Missing Witches - Lammas 2023： Crafting Masculinities with Remy Savard, James Gardner Davis and Jonathan Ayers

00:00:00.000 If you want to support The Missing Witches Project, find out how at missingwitches.com

00:00:05.620 and pre-order New Moon Magic, 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-Enchantment by

00:00:14.180 Risa Dickens and Amy Torek. You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:19.300 Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:24.180 welcome welcome home to the missing witches podcast welcome coven welcome friends and

00:00:32.580 strangers and uh tech witches and harvest witches and activist witches and uh whatever flavor you 0.95

00:00:43.500 fucking feel like today we're excited to see you are you making berry offerings are you just 0.93

00:00:49.320 barely surviving we love you we want to make the biggest joyfullest tent of this work of the 0.98

00:00:59.180 resistance and the re-enchantment as we have it in the name of our new book and part of that means

00:01:05.280 looking at like who feels at home in our circles and how we make spaces of home feeling um and 0.78

00:01:13.920 we're really not anti-men that's just never fucking been a part of it for us 0.98

00:01:18.760 fuck the patriarchy forever but but men have suffered under that system for a long and brutal 0.91

00:01:26.700 time and it's just something we want to think about and talk about and lunasus seems like a 1.00

00:01:32.480 time to think about it you know there you have these traditions of a warrior god or a craftsman

00:01:40.520 god and some people will talk about today talk to today might know more about that than i do and

00:01:46.520 certainly know a lot about craft and have wrestled more with masculinities than i have although i've

00:01:53.220 wrestled with my share um so we welcome our friends our wise friends today to a conversation

00:02:03.020 that we're sort of loosely making a container to call craft masculinities and magic these are

00:02:12.920 friends who weave beautiful things literally and figuratively and we're so excited to be with them

00:02:20.560 today amy how are you before we open up the gates to these kind magical people and how are you

00:02:30.840 feeling about Lunasa and Lamastide? I love a halfway point as you know they're so bittersweet

00:02:38.140 the halfway point between the first day of summer and the first day of fall is it's hot and sweaty

00:02:46.100 but there's a shadow on the horizon and as a witch I kind of love that I kind of love these like

00:02:52.420 non-binary halfway points and between equinoxes and solstices and that kind of thing so this is

00:03:00.360 a very comfortable time for me. I'm comfortably being hot. I'm comfortable being sweaty. I'm 0.90

00:03:07.260 comfortable taking a moment to enjoy the fruit of a harvest before I get into what I have to do

00:03:15.040 next. So again, this time for me, sometimes it's those first berries, those first wild raspberries

00:03:21.600 that I find in the yard. So yeah, again, it's a balance of forward thinking and also just like

00:03:28.360 languishing in the heat and swinging on a hammock I always find myself between these two places on

00:03:35.500 these between times and I'm so excited to be hanging out with our guests today and again

00:03:43.980 get into that you know non-binary universe that we actually live in where we can question gender

00:03:51.300 essentialism and we can ask like what does masculinity mean to us and you and all of you

00:04:00.280 who are listening one of our first events that we did as missing witches we were invited to talk

00:04:06.480 about the divine feminine and so we went into that with our presentation largely questioning

00:04:13.140 okay well we then we need to ask what is femininity what does that mean before we can

00:04:18.520 get into the divinity first let's try to define the femininity so again um Remy specifically maybe

00:04:27.020 I'll we'll start with you and your introduction and I want to I want to say something first that

00:04:33.920 maybe you can talk to is that when we met you told me a very interesting story about the history and

00:04:40.600 origins of knitting and we were kind of laughing about how it's now become perceived as like a

00:04:47.240 feminine domestic art when based on what you told me um it was uh an act of survival it was

00:04:57.520 a hunting mechanism anyway i don't want to say anymore hi our guests today are jonathan and

00:05:04.360 james and remy and we're so grateful to be in circle with you all today thank you and so we'll

00:05:09.680 invite you and we'll start with you remy introduce yourselves in whatever way feels right who are

00:05:15.700 you who are what are you bringing to this conversation today where are you how are you

00:05:20.780 feeling also I want to say all of these uh friends we asked them to send their bios and so you'll see

00:05:27.180 them in the show notes and stuff and I don't know if it is like uh humility uh in the that's tied

00:05:35.440 to the state of the sort of complicatedness around being human and especially male these days

00:05:42.200 but none of you listed your actual accomplishments, which I thought was sort of delightful.

00:05:49.800 So feel free to continue to not list or name check as you feel called to.

00:05:59.280 Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Risa. There are so many things to say. Wow. I don't even know where

00:06:06.920 to start. So actually, when I got the email and received the invite for taking part in this

00:06:18.860 podcast, talking about masculinity, one of my first reflex was like, but why me then? I was like,

00:06:29.920 what what how can I talk about masculinity I don't even know like what it means to me

00:06:39.760 so just to put in context I definitely identify as a queer person

00:06:47.280 my gender is an uncertain thing it's a fluid thing I think I'm a very very air person my

00:06:59.360 chart is like full of air no fire uh i'm very fluid i i go with the flow a lot and so

00:07:09.360 i've i've actually struggled and not like a lot thinking about this question about masculinity um

00:07:18.880 because i i actually didn't know how it was like i was identifying with that and

00:07:29.360 it's when i was writing my bio that i actually realized my relationship to masculinity is like

00:07:37.360 tightly tied to failure and i'm really happy to be able to talk about failure because

00:07:45.920 i think that um being raised and socialized as a male person um

00:07:54.720 failure was not an option, especially coming from a very science-oriented family.

00:08:05.560 Failure was not an option. If it was a positive thing, it was only a tool to then succeed.

00:08:16.100 It was never enough. Failure was never enough. And I think my whole relationship with masculinity is about the enoughness or lack of enoughness, which I guess formed the person that I am now.

00:08:38.400 and, like, the air entity that's now, like, always questioning, like, who I am and what I am.

00:08:52.780 I want to go back to your, what you were talking about, Amy, about knitting.

00:08:58.540 So, I'm a knitter. I've knitted for, I don't know, a couple of years now.

00:09:05.120 and I don't actually remember exactly the story I was telling and maybe my viewpoint has changed a little bit now.

00:09:18.520 I think now I know that there's this common belief or like this belief now that knitting came to life through, I think, fishing and was actually a way to make these nets.

00:09:40.780 and that these people were usually men.

00:09:47.660 And there's this claim that knitting was actually invented,

00:09:54.520 and I'm putting some very big air quotes, by men.

00:10:03.040 And I'm now questioning everything I know about history,

00:10:07.320 especially that we have this very, very like white-centered revisionist education and male supremacist as well.

