike.
I thought that was normal.
And in a weird way, my work issuch a big part of my spiritual
practice too, and when I'm notworking I feel like I should be,
like I should be doingsomething either like healing,
talking to someone you know,working, writing, like there's

(19:21):
just a little bit of that likehustle culture that I think um
is a part of my spiritualpractice in a weird way.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
So when you say working and then you list those
things, like it makes me thinkof um, I have some, there's so
many parallels, as also a gypsywoman, uh, but also it makes me
think of this um thing my, myNana, used to say of, like,
moving with purpose, likeeverything you do, you have to
move with purpose, move withpurpose, and that that is what

(20:02):
she called working in the world.

Speaker 7 (20:05):
Yes, you know, like everyone was working together.
We all had our own like littlejobs and it was fun, like when
you're working with your familyand your cousins and like, um,
it was a, it was an interestingthing, and I kind of feel like
I'm still doing that now, likewe are totally family and we're
probably related somehow.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Thank you so much, and Lily.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Oh, I feel like both of you said such amazing things.
Thank you.
A lot of it really did resonatewith me, and it was things that
I didn't think again weremagical, or things that I didn't
think other people did ordidn't realize that they were
doing.
A lot of it was centered aroundthe kitchen, a big kitchen,
which, if it goes down to that,you know, I remember being two

(20:49):
years old and climbing up to thecounter and helping them and
you know, if you stirred it thewrong way then you'd get yelled
at you know okay, this is goingto be the healing soup.
Don't put that in there.
Why not?
You know?
so things that you might thinkwere practical were really
magical, and I didn't realizethat until I was much older, so
that was really special.
The thing about the babies myfavorite story was when I was I

(21:16):
got into the divine femininewith my ancestors, but when I
was four years old they put mein the nativity play and I was
supposed to be the Virgin MaryOf course right, so I'm sitting
up there four years old.
They gave me a real baby.
Gave me a real baby.
I was up there for two and ahalf hours with a real baby and
I'm into it.
I'm like, oh yeah, it didn'tcry.

(21:36):
It was great.
Everybody was happy.
I know the gang.
That was fun.
But there were so many things Ilearned about you know.
Oh okay, this is what thisnoise from the baby makes.
This is what you do and, yes, alot of it's practical.
Maybe they're gassy, but maybethere's spiritual reasons that
they might be crying, or anybodywho's been around young
children knows that they seethings that we don't see

(21:58):
sometimes and you have to takecare of that, you know.
So I feel like I was trained ata very early age on what to do
and what not to do, and it wasreally funny to me.
One day, my auntie came overand I didn't grow up with her,
but I was cooking one of myfeasts for my ancestors and I
made all these dishes and shewas like your great-grandmother
made this exactly the same wayand I almost was like crying

(22:21):
because I never met this woman.
My own grandmother died when Iwas like one year old, so I
didn't get that in a practicalway, but somehow I knew this is
how it's supposed to go togetherto heal my family, to heal my
spiritual family, to take careof me, and it's something that
I'm really proud of.
My daughter now works for allthese, like Danielle Ballou and
David Chang and all these famousMichelin chefs and whatnot, so

(22:44):
now it's like I've passed it onto her and she always sneaks a
little magic into the menus andstuff like that.
It's beautiful, but it's just soimportant, right, we have to
clean our houses, we have totake care of our children, we
have to make the food, andthat's not female work or
debased work, that's what it'sreally all about, because if we
don't have those things, we'renot going to survive and thrive.

(23:06):
So for me, that was always moreimportant, and I didn't care
what outside people were sayingabout like oh, you're not, you
know, doing the big importantwork.
I am doing the big importantwork, you know.
There was also a lot ofpractical, like hex breaking
things that they gave me.
You know what I?
mean Like don't touch somebodywith your broom.
I remember being in the fourthgrade I had this game called

(23:28):
sweep up, where I just hit thenasty bullies in the class with
the broom and then they were outand I was like this is the
witchiest game I could have comeup with in the fourth grade,
but it was great here we go,yeah, you're dirty.
You got the broom on, yeah butyeah it was.
You know you got to get rid ofyour enemies.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
I was trying to say you from an early age.
Yes, thank you so much what Ilove about these, these answers,
and in this question too, isthat it is an invitation for, I
think, all of us even in thisroom, to think about what were
those moments of our ownupbringing, whether we are

(24:07):
connected to our culture, ourculture of origin, our families
or, or you know, whatever.
However, we were stewarded aschildren looking at the ways
ritual played into your dailylife and maybe invited you or
influenced you to, um, yeah,just to kind of experience your

(24:33):
world, um, with a bit morepurpose and a bit more whimsy,
or a bit more magic and meaning.
And so, whether or not you areconnected to root culture, your
own root culture, I think itcould be a really beautiful
thing for us to think about theways that maybe daily rituals
still inspire us.
Or what about those littlemundane moments of learning do

(24:57):
we carry with us and still makesacred from?
And I think what I was alsohearing in your responses is
that in these moments of mundanechores or tasks or things that
have to happen, there isopportunity for telling stories

(25:19):
and for sharing wisdom andinformation and learning songs.
Oftentimes, when we think abouttending tradition, there are
usually family stories that goalong with certain recipes.
Um, or at least in my familythere were, you know, like with
your great-grandmother.
There's certain stories that goalong with certain recipes.

(25:39):
Or there's certain songs thatgo with certain actions, whether
it's your mother listening toSeven Wonders while washing
dishes and smoking a joint, orsinging a traditional polyphonic
Slovakian Romani song, it's allthat kind of magic, right?

(26:01):
And that is, I think, part ofwhat the beauty of traditional
practices are is that it ismaking sacred the most mundane
things, which are essential fornot only survival, particularly
as diasporic people, but asculture bearers.
So next question tradition fortradition's sake sometimes

(26:25):
requires us to hold certainhistoric perspectives, and my
question for you is particularlymyself, as a transsexual Romani
woman who is disowned from mycultural system because of my

(26:47):
identities and other things.
There are aspects of ourcultural traditions that would
be considered tradition butmaybe don't need to be anymore.
Mm-hmm.
Right, you see what I'm saying.
Need to be anymore, right, yousee what I'm saying?

(27:11):
So, as cultural stewards, howdo you navigate, holding
historic context of traditionwhile also nurturing the spirit
of cultural tradition into amore elevated expression of
itself?
How do you put to rest theactive enactment of certain

(27:32):
cultural traditions so they canrest, so we can move on?
And how then?
What comes next after that?
Like, does that make sense?
What takes its place?
Because I think that everythinghas a place in its purpose, and
when the place and purpose forone thing, um resolves, it

(27:57):
leaves a space for somethingelse that must naturally be
tended to.
So how do you tend the gardenof tradition and pull the plants
that are sick and dying, or cutthe plants that no longer
actually are beneficial for thegarden?
And then what do you do?
How do you then tend to thespace that it creates, whether
you fill it or whether you letit go fallow.

(28:19):
Does that?
make sense that question Lilith?

Speaker 4 (28:23):
would you like to start?
Sure, I think this isdefinitely an interesting
question when we look at theAfrican traditional religions,
because there's so much that isanti-LGBTQ, there's so much that
that is just something theydon't speak about and at its
roots, it's really and I'm goingto be real with you because
that's where we're at todaythere's so much less about who

(28:44):
you sleep with, but you're notsupposed to be a bottom, so that
, to me, is about this likeinternalized misogyny right like
oh, as long as you're not thatone, you're okay.
You know, and I think thatthat's not the world we're
living in.
You know, if you go back ahundred years, a lot of times
this was brought in when we lookat the more you know latinx
based societies years.

(29:05):
A lot of times this was broughtin when we look at, the more
you know Latinx-based societiesthat have a lot of that machismo
, culture and stuff that is verymisogynistic and can be very
misogynistic.
But if you open it up and youknow the history, there was
always a space for people thatwere different and it didn't
necessarily have to other them.
So I think once we look back atthe history, then it's easier

(29:27):
for people to accept that.
So if you point that out, maybepeople don't want to be trying
to hear that, as we say here inthis town, but it's the truth
and a lot of my God.
Kids who study with me they'vebeen with me for 10, 12 years
now.
It's funny because I've seenthem be like 16, 17 years old,
graduating from high school, andnow they're like adults with
their own place and their ownlives.

