00:03:19.800and that side of my family were very religious they're orthodox and also hasidic jews and um
00:03:28.560you know that journey is is like of when they came to the u.s and how that
00:03:34.860things shifted for them religiously spiritually culturally um like there's this amazing story
00:03:41.600about my great-grandmother like when she got to the u.s she loved bacon and she would like
00:03:49.180cook bacon and then smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to cover up the smell of bacon
00:03:53.620which I feel like is a like a perfect little story about assimilation and her story of
00:04:00.980assimilation and on my mom's side is a little bit more mysterious and unknown and complicated
00:04:08.840my mom's mom was an orphan her mom died when she was an infant and she was in and out of
00:04:17.580orphanages and foster homes for her whole childhood. Um, so I don't know much about her
00:04:23.620story, her family. Um, and my mom's dad was Jewish and came from his family. His parents
00:04:32.660immigrated, um, when his mom was pregnant with him and he was born in the U S and they came
00:04:39.540from the Ukraine, but they were, from what I understand, they were Sephardic, so
00:04:45.300their kind of, like, longer roots, their deeper roots were from the Balkans and Iberian Peninsula
00:04:55.900and, you know, that Mediterranean region, and that side of my family, of my Jewish family,
00:05:03.400were more secular and in fact like that side of like a bunch of his um cousins and relatives were
00:05:11.860kind of like secular lefty um socialists who moved out to they were in the midwest and moved
00:05:19.320out to the la to la in the 20s and were involved in you know all kinds of jewish lefty shenanigans
00:05:27.220And so those are my blood people. And in terms of my lineage of practice and my chosen people, I really, you know, connect my healing practice feels like it's sort of in the flow of rivers of Jewish healing traditions.
00:05:44.140And some of those people call themselves sanadoras or precampadoras.
00:05:49.400Those are Latino names, buenas madres, and also Ashkenazi healers,
00:05:54.340hailers, Oshpreskers, people who carried ancestral wisdom and listened deeply
00:05:59.920and tended to their communities with love and care.
00:06:02.900And some of whom just, you know, didn't have titles,
00:06:05.300who just did that kind of listening and tending out of kitchens and homes.
00:06:12.300and you know I came of age like in terms of sort of how I came into my own healing practice
00:06:19.720something that I was always oriented to as a as a young person my great-grandmother the one I
00:06:28.260talked about the bacon eating cigarette smoking one Francis I grew up at her feet and when I was
00:06:35.420like six or seven I loved to I always loved to tie her shoes and when I was like six or seven
00:06:41.900And she joined the trend of getting Velcro shoes.
00:06:45.520And she had these like Jordache, these like hot pink Jordache sneakers that were shiny.
00:06:51.300And I was sitting at her feet, like with our little tradition of me tying her shoes.
00:06:55.540And it was sort of like neither one of us could give up that practice, even though she
00:07:02.160And she took my face in her hand and she looked at me and she was like, you have an old soul.
00:07:09.540you are a storyteller you are going to keep the stories alive you and those little blue eyes of
00:07:17.900yours you know I was like this anomaly in my family all who have like these beautiful
00:07:22.740chocolatey brown eyes and I came out with these blue eyes and nobody knew where I came from
00:07:28.040and she was like you are going to remember the stories and you are going to
00:07:33.960bring these like bring these stories through and I think you know I just soaked up everything she
00:07:45.000said to me you know she like gave her plants little when they like looked wilty and unhappy
00:07:51.460she would give them a sprinkle of vodka and um you know she gave me these bobby pins when I was
00:07:58.840a kid, she chopped her hair. She had these long braids that she wrapped in like cinnamon rolls
00:08:03.200around her ears. And when she cut her hair, she gave me her little tin of bobby pins and she was
00:08:07.660like, bobby pins, these metals keep the demons away. So it was like always like she was dropping
00:08:11.900little bits of wisdom. And so I feel like she's sort of one of my main and first teachers and also
00:08:19.740like gave me a lot of direction and guidance and purpose and still does, you know, even though she's
00:08:27.000spirit now. And I, you know, I think like I was very connected to the spirit world
00:08:36.640as a young person and, you know, and also was like love dancing. I grew up in the Valley in LA
00:08:43.080and it was like full of multitudes. And then in my teens and twenties, like I came of age
00:08:49.680in like a community of really politicized queer witches in the Bay area in the nineties and
00:08:55.380and two thousands and just was like, you know, hanging with radical fairies and leather dykes
00:09:00.700and, and, and organizers and sex workers. Um, and I was also at the time also like really
00:09:07.020immersing myself in rivers of radical diasporist Jewish, lesbian feminists and, um, unlearning
00:09:15.000Zionism. And, and at that same time, I was diagnosed with cancer in my early twenties.