00:10:24.420 So I'm really ambivalent, or I don't know what to think about this narrative, especially that it's sometimes, or maybe too often, used by other male crafters to justify their place,

00:10:47.000 or like assess superiority, or not superiority, but just saying like, you know what, we were doing

00:10:56.920 that before you, or something like that, which I think is very problematic. Also, it's a very

00:11:06.560 male-centered attitude to think of it as like a competition, like who was there first,

00:11:15.680 and who did it first so who has the claim on it as like our invention um so I don't remember what

00:11:26.580 I said about that uh Amy and if it had to do with like claiming something I'm deeply sorry that I

00:11:35.740 once thought something like that no I think I think you and I were talking more about like

00:11:43.760 the arbitrariness of gendering any kind of activity and how it's interesting that something

00:11:51.280 that was used to make clothes was possibly um used to make fishing nets before that and both

00:11:57.520 of these are opposite gendered but it's the exact same action just used for different ways so the

00:12:03.520 whole thrust of the conversation was about like these arbitrary labelings of things as masculine

00:12:09.760 or feminine so yeah no we we were always good yeah and like and now i'm i'm always thinking

00:12:16.340 like let's remember that um uh this like history comes from like the texts that were selected

00:12:24.200 that made it through the books and that um many other uh societies or communities have been doing

00:12:33.860 these things and like never made it through the cuts uh because they didn't serve the people in

00:12:40.880 power so um yeah i think it's a good idea to remember this especially when we're talking about

00:12:47.880 uh male or like male presenting figures and uh

00:12:55.100 crafts that are mostly dominated by women, 0.99

00:13:02.500 like trying also to like leave the space of like, 1.00

00:13:06.400 we're also okay to be invited in these spaces

00:13:12.060 and not have to claim property or anything like that.

00:13:18.420 James, do you wanna jump in next

00:13:20.880 and do your intro and respond?

00:13:25.100 really do that was wonderful um i'm james um i'm playing around with using my mom's maiden name

00:13:31.840 gardener um and i live in cheyenne arapaho and ute lands commonly referred to as denver

00:13:40.760 um i feel like a lizard today because it is hot um i'm all fire i'm like all fire science it seems

00:13:49.120 like well I'm a Virgo uh son whoa I'm a Virgo son um so I'm a little bit of earth and fire um

00:13:57.680 and so yeah I mean I'm just this person who's been on this pathway for a long time this masculinity

00:14:04.360 pathway um and I can't underscore enough that the idea that masculinity is bound up with feelings

00:14:15.000 of failure, feelings of shame, um, feelings of not being enough. Um, I was really good at being

00:14:22.800 like a Chad. Um, like I was like really good at it. Like I was like, um, just really good at it.

00:14:31.300 Like I, well, until my mom died, then everything, you know, then everything falls apart. Right. Um,

00:14:37.020 but you know, I had your typical, you know, typical sort of absent father sort of storyline,

00:14:41.820 um where i was earning love by playing a sport that i was good at because i played it six hours

00:14:47.780 a day to to gain recognition and love um so you know a lot a lot of the way i talk about masculinity

00:14:53.600 is my response to it um and my response to i mean i was like thinking about it before we dropped

00:14:58.540 that but dropped out but like this masculinity wound um and this constant need at least in my

00:15:06.240 life even as a cisgendered heterosexual man to define myself in opposition to what I what I

00:15:14.440 think is one of the most oppressive things that I have to deal with on a daily basis and things

00:15:18.680 that I don't have any interest in um and because I've made that choice I'm not welcome in most

00:15:23.980 spaces um where people that look like me that sound like me um typically are accepted well at

00:15:30.640 least until like I start talking about my values because I'm a traitor to every form of privilege

00:15:34.600 that i have um i have no interest in um this is where like the areas rising comes out i have no

00:15:41.240 interest in being down with the chads yeah it's all fire it's all very it's all very fire in my

00:15:46.640 fire area right now we're setting out boundaries uh we're burning bridges um we're doing all that

00:15:53.040 stuff mostly to my to my father who has he was absent um and getting to the i think the other

00:15:59.400 thing it's interesting how all this stuff is already like coming up right away and stuff that

00:16:02.680 i had sort of like like uh indexed in my mind the way that men use selectively use history as a way

00:16:10.900 to place themselves in and then claim ownership um it's classic glass ceiling stuff right so i'm

00:16:18.860 a sociologist by trade um i make money by being like a researcher or whatever um and in sociology

00:16:25.840 we call that, you know, women and femme-identifying people run up against that sort of glass ceiling,

00:16:35.640 right? They can only advance so far because of patriarchy, because of gender bias, because of 1.00

00:16:41.740 pregnancy discrimination within workplaces. And oftentimes what men will do is they'll go into

00:16:47.660 female-dominated spaces, and then they're able to use those sort of cultural narratives to justify 0.99

00:16:52.580 getting paid more. So that's all super interesting to me as a sociologist who's like very, very

00:16:58.620 interested in taking away those sort of boundaries and doing away with gender as much as we possibly

00:17:05.660 can within a system that is so built on selling those identities based on that. Anyways, before

00:17:11.660 I get too far along, I'm a weaver. I'm a death worker. I love that I didn't put I'm a death

00:17:15.320 worker in the uh in my bio you didn't mention sociology at all but again like we're so fluid

00:17:24.960 right like the minute you unmoor yourself the minute you unmoor yourself from like these

00:17:31.080 these labels right um you start to realize that it's so situational yeah I'm a lizard today

00:17:35.920 like I even wondered like what of what of use I'd be able to say because I've basically been

00:17:39.860 outside as much as I could be um with having a wage labor job as you can tell I'm like still

00:17:45.000 sweating I came inside from like riding my bike being outside like 90 degrees and I'm like still

00:17:50.900 sweating geez I'm a lizard I'm a lizard uh I I'm really loving the the fire and air spirit of these

00:18:01.760 introductions and I want to hear Jonathan what you're inspired by from this I also want to point

00:18:10.380 out that Jonathan and Remy are at different rooms of their house right now which I love and I want

00:18:17.800 to include love in these stories of exploring masculinity and I want to include craft and how

00:18:24.360 we find our ways to love um but Jonathan you don't have to tackle all of that now I just want to hear

00:18:30.640 what you're what you're thinking and how you're feeling hi um my name is jonathan uh i am also a

00:18:41.240 strong fire sign uh aries sun capricorn moon and cancer rising and thinking about that triangulation

00:18:49.680 really interests me about how that informs a lot of uh what i do about like plunging boldly into

00:18:56.900 the fray, uh, with care and being, uh, intensely stubborn, uh, about, um, values and things that

00:19:06.340 are important to me. Um, but that also bring me to states of retreat, uh, and withdrawal.

00:19:14.820 And that's maybe more where I'm at today and for a certain time, actually, uh, pulling away,

00:19:21.880 uh backing off backing up like holing up in my tower as i wrote in my bio my you know our third

00:19:30.240 floor montreal apartment with a view of the mountain and the like fresh air blowing through

00:19:36.640 and a vague sense of the horizon to remind me of uh the prairies uh where i grew up and that sense

00:19:43.480 of being able to see laterally and from very far distances being able to watch a storm blow up

00:19:48.940 uh and like rolled in towards you and i think some of that i mean so much of my

00:19:57.540 childhood perspective as you've also all shared um comes to inform things and so i think about

00:20:06.680 yeah that landscape actually it's really important for me about the sense of seeing

00:20:10.400 things coming from far off uh and that also has to do with anticipating danger and that

00:20:16.440 is another important part of what masculinity means for me as being a terrain of danger and

00:20:23.880 threat and something that needs to be navigated either to out of like for self-protection

00:20:30.620 in some cases for the protection of others that's not necessarily been my experience

00:20:36.560 so much. It's more about trying to win this war of attrition or like manage being under siege

00:20:49.260 for what feels like constantly. And that my sense of like masculine identity is not something that

00:20:58.560 I've been troubled by or like in deep consideration over or something that needs to be changed.