(29:48):
So it's beautiful to see themgrow up like that.
But most of my students areLGBTQ and together we have a
family that does welcome us.
So I think that creating thedifferent spaces and trying to
educate people allows a littlebit more space and a little bit
more space and a little bit morespace.
And you know, we'll kick thedoor down when we have to and

(30:10):
we'll argue with people when wehave to, and I think that
there's so much and we'll getinto this later, I'm sure but
there's so much fake and liesbecause it is a closed tradition
or an initiatory practice.
It is something that we stayedquiet because we had to stay
quiet, right, like there's aBabalago.
He started the Yorubatheological ceremony it's

(30:33):
seminary, not ceremony and heused to say that, you know, the
religions were in the basementbecause it was safe in the
basement, and he was on a paneltalking about oh, we can come
out of the basement.
Now it's great.
He's like are you so sure it'ssafe?
You know, and we look at theworld today and I'm not so sure
it's safe, but we're more out ofthe basement than we were
before.
So we'll just have to deal withit.

(30:54):
But I've never been one to sortof be quiet or shut up or get in
the background.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
So I think that, by you know, being in people's
faces and explaining this is whowe are and you have to accept
us this way.
So that's how I handle it.
Ask a follow-up question.
You said a couple of things Ithought were really interesting.
Like, when you look at theactual history, you see that
there was a a long I would Iwould add a long time, a long
history, a deep precedent ofspiritual queerness, yeah, and

(31:38):
spiritual transness andspiritual other and um, and
there was a time where that longhistory had to go into the
basement, as your mother alwayssaid.
And I think that in thepreservation of these histories
there perhaps is an assimilationinto over cultures dominate,

(32:00):
dominating perspective of other,yeah, and how do you?
How this is a bigger question,sure, but how would you suggest
we I want to say like wrestle ortend to that this that the
spirit of that dominating overculture when tending that garden

(32:22):
, when liberating thosehistories from the basement,
does that make sense?

Speaker 4 (32:26):
Yeah, and I think a lot of it was just sort of a
don't ask, don't tell kind ofthing.
You know which again we'removing away from?
But if you look at, like yousaid, a long history most often
when people talk about theseissues they talk about the
Orisha Shango, who is all overthe place.
If you look at the Caribbeanand there's a goes back to the
4th century BCE.

(32:47):
So we're talking about 2,500years almost of history, of the
first evidence of Shango.
And one of the favorite Shangostories was Shango ends up
having to sort of evade peoplewho are chasing him and ends up
cross-dressing and going outlike that.
And his wife also cross-dressesand pretends to be him and
sticks a beard on her face andstabs everybody.

(33:07):
So they've got this nightlyrelationship so, and they even
say that you know, oh yeah, ittakes a beard because of war.
So there's this way in which adifferent understanding of
gender and gender roles isalready present there.
So if you look at that, goingback 2,500 years, how can people
argue with that?
This is a story that everybodyknows.

(33:29):
Everybody's taught this storyfrom, you know early times and
and, like I said, it does goback as far as you can.
So when you look at that, Idon't think people can deny it,
really, you know.
And then, if you look at itpractically, there are leaders
who have just been sort ofsuppressing that and I think,
now that we make it easier andeasier for them to be who they
are and how they feel, that it'smore and more accepted.

(33:51):
And part of the thing thathappened to especially again if
we're looking at Lukumi is thatthe role of women got suppressed
again a hundred years ago andthis sort of people be we're
talking about Babalawas beforewe were talking about this sort
of high priest would come in andthat was the thing and you all
had to go to the high priest.
But that's changed as well yeahyou know.

(34:11):
I mean we're doing an event nextweekend where the head babalaw
of benin is coming and actuallyone of the priestesses call and
she's like I have moreinitiations than he does.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I'm doing the ceremony with him so they're
both going to do it togethernext weekend, all right it's
beautiful, but I think again,that's what we have to do.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
We have to sort of step up and speak for ourselves
and take our power back whennecessary, and that's just a
fact thank you two things I wantto say out loud, just to
bookmark them.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Uh, three things.
First is the spirits knowthemselves.
Sure, the spirits knowthemselves, and so we get to.
Maybe what I hear you say is weneed to let them reveal
themselves the way they knowthemselves to be, yes, and then
I also hear you saying that weneed to also support the
spiritual leaders in thesetraditions to let them know it's

(35:01):
okay to disarm and to revealthemselves the way they know
themselves to be asrepresentatives of these spirits
, would you say that's fair tosay.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Yeah, definitely, and I don't want to monopolize the
conversation but, I, have totalk about my girl mom Bobani
Devlin.
My girl mom Bobani Devlin.
She put herself through HarvardDivinity doing a dom act out in
Provincetown in New.
England and she would dress uplike the gay day in purple
leather and whips, and that'show she paid for her thing.
So you know, but it was abouther.

(35:36):
Yes, she was initiated and Ithink she was allowed to do more
things because she was also adrummer, so people needed her,
and she was also highly educatedHarvard divinity, right, like
so she made inroads where otherpeople were not able to, so I'm
really so pleased that I couldknow her, and you know she's no
longer with us, but I miss herevery day, thank you yeah, and
thank you yeah um, the thirdthing I wanted to bookmark is uh

(36:01):
, let's circle back around.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Uh, remind me at the end to ask you all the question
of how can people find you whatevents are coming up, so we do a
little promo.
You remember that thing?
All right, same question waskind of it on the line, just me
now um, I just mentioned howprogressive my grandma was,
which was really lovely.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Weirdly, my mom did not take the same direction.
She was she loved drag queens.
She was friends with a lot ofgay men but I think it was
really, really important to herthe idea of me getting married,
having babies, kind offulfilling like what she felt
like was a like the role.
I don't know if she wasnecessarily raised with that.
I oddly never thought to askeither of them, and now they're

(36:43):
both dead so I can ask themthrough tarot.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
We'll we're doing an ancestor workshop tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Let us know you can join us but um, so, but I kind
of that doesn't even really feelthat important to me.
But I noticed that she reallydid have these pretty heavy um
expectations and it was a reallybig deal that I was queer and I
did marry a man when I was 21but I was infertile and that was
a huge problem actually andthat wasn't my fault, um, but

(37:11):
also I didn't want to have kids,so it worked out great for me
but, I, just um.
So the expectation of being likewife and mother, I think is
really heavy, because it's justnot everyone's path, or like
parent and spouse, or whateverthat is for you also.
I mean, um, the idea of gender,I can be really heavily
oppressive, and if we're lookingat ancient India to Lilla's

(37:33):
point, that wasn't gender, wasnot solid.
There were really revered andrespected third genders and more
.
And so it's just.
This is really the effects ofcolonization, and why would we
be led by colonization?
And.
Pauline that's going to talkabout this later, I'm sure,

(37:54):
because I know her.
You know also things that wecustoms, we created out as a
response to slavery, and thosethings are not relevant to us
anymore mm-hmm the other thingthat I think I like to push back
again.
So, like I like to push backagainst gender roles and the
expectations of whatrelationships should look like,

(38:16):
I also think it's important topush back against secrecy with
however you feel comfortabledoing that, and so it was a
really, really big deal for meto talk about my Romani heritage
, why I was doing fortunetelling.
I was sort of expected tooperate doing fortune telling
work without telling anyone whyor who I was, and if anyone

(38:38):
asked me, you know, because NewHampshire is white as hell y'all
people were really curiousabout where I came from and I
could only really say that I wasItalian and I would get in
really a lot of big trouble if Ishared anything else.
So naturally I shared that wewere Roma right away and it went
really terribly and even um.

