Making the Spiritual Political with Yaron “Dashboard” Schweizer

In this final episode of season three of Queerly Beloved, I drop in with Yaron “Dashboard” Schweizer: a community weaver, theatre maker, and director of Chinkapin Craftstead. From kibbutz days to the Eggplant Faerie Players to a hand-built, off-grid life in rural Tennessee, Dashboard has been practicing the art of community living for decades. We start with a conversation about the tender tension of our time: holding grief and rage without losing levity, and how joy can be a sustainable form of resistance.

About Our Guest

Yaron “Dashboard” Schweizer has been committed to community living and organizing—and to theatre acting and directing—for most of their life. They lived on a kibbutz as a young adult, studied acting in New York City, and moved to rural Tennessee in 1994. A former member of the Eggplant Faerie Players, Dashboard toured nationally with multiple shows. In 2004, they and their partner joined friends in a hollow near Woodbury, hand-building their off-grid home. Dashboard now serves as director of Chinkapin Craftstead, a nonprofit queer arts organization uplifting queer, trans, and BIPOC voices. 💚

Other themes we explore:

• Visible allyship & solidarity: what a keffiyeh signals, showing up thoughtfully, and taking responsibility without collapsing into despair.
• Community (beyond the buzzword): the gift and the grit—why conflict can be medicine, and how chosen family keeps us brave.
• From kibbutz to Radical Faeries: homophobia, leaving, arriving, and finding a movement that makes room for your full self.
• Theatre x ritual x politics: ACT UP echoes, a Fairy Witch coven, ritual theatre, and intergenerational magic at Chinkapin (including the revival of Bar Dykes). 
• Inanna’s descent & Venus cycles: shedding even the identities we love to remember who we are beneath them—and bringing that medicine back to the village.
• Earth-based spirituality & land: practicing on stolen land, indigenous rights, and why “all liberation is one liberation.

Memorable Lines

• “They’re coming for our bodies—but really, they’re coming for our joy.”
• “Community that isn’t self-aware can press people down; community at its best lifts us into who we’re becoming.”
• ““Palestinian liberation is the collective tissue of our collective liberation”

Mentions

Radical Faeries • ACT UP • Bar Dykes • Fairy Witch coven • Inanna / Venus cycle • Chinkapin Craftstead • Eggplant Faerie Players

Connect & Support

• Learn more about Chinkapin Craftstead - https://www.chinkapincrafts.org/
• Connect with Wil here- https://www.wil-fullyliving.com/
• Help me celebrate this final episode of season 3 by leaving a 5 star review! 🙏

Transcript

Wil Fisher  
Dashboard, my love. Welcome to queerly Beloved. Hi there. Thank you for having me. Oh, I'm so glad that you said yes to my request, and I'm so excited to get this chance to drop in with you and get to know you even better through this conversation. You know, we've had some really sweet, tender moments in Fairy space together, and I feel like there's still a lot about you that I don't know, and a lot of stories that you have yet to share with me. So I'm excited to get a few more today, and you know, to continue that as our paths keep crossing.

Dashboard  
And I'll start with the question I start off all my interviews with, which is, who are you in this moment? And you can take a moment to breathe into that and tell me by describing a drag avatar that embodies who you are in this moment.

Wil Fisher  
That's a good one. I go first. If it's helpful, sure you go first. Okay, okay, so now I'm gonna breathe in, and

I'm feeling springy in this moment. I'm feeling like some butterfly energy. I'm feeling so, yeah, I'm seeing myself now as a monarch, and I happen to be wearing orange, but I'm feeling this kind of, I know it's we're moving into fall, but for whatever reason, I feel a certain spring to my step, and I feel like this drag avatar, yeah, is like a butterfly lady, so she's part lady and part butterfly. She has this beautiful orange monarch wings, and she's flitting about and moving through her day and through her time and space, and doing a better job at remembering to infuse the journey with joy, and that's been a big lesson for me lately, is to remember that I'm on the playground of life, and that I get to choose to bring play and the joy that comes with play For me into my my my daily life, moment by moment. So yeah, beautiful, monarch butterfly lady, that's beautiful. That's beautiful.

Dashboard  
I, I feel like I'm holding two very kind of opposing realities right now. So I'm curious what kind of drag wil come out of that I feel.

I feel very deeply connected to the rage and the despair of the moment that all of us are in. And I wouldn't say hopelessness or helplessness at all, but that vibe, that intense vibration of pain and trauma and anger and action and confusion and trying to figure out who we are at that moment, I feel very plugged into that. You know, we'll see in a second what kind of drag will come out of that. And at the same time, I'm feeling, you know, I don't feel heavy like I feel the heaviness, but I don't feel heavy. I feel I feel alive. I feel like my actions have meaning. I feel like I'm actually doing some good in the world, even for whatever that's worth. So, like, I think, like my drag persona, you know, she's going to be really something very fierce is happening. There's always going to be a kefir with her, because, you know, I carry Palestine with me everywhere I go. Because all liberation, I think, is grounded in Palestine Liberation. And at the same time, I don't know, personally, I'm pretty partial to sundresses. So if we can design a sundress that's really fierce undress when stilettos, my you know, a sundress, a keffiyeh pattern, sundress and a pair of stilettos, I love it, my drag persona.

I love it. I love how that's holding the duality of those. And I gotta be honest with you, I don't know kefir. Could you tell me and explain kefir?

So there's the kefir. The kefir is. It's a head wrap that Palestinians, that a lot of my. Muslims and Arab people wear. But there's a design that a specifically Palestinian design, and specifically at this moment, one of the ways in which Palestinians are asking non Palestinians to show up for them is to wear kefirs, sign of solidarity.

Wil Fisher  
Wow, I didn't know that.

Dashboard  
Yeah, I feel like we know we're at a moment where I think like people wearing kafirs, definitely, if they're actually Muslims, definitely if they're Palestinians, are under a lot of danger, definitely over there and definitely in this country right now. So I feel that for people of European descent, for white people, where kefir is is a good way to is, is a good opening step in leveraging our privilege and showing support.

Beautiful, yeah, to have that physical, visible sign of allyship and Alliance. Yeah, it's funny. Yesterday, I we were driving my boyfriend and I we saw this pride bumper sticker on someone on this really cute car, and we're like, Oh, I've never seen a pride sticker like that. It had like this, like an a frame. And I thought maybe it was like camping. Like, oh, gays who like to camp. So my boyfriend took a picture of it and send it to chat GBT, and said, What is this? And it was an A. So it was an A for ally. So it was a pride, pride flag that is specifically for the allies. And so, yeah, I feel like visibility with allyship is so important. And I love knowing that there is an invitation from Palestinians. So it's not appropriation, but it's actually doing something to signal that we are in solidarity with those struggles. Yeah,

Rick, they're actually very specifically saying that they don't like, yeah, what you just said is absolutely true. They're specifically saying that, like, this is not an act of cultural appropriations. They're actually asked, this is an ask, basically,

yeah, beautiful. And so since we're on that subject, I'd love for you to share how personal this is for you, how what's going on there has been impacting you, and how you're navigating and I know this is kind of starting in the deep waters.