00:09:20.680And so that really initiated me into, you know, kind of like being scooped up into the loving arms of other sick and disabled people and, you know, what now is called by, you know, Cara Page and Susan Raffo and Leah Lakshmi and, you know, other beloveds, like disability justice, healing justice work.
00:09:43.440And at the time was just like sick and disabled friends caring for each other and being with each other in these ways.
00:09:49.440So that was sort of the cauldron that I was in, in my young adult time that, yeah, initiated me into my own, my own healing, my own personal healing and in the cauldron of like queerness and queer liberation and kind of radical magical worlds.
00:10:06.940and also was at the same time, like I was apprenticing, um, the person who I was seeing
00:10:14.020for healing work, this, this amazing now crone Cabela and, um, in learning about intuitive healing
00:10:21.560and stones and plants. And so it was really like my own, my own healing process, my own,
00:10:30.020you know, ongoing forever lifetime healing that I'm still doing, but at the time, like in a very
00:10:35.680explicit way around um sexual violence and trauma and um chronic illness and at the same time
00:10:46.160experiencing all this like joy and abundance and expansiveness in with all these like magical
00:10:53.480sparkly weirdos and freaks and um in the bay and so those are definitely also my people that is
00:11:00.200like you know thicker than blood community people and and loved ones and chosen ones
00:11:06.380wow what a beautiful and really personal introduction you shared with us I really
00:11:15.940appreciate your willingness to share so much of yourself I really was with you as you were
00:11:25.520sharing these stories like seeing you with your grandma and in the Bay Area and just the wardrobes
00:11:33.840of the times and like I really saw it in my mind and there's so much I could ask from this point
00:11:43.200but I guess one thing that I have really been thinking about is this article you wrote titled
00:11:54.840Jewish plant magic rooting in and in it you ask your ancestors quote how do we know what we know
00:12:03.340if they didn't write books and so much was lost through assimilation sexism racism anti-semitism
00:12:11.220end quote and I want to pose this question to you now how do we know what what we know
00:12:23.040And I think this is a question of intuition and trusting intuition. And I think it's
00:12:29.840really challenging for so many of us to trust those inner voices now more than ever because
00:12:38.040there is so much noise. There is noise with the media, with social media, with people's opinions.
00:12:46.120I think that the dominant culture has done a really good job designing ways for us to not trust our intuition and trust this inner knowing of our past.
00:13:02.540and so I want to pose some of those thoughts to you
00:16:44.240like familiarity or recognition or like do I really do I really get to have this inheritance
00:16:54.000and also like this feels so familiar or somehow I feel like I already knew this
00:16:58.200and so I think that can be a really powerful experience in terms of like what
00:17:05.220that affirmation of our intuition feels like I think we need that affirmation and I think we
00:17:10.580really need each other to do this remembering like I think one of the things like you were
00:17:16.140talking about this like the noise and the culture that is such a you know an attack so undermining
00:17:27.500to being able to hear ourselves to be able to hear our intuition trust our intuition but it also
00:17:35.100like makes it hard to hear and trust each other. And I do feel like this kind of remembering is a
00:17:42.480collective practice and we need each other in this practice to help reflect these things and
00:17:47.660to help each other remember. And, you know, we do carry these, we carry these traditions in our
00:17:54.340bodies, in our dreams, in folk tales and songs, in the memories of our grandparents and great
00:18:01.800grandparents. They're hidden in our rituals and prayers. And many of these practices are still
00:18:07.340alive and well. And I think that's important to remember too, that not all is lost and like the
00:18:14.560scale and quality of the loss of these traditions really varies between different diasporas. And so
00:18:21.420it's also really important to honor and celebrate the richness of these practices that have remained
00:18:27.300vibrant and also the resilience of those who have kept them alive. And, you know, I mean, and
00:18:33.780in the face of centuries of empire and colonialism and Orientalism and state violence and exile and
00:18:42.380patriarchy and, you know, the list goes on. So many of these healing practices have been lost
00:18:48.620and hidden and suppressed or obscured and subsumed and sort of like recast into religion,
00:18:55.460I kind of like lost their you know for lack of a better word their magic um and with that
00:19:03.260remembering it's also like I feel like it's essential to say you know like this is not a
00:19:07.320practice of romanticizing or fetishizing um or kind of like you know like resisting nostalgia
00:19:14.740about it but also like bringing forth this wisdom and um and then you know I feel like part of my
00:19:23.440work and the work that so many of us are engaged in is like living it, adapting it and, and pointing