00:21:06.560 it was more about the strange expectations that that brought on for other people and that I seemed

00:21:12.160 that I felt very clear on who I was but that didn't translate to how other people approached

00:21:18.320 me or what they thought of me or what they wanted from me and that trying to figure out how to

00:21:22.820 translate the the I-ness of being the like the mystery that I was also trying to uncover about

00:21:30.560 myself and yet not seeing that well reflected in the eyes of others and as a like growing up queer

00:21:39.960 you know white cis male who found a space to shine in theater and like musical theater and

00:21:49.280 choir and like expressive spaces expressive performance spaces in the late 80s and early

00:21:56.080 90s of course everyone thought and knew in a way that they had access to knowing that I didn't that

00:22:01.880 I was gay and that that meant that they had this like privileged information over me that they then

00:22:07.440 tried to use and that also was a kind of war to deal with of saying yes maybe that might be true 0.99

00:22:14.860 but not in the way that you think and actually fuck off you have no like space to be in my space 0.95

00:22:22.320 about this and that if i had something to share with you about this that would be my business 0.98

00:22:26.960 and so like my my sexual identity my gender identity and expression are all things that are

00:22:34.000 they're difficult to pick up and like look at because i felt like they were foisted upon me

00:22:39.920 and that uh i got um like hard with some brush um we were talking about alice in wonderland and

00:22:51.040 the like this image of the in the disney cartoon version of the like roses being painted red

00:22:56.600 and these like very sad standard rose bushes dripping with uh like red paint all over the

00:23:03.640 place and being very shoddily done and maybe i felt um yeah tarted up in this way somehow

00:23:10.640 of trying to present something that would be acceptable

00:23:15.420 and recognizing that the things that were clearly not acceptable about me I had to find my own quiet

00:23:23.000 space to live them so that meant a lot of hiding and a lot of closet work and a lot of shadow work

00:23:31.820 and a lot of silence and there are things that I'm trying to think about and find ways to

00:23:40.520 articulate and like give room to give light to uh and give space for

00:23:45.560 i also knit and uh

00:23:50.200 and uh and quilt but uh and cook

00:23:56.640 um but it's hard before i used to say that i would define myself i i'd never wanted to define

00:24:04.440 myself using nouns and that somehow those kind of the nouning of things of like the being a thing

00:24:09.620 um was not something that i could accept and that was especially about being gay

00:24:14.880 or about being a man or about being anything i said no i'm a verb i do things uh and i'm it's

00:24:20.440 in the doing but now uh i'm really trying to find space to not only do because there's a very

00:24:28.400 performative aspect to that of like i can only exist if i'm in action i can only exist if i'm

00:24:35.100 producing something if i'm you know moving forward if there's motion and that the sense of rest

00:24:41.400 that's necessary of recuperation of feeling is not doesn't feel like that kind of doing that

00:24:47.660 kind of activeness that can be defining that kind of mad rushing around to prove that one is worthy

00:24:54.580 of taking up space and so now i'm talking about my craft process as a process of unmaking

00:25:02.020 or of disassembling of taking apart of rearranging uh of reorganizing and so i i kind of i think

00:25:11.860 uh i'm like a compost heap right now and i'm i'm in it and that's uh quite luxurious and strange

00:25:21.740 place to be i did wonder um i would love to hear more about from from maybe remy but from all of

00:25:32.140 you and remy is a starting point like what does the idea of craft or when did that idea

00:25:39.540 start to intersect with how who you were and what did it give you if it gave you anything

00:25:46.480 is it tied to is it tied to your sense of self is that sense of self you know something beyond

00:25:54.260 masculinity is it is it does it is it a rewriting or reweaving of masculinity is it tied to your

00:26:00.060 magic i don't know so i'm just curious thank you uh it's a very interesting question i think

00:26:09.520 for me, it all comes back to a sense of failure, which then led me to be kind of obsessed with

00:26:23.820 transformation. I wrote in my bio that I consider myself a shapeshifter. And I think

00:26:33.180 I think both figuratively and literally, like, I've started doing gymnastics as, like,

00:26:47.140 when I was two. So, like, changing my shape all the time, moving through space

00:26:55.540 in an unconventional way but also in the figurative sense

00:27:03.420 the idea of playing with codes and like

00:27:11.620 probably coming from a desire to fit in trying to

00:27:19.580 learn the codes and then apply them to then fit in.

00:27:28.100 Feeling like in my day-to-day life, I was failing at being a little boy.

00:27:37.160 I soon realized that I was actually able to play with that.

00:27:45.940 that actually one of the things that made me fail as a as a socialized male was my big sense of

00:27:59.820 like my big sensitivity and like this overflow of emotions but mostly this like being sensitive

00:28:10.200 to things and maybe attuned to people's energies. So it led me to this realization that one of my

00:28:22.420 powers was to take these codes and play with them and apply them. And that's probably why I started

00:28:33.620 doing theater at the age of five, which then became one of my careers.

00:28:42.440 But it was always about this transformation, about transforming things.

00:28:49.060 And I think the craft came in a desire to materialize these transformations, seeing

00:29:05.160 the work of like shoving something through something else and make it something else.

00:29:14.580 And then, for example, thinking about knitting, like this thread that's so tiny and so easy

00:29:23.260 to break by reinforcing it with all of these loops and making it something so beautiful,

00:29:32.440 which is actually like, just as I'm talking about it, like I've been questioning the sense

00:29:39.220 of community for a while now and now realizing that it's actually a community that we're building

00:29:45.860 when we're knitting or weaving something because all of these joints are reinforcing the whole thing

00:29:53.440 the whole fabric um so i think

00:29:59.820 in order to like create this this beautiful community it requires transformation um and

00:30:08.980 It was a beautiful way for me to witness it and understand it more.

00:30:19.720 And also, like, it's always felt magical.

00:30:22.360 Like, for me, this is when I'm able to actually see my magic,

00:30:29.740 because most of it is usually invisible.

00:30:33.640 and uh the transformation of object is an like practical visible way of doing magic

00:30:42.780 um and i'm a very visual person so being able to see my magic um was very empowering um

00:30:51.980 and getting this finally this sense of of success of succeeding at transforming something that

00:31:01.080 was a fleece and then spinning it into yarn and then from this like very fragile thread

00:31:09.020 making it a garment and or dyeing it using something to like put color in my life

00:31:15.620 and other people's lives too because they get to see me being so colorful

00:31:20.460 so yeah i think i maybe i went a little sideways but um no that's exactly

00:31:30.740 where i i want to go somehow right i want to i want to pull at these threads exactly i want to

00:31:38.820 think about for myself too i mean i i think about moments where uh a meditation in a trying to

00:31:49.400 understand what was wrong in my life and where i needed to go and to um transubstantiate previous

00:31:57.020 experiences and alchemize them was was spent embroidery you know it was just like I had to go

00:32:04.180 step by step I had to it was all freehand like I just had to think my way through the fact that I

00:32:11.080 could survive mistakes that I could adapt I could take another step it would be okay

00:32:15.880 um James I I know I we need to hear your story of coming to weaving now if you're comfortable with

00:32:22.980 it and tell yeah and i just want to say the first based on you talking about embroidery i mean

00:32:27.900 one of the um so the person that taught me how to weave um sarah newbert was somebody who was

00:32:34.220 very big on the neuroscience tied to weaving it just so happens that a lot of people in colorado