(39:00):
But my family has always beenangry at me for for doing this
podcast, for publishing thisbook.
A lot of my family passed awayaround the same time when I
started doing this work.
But I told my grandmother maybea few weeks before she died.
You know, grandma, I'm actuallywriting a book with you, with
one of my besties, and it'sabout you and everything you
taught me.
And she looked me dead in theeye and said no, and at no point

(39:28):
has my family felt comfortablewith me openly sharing this
lineage that I'm really proud of.
And I do it because we're goingto be othered anyway.
Like they know, we kind ofexist anyway.
I just feel like how are weever going to get anything done
if people don't actually knowwho we are and why we're doing
it?
And I understand why thesecrecy existed.

(39:49):
My grandma was literally hidingfrom Nazis.
I and she would.
She would not have beensurprised for the turn of events
that our politics have takennow.
That would not have surprisedher at all.
I'm not saying that weshouldn't sometimes be quiet.
I'm not saying that weshouldn't sometimes be careful,
but I do think it's worthpushing back against certain

(40:15):
things that you know we think ofas our protection and you know,
getting married young is alsofor our protection, but they
don't work for everybody andyeah, and if it feels like it's
getting in the way of you beingwho you are and living through
your values, I think it's smartto challenge tradition.

Speaker 7 (40:30):
Hell yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Paulina.

Speaker 7 (40:34):
Yes, so I was also excommunicated from my community
on purpose.
Okay, I wanted to do that.
I was blackballed it's theEnglish translation actually For
so many different reasons.
For one, after my arrangedmarriage, I also had that

(40:55):
pressure that Jess was sayingwas like you know, you have to
get married.
Um, I didn't technically pickthe person that I was getting
married to, but it was like youhave to have kids, blah blah.
So I did have kids super early.
I had a couple of daughters andI just felt like, um, it was
really weird, like theyshouldn't have to do this, you
know.
So I was excommunicated for one, going to like outside court

(41:19):
systems when I left, because Iwanted to have custody of my
daughters, which I'm actuallystill going through, like almost
seven years later, which issuper crazy.
But, um, that was really bad.
We have our own court system.
Romani people have their ownlaws and their own court system
and their own head of the courtpeople that make it, which is
just only men as well.

(41:40):
Women are not allowed in theclosed conservative community
that I come from.
Not all roma experience thisand not all communities are like
this.
I just happen to come from oneof the most conservative
communities and so that was onetradition.
I was like this is crazy, like Ineed to step outside of that.
So that was my first like, oh,like you're out, and then dating

(42:00):
outside my community, you know,was like so wrong and like
still today I get messages and Iget, you know, a lot of
persecution publicly.
We have things that are writtenabout us like just crazy, crazy
things because I'm not, youknow, not dating in my community

(42:21):
and or I don't have a, you know, partner from my community.
Like it's just all those things.
As well, as you know, I dounderstand why the communities
had to do this.
I understand that thesearranged marriages, young child
marriages, happened because theywere trying to protect their

(42:43):
young girls from being sold intoslavery.
So they would, you know, sellthem.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Can I just clarify that a little bit yeah?

Speaker 7 (42:50):
I don't really know all this part, so they were
already enslaved, so they werealready, you know, sell them.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Can I just clarify that a little bit?
Yeah, I don't really know allthis part.
So they were already enslaved,so they were already sold to
slavery.
But what they were trying toprevent was sexual abuse from
the people who had, you know,enslaved them.
And so the idea was that, thehope, if they married their
girls really, really young,maybe that would prevent further
sexual abuse.

Speaker 7 (43:09):
Yes that, but obviously I feel like they're
just traditions that we don'thave to practice in a way that I
like to like, teach mydaughters and also share with
the world.
Um, just coming out with thisinformation like hey, like these
are practices.
We don't like these practices.
But there's a lot of otherbeautiful parts to my community

(43:31):
and my culture that I do talkabout, like the music, the
community itself, how everybodykind of works together, um, the
closeness of of everybody.
Um, sometimes it's a little tooclose, everybody's in each
other's businesses, but maybenot that close and you know
everything music, food, um allthat stuff.
I I feel like there's a way toincorporate all of the good

(43:53):
things 100 and just leave outsome of the bad practices, and
that was when we createdromanistan podcast.
That was literally our wholepoint is that there's people
from our community that arebanned from being in the closed
part of the community and we'relike this is crazy, so outcasted
people, romani people, gypsieswe're already outcasted people

(44:16):
from the outside world ingeneral, and so we jokingly call
ourselves at Romanistan theoutcast of the outcast, and so,
yeah, that's what our communityis all about.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Beautiful thank you, and I also wanted to add I'm
divorced now.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, that's awesome.
I want to ask one more question.
Then we're going to take abreak and I'm going to come back
right.
So at the second half of ourconversations I want you to be
thinking about any questions youmight have and also you all,
all.
What questions might you wantto answer?

(44:54):
But this question I want to asknow is yeah, we're kind of well
, we'll keep it relatively heavy, we're gonna peek on that heavy
questioning and then we'regonna take a break, come back.
We're talking about fun stuff.
This question, this question Iasked with all due respect to

(45:31):
everyone in this room how do you, as cultural stewards, remain
optimistic, inspired, encouragedto continue your work of
sharing amidst all of thecultural theft associated with
the cultures that you come from?
Do you even?
Yeah, how do you?
Another way I would say this islike how do you remain stalwart

(45:55):
and inspired amidst themisinformation and
misappropriation and culturalappropriation often associated
with people taking from thecultures you steward?

Speaker 7 (46:07):
let's start with paulina, okay, yes, so this is a
great question because not alot of people even know about
this.
But Romani people have inspiredso many different things Also,
like bohemian fashion is one ofthem.
But I do want to tell you guys.
So back in the day, so backwhen I was in my clothes

(46:29):
community, I had to wear a longhead covering not always, it
wasn't always a long headcovering but you have to have
your hair packed, you have tohave a head covering, you have
to wear long skirts.
You know you dressconservatively but like a lot of
colors, a lot of layers andlike sometimes not sometimes,
yes, but whatever it is when Iwas um fortune, telling it was,
sometimes I would be spit on,like sometimes, you know, really

(46:53):
, really horrible things wouldhappen a lot at.
You know, get things thrown atus, food thrown at us, because
people would say, oh, like dirtygypsies, like choo-choo, like
you know, throw things at you.
And that's why we were notallowed to tell anybody, but we
were gypsies, but we couldn'thide it.
Like they're not going to takeour head coverings off or change

(47:13):
our clothes or whatever.
I obviously don't wear thatstuff anymore, but you know, but
sometimes I do by choice andthen, like we, you know, turn
around and we see differentpeople sometimes.
You know other cultures thatwill really like kind of like
whitewash, our traditionalpractice that we've used for.
You know other cultures thatwill really like kind of like
whitewash, our, our traditionalpractice that we've used for,

(47:35):
you know, survival for I don'tknow a thousand years or so or
however long it was, were theyright on that you were so, um,
doing that, and then theywouldn't get persecuted for it
yeah, you know what I mean.
Like they weren't gettingpersecuted for stuff like that,
especially wearing long skirtsor head coverings, and like they

(47:56):
could kind of make it look alittle better, like a little
this or a little that, or kindof conform it like with society
and um, what's make it fashion?
yeah, like make it fashionbasically and so then it was
like going to these places andthey're profiting off of our
culture um 100, using the wordgypsy for one, which is our term

(48:17):
, um, that was also createdthrough persecution then making
money off of it, and ultimatelyI feel like, um, there's a way
to do fortune telling, which wetalk about in this book.
Anybody can do fortune telling.
You can practice Romani fortunetelling specifically.
You can practice Romani,everything without appropriating

(48:40):
the culture, not callingyourself a gypsy, not dressing
like a gypsy, and if you want todress like a gypsy, buy from a
Romani person's fashion and justkind of spread the word about
it or whatever.
But that's kind of how I feelabout it.
I guess that's how I feel aboutit, because that's what it is

(49:00):
beautiful thank you.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Yeah, beautiful answer, thank you, and maybe
we'll jump to Lilith and thenwe'll end on Jasmina all right
um, for the commodification isthe thing I mean, especially
with this book, since it's abestseller.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
I have a lot of people, Did you hear that?

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Hold that bestseller up.
Hold that bestseller up, Holdit up.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
Congratulations, that's wonderful.