00:19:29.880these legacies towards liberation, which I think is for me, like what I really understand Judaism
00:19:37.340to be a practice of is like, this is a living tradition. This is a tradition that has always
00:19:43.360adapted to the context that we are living in. It has always responded and remained connected
00:19:50.960to something ancient and as reverence, but also like wrestling and tumbling and getting down and
00:20:00.560dirty with text. And, um, and so like, yeah, like, I think that all you need is like a scrap or a
00:20:07.700seed or a fragment or a story, you know, so much of Jewish study and Jewish practices, like you
00:20:13.700can unfold a single letter and derive so much meaning like there are mystical practices in
00:20:22.300Judaism of meditating on breath or on one single letter let alone a word or a phrase let alone like
00:20:31.440an entire psalm or prayer or a practice of just like throwing some salt braiding bread lighting
00:20:39.460a candle and so I guess one thing I want to say is it's like it doesn't take much like there's
00:20:47.260there's a lot in the way of accessing these things including a feeling of like not being
00:20:54.380Jewish enough or not being the right kind of Jewish or you know different ways that people's
00:20:59.420families assimilated for survival for safety and so giving ourselves permission and giving each
00:21:06.960other permission to access these things and encouraging each other to get messy and make
00:21:13.680mistakes and being willing to like fumble and not know and being really forgiving and loving with
00:21:20.240each other while at the same time like being rigorous and being um in integrity and um you
00:21:29.640know doing our doing our studies and our research together in a way of like being in practice like
00:21:35.380before we go out and teach something or something you know um so it's like a lot of listening
00:21:41.940and moving slowly and with intention and also you know I mean I think your question of like
00:21:49.020how do we do this how do we reconnect um I think for me it's like and I for me this like comes to
00:21:57.800from I feel like I've learned a lot about this through my queer ancestors and um like through
00:22:09.280queer liberation of just like following desire and following longing and those being a form of
00:22:15.300wisdom those being like a form of like that's a practice in itself and so like
00:22:19.900letting the desire and longing arise like making a lot of space for desire and longing
00:22:26.140like I really fucking want to know what my ancestors ate or prayed or what plants they
00:22:32.280played with or what songs they sang and before we kind of foreclose upon that with grief
00:22:37.460and and like a sense of loss and the impossibility of knowing those things like
00:22:42.880the same way that we do as like queer and trans people is like you know protect that desire as
00:22:51.460as holy and sacred and and full of life and and then letting that desire and longing lead you
00:22:59.940like a fucking headlight you know like where does that desire want you to go like deep into some
00:23:05.900cavern up into the stars into a synagogue out into the fields into text you know studying with
00:23:14.040all the amazing people who are sharing a lot of wisdom right now letting it be a guide and also
00:23:21.360you know of course at the same time making space for the grief that comes up around like how and
00:23:27.280when and why there's been loss and disconnection but I think like untwining them like unbraiding
00:23:34.120those things so that the feeling of longing and desire and interest isn't like the saint doesn't
00:23:41.440have the flavor of grief and loss and kind of like resignation about it you know and you know I think
00:23:49.560that the Jewish tradition has this tradition of study with friends. It's called Hevruta,
00:23:56.080which is like shares the root with the word friend. It's like a study friend.
00:23:59.980And I think there's so much wisdom in that ancestral practice of like,
00:24:06.380you know, I think there's a lot of beauty in doing things on our own and in solitude and in quiet.
00:24:12.860And, you know, I'm, I'm like, also, I'm a sort of extroverted hermit. And so I value a lot of study on my own, too. And I think that there, there is a way that like bringing people in with you. And, you know, I think as a person who was raised in a very vibrant Jewish community, I really see the way that community helps us practice, like that rituals,
00:24:39.940moving through time doing these things that have to do with life and death and meaning
00:24:46.000like it's helpful to do them with others with others holding that space with you and
00:24:51.360holding those intentions with you um so i also think like doing it with friends doing it in
00:25:01.160community and um and then i think you know letting it live in your body giving yourself space and
00:25:08.480time like you know learning about doing research doing research like I'm an I'm a nerd and I like
00:25:15.960for me that's for sure been one of my most treasured spiritual practices like what are
00:25:23.680the recipes and can I cook them what did they grow and can I grow it what are the songs they
00:25:28.320sang I'm going to learn them just like this immersion following the calendar like being in
00:41:05.240I think of like garlic as this heart of Jewish plant magic.