But, you know, the, you know, all waters is the deep waters. Yeah, sure, I'm a Scorpio. So, yeah, it's, it's, I was born and raised in Jerusalem. It's very, it's very, it's always very interesting to me. When people ask me where I'm from, how I answer, because I, actually, I don't know how to answer, you know, like, you know, literally, I was born in Israel. I'm an Israeli citizen, but immediately I need to qualify, because I don't want to use the word Israel and give the reality of what that country is anymore legitimacy, because it's not a legitimate reality in my mind, and yet it is a reality that's causing the harm that it's causing. So it's always, you know, I'm always, like, a bit torn, you know, whether to name the privilege, or, you know, or to to try to find ways to subvert it. So really, like, you know, the short answer may be that I'm a Jew of European descent that was born, you know, on occupied Palestinian land to the Zionist regime. Wow, you know, which is quite a mouthful. Yeah, I was born. I was born and raised in Jerusalem. My family still lives there. Some of my childhood friends still still live there. And at a relatively in a relatively early age, in like my middle age teenage years, I began to radicalize, and even though I kind of grew up just like everyone else grows up in that country, with with all the propaganda and indoctrination of nationalism, chauvinism, militarism, all the ways in which those things, you know, are woven together, in addition to the regular, you know, heteronormativity that all of us are growing up with, you know, combined with this, like really twisted zero sum mentality, where you're taught from a very early age that the only way that you would ever feel safe is for another person to not be seen as a human being. I grew up with that just like everyone else grows up with that over there. But at some point, you know, a couple of different things started happening. And. Like I kind of started seeing a little bit through the veil. I feel like I started my journey of radicalization. I was still pretty much in the closet for most of that time. So around the time that I started coming out of the closet, I ended up coming to this country to come out, and decided to stay in this country and and I've been looking with horror at what's been happening there. And I think, like my ability to recognize what, when I was younger, I thought of as the occupation, you know, or later the apartheid but kind of refining my critical skills and figuring out what the systemic colonialist structure that the entire country is based on, and and coming, you know, bringing us to this moment where we're just seeing it at its ugliness and it's brutal and evil, I would say, and knowing that that's those are my people. Those are my people causing that. Now, it's very funny for me to say my people, because, you know, when, when friends and family who are like Jewish Israelis, you know, talk about us and them. You know, there's like this distancing between us as the Jewish Israelis and the them, as you know, everyone else who's out to get us. Yeah, it's a part of the zero sum. So. But when I say my people, it's not in terms of, like, identifying there isn't us and them. Because I think that, like, you know, I was trained to to not. I was trained into this binary, yes, oh, that only allows to see other people as enemies, but for me, the Austin so I don't want to fall into that binary thinking, but I do want to take responsibility and ownership for the people who speak for me, the harm and the genocide that they're causing. They have been causing for generations, and now, you know, now we're just seeing it on a scale that we never saw it before. So, yeah, it's all very like it's vibrating very intensely in my soul.

Yeah, absolutely, understandably so and understandably so that it would be vibrating intensely for all of our souls. And actually, what's harder to understand is how it's not how so many blind eyes and closed hearts are responding to the travesties that are happening right now before our very eyes.

Wil Fisher  
And I guess it leaves me curious about how you knowing all that now are staying in the sundress how you are managing to find levity in the face of such adversity going on In the world?

Dashboard  
That is a really good question.

I don't think that despair is an option, just I think that's a privilege we can't afford. And I don't think that just rage is sustainable, you know, like I'm, you know, I'm about to turn 60. So, you know, when I was younger, you know, like, I feel like unsustainable Rage was something that I felt, you know, in my 20s, when I first moved to New York in 1990 and AIDS was still ongoing, and people were dying, and I got involved with act up and like, you know, like, like, there have been, like, activist moments that, you know, were, you know, that rage, and I think fueled by it, just like, yeah, being fueled by that kind of rage, which I'm still feeling, and still fueled by it, but without something else, it's just not sustainable. And I feel like,

you know, like you and I just recently, we were both at the llamas gathering in Vermont. And like, something that I was carrying with me throughout that gathering was the sense of, like, how can we even, like, get together and create what we're creating as fairies while all those horrors are happening? So like, the question that you're asking me right now was a question that was vibrating very intensely in me during the week that we were in Vermont together. And like one of the things that I noticed as the week was progressing was that the only thing that I know how to do you. Know, Wil humbly, I'll say is how to keep building connections and how to show up for people, and how to hold joy together and and that does not detract from from the rage and the grief and the frustration and the confusion and the pain and all of that, but you know, we have to take care of each other. We have to show up for each other. We in we have to continue to build connections. We have to continue to to to fuck we have to continue to create art together, you know, there, we have to continue to cook for each other, you know, like, we have to do all those things that's, that's at the heart of what has to happen. I, you know, like, I'm all, I think of myself, kind of like, as an activist adjacent, you know, like, activism has never been like my strongest suit, you know, like, but politically passionately, I want to be a lot more of an activist than I actually am, you know, like I, you know, you know, I show up. I showed up during, you know, for ACT UP. I showed up for anti war events. I showed up for other things. I'm showing up for Palestine. I'm showing up for my trans sibling siblings nowadays, you know, like, I show up anyway. I can show up, but it doesn't come as naturally to me to organize, to kind of in those you know, I'm not that kind of activist, so I'm more adjacent to that. So I kind of feel like kind of holding all the different ways in which I can show up, yeah, while realizing that, you know they're they're coming for our bodies, but really they're coming for our joy. So like, how to continue, how to continue to hold joy, how to continue to care for our bodies, for each other's bodies, how to continue to care for each other's spirits, how to make art. So one of the things that's been giving me a lot of hope, I would say, is the way that I feel like I'm actually doing work. I'm actually doing I feel like I'm doing good work in the world, you know, if I might say so humbly, you know, through the ways that I helped create community, through the ways that I help support art, through the way that I help uplift queer, trans voices, bipoc voices, and just trying to, you know, again, leverage privilege to To make for to help create a stronger community. So I don't know that quite answered

it's beautiful. Beautifully answers it. And yeah, and absolutely, from my perspective, you are doing beautiful, wonderful, positive, positively impactful work in the world. And I do think that folk remembering our role, remembering what we can do, remember what we're capable of doing, remembering what we're good at, remembering what we feel called to do that's going to help us wear the sundress in the face of the adversity and, you know, and keep the stilettos on too, you know. So it's not just, it's, it's remembering that we can hold both of those things and that that is, as you mentioned, I feel like the word there is also sustainability. It's like, this is what I can do. I can still wreck I can still keep my eyes open and help where I can and I can also create a positive impact in this space that I'm able to have some control over, have some influence over, in a good way,

yeah, you know, yeah. Just briefly, I would add, I would reiterate, the importance of community, you know. And kind of like I feel like, I feel like, you know, that's the work we have to keep strengthening, building community, strengthening community, creating, you know, stronger relations, making the web tighter.