00:32:38.920 that are um interested in weaving and teaching weaving rebecca metzoff as well they're all

00:32:45.700 highlighting the um the healing aspects of weaving to literally put your brain back together

00:32:52.780 after trauma like there's a reason why vets when they came back from world war ii they would put

00:33:00.140 them down um i don't know specifically about whether or not they were knitting they probably

00:33:04.820 were i specifically know about weaving um and literally that was their way of walking home

00:33:11.660 um and weaving has been my long walk home for a long time you know i talked about how good i was

00:33:20.400 is a Chad okay I laugh at myself all the time because I just have such a self-deprecating

00:33:26.120 sense of humor I just can't help it but it's you know I was this person that excelled in everything

00:33:32.260 they did because I wanted to be accepted um by my father um want you know uh I wasn't given the

00:33:40.420 option to really like do art you know it was you know uh PhD by 28 uh Tennis in college

00:33:50.080 you know whatever then my mom died then I got crippling OCD um I went to I taught a class the

00:33:57.480 next day after my mom died um I was in full plow mode as I call it um but her final wish was to

00:34:05.720 learn how to weave she was a prolific crochet artist I mean she was amazing I still have all

00:34:10.000 the blankets a lot of my woven language that I use in my weaving is based on the symbols that

00:34:15.360 she put into her work so um my my very my embrace of the feminine and the divine feminine is very

00:34:25.140 deep and it goes from always being accepted in female dominated spaces sociology also female

00:34:31.820 dominated space um and finding allies for people that looked at masculinity um class inequality

00:34:41.660 homophobia every phobia xenophobia every phobia that I am against finding allies in those female

00:34:49.120 dominated spaces so my mom passed away she wanted to learn how to weave I end up taking a rag rug

00:34:56.440 class in Santa Fe New Mexico which is like literally an epicenter of weaving it's the

00:35:01.260 convergence of the Diné weaving culture which goes back literally since Jump Street in terms

00:35:08.260 of Diné culture um Spanish settlers like there's literally folks that are direct descendants from

00:35:16.860 the Spanish conquistadors that live in villages predominantly Spanish villages in northern New

00:35:23.860 Mexico that are the Trujillo specifically that are master weavers they're amazing they do the

00:35:28.560 whole cycle and then there was a bunch of the back to landers that came there specifically

00:35:32.120 Rachel Brown and I got really wrapped up into that I was just like absolutely entranced by that

00:35:37.600 this idea that you could weave in a circle um you could literally take a fleece spin it

00:35:44.820 dye it with flowers um and weave it and that to me is the most magical it's as close

00:35:52.060 it's as close as somebody can get to feeling like a god and i talk about this a lot in my writing

00:35:58.060 but like you do you feel like you feel how divine you really are as a human being when you're wrapped

00:36:04.420 up in that cycle and i'm not saying this is like an ego trip right like i don't like you know

00:36:08.440 whatever like this is sort of like on that whole like alan moore tip like the the british writer

00:36:14.180 um who talks a lot about magic he created his he became a ceremonial magician at 40

00:36:20.020 he like announced this at his 40th birthday party i'm gonna be a magician he literally just made up

00:36:24.860 his god like alan moore's great like i love alan moore like he's just he's wonderful um

00:36:30.340 and like the interesting thing that comes about when you're on that pathway of healing

00:36:35.860 and the fact that your whole craft is bound up with death work that's bound up with losing

00:36:41.960 your your only person um your family um is that you go through this like tremendous like

00:36:51.820 death and rebirth process i feel like i'm dying and being reborn now like it feels like

00:36:57.320 like every season now but like when you start to get attuned to it like you start to see it you

00:37:03.040 know we talked a little bit about the shapeshipping aspect right like we talked a little bit about

00:37:06.860 that druids historically are shapeshifters right they're these sort of like outside of

00:37:13.540 convention people who like are hermits they live on out on the hedge like nobody can contact them

00:37:20.520 right like unless you really gotta go find them i really like that aspect of being a hedge druid

00:37:25.980 um because uh go figure with my fire sign i don't get down with many of the established orders

00:37:31.320 for for whatever reason it has a lot to do with like social and political beliefs and

00:37:37.420 not lining up with mine um but you know a lot of this whole journey that comes in

00:37:43.240 and what i've realized um being a crafter in female dominated spaces and being allowed to

00:37:48.520 be in those spaces and being invited in um and just making myself like not you know making

00:37:54.840 myself small but just not trying to take up much air in the room um is you realize how much of

00:38:00.300 masculinity is this liminal state i mean like if you really start like realizing that you don't fit

00:38:05.460 into the buckets like you might like do certain things like you're okay accepted but the minute

00:38:09.840 you start calling people on treating women as objects the minute you start talking you're not 0.71

00:38:14.020 wanting to use any you know any homophobic slur in like normal vernacular you're immediately kicked

00:38:20.260 out of the club like they kick you out they burn your armchair that you use to like watch sports

00:38:25.880 ball with everybody and you drink beer and like you're done you're cooked you're kicked out um

00:38:32.020 and you start you you start to see the veil of masculinity um and you specifically within my own

00:38:38.760 irish wisdom tradition it's a re-weaving and weaving it's crazy how much they mention weaving

00:38:44.580 um within the irish wisdom tradition john o'donohue talks he like uses like weaving metaphors like

00:38:50.580 every five minutes um so john o'donohue being like the like basically the the heretic catholic

00:38:56.240 priest who left the church because he could not be held by the church the church could not hold

00:39:01.180 um john o'donohue because his ideas were too expansive um but it's all in line with

00:39:09.340 reweaving the masculine in with the divine feminine and finding that balance so that all

00:39:16.820 people regardless of what society what bucket they want to put them in can use the powers can

00:39:23.680 wield the powers of creation can wield the powers of destruction and that all of the all of the

00:39:28.940 binaries about who's supposed to wield that you know you know this goes back to what yvonne

00:39:33.300 a borough I was talking about in your you can tell I'm I'm nerding out now I'm like referencing

00:39:38.840 pastish can you tell I watch I listen to the podcast but she you know she talks about like

00:39:43.500 how in in Wicca you know her book inclusive Wicca has done a lot of work to try to break down those

00:39:48.780 those binaries and it's huge I mean that's that's what craft does for me that's what craft craft is

00:39:53.580 you know weaving spinning dying foraging growing plants doing that weaving in a circle

00:39:59.420 has allowed me to access my own divinity, has allowed me to explore mysteries within my own

00:40:05.840 ancestral traditions, has allowed me to decolonize my practice in ways and my own, like, life in ways

00:40:11.200 that I never could fathom. I mean, it goes on and on, right? It's all intersectional, you know?

00:40:16.080 It's masculinity, but it's class, but it's gender, but it's sexuality, but it's colonialism, right?