00:41:13.400garlic is in the torah talked about as like this you know sort of like as the jews are
00:41:20.520reminiscing about being in egypt where they were enslaved they're like remember when we
00:41:25.480see garlic and onions and how it made us really strong to build the pyramids when we were
00:41:30.040slaves you know it's like but they're you know you have to remember they're like saying that
00:41:33.960when they're in the wilderness and they don't really have food they're like subsisting on like
00:41:37.160you know, mana, like heavenly food, but also dry crackers. And then the garlic is talked about in
00:41:45.760the Talmud as a healing remedy, as a plant that is a food that is like specifically a delight to
00:41:54.800eat on Shabbat. Like it's connected to joy and this imperative that on Shabbat we experience joy.
00:42:02.120And one of the ways that we can experience joy is by eating garlic. And reflexively, one of the
00:42:06.760other delights of Shabbat is sex and garlic also like makes us frisky and want to have sex and
00:42:14.720it it talks about how garlic dissolves jealousy and warms our heart and
00:42:20.620it warms our digestion all these things that it's like you know science and and plant like
00:42:28.260botanists now are like here are the constituents and the properties of garlic you know and meanwhile
00:42:34.5002000 years ago, our ancestors, these rabbis who are writing it down in the Talmud, who were 100%
00:42:40.460learning these things from their mothers and sisters and daughters and aunties, you know,
00:42:45.580then wrote it down. These are the things, these are the wisdoms that we know about garlic. And
00:42:50.180garlic is like, you know, it's a community healing plant. It's like itself a community. It's like a
00:42:55.780tight little ball of individuals that all are connected and kind of stick together and rub up
00:43:02.560against each other and help us stay well as a community right like when we eat garlic our immune
00:43:07.020systems are robust so it can mean that we can be in intimacy we can be in community together and
00:43:14.100then you know you pull these little individuals apart you stick them in the ground and they grow
00:43:18.040more they're like these magical like they they contain their own community they make their
00:43:24.580communities so it's also a plant that is you know beautiful plant for a diasporic people
00:43:30.460slash a people who are exiled from place to place to carry in one's pocket and to carry in one's bag
00:43:37.840from place to place and plant where you live, you know, and, you know, and then there's this sort of
00:43:44.160like, this really intense story that garlic carries, which is that, you know, Jews were
00:43:55.120called garlic eaters, Jews named ourselves garlic eaters, we call ourselves garlic eaters,
00:44:00.400in the Talmud and then like in the Roman Empire and throughout Europe through the Middle Ages
00:44:07.420into Renaissance and even into the you know big wave of immigration to the U.S. at the turn of
00:44:15.900the century Jews were called garlic eaters and were you know a trope of anti-Semitism was this
00:44:23.040idea that Jews stunk and smelled like garlic and you know meanwhile like in the Roman Empire
00:44:29.900in Europe in the middle ages Jews were sought out for their magical powers for their you know
00:44:36.120capacities for amulet making but also persecuted for being hyper magical spell workers and smelling
00:44:43.520of garlic meanwhile garlic was also this protection plant this plant that people
00:44:48.220hung on their windows and doors and carried in their pockets and wore in little amulet bags for
00:44:52.880protection so it's it has this like this power as both something that we identify as and are
00:45:02.360identified by that protects us but also marks us and like was a site of being targeted you know
00:45:10.300like in the inquisition the inquisitors would walk around the streets uh kind of like tracking the
00:45:18.140scent of cooking garlic and going to the house where garlic was cooking and you could be
00:45:23.180persecuted for cooking garlic because that was the mark that was like one of the marks of being
00:45:29.660a Jew and so garlic is a plant that I work with a lot in terms like as an ally for protection as
00:45:38.820like this like zesty pungent like let's stink you know I think for a lot of people not just Jews
00:45:46.320but like a lot of people who come from um like cultures like like who are children of immigrants
00:45:54.740who experienced um like a sense of shame of smelling like this kind of like assimilation
00:46:02.140that happens because of white supremacy and racism of like not wanting to smell different
00:46:06.380and then losing connection with an ancestral practice losing connection to something that
00:46:14.360has been a resource for your people for thousands of years. And so reclaiming a connection with
00:46:20.440garlic, whether or not you eat it, if you just place it on your altar, but you know, you can eat
00:46:24.580it, you can cook with it, you can pray with it. There's a tradition of bringing garlic and placing
00:46:30.340a clove of garlic on the gravestones. Like people do stones, but people also place garlic on the
00:46:37.300gravestones as, you know, as protection, as an act of reverence and love and care, um, because
00:46:44.660that's, that's how we relate to garlic. Um, so I think garlic is a beautiful plant to begin with.