Fisher, yeah, does that feel particularly important right now? I mean, I know you have a long history of being community focused, of learning how to do those things, which, you know, I lived in intentional community at Eastern Mountain. I'm familiar with the challenges and struggles and opportunities of community living, and you have, like, a lifetime of experience in it from my vantage point. And so, yeah, I'd love for you to share some of the wisdom that you've collected along the way. And I suppose you we could start with why you think it's particularly important now, or wherever it feels good for you to start, well, I

don't know that it's particularly important now anymore than it's ever been in. Okay. Feel that like you know, I. Uh, you know, my, my coming of age, you know, as a teenager was during a moment where, you know, like, it's like, I grew up in social anarchism, you know, so like, like, I just, I knew social anarchism before I knew capitalism in a way, you know, like there was, you know, like, at least, you know, like the the people that I gravitated towards when I was, like a teenager, that's where it was at so, like, I began to realize that everything I want to do and everything that I'm the best of happens In community at a pretty early age. I didn't necessarily

have the words, when did you start living on on a kibbutz? But Caboose was that

I started. I kind of, I grew up in a city, and I grew up to, like, to a very secular family. But when I was, like, 1314, I discovered this youth movement, and it was youth movement that was directly focused on ending up living in a kibbutz. So I knew from about 1516, years old, that I'm going to live in a kibbutz. And by the time that I was 18, I already even knew which kibbutz it was going to be. Was one kibbutz in the very middle of the desert in the very southern tip of that country.

And before you move on, can you just explain a little bit about what you mean by kibbutz?

Historically, in in Israel, in occupied Palestine, a kibbutz was a social movement, a type of a community, originally founded by communist Jewish refugees from Russia, Wow immigrated to Palestine, and we're trying to create a communal living situation. Again, I have to name that. All of that was done on stolen land, but it was like a certain Jewish value, a certain socialist, communist value that was brought to that country that they were trying to create that as Jews, they weren't able to do in Russia. So anyway, by the time that I kind of got involved with that, they were like, you know, probably made like, you know, 100 to 200 all over the country that were, like, of varying sizes, you know, from a few dozen to a couple of 1000s. Wow. Where the basic idea, you know, which didn't necessarily work out, but the basic idea was from each according to their needs and to each, from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs. So the idea was that all labor, whether it's income producing labor, or whether it's service oriented, labor is done by everyone, and then everyone's needs are addressed by the community itself. So like you know, some people are working in money making ventures, and some people are working in service stuff, and all of our needs are taken care of, but what by what we do together? It was a lovely fantasy. It didn't quite work out. What was really cool about the one kibbutz that I knew that I was going to move into from a very young age, and by the time they actually physically moved into it was only three years old. So, you know, I was just on the heels of the founders generation. You know, it was a very young kibbutz. It was half Israelis, half Anglo, Saxon people, mostly from the US, but also from England, South Africa, Australia. All of us were like in our early 20s. All of us are very idealistic and brought a lot of youthful passion into trying to create something that is not only socially alternative, because at that point is a lot of the Kibbutzim in that country were already kind of selling out and becoming kind of more capitalistic in their socialism. We don't need to get into those details too much, but definitely like they were like, you know, they were like, beginning to to fall apart, got it, but we were very young, and we're still very idealistic, and we still thought that we can do it. But it wasn't only about kind of, like the social aspect of it. It also had, like, a religious, spiritual aspect, where all of us kind of grew up through the reform the Jewish reform movement, which in this country is a huge, powerful religious Jewish school over. There it was like a tiny, tiny minority, but all of us were kind of coming together with this idea that kind of, we can create both a new social structure and a new kind of, like modern religious spiritual structure that we

can beautiful. And what was that experience like for you? What did you learn from it. What? What did you like or not like?

Well, at first it was amazing, you know, like it channeled all my youthful energy like, you know, like it, you know, like when I talk about social anarchism, I think they always came from. That's where it grew in, this idea that, you know, it's not just socialism as a power over because, you know, communism is a form of power over socialism, but it actually is coming out of anarchy, which is a way of, like empowering individuals. So there was a moment where it really felt like, through this communal situation, we can just empower people to just be who they are. And I loved it. I worked, you know, sometimes 16 hours a day. I was very passionate. You know, some of the time I work in the kitchen, cooking for everyone, you know, three meals a day. Some of my time there, I worked in the fields, kind of, growing cantaloupes and watermelon and onions and tomatoes. And I love you know, I learned a lot of skills while I was there and but I was also completely in the closet. So around the time that I began to come out of the closet, and at the time, there was only one other person, a woman, lesbian woman, who was also in the closet. Both of us were just starting to come out roughly at the same time, and we're the only queer people in the kibbutz.

Had a kibbutz of how large was the one you were at?

About 60 people. Okay? So there was intimate, very, very, very close, yeah. And we started feeling like a level of homophobia. This is like, you know, the mid, late 80s, yeah, you know, especially over there, which was a generation behind country when it comes to certain things, definitely that one, we experienced a lot of homophobia, and that's actually what ended up partly making leave the place. So, yeah, it was a really beautiful experience. It was a really beautiful thing. At that point in time. I was a very idealistic youth, and I was very committed to this vision of both, like a social creating a social alternative, and creating, like a religious alternative to the norms that, you know, we grew up with. And it didn't quite happen over there, but I felt like I was kind of carrying that idealism into into my life in New York, and then, you know, I moved to New York and basically to come out. Literally, the day I arrived in New York, I discovered the radical

fairies. Amazing. Oh, my God. Which was the 90s. The early

90s, this was May of June, no, May of 1990

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, I was living in New York for years before I discovered the radical fairies.

Okay, well, yeah, I collect, you know, blessed be whatever she wanted me to do. You know, I was never, I was never a gay I was closeted. I was literally closeted up until a certain point and a radical fairy from that point on. That's

epic. Yeah, I had to go through my whole process of being gay, like being a gay man, and like being in that homonormative, you know, Fire Island and the circuit parties, and like trying to fit this certain mold and failing again and again, and feeling like this isn't quite me, but I'm definitely not straight. But who am I? And then I finally had my moment at short mountain where I was like, Oh, okay. And then it was almost like a coming out process, and, like, actually, queer, you know, I'm a queer fairy, but that's brilliant. I love that for you. That's so cool, yeah.