00:40:24.340 it's everything. But I think me specifically, I had a big masculinity wound and I needed to

00:40:30.320 rectify that. And I think one of the big healing aspects has been craft and been able to find

00:40:36.060 people who would be willing to accept me when I was kind of thrown out because I didn't believe

00:40:41.380 what everybody else believed. Jonathan, does that ring true for you too, your experience of

00:40:48.640 connecting with craft like spaces where you I don't know Jonathan and I like cook together

00:40:56.240 and it's a pleasure and a joy you know to watch someone who knows so much about the craft of food

00:41:04.000 and ingredient or you know hearing stories about knitting and like May's first quilt is was one

00:41:12.740 that Jonathan gave her you know um I think of you as someone with a profound love and

00:41:18.540 appreciation of craft but I don't really know how you think about that

00:41:21.840 well I hearing other other people talk about it I I really became over overwhelmed by emotion

00:41:31.480 and I have some very personal like uh long away things that I want to share that there's an

00:41:38.000 interesting thread to follow on this and that there's an extremely personal and like sensory

00:41:45.560 quality that I think is what links me to to the craft that I would identify as the thing that I'm

00:41:53.740 doing with my hands and actually the thing that I'm doing with my hands right now while I'm talking

00:41:57.640 is like rubbing these recycled African like glass beads that I've threaded on this strand that is

00:42:07.120 really just for me to like finger and feel and like have sensory feedback from and it actually

00:42:13.820 helps me stay kind of like still and concentrated and the act of doing this while listening

00:42:20.040 of course reminds me of the story that my mother tells about me as an infant which is that well

00:42:28.080 actually the circumstance my parents didn't want me to have a security blanket they were very

00:42:35.760 concerned that they were going to have to go through this terrible parting of me, their infant

00:42:44.600 child with this disgusting, messy, stinky thing that could never be washed and could never be 0.96

00:42:52.280 left behind. And so to preemptively avoid that possibility and that grief, they swapped my 0.97

00:43:00.200 blankets out every day so i never had one blanket i had a like plethora of them an abundance and

00:43:09.580 it's wounding in a way to think about that i also didn't have one caretaker but i had many

00:43:18.240 that i went into care at six months and that i had many people who were like worshipped and loved me

00:43:24.940 and like took care of me but there was no sense of like a single source or like a reliable

00:43:30.560 place my therapist is aghast and was from the very beginning you know many years ago when i

00:43:36.380 told her this story and she went but the security blanket it's a transitional object like it's

00:43:41.180 important it's important to bond to this thing and then to give it up because it's it's like

00:43:45.360 so developmentally like essential to developing a sense of self about being able to like leave this

00:43:51.540 be able to self-soothe and then leave the sense of comfort about being able to like let it die

00:43:56.640 to put it away and so my my infant uh pre like cognitive response to this situation was to pick

00:44:05.700 the fluff off of the blankets to pick those like acrylic like nubs that would sit in the surface

00:44:14.880 of all of these like early 80s uh you know synthetic uh woven or knitted things and collect

00:44:22.120 them into a tiny little ball and then i also was you know uh in the story shamed for not having

00:44:30.500 developed sufficient manual dexterity early and being in a low percentile about my ability to like

00:44:35.340 do things with my fingertips and so i would take my uh fists uh my kind of clumped uh you know

00:44:43.520 non-definitive fists to like hold this clump of uh acrylic fluff and rub it up against the side

00:44:51.920 of my face uh for comfort and that that was my way to self-soothe and that was my response to

00:44:58.320 this uh like storm of uh sensation of textiles of variation of smells of all of that and i have no

00:45:10.040 memory of that it's just a story that was told and now that I retell that story in this way it's

00:45:14.440 interesting I try to think about these things in an axiomatic way which is to say what if what if

00:45:20.900 this meant this thing and then I reacted that way what information could I draw from that

00:45:26.200 and so I think I think about that nervousness that

00:45:32.840 um like drive or like anxiety in my fingertips about trying to do things about trying to hold

00:45:44.720 on to something that then feels fleeting uh and that that also has a lot to do then to a sense of

00:45:51.720 like identity who am i like who am i to myself who am i to these other people how can i uh be

00:46:00.960 seen as worthy of care and like being picked back up again or being like um being received and so

00:46:10.460 that maybe state of anxiety we think about as a like a what if kind of way let's imagine this

00:46:17.080 infant um power and mastery become really important things how can i be sure that i can

00:46:25.700 rely uh on the world how can i be sure that i will be in a secure a safe state

00:46:31.960 and uh so becoming fiercely independent is the one i won't rely on anybody um and i'm really

00:46:40.940 attached also and was as a child to the fable of the little red hen who asked everyone to help

00:46:47.200 uh with the planting of the seeds and the watering of and the harvesting of the grain

00:46:54.160 and the grinding of all of these things and and the refrain all the time it's like oh if you won't

00:46:59.660 help then I'll do it myself and that that kind of mantra came through of like I'm the only person I

00:47:06.280 can really rely on to take care of myself in this way which is not to malign the abundance of care

00:47:13.880 that I received and the support that I had but this like deep internalized sense of I'm alone

00:47:20.400 and i need to figure out how to make this work and so craft became a way to develop and exert

00:47:31.260 mastery and one of the primary ways that that came up as an adolescent was being able to come home

00:47:37.700 as a teenager or even as a like preteen and make lunch and being able to have access to the space

00:47:46.120 actually there was a big a kind of ongoing fight from being extremely young to like why can't i

00:47:50.560 just go home i can take care of myself uh you know this story when i was three about trying to make

00:47:55.820 pancakes to for everyone for breakfast uh and like getting up early and knowing how to do all

00:48:00.640 of the things and having followed all the steps in one of my first meals and then you know not

00:48:05.680 having woken my parents up uh wanting to surprise them and but realizing that i could get all of the

00:48:10.580 things the pancake batter and the milk and the eggs and all that stuff but i couldn't reach the

00:48:14.880 bowls so i made it on the counter and that's not a particularly good strategy but it's like a nice

00:48:22.460 place to start and being like oh no i know how to i know how to do this i knew how to walk home i

00:48:26.620 knew how to get to my address uh you know i asked my father to let me out of the car to walk home

00:48:31.520 when i was coming home from preschool and i showed up on the front door and i knocked i knocked on

00:48:35.880 the door my mother answered and she was aghast she's like where's your father what it's like oh

00:48:39.640 i walked home i'm fine it's no big deal and uh and she said well what she saw my father was like

00:48:45.900 what were you doing why did you let him walk home he said i was driving in the car right next to him

00:48:49.380 the whole time like it was fine but i was so convinced that um that i could do these things

00:48:55.220 so food maybe is a like not diagnosed or like not sufficiently important like higher level

00:49:06.500 deal of dealing with a kind of hypoglycemia or just like consistent like grumpy hangriness

00:49:11.640 about needing to eat that finding a source of nourishment and being having a constant source

00:49:16.380 of nourishment is really important for me and so as a teenager my mother started to do a master's

00:49:22.680 program uh at during night classes and she worked during the day and so it became then my

00:49:28.660 responsibilities the oldest to start to like learn to cook and take care of the family

00:49:33.840 My father makes great breakfasts and is good with eggs, but that was about it.

00:49:38.160 And so for my younger sister and I, like I started making food, which was making lunches

00:49:44.060 and making meals.

00:49:44.940 And that meant that I could go home by myself at lunch.

00:49:48.220 I could invite people over.

00:49:49.520 I could carve out my own space where I could live this kind of independent feeling as a

00:49:55.620 10-year-old.

00:49:57.020 Come home and eat craft dinner or come home and do these things.

00:50:00.260 And so crafting this nourishment from raw ingredients or out of a box and a few simple things from the fridge, you know, Mr. Noodles package, some chicken wings boiled and then broiled with Louisiana hot sauce, some classical spaghetti sauce with ground beef fried up.