00:46:52.560And, you know, so I grow garlic. I love to give it to people. I love to encourage people to work
00:46:58.700with it in in you know in the daily ways that are the magical ways you know like um both the daily
00:47:08.580ways that can be magic I was um recently talking to my uncle about this and he told me a story
00:47:17.620that his dad my grandfather my grandpa um used to eat garlic before he went to bed he would
00:47:24.560have garlic before bed, which I love. He was a very like robust, hearty. He loved to sing. He was
00:47:31.980so handsome. And I can just like, when I think about him, like going to bed with garlic breath
00:47:38.560and, you know, he was at a real lust for life, but he would say, you know, well, I eat garlic
00:47:44.440before I go to bed. So if the angel of death comes, I'll just open my mouth and say, who are
00:47:50.560you just right in the face of the angel of death so my grandpa had the story of basically like
00:47:58.600fighting off the angel of death by breathing garlic breath and in the angel of death's face
00:48:03.700um and you know my grandma my great grandma carried it in her pocketbook and tucked it in
00:48:11.500her bra and you know had little bits of garlic around the house and my mom would put it in my
00:48:16.980ear and have me eat it when I was sick. And so it's like, even though I wasn't taught all of this
00:48:23.020like wild mythology of the magic of garlic, it's like these little clothes were like tucked away
00:48:33.680for me to find. And then they opened up this whole world for me. And I think that the plants
00:48:39.740can do that. I really do like, you know, and so much of it about it is because it's like,
00:48:46.320you know, scent, our memory are like the, the way that our brains work, our memory is connected to
00:48:53.100our olfactory, um, to our sense of scent. And, you know, it's like the more than, more than sight,
00:49:01.000more than hearing these smells can evoke so much, you know, beyond us, beyond our own personal
00:49:08.460memories and so I think garlic's like pungitness and and and protection like ancestral protection
00:49:16.840is a good one and you know I work with rosemary a lot too which is like another plant that I think
00:49:21.840is really beautiful for evoking and strengthening memories that we might not feel like we have access
00:49:30.180too and that's where it sort of comes into being like memory dream these stories that can unfold
00:49:38.540with our imagination and letting ourselves imagine letting ourselves imagine as an act
00:49:44.860of resistance letting ourselves imagine as an act of it's like a gift to ourselves and I can talk
00:49:53.920like you know I'm happy to go into more plants talk more about rosemary or rue or cloves or
00:49:59.840cedar as much as you want I can talk about plants all the time in it and I'm also happy to talk
00:50:04.320about well all of the things that we want to talk about together it's so hard to turn down the offer
00:50:11.940to talk about plants more or hear your stories so I'm really feeling like we just need a part two
00:50:19.740at this point and that one interview will not be enough and there are other questions
00:50:28.380that I want to ask but when you say words like rosemary and cedar I don't know how to say no
00:50:37.800to that so maybe if you could just pick whichever one of those two or both but I really don't think
00:50:47.520I can pass that up because I love both of those plants so much and I can smell them as you say
00:50:55.420them and feel them and taste them on my tongue and they yeah so anyways I'd love to hear about
00:51:06.880both or either before we move on sure yeah it's really it's like that right like where
00:51:14.980they just like enchant you and like beckon you to fall in love with them and then you're like
00:51:24.240how can we not talk about you we love you so much well i'll i'll talk a little bit about cedar
00:51:30.060so cedar is known as eras in hebrew and you know people get really this is like where that like
00:51:38.400kind of like perfectionist purist thing like there's like you know um ethnobotanists biblical
00:51:43.760uh people who really who study like the plants in the bible and get really into like well did
00:51:49.820they mean this kind of cedar or that kind of cedar and what about the cedar where we live and
00:51:53.380so i think that's always that's always a question that comes up for people where it's like well i
00:51:58.020live you know in the pacific northwest and this is the kind of cedar that i have or you know my
00:52:03.020family is from uh syria or iraq or iran and like this is the cedar that my family was really
00:52:09.740connected to and I think it's like you know when those questions arise I'm really into like