Speaker 4 (49:30):
No, but I mean, it makes me feel good yes, of
course it should I'm not teasingyou.
I mean, I am, but I'm proud ofyou.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
No, we're teasing with love.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Fuck yeah, come on bestseller but I mean people
will send me messages.
Oh well, I'm a white person, soI can't read your book.
And I'm like, huh, you know, somany of us grew up hearing
traditional myths from you know,greece or Rome or things like
that that were completelyculturally irrelevant, right?

(50:02):
So we had to learn that.
We had to learn all this.
You know colonizer history andso many people don't understand
this.
So for me, I I think everybodyshould be educated, you know,
and unfortunately we don't getit in the schools, so we need to
take that time and effort toeducate ourselves in a different
way about things where theremight be holes in our knowledge

(50:22):
or what's lacking.
But for me, the thing is themoney.
I don't care if somebody'spracticing or whatnot.
What I care is if they'resetting themselves up as an
authority and they are takingmoney, jobs, you know, business
away from actual practitionersthat are doing it.
I remember it was maybe we'rehere in New Orleans, right.

(50:43):
So five or six years ago I hada reporter from Al Jazeera
contact me and they wanted towrite about Marie Laveau.
So I'm having this.
I'm like, okay, fine, this is abig news outlet, I'll answer
this guy.
So we're having like thesehour-long conversations about
Marie Laveau and New Orleansvoodoo and everything like that.
And then, when the article cameout, the guy calls me up and he

(51:04):
says you've been whitewashed.
They have removed you from thearticle.
They've replaced you with twowhite priestesses here in the
city that they thought wouldmake a better story or a better
picture.
He's like I can't believe theydid this.
It's my editor.
I have nothing to do with it.
I'm sorry so, but so many timesI see things like that

(51:26):
happening and I see people nottaking the time and effort, like
you said, to support businessesfrom people that are actually
from that culture.
And if we look at some of thesepeople that have sort of
capitalized on it, a lot of themaren't initiated, a lot of them
are full of fake information,and I think that that's what

(51:47):
really gets me.
It gets me that they're takingthe money because a lot of us
don't have a lot of money, sothat's upsetting to me.
And then it really gets me.
It gets me that they're takingthe money because, you know, a
lot of us don't have a lot ofmoney, so that's upsetting to me
.
And then it also gets me thatthey automatically set
themselves sort of oh, okay, I'mgoing to declare myself an
expert.
I'm an Oshun.
I had it, you know unverifiedpersonal gnosis.
And this is what I was talkingabout at the American Academy of

(52:10):
Religion last year.
And here we are.
You know, we thought theinternet was going to open up
knowledge and we'll all learn,you know.
But now there's all thesepeople that like, oh, in a dream
the Orisha came to me, so nowI'm a priestess and it's like
that's not how this fuckingworks, that's not how any of
this works.
You know, you could feel likeyou have a personal connection,

(52:31):
but there is initiation, there'stradition, there's learning,
there's studying, the.
The reason we have our systemsthat way is because it's a set
of checks and balances.
You know, I mentioned mygodparents.
You know, if your godparentdies, you get another godparent
because there's and they have agod parent.
So it's always this system ofchecks and balances.
So if I step out a line, I knowsomebody's going to call me out

(52:54):
on it, and that's why thetradition has survived so long,
I think.
You know, and it's not just onesize fits all, it's not just oh
, this happened to me in a dream, so now I can go teach it to
everybody.
It makes me really sad thatthere are some other authors
that I know will tell me oh well, I gotta write a hundred spells
for my book and I'm like, what?

(53:15):
Like anything that's in my bookhas been tested under so many
different conditions for, youknow, 20 years at least.
Is it going to work on a child?
Is it going to work on somebodybelow the equator?
Is it going to work on somebodyof a different gender?
I need to know that I can't'tjust say, oh, go ahead have this
.
Because, the same way that ifyou're allergic to peanuts, I

(53:37):
can't say, go ahead and eat thispeanut butter sandwich.
It could be dangerous.
So that's why we havedivination, that's why we have
individualized teachers whatmight be okay for one person
might be deadly for anotherperson, and it's not something
you can just pick up because youhad a damn dream.
It's ridiculous.
So that's my point about that.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I just want to like fully agree with everything you
both said.
So, yes, so I think the thingthat gives me like I don't feel
like I have anything else to addto that, because it's like, yes
, absolutely all of that.
There's all of that, um, thething that gives me hope, um, is

(54:22):
that I really enjoy hearingfrom people who have felt like
they really learned how toresponsibly engage with a
cultural practice that is nottheirs but they admire or
connect with for whatever reason, and I feel like they actually

(54:43):
really heard it and they alsotake the extra step of being
like I'm going to share thiswith other people, I'm going to
educate other people, I'm goingto invite you onto our podcast,
I'm going to carry you in ourbookstore, I'm going to host you
for a whole ass event.
It's like all of all of thesereal, true gestures of

(55:05):
meaningful allyship Cause wehave a lot of those kind of
empty ally gestures too, and, um, whenever someone advocates for
you, you know, shares with you,uplifts you, spotlights you, or
or other people who you're like, yeah, they deserve that
spotlight and they're ofcommunity with me or or another
marginalized community, or youknow, that is super meaningful

(55:27):
to me, and I heard a really umcute story recently from I wish
I could remember who, but it's aRomani person I'm tangentially
connected to and they had sharedwith me how cute it was.
They were talking to someone andthey were like oh yeah, well, I
mean, I'm such a gypsy aboutwhatever, whatever and a person
kind of overheard them and werelike I just want to let you know

(55:48):
that that word is actually aracial slur and it's only okay
for Roma people to use it andshe's like, oh, baby girl thank
you so much.
I am Roma, but like I love thatyou're out here doing that work
and so I think that that's thestuff that it's like okay, this

(56:08):
is hitting, this is someonecares about this and a lot of
people do not.
And I'm not trying to changethe world, even though I did
kind of hope that, writing thisbook together, we would end
anti-gypsyism forever and Ithink I have to let that go.
But yeah, that definitely givesme hope.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Beautiful.
Thank you, anything that any ofyou would like to add so far to
the conversation, before wetake a break and we come back.

Speaker 7 (56:39):
I do also want to say we are extremely grateful to
you both and also for you know,helping lift our voices by being
such amazing and wonderfulhosts.
Yes, thank you.
Honestly, honestly, voices, butbeing such amazing and
wonderful hosts.
So, yes, thank you, thank youhonestly.
We're about to cry back herewe're grateful for you, very

(57:02):
grateful, thank you all right.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
So I think we should take maybe like a 10 minute
break, get a little stretch on,think about any questions you
want to ask these beautifulstewards, um, and then we'll
come back in about 10 minutes.
All right, welcome back to thesecond half of Sewerding

(57:53):
Traditions Doing it.
Yep, we're going to mix thingsup, we're going to get a little
sassy and the panelists aregoing to actually ask each other
questions that they're curiousabout in regards to their
cultures.
So let's start with Lilith.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Yes, and it's funny because we kind of had the same
question that we were ready toask each other, which I think is
fantastic you were like, yeah,well, what I was thinking of,
which is very similar to whatyou were thinking of, is that
how is this expressed indifferent parts of the world?

(58:33):
I have friends from Ireland thatare travelers, which is very
similar to a lot of the Romaniculture that you're talking
about, but it doesn't seem tohave had the same kind of
oppression that was faced by alot of the stories that I hear.
The concept of community wasvery different and much more

(58:54):
open than what I've heard.
I have good friends that youknow.
They had nine children and theytraveled in the covered wagon
and then they finally settleddown and now all the kids live
with them on about 10 acres andall their kids have kids and
they still live in this communalspace, you know, and all their
kids have kids and they stilllive in this communal space, you

(59:15):
know, and they seem to havenavigated the world a hell of a
lot better than what some ofthese stories that I hear.
So that was really my questionthat if you had experienced
similar things from other Romanipeople that live outside the US
.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
What I want to also add to that is if either of you
would be willing to speak to theoverarching identity that is
sometimes called grt the gypsyroma traveler community and the
differences okay becausetravelers are not romanians.
Yes, yeah, but we are nomadicand so there is a shared.