And it was like, you know, it still baffles me that that's how, you know, the universe, decided that it's going to go. I feel very lucky and very privileged that, you know, that that's how we did that. I realized very quickly that I'm going to stay in this country. And it wasn't about coming out at all, you know, it actually was about kind of recognizing, politically, that the kind of activism that I want to be a part of can can happen here and can't happen there. You know, again. You know, ACT UP was in full force. ACT UP New York in 9090 9192 was, you know, in full force. People were definitely still dying. You know, my first lover died. Applied, you know, a couple of years after I moved to this country, the, you know, the the first Gulf War was just about to start, and I got involved with kind of activism, trying to stop the the Gulf War, which, if I were there, I can't even imagine what my experience would have been if I were actually there at that time. And that's when I was, like, I need to be in a place that has the space to actually explore, to actually, like, grow, you know, and, and, yeah. But the only thing that, the only thing that I knew that, you know, that the deciding factor for me was always like, Wil I find community here, you know? And I was like, as long as I can find community, you know, in this country, that's where I'll stay. And through the radical fairies, you know, that community just happened. So within months of moving to this country, I know that I'm staying here, amazing.

So let's just explore that water a little deeper now that we've got the context for it. And I'd love for you to share. Firstly, how do you define community? Like, when people talk about community, how do they know when they've found it, or how what they're looking for? Because I feel like sometimes it's a buzzword, and people have a sense of it, but it's but what actually are we talking about?

That's a really interesting question. That's a good question,

and I don't have the answer. I mean, maybe we can fly together.

Yeah, no, we can definitely riff on it together. I feel like it's kind of interesting because, you know, again, like the place where the country where I grew up, which is a very small country, and very, again, with very deep indoctrination and very, very powerful social norms that are enforced on everyone with a lot of with very little privacy and very little anonymity. One of the reasons that I kind of moved to this country was basically to be anonymous because I couldn't come out under micro of the culture the society over there. But what I began to realize, as I was meeting kind of more and more people here, definitely theories and other queers who were craving community or craving connection, whereas I kind of grew up in community and it came, it felt like it came very naturally to me, and what I was actually seeking, at least at first, was a bit of anonymity. I feel like, I feel like in this country, you know, we are just people are just taught that you're the only one who's going to do for yourself, unless you kind of come from like, you know, some kind like, non Wasp background that where there is a sense of familial, extended family, tribal connections and intergenerational relations, unless you come from cultures that have that. You know, most white Wasp people in this country grew up without that, so they don't grow up with a sense of like, you know, like it's almost like there's like we are trained to believe that the nuclear family is, one is the most important is one poll of like, where it's at and the nationalism, and then the Country is where it's at. But there's nothing in between you and your partner and your kids and and this and some nationalistic identity, huge collective sense, yeah. So I would start with just like, talking about, like, you know, community is something that brings people together in a way that their energy and their focus can go towards some shared purpose that's bigger and deeper than just the collection of individuals that they are, in my experience,

yeah, that's where my head and heart started going as well. Is that collection of people who are coming together to connect and live and work and play together in a with within the intention of creating something larger than than they could do individually and for the greatest and highest good for the individuals, but as a collective, working towards that together, supporting each other, loving each other, challenging each each other. Uh, you know, there's and the challenging is often, from my experience, one of the greatest gifts right in community, my the founder beats in Mountain, John Sasso. He would often talk about rocks, you know, that that are on the seashore and they're rubbing against each other to get smoothed out. And a lot of being in community. Intentional community is that process where you're you're hitting each other and rubbing against each other, and you know, because you're living in proximity, and so you're not just in your isolated, anonymous, nuclear home, where all those idiosyncrasies, all those blind spots, all those parts that we might more easily hide in those spaces are getting poked in community, which is, yeah, one of the gifts, you know, and when I yeah,

I would, I love that I would add to that, that the dynamic that you're talking about, about, you know, this kind of poking that can happen in community also, like, you know, definitely like, You know, the kibbutz that I ended up living in eventually, like, you know, rather than being a community, like, you know, communities have a way of, like, putting people down also. So like, recognizing that just because you live in community doesn't mean that the experience is the one you just described, where we're all by rubbing against each other. We are, like, smoothing our rough edges. We are getting all these reflections that show us the best people that we can be, you know, like, those were things that I discovered later through the fairies, you know, like, I think, like, without naming it as such, those were the things that I kind of needed from my the first community that I was in. But in truth is, the truth is that communities that don't have self awareness and that aren't committed to a full celebration of of all the human beings that are in it in a certain way, and the truth of those beings, we just end up kind of pushing people down. Yep, yep, the social pressure to conform, yes, it was almost the opposite. I mean, you know, conformity is almost like always, like a little bit of a thing anywhere you are, but like much of what we do as a as a culture, is like, how do we uplift each other? How do we celebrate each other? How you know, what role do I feel like playing at this very moment, and how does everyone around me respond to this thing by kind of continuing the story that I beginning to tell? And what do I learn about myself by having people respond to who I'm choosing to be at this moment. And how does that turn into something else? And then how does, you know, like, how do I respond to how other people are at their moment? And like it, there's this constant uplifting that happens. And I think that's a, you know, that's another part of like, you know, the metaphor that you were using around like, how we how we smooth each other. I think all of us are all of us are coming wounded. All of us are definitely queer people. You know, I mean, growing up in a heteronormative society, all of us becoming very wounded to one extent or another, and to discover people who can see us, who can see our beauty, play with us, who hold us, who witness us, and hopefully soothe our rough edges along the way. I think, I think it's a very important thing,

beautiful, yeah, and as you share that, what comes through for me is this process of becoming, this process of becoming more of ourselves, becoming more whole in our experience of ourselves, more connected to the depths of our authenticity within, within ourselves, and more capable of expressing that these are with the communities that you're talking About, the AWARE communities. You know, community at its best, which I've seen happen, you know, within some radical fairy communities, community at its best can help us, uplift us into that becoming. And you know, for me, one of the reasons why I agree that it is very important. Community at all times. It's very important, and it feels extra important to me because this is a time where I feel like the power the people in positions of power are are striving for more conformity. Are striving to have us get quiet and to shut up and not express these pushbacks, or not express the truth of who we are, because they've determined that it's not justified or or even like real you know? And so that's where I see the need for community to grow strong. Longer and for more folks to find community so that they can step into their fullest expression of self and help guide this new way forward.