00:52:15.540I was taught you know I grew up I went to Hebrew school three days a week I mean I ditched a lot
00:52:21.240and went to you know the parking lot but I did attend some Hebrew school and in Hebrew school
00:52:29.220one thing that I actually learned other than some things that I had to unlearn was about the value
00:52:38.740of questions and how questions are like actually a sacred practice and that it's not the answering
00:52:43.140of questions so just even people who are listening to this as questions are rising I just want to
00:52:49.220like lay them upon the altar be with the questions just love the questions and so like this question
00:52:55.720of like which cedar are we talking about can I use blah blah blah blah blah this is one of those
00:53:00.980places where I would be like learn about it learn about what it is learn about where it comes from
00:53:05.100Learn about, you know, always in integrity and reverence and respect, especially as people who, for those of us who are settlers, and also give yourself permission to be like, as diaspora people, Jews were always connecting with the plants, you know, they bring some plants with them, and then they were connecting with the plants that grew around them, and that their neighbors were using.
00:53:32.560You know, there was a lot of cultural syncretism.
00:53:34.720There was a lot of sharing, you know, Jews were always living amongst the dominant culture
00:53:38.900and they were learning the recipes and remedies and languages and traditions of the people
00:53:44.060that, you know, were also maybe like that, you know, the people who were their neighbors.
00:53:52.060So cedar is a plant that's really, you know, a tree that's really sacred in Jewish
00:54:01.360you know i never know i get really hung up on like do i call it a tradition do i call it
00:54:09.320you know jewish culture and spiritual practice whatever you know it's jewish it's a jewish
00:54:14.600sacred thing and cedar was used as the beams of solomon's temple and cedar was what the
00:54:27.760arc the like the in the holiest of holies like it has this um role as being and you know it is used
00:54:35.920in shipbuilding for masts because cedar is a tree that like and again like I want to bring up the
00:54:42.900scent like it's aromatic and um those kinds of constituents resist rot resist pests it's like
00:54:50.560very strong and kind of like in a way like creates a boundary with its scent with its aroma
00:54:57.660but that's specifically used in the architecture of spirit that's used to house holiness that's
00:55:04.960used to contain holiness and so I think of cedar as a tree that helps us create space for holiness
00:55:13.300and you know it's said that there you know even though this is not something I was taught in
00:55:18.760Hebrew school that there were priestesses outside of the temple of the ancient temple
00:55:23.880who burn cedar as a purifying and cleansing smoke before the priests would enter into the holiest
00:55:31.700of holies. And so for me, that is, uh, I take that to mean that like this, you know, that's a plant
00:55:41.400that we have burned that we've used as, as a smoke to cleanse and to get ourselves ready to
00:55:49.540enter into altered space or into sacred space which you know really is everywhere not just in
00:55:58.780temples um so and you know there's a lot more lore and legend and myth and and magic with cedar but
00:56:07.100i use it you know i like to dip it in water like fresh branches and do um you know kind of like
00:56:14.520rain down cedar droplets all over my body or for other people for cleansing I like to burn it and
00:56:22.660I also really like to just like you know when people people will send me cedar from wherever
00:56:27.220they live and just put it on my altar as a way of connecting with making and I think this is part
00:56:34.600of diasporic tradition too of like making holy you know the whole story of Judaism about like
00:56:40.440really centering on this temple that doesn't exist anymore that was destroyed and that being
00:56:45.140one narrative but just being like everywhere is holy everywhere is sacred everywhere is a place
00:56:52.480where we can access um divine and everyone can you know not just not just priests and I think like
00:56:58.980being friends with cedar um is like a way that I experience that
00:57:10.440It's been tough, the way you look through me
01:03:45.120as doing all of this beautiful reconnecting with
01:03:49.460and teaching about and practicing these Jewish traditions,
01:03:55.840Like I am also attuning to the legacies of resistance and healing and like pulling from these threads of these practices in rebellious history as a counterspell to ethno-nationalism, as a counterspell to militarization and carceral systems.