(59:48):
There's a shared culture,particularly, particularly with
the United Kingdom, so maybewe'll start with Jasmina.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yeah, I love to nerd out about like.
I was going to say arbitrary,but it's not arbitrary.
I like to get into the nuance.
Roma are a diasporic ethnicgroup originally from India.
Gypsy is a word that noteveryone feels comfortable with.
Some people really claim it andwere raised with it and feel
really proud of it.

(01:00:15):
Some people are like that is aracial slur and it continues to
be a racial slur and I don'twant to use it, and then people
have experiences with the word.
Like across that spectrum.
The word gypsy has been appliedto pretty much any nomadic
group, including who Lilithmentioned Irish travelers who

(01:00:36):
are indigenous to Ireland andthe British Isles.
And what's really interesting,too, is that the word gypsy has
also been applied to people whoare not from an ethnic group in
which persecution or othercircumstances have created
nomadism, which is our situation, in which people are talk about

(01:00:58):
sometimes with travelers towhich I don't know a lot about
that, but I think that there area lot of really amazing
resources about traveler historyif you want to dig into that,
and that can be.
So.
The word gypsy has also beenapplied to people who work in
like circuses or who are showmen.

(01:01:18):
That's more typical in the UKthan here, although sometimes
people use it very colloquiallyhere and like self-identify in a
way that has no connection toculture at all and it's more of
an appropriate ofmisunderstanding of what the
word means, and so we reallylike to make it super clear that
, like culturally, we are reallydifferent from Irish travelers.

(01:01:39):
However, we do share, like, thehistory of persecution and
nomadism, and all nomadic groupstend to share a few things in
common about um, especially likecleanliness and conduct on the
road and things like that.
But the acronym GRT is used alot in the UK and Ireland
because there are so many groupsto which the word gypsy is

(01:02:01):
applied to.
So it's Gypsy, roma andTravelers, and the hope with
using the acronym is to beinclusive, but the reality of it
is kind of complicated becauseyou have people that I mentioned
like showmen, other groups whoare maybe also there's a term
called new age travelers, whopeople who have adopted, not out

(01:02:22):
of persecution but out ofchoice, a nomadic lifestyle,
sort of emulating either irishtravelers, romani people or kind
of melange of the two.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
it also exists in the states as well, it does, yeah
absolutely van life, hashtag vanlife, and so this anarcho-punk.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Yes, yes, so identify as travelers, whether they're
true travelers or not and sowe've run into this really
interesting thing where it'slike, okay, so those experiences
are wildly different and sothat acronym starts to mean
nothing and it also becomes veryproblematic because we've had
an issue with people who arenomadic by choice, who are not

(01:03:04):
ethnically persecuted, obtainingfunding, funding meant for Roma
and ethnic or heritagetravelers.
And that is a problem for, like,obvious reasons, because the
heritage travelers you know,irish travelers and the Roma
obviously face really specificethnic persecution.

(01:03:27):
That creates enormous obstacles.
And, yeah, so now we're sort ofreexamining the acronym GRT and
we try to clarify too, becausea lot of Roma who are like the
Roma from, you know, originallyIndia, sometimes also call
themselves travelers for, youknow, lots of reasons and so the
terminology gets superconfusing.

(01:03:47):
But I think the takeaway couldbe like, you'll see, the acronym
grt and a lot of roma arestarting to feel less and less
comfortable with it because it'sbeen sort of misused and
adopted in a way that the wordgypsy has been misused and
adopted and with some to similarends.
Thank you, yeah, beautiful, ifyou want to um talk or if you
want to see someone's commentaryon that john henry, who is on,

(01:04:11):
and he is a Romani archaeologist.
He writes a lot about it reallyin a really interesting
perspective, and he's actuallyfrom the UK, and so where the
acronym is used more and wherethe misuses of the acronym are
more, that's a word impactful.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
Thank you, and also to Lilith's question for more
research on the reality ofRomani persecution outside of
the United States, particularlywithin Europe, where we do have
more systemic anti-Gypsy racism.
We, our cousins, have moresystemic anti-Gypsy racism.

(01:04:48):
A systemic anti-gypsy racism.
Uh, there's a great book thatwas written and it's probably
very outdated, but I don't thinkthings have changed.
I'm curious what you thinkabout this book.
But it's, uh, the gypsy menaceoh yeah and it's uh it, it goes.
Gosh, I forget who wrote it inmy brain, but you can look it up
gypsy menace.
It is essentially.
It's a really interestingmodern history of anti-Romani

(01:05:15):
laws written throughout Centraland Eastern Europe pertaining to
Romani people and how thoselaws also inform.
The foundation of anti-Romanilaws in the United States formed
the foundation of anti-Romanilaws in the.
United States and you can evensee in the United States where
that's relevant we still haveanti-Gypsy task forces that are

(01:05:37):
being funded by police allthrough this country Louisiana
included, oklahoma, kansas, areprimarily the places where a lot
of anti-Gypsy laws still existand task forces specifically
targeting Romani people who lookRoma, who, literally, are
wearing what we need, you know,culturally wear.

(01:05:59):
This book is written by Michaelor edited by Michael Stewart,
and I think it is a anthology Inthat case, yep, so just wanted
to kind of put that out theretoo for just a little bit more
research.
Fascinating, yeah, it's reallyvery interesting.
Um, I want to add to that tooand say you know, something that

(01:06:22):
jasmine and I have spoken aboutprivately off and on for years
is is the American Romaniexperience is one often of
surviving assimilation andnavigating what that looks like
to reconnect within closed,assimilated culture Like my

(01:06:44):
family was assimilated andclosed at the same time, you
know and so that that, I think,creates a very interesting
barrier even to havingconversation with other romanian
communities, even in the states, let alone in europe, and a lot

(01:07:06):
of us here don't haveconnection to european roots or
or even balkan roots or, um, youknow, east asian roots because
of the need to both assimilateand escape, and some of our
ancestors didn't survive.
You know that we do come.
One of the reasons I have threedifferent romani lineages is

(01:07:26):
because those lineagesintermarried you, you know, as a
way of surviving.
Yeah, did you have anything youwanted to add to that question?
Or did you want to ask Lilithyour question?
Or did you have anything thatyou wanted to follow up.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
I meant to say too, like persecution in Europe is so
exaggerated and so much morefor Romani people In America, we
can pass a little easier, butit's still very real and it's
shaped both of our lives a lot.
But I always kind of want to belike take a look at what's
happening in Europe though.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Oh for sure, Absolutely.
I mean in Europe, in Italy,france and Spain, the
governments still have very opengovernment agencies and
policies to sell Romani peopleto other countries as workforce.
That still exists now.
It's modern-day slavery andthey they do it as a work trade.

(01:08:22):
Certain countries will getdifferent.
I don't know how it work, Idon't know what's it they'll get
.
It's an economic boom.
You know they'll get like alittle favor from the selling
country if you just take thesegypsies off our hands, you know.
So those things still very muchexist yeah, do you?

Speaker 7 (01:08:43):
have anything to add?
I feel like you answered itvery perfectly.
Do you think there are places?

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
in the US where there's, like, more anti-Roma
incidents.

Speaker 7 (01:08:51):
I actually was going to say.
What's super weird is, I wouldsay like 50 to 70% of the time,
that there was times of strongRomani racism.
Was people actually from Europeand the United Kingdom that
were just visiting here?
And that was a big majority ofthe time that had moved here and

(01:09:12):
I was like whoa, so like even alot of the persecution that I
from my own experience I can'tspeak for everybody, but like
they have actually just beenpeople from europe primarily
same same experience.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Yes, you know what's interesting about that is when I
went to poland in 2013, myfather passed away and I I took
his ashes back to where hewanted to be when he died, in
Gdansk, in the Baltic Sea, whenI was traveling, not in Kraków.
In Kraków, everybody was like,hey, you're a Pole and started

(01:09:45):
speaking to me in Polish.
And when I was in Warsaw andwhen I was in Gdansk, everybody,
not everybody.
But when I was in Warszawa andwhen I was in Dęsk, everybody,
not everybody.
But more often than not, I wascalled gypsy and I was spat at
or people would clutch their bagand I am very white, passing,
you know, and so it's sointeresting that it still reads

(01:10:08):
like it's so ingrained in thatin those cultural systems, you
know, and my grandmother, beingfrom Poland, was very anti-Gypsy
to my mother that was, and mymother's mother like that side
of the family.
It was always very difficult,but that is very interesting
that a lot of the Americananti-Roman racism is from

(01:10:32):
Europeans.
I lived in that house.
I lived in that house.
Would you like to ask Lilithyour question, then we'll open
it up.
That's a good question.