Yeah, yeah. I feel like when I first kind of begin to kind of learn what the radical fairies are, and you know, and again, you know, like there is no, this is what the radical fairies are. You know, we're all creating on paths, and we're all telling our own stories. And, you know, radical fairies and act of self definition. But I feel like I always felt definitely like my early experience with the radical fairies were that we were kind of like higher on the theory and not as good with the radical. A lot of the like, you know, the nature and the drag and the joy and the sex and the just all the different ways in which we are having fun. But all you know, and I'm not, and I'm not believing with that at all, and

there is something radical about each other in a way, you

know, like all those you know, like, and also the ways in which we kind of witness each other and have heart circles together and listen to each other, like all of that. You know, there was the fairy part. And I feel like I always felt like I kind of needed, kind of more of the like, the politics and the radicalism and the the deeper, broader understanding of the systemic ways in which society is trying is and trying to get us to conform in certain ways. And I remember like in this, in this group that I was in, we were doing this, like, we were kind of writing this story. There's like, you know, when I lived in New York in like, 9293 and we kind of, like, we did this, like, collective myth telling. And somehow, as part of our myth telling, we kind of created this whole narrative where the radical theories and act up all kind of merged into this, like, I don't remember exactly what we merged into, but I remember the sense of, like, how do we bring everything that is fairy and that kind of goes back to your earlier question of, like, how to maintain, you know, joy and lightness and love and all of that in the face of everything else. And I kind of feel like, you know, that's what the radical fairs were kind of bringing into activism, but a part of me also needed to bring, to bring the politics of the activism into the fairness, kind of like, you know, bring more radical into the radical fairies, you know, so that it's not just here is this thing that we create in a vacuum. Here we are going for a week into the woods and doing really, really amazing, amazing, profound work around healing and spirituality and magic and connection and touch and care and all those things. But how do we recognize that the work that we do here in the woods, it's actually connected to an entire, entire,

larger ecosystem,

yeah, Exactly, of Yeah, of movement that is, you know, anti colonial and feminist and, you know, like an anti racist, like all an anti capitalist, like all the things that we have to that we are addressing as radical theories. But they can't just be things that we are addressing for ourselves. You know, they have to be thing. You know, we're creating them. We're discovering them. We're creating the space where we can each heal, we can eat, you know, when we are building community and everything. But they're not in a vacuum. They're all a part of a bigger, deeper, a broader movement of social justice, of liberation. You know, like there was, like there was a ritual a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago, there was a Beltane ritual. And like, the download that I got right before that Beltane ritual, and it was kind of related a little bit to land acknowledgement, but, you know, you know, as you know, Palestine is on my mind and in my heart, in my spirit all the time. And I was like, how do we connect this thing? And I got this download of, like, you know, everything that we do at a fairy gathering is about liberation. It's about individual and collective liberation. But you know, liberation is for everyone. So recognizing, you know, like the phrase that came to me was that Palestinian Liberation is the connective tissue of our collective liberation, you know, that's been the thing that's been kind of like they've somehow they've managed to hide the best, you know, and without naming it and seeing it and recognizing it and uplifting it and working towards it, you know. So since what we are doing, everything we're doing at a fairy gathering, everything we do as fairies, even when it's not at a gathering, you know, is about uplifting. It's about liberation. But there is no liberation for just some people, and not for all people. Yes, that's where Palestine kind of comes in. Palestine is that connective tissue. All liberation is one liberation

because we are not free until all people are free.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And how to like, remember that what we do in the woods, you know? We always tell people at the end of the gathering, take what you feel, take bring it to the world. And like all the different ways in that in which that can play out, it's not just about, oh, keep your open heart, you know, but also keep that fire, bring liberation, see, you know, every you know, like all the ways in which you witnessed other people at a gathering, witness people in the city recognize, you know, recognize all the different oppressions, you know, and do something, yeah.

I mean, it sounds like that myth of the ACT UP and the very communing. It's like we could use some of that act up energy in in the fairy space. We could use some of that to to help move, create a movement that you're talking about within the fairy community.

Yeah, I It's really interesting. Because, like, I feel like it's really interesting, like, you know, kind of like I live in Tennessee, and most people that I, you know, I, when I moved here, I moved as a radical fairy. I still consider myself a radical fairy. And almost everyone I moved here with consider themselves a radical fairy. And when I go to Vermont or other places, you know, they're all radical fairy. But around here, most people don't think of themselves the radical fairies anymore. They think of themselves as queers. And in a way, it's really the same thing. I kind of feel like queer kind of brings, I mean, you know, it's to me, it's vernacular, you know, I feel like radical theory is like one spoke in this wheel of all the things. But I would definitely say that, like, I feel that, like, you know, just to talk about Palestine for one more second, you know, there's so many over the last couple of years. You know, there were so many places, academia, social organizations, activist groups, progressive groups. You know that a split because of disagreements about Palestine. You know this thing that you know people call progressive except Palestine, really reared its ugly head, and, like a lot of places, did not find ways to hold the contradictions, you know,

and fell apart because people were not able to incorporate

Palestinian Liberation into a movement without triggering their zero sum mentality around Judaism and anti semitism and the way that it was used against Palestinians. But I feel like within the radical theories and within the queer community that I'm a part of, like that just didn't happen. Like, I feel like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm seeing the occasional person who's kind of wrestling with those questions, but as a community, I feel like we've really shown up. And like, I feel like there is, there really is this deep understanding of what, of what liberation looks like, and, and, and the question of whether Palestine is a part of it or not is just not a question. And that is just like, I just want to name that as a really beautiful thing that I experienced during really difficult times, and that you know, it's, it's such a humbling honor to be a part of the community that so readily shows up. Yeah, you know, the community that we have here in Tennessee,

yeah? Beautiful, yeah, in a

really profound way, to be in community with so many of the people that I am.