01:04:16.220And I'm really interested in connecting with these ancestral practices because I think they offer us resource, alternative support, and counterspells to creating safety through the state, which we know doesn't create safety,
01:04:41.820which we know just creates more insecurity does harm and destruction for everyone and especially
01:04:51.220for you know in um for Palestinians um and so you know I think what what what a lot of like
01:05:02.780Jews in the U.S. are reckoning with is like what does it mean when one's sense or illusion of
01:05:11.120safety is like actually directly harmful and impacting the safety of other people and
01:05:16.500yeah I think it is these are hard questions but I I think like for me it is
01:05:22.480it is part of the practice of like we don't just get to connect with these beautiful
01:05:33.140lineages of plant magic without reckoning with and being with the harms that are being done
01:05:41.880in occupied Palestine. And for me, they're very connected. You know, I mean, there's lots of
01:05:49.140different ways to dismantle empire, to resist empire. And for me, this is like part of my
01:05:54.840practice and part of my work. And, you know, it's part of a larger, you know, larger, longer work
01:06:01.260than, than, than me, than all of us of, of resistance. And, um, I guess like, I, I just,
01:06:10.740I have like a hope and a prayer that, you know, that my work can be part of, well,
01:06:19.680I guess like to connect it with like, so I don't think it's separate from what we were talking
01:06:24.260about before. It doesn't feel like a, um, a diverging from talking about garlic and cedar
01:06:30.440because you know in my work like what I'm really interested in is that like for thousands of years
01:06:36.740Jews have had these practices of carrying garlic and wearing amulets and participating in a
01:06:43.260multitude of expressions of like of collective care to cultivate safety to cultivate protection
01:06:49.420for ourselves and our communities and like these practices weave and are woven from connection and
01:06:56.560presence connection to ourselves to each other to place to elements to earth to ancestors and
01:07:04.340ancestral tradition to life itself you know or whatever word you want to use for divinity and
01:07:08.900mystery and i do think inherent these practices are actually like full of liberatory potential
01:07:14.200and impulses that they are embodied that they're relational that they're reciprocal that they're
01:07:20.040not an extractive and life-affirming and um and built in kinship you know um and i so i think like
01:07:28.340i can flow right from talking about cedar and garlic to talking about how this work is very
01:07:35.880much a part of um resisting undoing empire and specifically zionism and i can i can say more on
01:07:49.120that specifically, or I don't know if there's like questions arising that you have that are
01:07:53.860specific about that. I really appreciate what you've shared so far. And if there is more that
01:08:01.300you're thinking of at this moment, I'm happy to continue listening. It's really, I think it's
01:08:08.520really important for us to hear. Well, I guess I think about how, you know, you know, we know that
01:08:15.260a well-worn tool of oppression is to try to separate people from our life-sustaining traditions,
01:08:20.940from our practices, from the ways in which we feel connected to each other, the way we're connected
01:08:26.680to land, and, you know, this, like, attempt to sever these invisible webs of support and lineage
01:08:33.400and a sense of belonging to each other. And I think that, you know, systems of domination rely
01:08:39.720eye on severing these connections and the threat of violence and obliteration and loss of connection
01:08:46.120these people feeling really vulnerable and afraid and that in turn really I think becomes fertile
01:08:52.280ground for adopting toxic mimics of protection like seeking safety and assimilation or hiding
01:08:59.660kind of like contracted and being exclusive hyper vigilance wealth accumulation or hoarding
01:09:07.820land acquisition, land theft, and also relying on false promises of the state for safety.