Speaker 7 (01:10:45):
So my question is slightly different but kind of
similar.
But how do you feel indifferent places of the world
while practicing Almost like do?
You feel like the differentenergy vibrations, like are they
stronger, are they not?
And have you seen thedifferences in how your culture,

(01:11:08):
kind of, I guess, expands orhow it's practiced?

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
basically, yeah, I mean there's so many different
variations that go into things,you know, I mean it's going to
look, and I think that's becauseof the indigenous cultures in
all the different places, likehow we were talking earlier
about Cuba, how it's practicedin Cuba, how it's practiced in
Jamaica, how it's practiced inCuba, how it's practiced in
Jamaica, how it's practiced in,you know, trinidad.

(01:11:35):
I think originally there weredifferent enslaved people that
were sent there.
There were different indigenouspeople there.
There was all these differentblends of things that were
happening.
But what we were talking aboutquickly in the break was I had
the opportunity to go to Beninlast summer you know, birthplace
of voodoo and everything likethat, and it was much more

(01:11:56):
balanced.
In a way.
It was obviously open and theytell you, you know, I went to
the sacred python temple, whichis great.
Anybody who likes snakes youcan't kill a snake in Benin.
You have to pick up the pythonand bring it to this temple.
The pythons can come and go asthey please.
It's just amazing and you cango in there with them and, you
know, take a picture with them,put them around your neck, dance

(01:12:18):
around, whatever.
It was great.
So.
But what?
Across the street from thesacred python temple that's been
there for thousands of years isa Christian church, and they
say we go to the Christianchurch in the morning and then
we go pray in the Python templein the afternoon.
So everything was much morebalanced.
You know, we have a deity calledmommy water, which is just the

(01:12:39):
spirit of water everywhere.
So every even this you knowLacroix is mommy water, because
there's no difference for us.
We have a concept called asha,which you hear people talk about
, which is the sacred energy andthe vibration of things.
So we're not talking about oh,a goddess is up here and not
down here in called ashe, whichyou hear people talk about,
which is the sacred energy andthe vibration of things.
So we're not talking about oh,a goddess is up here and not
down here in this water, agoddess is everywhere
simultaneously, up there andalso in that water.

(01:13:00):
But the other thing that they dothere is for mamiwata.
Every time you have mamiwata,you also have papiwata.
So there's always this sort offluidity and balance between the
male and the female and theydon't necessarily have
traditional gender roles.
But they looked at me like Iwas crazy, because here in the
US we have so many things thataren't balanced, that aren't

(01:13:21):
androgynous, that don't appear,as you know, male in some cases
and female in other cases, sothey just thought they're like
how do y'all walk aroundunbalanced all the?
Time.
That's nuts, so they justthought how do y'all walk around
unbalanced all the time?
That's nuts.
So I was like, oh, veryinteresting.
But I did say to you that onething that really touched me was
they said they felt like all ofus were their stolen children

(01:13:41):
coming back home, and it made mewant to cry.
Just this thought of we hadthese kids that were sold away
to slavery and we haven't seenthem for 200, 300, four hundred
years.
And now they're coming back tous and it's so beautiful to be
able to see.
You know how we've surviveddespite all these challenges and
everything like that.
So that was really beautiful tome to see that, and also

(01:14:05):
surprising as well to just seethe fluidity and the partnership
between the traditions, whichyou know they still don't get
along all the time, but they getalong a lot better than we do
over here here.
It's all which wars andfighting and all of that like
you think regular, which isfight, forget it the.
ATR is fight like nobody'sbusiness.

Speaker 7 (01:14:25):
I actually have a follow-up question.
I heard, I hear the term Ashe alot.
Can you describe that a littlebit more?

Speaker 4 (01:14:33):
Yeah, sure, like I said, it's this.
You know, I was at one pointcalling it the voodoo chi, but
then that seems appropriative of, like you know, other cultures,
so I stopped saying that, andours is better.
So there we go, but it'sbasically the sacred energy of
things like it doesn't evenreally have a definition, it's

(01:14:54):
just the sacred energy thatpermeates all things and
everything when we talk aboutour deities.
You know, if I stick with oshun, because I'm a child of oshun
oshun is simultaneously theriver water, she's honey, she's
oranges, she's sacred dancing,she's, you know, fertility and
childbearing, she's all of thosethings at the same time.

(01:15:14):
And then anyone who's initiatedto her is also a physical
representative of that ashe.
So when you get somebody thereand it's funny because you'll
see people if I meet anotherOshun, we always get along.
If I get an Oya, who wetraditionally doesn't get along
in the stories, I immediatelyjust don't like them and they
don't like me either, and thenI'll be like oh you know, you're

(01:15:35):
a child of Oya.
That's why I don't like you, youknow.

Speaker 6 (01:15:39):
And then it just makes sense, and then we move
forward from there.

Speaker 4 (01:15:42):
Okay, that's why I thought there was something
shady about you.
Okay, here we go, let's moveforward.
So yeah, so yeah, but it's aninteresting way of thinking of
things and it's very not aWestern way of thinking of
things.
Right Like that oh, how couldyou be praying to the river, or
how could you be praying to anorange?
But that's a sacred thing andwe treat it as a sacred thing

(01:16:02):
and we have to give it thatrespect and it'll give us
respect back.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
I love hearing that so much because so much of
Romani spirituality, kind ofoutside any religion that Roma
might have adopted to try toassimilate or hide better.
It's also an animistictradition and we talk to our
bread.
Oh nice.
I like that.
That's where blessingsapologize to it If we drop it,
and everything has a spirit.

(01:16:29):
I like that.
It's a really interestingexperience growing up, I think,
in America with a kind ofsyncretic belief system.
No matter what your syncreticbelief system is but yeah,
they're not contradictory to us.
You can go to church and alsopray to your woman.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
No, problem, if I may contribute a response to as
like a follow-up or likebuilding on that.
Um, when I grew up uh, growingup my grandmother would call
well, there's two things.
One it makes me think of thisthe idea of like the animistic,

(01:17:09):
animistic world, or the gods ofall things in all things
simultaneously.
My grandmother would call themangels, and she also would call
the energy.
She taught me hands-on healingand prayer, and so we would pray
the liturgical hours.
The liturgical hours.