Yeah, you've landed in a really perfect place, a very aligned place, just like goddess was looking out for you and having you meet a radical fairy day one of New York City, I feel like you've landed in such a very appropriate, aligned magical place where you can be held in that space and supported, and I'm able to do the beautiful work that you're doing, which I'd love for you to share a little about Chinquapin. And you know, you've got this brilliant background in theater. I know Chinkapin brings wonderful theater into the community and yeah, I'd love for you to share a little bit about about the space and what you guys are up to. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Chinkapin is a relatively recent land project that's happening here in rural Middle Tennessee, where I. Um, where someone bequeathed this really, really beautiful piece of land to the local queers, basically to create art on it. We're named Chinquapin because there is a 400 year old chinka pin oak tree that goes on the land. Chinka pin is a type of white oak. And, you know, I hope I'll get, you know, I'm sure that sometime next year, or whenever, I'll get to take you on a walk to see her. But just the idea that there is no weird kind of like everything that we do over there, first of all, I want to say is kind of grounded in the resilience of a grandmother. Oak Tree, beautiful. You know a lot. You know this country and is still alive and thriving. And so basically, we have this, this beautiful piece of land where we're holding space for all artists to come and do their magic. There's, we have very broad carte blanche. We are not for profit. Our board basically gave us total card launch to to create art. So as a space, we are open to artists of all forms. You know, we have residencies. People come to work on their own projects, and sometimes they do some presentation with the for the community, and sometimes they just work on their there is an expectation of a presentation. Sometimes we'll just work on the project. And that's what it is. I'm trying very actively to not be very gatekeep about this, you know, like we're trying to do things in a way that's a lot more community oriented, that's a lot more open. Personally, I come from theater. So when, so when I got involved again, while we are open to all art forms that things that excite me to do our theater. So, so from early on, you know, like, we've been kind of like, you know, I've been kind of looking for for place to direct or produce or act in and and we've done, we've done a bunch of different things. The All is out there for all the fairies and queers, you know, want to produce something with a bunch of local Tennessee talent to come and do it. And we are currently, actually, tonight, we're starting rehearsals on a play that a very beloved elder in the community, Meryl wrote 45 years ago. Meryl is in her 80s, and she wrote this play about pre stone wil lesbian bar culture called bar dykes and and a bunch of trans and non binary local queers are coming together in their 20s and 30s and 40s are coming together basically to embody the lives of 1950s lesbians and the bitch and the film and everything that that entails and and, you know, this project is so exciting to me. I'm producing it. I'm not in it. I would have loved to be in it, but it's really fun to produce it, and it's really fun to watch this energy. Inner, inner generational queer spill this conversation between the generations of like you know, here are, you know, here we are with our current sensitivities, sensibilities around gender, about around sexuality, around identity, you know, around binarism, non binarism. And here we are, like, you know, it's so easy for for young people to belittle previous generations. It's very easy to focus on the fuck ups of the, I don't know, second wave feminism, and you know, it's so easy, but I feel like what we are doing here is the opposite of that. What we're doing here is like we are honoring retelling stories of resilience, basically at a time that all of us need resilience and without judging. You know, there were at, where they were, where they were at, and recognizing that where we are at could also be judged, you know,

exactly, exactly down the line. But that's

how we do it. As queers, I feel like, as you know, like the queer project is really an anti colonial, anti capitalist. It's a community project. It's how we uplift all of us together, you know, outside of some weird binary thinking, you know. And I think that's what we're doing through the theater that we do. I've always been attracted. To projects that that, whether it's ritual theater, whether it's kind of more political stuff or it's satirical political stuff that you know, break down normal thinking and kind of opens possibilities, spiritually, politically idealistic, you know, kind of like ideologically open up possibilities, which I think theater does so so I feel, especially with this production, just like being able, we're actually performing it in Nashville on National Coming Out Day. So I'm even I did with that, that cute, random synchronicity. I

love that. Oh, it's, wow, that's fabulous, yeah. And I love that you were already going there, because this is where I was curious to go next is this connection between theater and spirituality, this connection between theater and politics. And I know, you know, I know you are part of the fairy witch Coven, and I don't want to miss out on hearing more about that. I'm wondering if there's so you know, within you even mentioned casting a spell, that this play has been casting a spell. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about, let's start with the connection of spirituality and theater as how you see that, how you see those things connected.

Yeah, I feel like I would like, it took me a while to find kind of that connection, to kind of put that together. So I'll tell you a little bit about, like, kind of like, you know, my the Coven that I kind of got involved with in New York, and that will kind of lead to that. But basically, like, you know, I was still very much into Judaism when I moved to New York, and I was teaching at synagogues, and, you know, definitely Judaism was still my spirituality, and a lot of my work was was going towards, like discovering what I now see as the more pagan elements of Judaism, or trying to get beyond the misogynistic, you know, God centric, you know, all the power over thing. So, like, I was already on a journey to discover something deeper in Judaism that was going to do that. And then I, obviously, I discovered the radical fairies. And then a bunch of us just kind of got together. We're like, we want to do kind of more intense work together. And four of us came together. We're very committed to figure, actively figure out our spirituality together. We met six times a month. Wow, we, you know, in New York, back when it was a little easier to do such things in New York, we met like, once a week, and then we did a ritual every full moon and new moon. So six times a month we got together and we, you know, we started working a lot with star hawk and the reclaiming collective, and kind of using witchcraft and paganism through the kind of activist feminist lens of the Bay Area reclaiming collective. We were kind of working chapter by chapter with the spiral dance starhawks book from the 70s about wil ca and just like, kind of inventing the wheel, as we were going, like, we were like, Okay, today we're going to focus on the element of water. So what's water going to be and, you know? And then we're like, okay, let's work with different gods. So one of us would bring up some God, and we would be like, Okay, let's do a ritual around that goddess, or, you know, like, around the deity. We were really like, we were just like, throwing it everywhere, trying to figure it out, and and along the way, you know, a lot of it was very fairy. I mean, we were definitely like, you know, we weren't afraid of high ritual at all. But we were fairies. We were, like, absurd, you know, we, you know, we were very, you know, like there was one we watched the movie The Witches of East week at East wil and then over the course of two or three rituals, we basically went through every spell that they do in we each channeled one of the witches, you know, and camp Exactly. So there was, like, definitely camp. But there was definitely, like, you know, there was some really deep kind of magic about that, you know. Like, what kind of you know, you know, like, when you eat all those cherries, you know, what kind of rage comes out when you eat those cherries, you know, anyway, so there was definitely a combination of kind of deep magic and high camp and high perform. And then we kind of discovered performance, nice, you know, because we started kind of as a as a coven, we realized that we want to do some public rituals too, and we started hosting public rituals for the fairy community and beyond in Brooklyn, kind of, like around, kind of like the pagan high holidays, so, like Halloween, saw in, you know, Solstice, all of that, and and also, we started, kind of, you know, leading rituals at fairy gatherings, you know, we just, kind of, we just stepped into. Role. So I feel that like, kind of like ritual theater just kind of happened, not for me. It wasn't even that intentional. It just kind of happened discovering ways in which I think both theater and rituals are about symbolism, you know, like in kind of, like I feel like in rituals, we we agree on what the symbols are going to be, and we charge the symbols with intention and with meaning. Like, I know, a talisman. It becomes like an act. It becomes, you know, it becomes something energy around, you know, and I feel like theater lends itself so well for that, because theater is already about suspending disbelief. And that's rituals work when you suspend your disbelief, you know, so very, very quickly we kind of like the two just combined really, really well, you know, there was, like, one, you know, and again, sometimes it was very high drag. Some things were very silly. There was one ritual I remember, like, we were, like, it was a full moon ritual that we really needed to, like, charge the water. And we had this, like, you know, this cup of water which you want to charge with the full moon energy. We were like, how do we does anyone have an idea about how to charge the moon, the moon energy into the water? And then someone was like, How about Alka Seltzer? And we we got, like, it was perfect. He's like, we got this, like, beautiful, round, yeah.