00:50:18.860 It's like, these were many of my first meals, but, you know, when you started at 12 and never stopped, like suddenly the deep, deep dive into, into mastery and the power, that power of being able to offer a sustenance, but also nourishment and care, the sublimated form of care and saying, I can provide myself with this elemental comfort every day.

00:50:44.920 the beauty of eating, being able to eat and having access to these foods, and being able to

00:50:52.040 assuage this distress that's inside of me. And it's inside of other people too. And to be able

00:50:58.320 to do that with ease and reliability, I think is where my sense of power around that really comes

00:51:06.120 from. And I have a lot more to say about knitting and other things after that, but that was a long

00:51:12.460 pitch so I'm happy to cede some space for someone else I totally joke by calling myself club hands

00:51:20.760 like today like it's like part of me making fun of myself and like because my wife is a clothing

00:51:26.580 maker right like she's literally like I mean like designs are closed can sew everything and so I was

00:51:32.760 coming into like fiber art as this person who's just was like in the realm of ideas getting off

00:51:38.820 a phd um you know could like could like make very interested in using my hands but didn't have a lot

00:51:47.220 of the training to do it and i would joke in the beginning uh we both went to the first um weaving

00:51:52.700 class together um sarah loved lily's weaving like absolutely adored it and like lily just every

00:52:00.560 anytime she does anything fiber related it literally just shows out you're like she's like

00:52:04.100 she'll just show up and it's just amazing and so i would joke about calling myself club hands

00:52:08.240 but like you know you sort of see like you know it's it's interesting what men do in those sorts

00:52:17.960 of contexts you know to touch on the idea of mastery right like me constantly downplaying

00:52:23.260 my own ability but also like it being weird like thinking back on that first experience like

00:52:28.640 yeah my first weaving is ugly I still have it on like my whatever my Instagram grid like if you go

00:52:33.600 back all 700 posts or whatever still there i'm not going to delete it um but it's interesting

00:52:40.660 this idea of self-sufficiency is also like tied into my story as well in terms of like literally

00:52:45.960 my dad like didn't show up to hospice when my mom was sick um he didn't ask about her after she

00:52:53.600 passed at a dinner a day later we were just like it was just my sister and i like you just had to

00:52:59.980 figure it out and luckily i found weaving and you know everything else associated with it

00:53:04.580 just sort of uh dig me out um of that and to have that avenue it's just interesting when you find it

00:53:10.940 you know like just you know in terms of your life corresponding it at such a young age i think for

00:53:15.460 me initially like body movement was a big thing like with tennis like even though there was this

00:53:19.900 whole component of seeking attention there was still this this uh place where i could control

00:53:24.820 things um in a deeply uncontrollable context of being between two divorced parents who were you

00:53:34.300 know battling one another and i was asked to be the quote-unquote man of the house to defend people

00:53:39.600 right all that garbage um and that was you know i've always found these little spaces where i

00:53:46.520 could be the master of my own domain and guess what i'm a very independent person as well because

00:53:51.740 of those experiences because I couldn't depend on other people um and I could only depend on myself

00:53:58.280 to bring myself out of it and you know for for Latin the classic male sort of like not going to

00:54:04.680 therapy for years sort of consequences right like I have OCD for years don't realize it nobody can

00:54:10.980 help me with that um I tried to meditate my way out as as as most uh as a lot of uh uh white folks

00:54:20.800 have done, uh, it looked to Buddhism and there's nothing wrong with it, right? Like if you're

00:54:25.500 doing it right, I just was a particularly bad Buddhist and had all the wrong reasons for being

00:54:29.480 a Buddhist. I was just trying to bypass stuff. Um, but yeah, I really liked the idea of reclaiming

00:54:37.320 mastery, um, in a way that is healing. Um, and that really, that part of your story really

00:54:43.100 resonated with me. And I think the rearticulation of masculinity for people who are much more in

00:54:49.000 line with the liminal state of masculinity is extremely healing and extremely important to

00:54:55.220 give back to other men who also want the sort of exit path, exit strategy outside of the sort of

00:55:04.040 the iron cage of masculinity. I'm drawing on Weber. I know it's iron cage of rationality.

00:55:09.740 I'm being dramatic. I'm being a sociologist, but I'm just going to do it. The iron cage of

00:55:14.200 masculinity it's the same as rationality i want to invite you all to go with that idea i i want

00:55:25.840 to talk forever but also i really want to be respectful of bedtimes and and the times that

00:55:30.140 we've carved out for this um imagine the audience for this podcast okay so it's mostly women but

00:55:39.900 all of those women are thinking perhaps right now about the man in their life that they will send

00:55:45.360 this episode to don't you think I feel like I feel like this might be one where you're like

00:55:51.820 maybe you could listen to this and hear something that feels familiar or like welcoming or or like

00:56:01.620 that feels like a kinship right like that's what I want I want those men to to know that there is an

00:56:09.640 an exit strategy from the cage from the brutal cage and that it involves us you know a circle

00:56:16.520 of love these these stitches of care and finding a pathway out that still values your mastery and

00:56:22.320 your skill um and your craft and your protection but also doesn't rely on you being all those

00:56:28.740 things all the time that has space for all your diversity and your non-binary glory um so that's

00:56:36.440 my invitation closing remarks i find it really interesting to hear how like

00:56:45.840 it seems like the three of us came to like a mastery in a sense of of um relying on on oneself

00:56:56.960 and this idea of I can do it all by myself and I'm gonna figure out how to

00:57:08.180 do this from A to Z. For example I started knitting and then at some point

00:57:15.980 I was like oh I actually would like to dye my own my own yarn I want to choose

00:57:22.280 my own colors um and then oh i'm actually really interested in spinning i would really like to start

00:57:31.320 from from maybe like calm calm fiber or carded fiber um the only thing that stopped me from

00:57:41.000 starting from a full fleece is that we don't have the space here and it needs to be cleaned

00:57:47.000 and it needs a place to dry

00:57:48.480 and it's a big

00:57:50.720 curse that we're not

00:57:52.860 willing to welcome

00:57:54.640 in this apartment

00:57:55.460 I mean you don't just have like a whole

00:57:58.220 closet full of fleeces

00:57:59.900 that are waiting to be clean

00:58:02.240 I do now

00:58:04.880 I'm just joking it's just funny

00:58:06.060 because I totally commiserated

00:58:08.460 that experience

00:58:09.540 turn the camera around so you can see the pile of boxes

00:58:12.320 that are full of fleeces waiting to be spun

00:58:14.360 I mean it's like

00:58:16.140 fleece and yarn and fabric um but the the thing that i am it made me realize is and i'm also

00:58:25.900 i make i'm also making this uh parallel with something else that's uh more intimate in my life

00:58:34.440 um and i was like hesitant to um decide whether i would talk about it or not um thinking that this

00:58:45.280 uh podcasts will be um listened to quite widely uh and shared um but i think it i think it makes

00:58:53.760 sense and it's it's it's a it's a good parallel to do um i i do rope bondage um as a personal uh

00:59:01.920 intimate practice also publicly with other like-minded people um even teaching um abroad

00:59:11.760 and I identify mostly as a bottom-leaning practitioner,

00:59:20.560 which means that I receive the ropes.