(01:17:34):
I was raised Eastern OrthodoxCatholic.
We prayed every hour for untilI was 17 years old and I was
like I can't do this anymore.
I don't know why.
I'm still doing this.
Um, took a break, um, but wewould pray the liturgical hours,
uh, because it would connect usto the angels of the world and
it would help us to gather whatshe would call God energy, so we

(01:17:58):
could lay the hands.
My other grandmother was Polishand she would call it the
whispering the szewska, so shewould pray to gather the God
energy to lay hands or whispergather the god energy to lay
hands or whisper.
And there's a man he's RamanaShell, jasper Patrick Lee who
wrote a book called we borrowthe earth, and when I was

(01:18:18):
reading that book he called whatmy grandmother called angels.
He said we called deva likespirit right and devla being god
but also the deva of the world,and then he called that god
touch energy ka.
So it's like in romani culture.
There is a way that we callthat vital force or the ashe,

(01:18:40):
and like that ka, that god touchenergy comes from your
relationship with the deva, orthe angels or the spirits of the
world, and it's a way that wealso find our place in it and
there's affinities that we mighthave for certain devas or
certain world angels that thatspeak to our god touch energy,

(01:19:04):
or, you know, our ka and uh, itsounds similar, different with
similar, and it's like a.
There's a.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
And it's like Hinduism.
Yes, exactly it goes back toHinduism With the pujas and like
the praying of the hours and,like you know, you gotta, you
gotta yeah, it's veryinteresting.
No, it's fascinating.
My grandmother also used asimilar kind of language where
it's like she would say like,okay, so we're, we're talking to
God, but I need you tounderstand that god is this, um,
this earth, god is the water,god is all of our spirits

(01:19:32):
guiding us, and it was just likeso, god is all things and god
is all elements, and that's whatI mean.
And, yeah, I think that's so.
It's really beautiful toobecause it it also masks itself
in an acceptable language whenyou've assimilated, where it's
like we're just praying to god,don't look over here, look if
you were in a bad way.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
If you were in a bad way, if you were in a bad mood,
if you caught an ugly, mygrandmother would take out her
pocket rosary and she wouldstart chanting and praying and
she would lay her hand and shewould be like oh, they're just
having a fit, she would pray andpray and pray.
And Lord Hail Mary full ofgrace.
Lord, help me not beat thischild.
You know what I mean.
She would be transmitting thatGod energy that got her her own

(01:20:11):
cop, her own God touch.
You know, this was reallybeautiful, I think.
Shall we open it up to see ifanybody has questions?
Does anybody have quite?

Speaker 7 (01:20:20):
yes, you used.
You used the term ATR.
What is?

Speaker 4 (01:20:25):
what is that African traditional religion, thank you.
So basically it encompasses anyAfro diaspora in religion, but
I think we sort of dropped thediaspora lately and just call it
traditional religion.
Oh, thank you.
So basically it encompasses anyafro-diasporan religion, but I
think we've sort of dropped thediaspora lately and just call it
traditional religion.
But there's there's as many asthere are people, that sort of
diaspora it out you know likeand some of them getting to what
I was saying before.
Some of them are stronger thanothers.
You know, I have a god daughterthat's jamaican, and she grew

(01:20:47):
up going to ceremonies.
But if you asked hergrandmother, did you practice
obeah?

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
they would say absolutely not my grandmothers
would be like.
We are not witches.

Speaker 4 (01:20:59):
But they did the things to her.
She knows yeah yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
I got a question for you too.
Do you have the mano de ruda orare you?

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
Yes, I have my mano de ruda and I have my guerreros
and I have my aliques, obviously, but I'm not crowned yet.
You're not, so you're just ashun right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you too heysee, I like you yeah yeah, yeah,
no my godmother passed,unfortunately, so I never, and I
practice New Orleans voodoomost now, so I haven't gotten

(01:21:34):
crowned yet.
But it's still on the list youknow, that's what they tell you,
but it is very integrative.
I mean, for those of you whodon't know, you know, I know you
know.
But one of the things when youthere's lots of divination,
there's lots of teachings andthings like that, and one of the
things you get when you do getcrowned, which is sort of they
put the orisha onto your head.

(01:21:54):
Some people call it lifted,some people call it seated,
depending.
It's the same thing, becausewe're not measuring up or down,
we're measuring distance fromthe center.
So I think that's also veryinteresting, not a western
concept we're all about whichway are we going?
And this is like no, there's aright middle space for you to be
in and a right path for you towalk, and then those other

(01:22:15):
things are just deviation fromthat Center.
But when you do get crowned andyou get that initiation, you
get a book, you get your ETA andthat has the rest of your life
in it and it tells youeverything like when you're
gonna die and all those kinds ofthings like what you should eat
, what you shouldn't eat.
I have a very good friend who'sa Babalawa.
When he got his Ita, he wasn'tallowed to drink coffee anymore.

(01:22:36):
So he was like a five-cup-a-dayStarbucks person.
But as always, he found outvery quickly afterwards that he

(01:22:57):
had health conditions, that ifhe kept drinking coffee he would
have died.

Speaker 3 (01:22:59):
So it's always that kind of thing where you're just
so annoyed that you don't wantto have this thing and you're a
etah and this taboo, but italways kind of makes sense
afterwards.

Speaker 6 (01:23:03):
Thank you, any other questions?
Yeah, yeah, uh.
So I did not grow up with uhtraditional culture, right, so
very white, and then it's justnot here and there, but I did.
I've always been intuitiveright.
So I guess my question isbecause you grew up with
traditions, you guys learnedskills.
Do you find, when you read andyou you know work with other

(01:23:25):
people do you find you rely moreon intuition or more on skill
that you learned?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Such a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Can I answer that I love it, I think you should
answer that one first.

Speaker 7 (01:23:36):
I feel like it literally depends on the hour.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
That is such a Romani way of answering questions.

Speaker 7 (01:23:47):
And I really feel like and I say that like,
obviously I do thisprofessionally and I say that
not to discourage anybody, butit's like, if I'm really tired,
like maybe I'll just be like,okay, I know exactly what this
card means like blah, blah, blah.
Like buy the book, likewhatever.
And then sometimes, like, it'lljust come to me and it's in my
brain and like it works.
Or sometimes I'm really tiredand I can't think about what the

(01:24:09):
card says Like and like itworks.
Or sometimes I'm really tiredand I can't think about what the
card says like.
It literally just depends onthat moment, and sometimes it's
a combination between both.
Or sometimes my skill and myintuition completely contradict
each other, where I'm like thislooks kind of crazy, but
whatever, they are both somehowsimultaneously true at the same
time, and so, yeah, it reallydepends on the the time yeah no,

(01:24:34):
I agree with you, I thinksometimes there's things that
are really strange and Iapologize, trigger warning here.

Speaker 4 (01:24:40):
I had somebody I was doing a reading for once and
there was like a really dark,you know incestual situation
that she had or he had with hiswife and going over to the
family and stuff and I was like,oh damn, I really don't want to
say this you know, and that'swhen you have to open your mouth
and say he was like holy crap,what, what card is that?
and I'm like, no, there's notreally a card, that's just.

(01:25:02):
I know that there's some reallymessed up crap going on in your
house and you have to deal withit.
You know so.
But yeah, I mean, it'severything really.
You know, I see you've got thejungian tarot thing on the wall
and stuff like that, and I justdid a tarot book and for me
there's everything in there.
You know, like each of thecards is simultaneously a food

(01:25:24):
and a musical note and uh, youknow all of those things
together and it's your intuitionthat's going to help you pick
which one.
But you need to have theknowledge of.
These are the 50 things thatthis could mean when it presents
itself this way.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
I love a surprise too .
When a card, sometimes too,with like the sequences of cards
, or when I, if I'm doing a,spread the relationships between
them, it's like, oh, I haven'tseen that before and that's
exactly what that means and thatcould be like a little bit of
the.
I understand the relationshipsbetween these intellectually,
but also there's like a strongfeeling that comes with it and

(01:25:57):
that happens too in palmistrytoo.
I was reading someone's palmtoday and I saw something I'd
never seen before and I was justlike well, I know what that is
immediately, and it was just sofunny because it's not like a
thing that you look for inpalmistry.
It was just like wellinteresting.

Speaker 3 (01:26:14):
Let's dive into that.
I also have a response to that,if I may.
I grew up with storytellers inmy family, musicians and
storytellers and hands-onhealers on both sides the Romani
and the Polish side and my, myBaba, my Romani grandmother
would, and her primarily hersister, my aunt, my mom, kelly.

(01:26:38):
She would say that every cardhas a story and every card has a
story and a relationship withanother card and its story, and
sometimes, like with Oshun andOya, they don't get along.
But then you get a third card inand it's the mediator.

(01:27:00):
So these three cards togethertell a very different story.
That might contradict what youthink or have been told what
these cards mean.
So you have to.
It's not about reading thecards necessarily.
It's about understandingrelationship.
And when I teach I'm onsabbatical right now, but when I
would teach witch school, I hada school of traditional magic.

(01:27:23):
I would tell people you'renever going to be as versed in
your craft as a witch.
As somebody who was raised tobe versed in their craft, you're
never going to have theopportunity.
I've been an apprentice for myfamily since I was a child and
with professional witches sinceI was 15 years old.