White, white, white. Full Moon. Full Moon

tab, which literally charged the water with bubbles, which then we kind of passed around and drank, you know, at which point one of us was like, do your rituals give you heartburn in the way that, you know, fairies just, you know, keep ad libbing adding layers to what we do. So ritually. We agreed to what the thing was, and we charge it, and we're silly about it, but we were also very sincere about it. And I think that was like, you know, that's like a seed example of theater. And there's so many ways in which we can take, like, a narrative, a ritual narrative, you know, like around Halloween, we can say that, you know, we're doing some descent to the underworld with Persephone, or around the summer solstice. You know, we're celebrating something around the sun. And then it's just a question of, like, how do we create, like, a performative container around what that story is, and both you know, create the ritual container, but also create the performative narrative within that container of what we're actually doing. So, yeah, there was like, you know, like, I'll just give you like, one example of, like, you know, kind of ritual theater that we did while I was still living in Brooklyn, like it was a Halloween ritual, and I had this whole thing around, you know, like the whole story is that, you know, Persephone eats the seeds of the pomegranate, and that's why she ends up staying in the underworld, you know, for half the year. But we want to do it in a way that's not patriarchal, that's not power over that. It's not this, like male god of the underworld makes this female thing, you know, like we wanted to kind of change the story. So it was all about Persephone, empowering all of us to go into the underworld together. So I was kind of aspecting Persephone in that ritual. And I was kind of like I wore, I wore this white wedding gown, and I had two pomegranates in my breasts. And then at the stroke of midnight in the ritual, I kind of, I cut into my breasts and I fed everyone in the ritual pomegranate seeds. So the V, I mean, the visual was

stunning, epic, legendary, iconic, but really

it was like, this, like, invitation. Of like, it was like, like, the act of eating the the the pomegranate seeds was not just the act of, oh, you fucked up and now you're stuck in the underworld. Was actually a fact. Of like, this comes from the breasts. This is, like, nourishing you. This, like the gift of going to the underworld, like going to the other world, is a gift, and it's something you're choosing to do, and it's something that I'm granting you, and I'm giving you and and it looks stunning and disturbing at the same time. Yes, so kind of like, kind of like, kind of ticks all the boxes in that way, which is kind of like what you want theater

to do absolutely, and ritual too. Yeah, I love and so we were talking about descent and this connection to persephone's. But I know in on Inanna is another Goddess that you have a personal connection to. I'd love for you to share. Her about, how did you find her? Or, how did she find you? How, where did that connection come from?

So, so, yeah, so again, like, like I said, When I was my cousin in New York, we were just kind of like, you know, experimenting with everything, and I don't remember, and we tried to be, you know, every so often someone was like, oh, let's try to work with this deity. Let's try to work with that deity. And at some point, someone was like, Okay, let's try to work with Inanna. I had never heard of Inanna, and then we started kind of working with her, and she definitely stuck for all of our Coven, but especially she really stuck for me. And now I'm start by sharing who she Yeah. So Inanna is actually, like, she's a Sumerian Goddess, and her writings, like her stories, are actually the oldest known writings that humanity has. Wow, so they're actually conforms, or whatever they're called, like, you know, clay tablets that were discovered in Mesopotamia, in what's Iraq now. They were discovered throughout the 20th century, and they had been translated. That translation is available in a book Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, and it tells all of her stories. And what was really cool, cool. What's really cool about Inanna is that she predates patriarchy, in a way that not a lot of deities that we have nowadays predate deity, predate patriarchy, I think, like from Babylonian on, definitely Greek and Roman. You're already enmeshed in what's happening there, but Inanna predates it. And so as a goddess, you know, she's the queen of heaven and earth. And really, she is the queen of everything, and she has. Her powers are out. Her powers are outside of the binary. Is the best way that I can talk about it, like her in one song about her. You know, the poet says that Inanna has the power to turn men into women and women into men as worshipers, her priestesses, priests and priestesses would wear clothings that were half male half female. Now that's already a big binary, yeah, but still it's already it's also breaking the binary. And what's really powerful for me about Inanna is that she's also outside of the binary of good and bad, a lot of qualities that we associate with, you know, you know, in Greek mythology, of the goddess of love and the God of War, and we have what's good and what's bad, but Inanna is everything Inanna. Inanna is both is it's like It's the deepest for me, she's the deepest life force that runs through all of creation. And that life force is beautiful and amazing and powerful and awful and scary and dangerous, and she spans the gamut of of danger to joy, wow, more recently than her, than her tablets, I think, like the last 2030, years, some poetry about her were discovered where a priest. So the poetry that was discovered was by a poet priestess called in eduana, and that is actually the oldest poetry that humanity humanity, the oldest written poetry that humanity has are by a woman, priestess called in heduana. And they're all, there's like, three very, very, very long poems about Inanna. Wow. And anyone you know, there's another book called in eduana that I recommend reading. And when you read what in her duana says about Inanna, you really get a sense of like, you know, the way that Inanna uplifts, you know, everything, but can also destroy everything at the same time. So any other story, Inanna has a lot of really beautiful stories. She has a really amazingly sexy courtship story with, with, with a shepherd, the shepherd dumuzi, where she chooses him as a consort. I think of it as the earliest writer, the earliest porn story. Wow, humility has and it's so sexy. Wow, the courtship and like, there's a way, like, you know, it's very. Explicit in their how their fucking goes. And as they're fucking, you know, the crops begin to grow, and the wheat grows, and, like, the rivers rise, and like, you just get that sense of like, sexual energy as this thing that fuels, fuels humanity. You know, there's, there's this, you know, there's an Alice Walker. You can say, you can see how excited I get about this. I love it. I love how there's an Alice Walker. Quote that I that I think about a lot, where she talks about the fucking that the universe does through us, fully fucks itself. Wow. So for me, Inanna is the universe fucking itself and and as it fucks through us, basically. So that's one aspect that I relate to very closely with Inanna. You know, you know, we talked earlier about how growing up queer and heteronormative society is trauma, you know, I would even call it a form of sexual abuse, you know, and and dealing with some of those personal traumas, for me, I think finding the Inanna stories was a way to connect with a queer spirituality that runs, that runs so deep. Yes, you know, that is the whale that is the storehouse that I'm drawing my narrative from, basically. So that's like, you know, like, that's like the courtship story is really powerful. Like, actually, I want to go back for a second Sure, early on in, kind of, like, my years in my Coven, and definitely, you know, over the few years that I lived in New York, I kind of realized that it was kind of getting harder and harder for me to find my spirituality in Judaism, and I was becoming more and more interested in just like paganism and wil because it was all there. The earth was there. It was just it was there, you know. So when that kind of happened, I started looking for images that are connected to the deities from the land where I grew up. And even though, you know, I'm the child of European settlers and occupied Palestine, I was still born on that land. So I was looking for the stories of that land that can feed my spirituality, finding a goddess that's actually from the Levant. Yes, from the from that part of the world. Yes, very, very, very meaningful for me. And then the thing that we discovered in our Coven, you know, every, I think every religion, has some story of descent to the underworld. I think it's a pretty human thing. And Inanna has one as well. And in particular, in Anna's descent to the underworld is a is a really, really rich story that that has so much that we can learn from and work with. And you know, her sister is the queen of the underworld. She goes to visit her sister, she dawns all of her regalia on the journey. But you know, as she goes through the gates, there are seven gates on the way to the underworld, and at each gate that she goes to, the gatekeeper makes her remove one of her piece of Regalia. And then when she questions that, she's like, how? What do you mean? I'm the queen of heaven and earth? Well, the ways of the underworld are not to be questioned. Basically, by the time she gets to the throne of the of her sister, the queen of the underworld, she's naked, at which point her sister looks at her with the eye of death, and in another dies, you know. And they they hang her like, on a hook on the wall, like a piece of rotten meat. That's the story that is, like, there's like a 6000 year old human story. Wow, maybe we're like 5000 years old, so that we know so and then when her father hears that she's in trouble, after three days, he decides to send help.