01:09:16.160And so I feel like reconnecting with these practices, but in the spirit of divestment
01:09:23.720is a form of resistance. And the way that empire, I think, really reduces our capacity and reduces
01:09:31.180our participation and is invested in disconnection both from each other and from land and from these
01:09:38.720traditions and it's like you know when we when we reconnect with these like beauty filled
01:09:46.620practices in service to dismantling empire you know I think I think that this work can be an
01:09:55.220invitation to divest from zionism and these you know the ideas that that that zionism like the
01:10:02.000imperatives of zionism like spiritual hierarchy and messianism and birthright and homeland and
01:10:09.620stuff and like the way that zionism positions itself as the ultimate arbiter of jewish theology
01:10:14.780and spirituality and the ultimate source of jewish safety right and so this is one idea and and sort
01:10:22.200of like in i i feel really inspired by like you know um ruth wilson gilmore and angela davis and
01:10:28.580mariam kaba and black feminist abolitionists who talk about that abolition is not just about
01:10:37.400dismantling but abolition is about world building and building the world to come which that part
01:10:43.440you know as a jew like that part i feel really connected to is the jewish concept of olam
01:10:48.140haba'av, of building towards the world we dream of, of the world that could be, that we get a
01:10:54.200taste of on Shabbat. And that in order to build towards the world that we want to live in, and for
01:11:01.420me, and for a lot of people, that means a Judaism beyond Zionism, we need to be practicing what a
01:11:07.580Judaism beyond Zionism can look like. We need to be living and practicing and doing things that
01:11:14.280build the world that we want to live in, a world beyond that, like without creating safety through
01:11:19.960militarism and policing and carceral systems. And so, you know, I think like
01:11:27.860when we reconnect with these practices, but also like breathe life into their liberatory potential,
01:11:36.720it can not just like offer us radical possibilities and counter spells, but also like I'm interested
01:11:43.680in the ideas of how it can help us redefine what safety means or what protection means.
01:11:48.540And that it's not just about magic. It's not just about like, oh, like garlic is going to keep me
01:11:54.440safe. So we don't need cops. You know, it's not obviously that simple, but I think a lot of these,
01:11:59.440what these practices do is that they're expressions of interdependence. They're expressions of life
01:12:07.780and of loving life and of presence their practices of mutual aid they are non-extractive and
01:12:16.380so think that they can be part of this world building they can be part of this dismantling
01:12:23.960and I think like because of the history of these practices which have to be very much to do with
01:12:31.480um where white supremacy where christian hegemony where patriarchy have impacted jewish practices
01:12:38.820and kind of like um these sites of assimilation so it's it's not just like about divesting from
01:12:47.560zionism but it's also like doing this kind of this healing work from all these ways that we
01:12:53.980lost these practices in the ma of um assimilation which you know
01:13:01.480was, was one way that we are, you know, many people survived. And so, yeah, so I think like
01:13:14.420when I talk about these practices, it's not, it's like, not like simple or romantic or nostalgic,
01:13:22.100but like really remembering the way that these practices have bound us to each other and bound
01:13:27.000us like tethered us to life itself and like that these practices were always held communally
01:13:33.760and with a prayer like to imagine beyond the current structures and systems and kind of like
01:13:41.320weave ourselves into and be wrapped inside of the invisible cloak that's interdependence that's
01:13:48.140mutual aid that is like helps us supports us to reach towards each other and reach towards
01:13:55.280a vision of mutually flourishing life of generosity of true belonging that's not about
01:14:00.960belonging to a state right that's not about belonging like in this false way that that's
01:14:05.580the only way we can belong is through nationalism but that's really about like a safety that is
01:14:12.520truly you know like with that holds the complexity that safety can't be guaranteed that safety is
01:14:21.360totally like relational that we create safety with each other. Um, and yeah, I guess it's like
01:14:31.660my prayer that, um, like for me, like this work is very much an integration personally of my
01:14:38.840politics and ways in which I've been in organizing spaces for a long time. And also, you know, my
01:14:43.640healing practice and that for me, those things are not separate. And I'm really excited to be
01:14:49.560in communities in conversations with you and with so many of the people who you know listen to
01:14:57.540your podcast where these things are being woven together in really beautiful
01:15:03.140complicated supportive ways and I just feel grateful to get to be a part of that web
01:15:09.740oh Dori I am so grateful that you are a part of the web it's been such an incredible
01:15:18.080time with you today I'm I really feel a deep yearning to have a part two because
01:15:28.480I feel that as deep as this conversation went
01:15:32.440I think we just began to scratch the surface of so many topics and
01:15:40.260yeah I really appreciate your energy and your devotion and the way that you see the world
01:15:47.760and spirituality. And I think in this time, what really our largest trouble is, is a type of
01:15:59.500spiritual bankruptcy, which has led us to this place of immense disconnection from the earth.
01:16:09.460And so hearing your words was like honey on the heart. And it felt really soothing
01:16:16.980and I really appreciate your storytelling I think we're missing that so much getting so
01:16:24.720reductionist in the way we understand and things and the way we feel like we have to explain
01:16:31.280things to have validity and I really loved hearing your stories and the weavings were so
01:16:39.320captivating like I really was at the edge of my chair wanting to hear more about garlic and
01:16:45.840everything else so um yeah just want to say i appreciate you and i really look forward to