(01:27:45):
I'm no longer 15, and I'm nolonger a child.
I'm decades on myself.
No longer 15 and I'm no longera child.
I'm decades on myself.
But what you all do have is arelationship with your own
stories, don't you?
What stories bring you hope?
What stories make you fearful?
What stories make you angry?
What stories bring you love?

(01:28:06):
That is the skill that you havethat I will never have right.
That your relationship withyour own stories will never be.
No one will have a strongerrelationship with your history
than you do.
So it doesn't matter if youwere raised up traditionally or

(01:28:27):
not.
You have successfully made itthis far.
What have you learned and areyou doing something with that
learning?
What are you doing with thatlearning?
And these are the things that Ioften will say to people who
want to read or learn how to bepsychic or be more honed in
their skills.
They just say lean into whatyou know is true, even if it's

(01:28:49):
difficult, and the things thatyou are not certain about ask
different questions of.
Because, also with the trinketsthat I'll read, every trinket
has their own story, but thenthe placement of each trinket
tells a different relationshipto that story, and then what's
following is a whole other thing.
And, like Jasmina says, youlook at a palm.
You've seen 100 palms.

(01:29:09):
All of a sudden, it's likethese lines here are very.
This is something else.
So I think that's what I wantedto contribute to.
That is like thinking abouttradition from a personal and
intimate perspective as well.
Even if you did not grow upculturally connected to your own

(01:29:29):
root cultures right orintimately connected to your
root cultures, you have anintimate relationship with the
stories that you carry.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
In a personal lexicon of symbols, you know like you
associate different, differentomens or animals or objects with
different things, and that's,that's your lexicon.

Speaker 3 (01:29:48):
It's your personal tradition and that can't be
undervalued.
You know it can't necessarilybe replicated or applied to
other people.
Maybe it can.
It might not be something youcan teach others, but it's a
place you can help fromBeautiful.
I think that maybe wraps up.

(01:30:08):
There was one more question.
We can do a rapid fire.
This is kind of a generalBeautiful.
I think that maybe wraps up.
There's one more question.

Speaker 5 (01:30:11):
Okay, great we could do a rapid fire.
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:13):
Yeah, hop, hop, hop.
Right.
This is a general question, butwhen you have had people come
to you for the meetings or thequestions and they seem
particularly vulnerable or readyto believe anything or judgment
, how do you deal with that?
How do you approach it?
I love that question.

Speaker 3 (01:30:31):
Yeah, you approach I love that question.
Yeah, will you.
Will you recite that questionback into the recording?

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
yeah.
So when you have a particularlyvulnerable client who you feel
like could maybe believeanything or be particularly
impressionable, how do you dealwith that?
I immediately like to um, makethe reading more uh, what's the
word cooperative, and askquestions and really emphasize
that the person.
I like to validate theirexperiences because obviously
they're going through something,and I also really like to use

(01:31:00):
it as an opportunity to empowera sense of choice agency
direction and remind the personthat they are the ones who get
to make their choices, becausethere are people who are
unscrupulous, who will be likeamazing goldmine, and so I
really like to counteract thatand remind them that these tools

(01:31:20):
are meant to help us understandourselves, not to tell you
exactly how your life is goingto be or what to do, and that
things change and they get to beagents of change.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
I love that, I love that.
I love that.

Speaker 7 (01:31:32):
I'll also riff on that a little bit.
I tell people that, like I willtell people, like right now I
just feel like you're taking allinformation and like you need
to challenge your thoughts andfeelings and other people's
thoughts and feelings period Ilove that.
That's it All right.

Speaker 4 (01:31:53):
My rapid fire about this is I will tell them that
together we're going to makethis reading a safe space, that
they won't hear anything theycan't deal with or they're not
ready to handle.
But there are actionable stepsthey can take to improve their
situation and we're gonna findthose together my rapid-fire
response to this question.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
If I may, please do.
I like to ask people to make achoice and I give people
permission to choose no tosomething even if they feel like
they should be saying yes tosomething I say you can say I'm
aware I have some trauma that'sbeing activated and I am

(01:32:34):
choosing to say not right now.
All right, I know I'm goingthrough something difficult, but
I'm choosing not to let thattake, take over right now.
So I often like I'm a virgo, soI like what can you do with
what you have right now and whatwould help you find the most
immediate next stable step, evenif that's saying I, absolutely

(01:32:58):
not today, you know.
And so giving encouragement,essentially for people to
reclaim agency in that momentjust to get to the next step,
and then do that until they canstart thinking about a few steps
out.
A few steps out.
Sometimes you need to slow down.
You know, sometimes we all needto slow down and just think

(01:33:20):
about the next step.
You know some people are on stepeight and they're actually they
need to be back on step two.

Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
My godmother used to say next right action which one
of my friends said, the new.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
NRA.

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
The next right action ?
Yeah, exactly, and that'ssomething I learned from my mom,
mom Kelly.
The next right action?
Well, not that specific phrasebut I love that, but it's that
spirit for sure.
What can you do right now?

Speaker 4 (01:33:50):
What's next?
For sure, what can you do rightnow?
What's next?
Baby steps?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I lovedher for that because she had her
PhD in psych.
So it was like she was myspiritual leader, but also I
knew she knew what nuts was sheknew exactly yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):
Here we go.
Okay, great, what a goodquestion.
Thank you Great.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Great question All right?
Is that all that's it?
Yes, all right.
So what if we do a littleceremony?
Yeah, don't you think Soundsgood to me.
So I will talk a little bitabout what the ceremony is.
We're going to make a blessingbundle but in order to welcome
in blessings we've got to clearout what can be cleared.

(01:34:27):
We're not going deep, we're notpurging grandma-grandma trauma,
we're not talking about daddyissues, we're just saying like a
little evil eye clearing.
You know, like just a gentle,get it off so I can make the
next right action.
Right, that's what we're doing.

(01:34:49):
So great question.
There is a tray of herbs thatwe'll take out with us, um, and
on the way out maybe people cantake their chairs and we can go
around the fire so you can havea place to sit.
But there are little scraps ofpurple material that, um, that
everybody will grab one of andthen I'll have the uh strings

(01:35:09):
and then we'll have this tray ofherbs and we'll pass the herbs
around and people can takepinches of it.
But the herbal blend areheart-opening herbs.
There are a lot of ancestralherbs that Romani we cook with,
like allspice and cinnamon andanise and lemongrass.
There's some patchouli herb,there's rose, there's a hibiscus

(01:35:29):
wanted to come tonight, um andsome holy basil also is in there
, um rose rose and also someblack pepper.
I was like who, who?

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
is that I brought rosemary I brought some rosemary
.

Speaker 3 (01:35:49):
okay, great, yes, of course yes of course, add that
to it, and then basically, whateverybody will do is they'll
take a pinch and they'll put itin, and then we'll teach you how
to fold it up, but each of uswill talk a bit about making
bundles as we do that.
Is that okay?
Yes, all right.
So shall we transition out andI won't record the ritual, so
sorry.

Speaker 7 (01:36:25):
This.
I won't record the ritual, sosorry, this is something that we
don't do.
Thank you for listening toRomanistan Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:36:29):
You can find us on Instagram, tiktok and Facebook
at Romanistan Podcast and onTwitter at Romanistan Pod, to
support us.
Join our Patreon for extracontent or just donate to our
Ko-Fi fundraiser, ko-ficombackslash Romanistan, and please
rate, review and and subscribe.

(01:36:50):
It helps people find our show.

Speaker 7 (01:36:52):
it helps us so much you can follow jez on instagram
at jasmina dot vontila andpaulina at romani holistic.
You can get our book secrets ofromani fortune telling online
or wherever books are sold.
Visit romanistanpodcastcom forevents, educational resources

(01:37:13):
and more.
Email us at romanistanpodcastat gmailcom for inquiries.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
Romanistan is hosted by Jasmina Von Tila and Paulina
Stevens, conceived of by PaulinaStevens, edited by Victor
Pachas, with music by VictorPachas and artwork by Elijah
Barado.

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