And the way he sends help, he is like he takes a little bit of dirt from under his fingernails, fashions the dirt into two winged creatures that are neither male nor female, and because they're neither male nor female, they're able to pass through the gates of the underworld undetected. And when they get to the underworld and they see the queen of the underworld mourning inanna's death, you know they. Become this mirror of empathy to her, and every pain that she expresses, they mirror back to her. And that's, you know, she's so blown away that, like these creatures see her pain, that she's like, I'll give you anything you want. And they're like, Wil, we want Inanna. And then they revive Inanna and bring her back. Part of the story. There is a lot more to the story. But for me, this part of the story is a creation myth of the fairies Aries. This is like it's a story about creating something out of dirt under the fingernails, you know, something that's outside of the binary, outside of gender, binary with wings, yes, yeah, that are because they're outside of the binaries. They can move between the worlds, because they exist in all the worlds, like the fairies do, and who are vessels of empathy and witnessing that is what the fairies do. We're really good at that. So for me, like, you know, Inanna, just became this like juncture of the place where I grew up, and my sexuality and and really powerful feminist narratives and fairy creation myths. And there's so much where I can kind of go on with a lot of the other stories. But, you know, in our Cove, and we started doing all those ritual like, you know, the Sumerians associated Inanna with the planet Venus. And every 10 months when Venus is too close to the Sun for observation, that's when they told the story of inannas descent. So it's not seasonal. It's actually in the course of four years, Inanna descends five times. And actually, if you look at an astrological chart, it actually forms a pentacle inanos descent points form a pentacle across the Zodiac, you know, that repeats itself every four years. It's actually pretty deep. So whenever Venus would go into, you know, became invisible, we would do some ritual around Inanna, and the first time we did that ritual, what we kind of realized, I think, like as fairies and witches, a lot of times when we do rituals that have to do with shedding stuff, there's often this narrative around, what do we have to let go of? So, you know, like, here is Lama, so to celebrate the harvest, what do we need to let go of? Yeah, no, but what's really powerful for me in the Inanna story is that she doesn't let go of the things she doesn't want. Let's go of her identity, yes, power for royalty. So naming so working with inannas descent magic is working with letting go of who I know myself to be. I can discover who I can be when I'm not who I am. And I don't think we realized early on just how potent that magic gets, but we did that, and wow, you know, Inanna kind of slapped our faces a little bit with what that looks like when you let go of your gifts and your strengths. Do that ritually. And you know, a lot of stuff happens around that over the years. Every so often I would do some ritual in around, inanna's descent, and she definitely, like, put me in my place. Around, okay, now, you know, like, here's a ritual where I wrote, you know, seven of my gifts on a piece of paper, and then as part of going through the gate, and what happens when I let go of my sense of humor? Wow, depends when I let you know, what happens when I let go of the things that I like about myself? Sure, wow. So you know that's in on a magic

Yeah. I mean, what feels so ripe in that for me is coming to a place where we are still this powerful expression of love without all those things, that we are still worthy, and we are still enough, and we are still these Radiant beams of light without those things, and that we at the other side of that get to collect them Back is from my understanding, and so to be without them helps us learn to appreciate them, not take them for granted, to help us see how powerful they are, how how valuable and what gifts and blessings they are to us and to cherish them more, to use them more, to allow them to support us in our calling. More. I think that's beautiful. Full and so, so powerful. I feel such a strong invitation to work with Inanna and to invite my listeners into that work too. So thank you so much for bringing her through. This feels like the most powerful place to start wrapping up. We've hit all the places I wanted to and more. But is there anything that you feel called to share as we do wrap up?

Yeah, this was like a good spot. I appreciate that there's, I feel like there's one more thing that I don't want to kind of miss on, and that is something that's really over the past kind of couple of years, I've been kind of wrestling with myself, and that, I think, Wil kind of tie up a lot of how we started the conversation. But you know, as as a pagan, as a witch, as someone who practices earth based spirituality, I found myself, you know, over the last couple of years, wondering what it means to practice earth based spirituality when I grew up as a settler on stolen land, you know, so relationship to land has been something that I've been kind of looking at a lot. And again, how to kind of combine the spiritual and the political and, you know when I talk about, like, my connection with Inanna being kind of, my connection to a goddess from that part of the world, I want to name that I recognize very like I grew up on a piece of land that I love. I love the land. I love the seasons on the land. I love the feel of that land. I love a lot about it, but it was not my land. I was I was born on it. Is the child of settlers who stole the land from the indigenous people who lived on it, and later I moved to this country, and here I am again, on stolen land. So I just want to name, as we kind of wrap things up, that any spiritual work that's grounded in the land has to recognize indigenous rights. And like, you know, the feminist used to say the person is political. And I'm like, I want to, you know, and I had a friend who used to say, the personal is the political, is the spiritual, and we have to make the spiritual the political. So really, like my spirituality, the the more it's connected to the land, the more it's connected to Earth, the more my soul is committed to land justice and indigenous rights and for people being able to live on the land as they choose. Yeah, that's that's something that I've been kind of coming to terms with recently.

Thank you so much for sharing that such a powerful reminder or acknowledgement that folks have not considered and such an important invitation. Thank you so much. This has been so epic. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this and for sharing all these fabulous, fascinating, interesting, profound stories and for who you are in this world, I'm so grateful for to know you, and so grateful for this time.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This was this was beautiful. I really appreciate it.