00:59:26.180 And it's very interesting to hear most people who get tied up

00:59:35.420 in one of their motivations or one of their

00:59:41.760 like, like their motor for doing that is the idea of letting go of control.

00:59:51.300 It could be like, I know many people who have a lot of responsibilities in their day-to-day life,

00:59:58.560 and they need to learn to let go of control, or they need to have this space that feels secure

01:00:07.320 to put their safety into someone else's hands. And I never really

01:00:22.600 identify with that. I'm never able to resonate with this statement.

01:00:31.160 And for me, it's always been a feeling of being in control.

01:00:36.760 And I'm actually a lot more comfortable being tied up because I feel a lot more powerful when I'm on the receiving end because I know that all the decisions are made, not all, but a lot of the decisions are made based on my input or based on my reactions and my safety.

01:01:06.760 And in the last year or so, it made me question a lot like these reflexes of needing to be in

01:01:20.920 places where I'm always in control and why am I not able to or why am I not willing to give up

01:01:30.280 control and to fully trust. And I think it's this huge trap of toxic masculinity that men

01:01:45.080 can only rely on themselves and that we have to be the ones fixing things and we have to be

01:01:56.120 the ones finding solutions or making sure that

01:02:05.480 that we get to our destination.

01:02:11.960 And all of this, it's just smoke and mirrors, like it's, and I know that, and I've known that

01:02:22.040 for a while. But yet, even in the practices that I engage in, in order to undo these things,

01:02:34.440 I still get stuck in these traps. And I think it's one of the biggest traps of masculinity,

01:02:42.200 or toxic masculinity is um to not trust that one can lose control and that it's okay

01:02:54.760 and that resonates with my experience completely my my toxic mask my articulation of toxic

01:02:59.880 masculinity is saying i can fix myself i can control my own mind because it's my mind

01:03:07.560 what did it lead i just tied my brain up in knots until i couldn't see my way out

01:03:11.780 of the labyrinth and i've created my own mind exactly 100 that's all toxic masculinity right 0.73

01:03:18.560 and craft provides that

01:03:21.140 to me this sort of decentralized space where a lot of that stuff drops away when you're just

01:03:30.540 doing a repetitive task over and over and over again it's why i like bicycling it's why i like

01:03:35.800 weaving it's i like spinning it's this space that you tap into when time slows you know it's very

01:03:43.160 similar to right i mean it's just that we all know that feeling right whether it's you get it at your

01:03:48.320 altar i get it at my altar but i get it in other places too um and the ability to

01:03:55.140 unweave it i mean the basically when i decided to go to therapy i was sitting at my loom

01:04:01.320 um being a typical guy I'll stop using the pejorative term okay I'll stop doing it it's rude

01:04:09.180 even though I'm making fun of a formal version of myself um and we were listening to like a

01:04:15.640 Krista Tippett on being podcast uh open quote close quote the power of podcasts missing witches

01:04:22.900 and it was about like just you know sort of like the neuroscience and like the what we had found

01:04:36.380 I forget who the person was but it was just basically like approaches to anxiety like

01:04:40.420 mental health approaches to anxiety and all of a sudden I'm just sitting here

01:04:43.960 and i'm like i'm going to therapy tomorrow what like what and i can't tell you the number of

01:04:53.380 times that's happened with fiber art i it's weird it's a completely uh it's magic it's just complete

01:05:02.260 and utter magic all of a sudden i'm in therapy and then i'm doing exposure therapy and going

01:05:05.460 to the 47th realm of hell through exposure therapy facing everything i'm ever afraid of right 0.90

01:05:09.700 whatever i'm really good at suffering because of the tennis shit yeah so like i did the advanced 0.93

01:05:17.580 exposure therapy course yikes don't ever want to go back there but i'm like totally comfortable 0.94

01:05:22.620 with the underworld now okay totally comfortable i want to go on so many asides but i'm gonna stop

01:05:28.680 all that resonates this is wonderful i can see why we're all talking this is great

01:05:32.860 we're all in it we're all interwoven in such a wonderful way it's really beautiful

01:05:36.280 yeah i'm so excited just to just to let you meet and get to hear you talk i hope that we can

01:05:45.360 meet again and keep talking because there are so many more ideas james i'm going to come back to

01:05:51.780 you because i want you to think about what your um what the message is you're going to slip through

01:05:57.980 the gates to the men trapped in versions of masculinity that they want to find their way out

01:06:05.380 of and Jonathan I want to come back to you first yeah there's so many things you could respond to

01:06:13.580 how just pick up any threads that feel right I want to pick up a thread about this

01:06:20.200 immediate and burning decision to go to therapy and for me it was about rage and it was about

01:06:31.440 trying to figure out what to do with this anger this like constant volcano like magma inside of

01:06:38.840 me and trying to figure out like why I was in such like angry distress like walking down the street

01:06:48.880 and having someone walk too close to me and just feeling like ready to like totally wig out and

01:06:54.440 like scream and that the felt the sense of being constantly invaded or slighted by uh other people

01:07:03.400 by sounds by smells um by neighbors uh you know by the city by the like press of humanity

01:07:12.840 and being unable to to kind of face that it became interesting for me to think about and feel

01:07:20.760 how much the sense of rage was actually a secondary emotion as something that was like

01:07:27.640 manifesting on the surface and that the like primary emotion underneath that was sadness

01:07:31.960 and that i was really really sad i thought a lot of things and that i had like oceans of grief

01:07:41.820 that felt uncrossable and that uh has to do with giving up a lot of things giving up on

01:07:50.460 a lot of things i trained as a theater artist and i stopped and i then trained hard as an opera

01:07:58.080 singer and then stopped um part of my return to handcraft had to do with trying to anchor myself

01:08:08.840 in reality in something concrete that i could hold on to after working so much in the ephemeral

01:08:15.240 uh even cooking is like a very transitory thing like yes one can be nourished and maybe you know

01:08:22.200 gain or lose weight related to it but it doesn't have this like tangible ongoing feel and the

01:08:28.600 sense of the pleasure of being in rehearsal of creating or the supposed pleasure of being in

01:08:34.920 the studio like singing and practicing which for me was always terrifying um of working things out

01:08:41.640 but then the next day like having nothing to show for it the real practice of it being like you just

01:08:46.500 need to show up every day and keep going and that if you don't do it that day well then it didn't

01:08:50.520 happen like going to the gym or like any other thing whereas with knitting when I picked it back

01:08:56.060 up something that I had learned as a child in admiration from watching my mother be able to do

01:09:01.100 these things and saying I want to learn how to do that too but I picked knitting back up while I was

01:09:07.340 in school as a classically trained vocalist and opera singer

01:09:11.600 because I needed something quiet.

01:09:13.720 I needed something I could do with my hands

01:09:15.320 while I was sitting in an orchestral rehearsal

01:09:17.280 waiting 40 minutes to stand up and sing my two lines

01:09:19.780 and then sit back down again.

01:09:21.460 I needed something that would allow me to pay attention

01:09:23.680 but that where I wouldn't feel like I was losing my mind.

01:09:28.800 And that had a lot to do with,

01:09:32.100 or it led me to realize that there was a sense of abundance

01:09:35.360 to be found in very small things and that I could time travel which was to say I could expand

01:09:42.380 and contract the sense of time by connecting with my hands and material goods through repeated

01:09:49.780 meditative gestures though that wasn't the purpose it was a collateral benefit by just

01:09:54.920 picking out each stitch as Reese's talked about and like finding where the needle wants to go

01:10:00.580 of like repeatedly making these same gestures over and over again as a spell as a as a call

01:10:07.640 to something to some beautiful future that seems worthy of preparing for and therefore an act of

01:10:17.080 hope of wanting to reach forward to this future me who would have this thing that i would offer

01:10:22.380 to myself uh and kind of jump over the thousands of hours of prevaricating and like work and

01:10:30.440 carting this around through airports or uh you know uh in you know living rooms and in front of

01:10:37.760 you know countless books on tape or whatever but just that suddenly this thing would have a

01:10:42.620 it would exist from something that didn't exist but i would it would have like alchemically

01:10:47.980 conjured something out of this long spun strand and that was really helpful for me also in

01:10:55.640 recovering from not being a performing artist to be able to say I want something that I can

01:11:00.620 shove in a bag and put in the corner and punish and say I want you to think about what you've done

01:11:06.200 you're being very bad right now you're giving me an extremely hard time and I don't like that so 0.98

01:11:12.240 you're going to go over there and I'm going to ignore you for as long as it takes for me to 0.94

01:11:15.240 figure out what the fuck I'm going to do with it next and then pick it back up again and not really 0.96

01:11:20.480 be lost in the way that if I didn't sing for two weeks that I had a lot of work to do to pick back 0.95

01:11:27.180 up again that the my access my immediate access to that would be gone so there's this threat of

01:11:37.320 abundance that's become increasingly important as I become increasingly less employed or

01:11:42.660 increasingly less financially like solvent and I've started picking things up out of the garbage

01:11:49.600 and scrounging for fabrics by what's cast off in an idea of I'm going to quilt with this one day

01:11:57.820 but what's actually really been it's about trying to fill up the pantry to fill up the cupboard and

01:12:04.880 to create this stash with some sense that this will provide me with endless opportunities endless

01:12:11.660 material to work with and I have more things that I could ever do with but it still lets me live in

01:12:18.140 hope when I look at them and say like one day I have an idea about this thing and I want to turn

01:12:23.080 it into this other thing and I imagine then still that there is a future that I want to prepare for

01:12:30.300 where those things are possible or where they may also not be necessary how many blankets does a

01:12:35.740 person really need not that many actually when you have one that you actually that you like

01:12:41.420 and maybe that you made yourself maybe one for summer and one for winter and one to take for 0.99

01:12:47.220 the park and well maybe one for the sofa and you know one to eat on and uh one to have sex with 0.96

01:12:53.300 and uh you know there's there's there's a lot of different kinds of planar surfaces that we can

01:12:58.760 drag around with us and like wrap around ourselves and that can accompany us through life

01:13:04.000 so yeah craft craft brought me abundance and in something that felt very

01:13:10.440 solitary about my experience of being a human being and being a like mask coated person

01:13:17.060 and not feeling necessarily that i had access to for whatever strange mysterious reason to

01:13:22.980 a stable cohort that people come and go in my life a lot and i've been very close with a lot

01:13:32.400 of people and develop really strong bonds and yet i've watched the like ebb and flow of that

01:13:38.520 and let people move away both geographically and emotionally and that trying to find some

01:13:48.520 other things to hang on to to remind myself of those times of that comfort of those those links

01:13:54.840 of that attachment are important. I do I think it's so interesting that

01:14:05.380 We talk about toxic masculinity as a separate thing from masculinity itself. I think it's so interesting that all three of you have gorgeous facial hair. So there's some part of each of you that is leaning directly into masculinity.

01:14:23.800 and so I kind of want to end just by like celebrating you know we have toxic masculinity

01:14:31.420 that doesn't mean the masculinity is toxic we're just trying to yes chest hair all the hair I love

01:14:37.940 it thank you so much listeners you're so sad you weren't here live to see the the chest hair show 0.98

01:14:43.720 but again I want to say again like um we have toxic masculinity but we also have fucking

01:14:49.820 beautiful masculinity and I'm so grateful and proud of the three of you for coming and sitting 0.92

01:14:56.360 in circle with us and examining both toxic masculinity and beautiful masculinity and I

01:15:03.460 really want to celebrate masculinity in these in these last few minutes that we have together

01:15:09.840 um I'm not really sure how other than just to say like I celebrate your gorgeous masculinity

01:15:16.160 and I really appreciate your thoughtfulness in attempting to reject those toxic aspects of

01:15:23.520 masculinity while still embracing the beautiful parts of your masculinity so I guess just like

01:15:29.980 thank you and you're gorgeous Risa maybe you can wrap that thought up better for me than I can

01:15:37.460 no I'm just gonna turn it into an invitation so thank you and you're gorgeous and last words you

01:15:44.760 know this this the idea of slipping a spell through the cracks to people who are trapped in

01:15:50.760 an idea or or in friendships or things that don't give them peace in their journey of masculinity

01:15:58.880 whatever that looks like or maybe it's through like a crack to an earlier version of yourself

01:16:03.700 like what do you what do you know what's the spell you can offer if there is one

01:16:11.740 I would like to offer the spell of listening, of listening to the people surrounding you,

01:16:20.620 surrounding me, and the spell of compassion, of self-compassion. It's every time I'm doing a

01:16:32.860 ritual about things that I want to invite within myself, it's always the first thing. I think it's

01:16:39.100 a lifelong journey but yeah listening and being compassionate

01:16:54.700 first to oneself to then be able to be compassionate with others

01:16:59.660 I think it's, for me, the road that I've taken to try and break free from these traps and

01:17:13.300 like explore my gender, my masculinity, my femininity, not only just by myself, because

01:17:24.600 we never exist only by ourselves.

01:17:29.660 Yeah, this is radical magic. You say it so humbly and so gently, and this is the most radical magic for all of us.

01:17:37.580 But I do think, you know, having been in academic spaces or working with sound techs or like in these like very like male dominated rooms working in tech.

01:17:50.200 um where you know that stereotype was very lived out where like the the men in the room all felt

01:17:58.000 like they had to take up all the space all the time sometimes to the point where it felt tinged

01:18:03.280 with the desperation like we can all tell you've lost the thread but you're still talking like

01:18:10.720 you're still screaming into the void because you feel like you need to know you need to control

01:18:17.260 you need to land on something that that affirms that you're in a place of power or that you're

01:18:23.400 okay or something and the kindness of including in our gender identities that the call to listen

01:18:34.040 to each other right that like it's okay it's not necessarily about leaning in or leaning out or

01:18:40.660 some sort of marketing buzzword but like that we are these loops around each other and looping

01:18:47.160 and weaving with listening to each other and compassion can ease us I think out of performative

01:18:54.160 masculinity and into something maybe much more powerful so thank you so much for saying that

01:19:00.600 James do you have a do you have a spell or like some sort of warrior scream

01:19:07.860 may you slip the snare may you find yourself in the unknown

01:19:16.640 May you let go of those who set expectations for you that don't honor the complexity of who you are.

01:19:29.340 May you be devoted to being in the unknown and resting in the incomplete, knowing that there will never be a complete knowledge of who you are and the complexity of who you are.

01:19:44.720 and may you enjoy drinking in that mystery with harm to them

01:19:51.120 Jonathan what you've said was already so beautiful James that blessing I think we'll have to cut it

01:20:01.440 out and make it something that stands alone so we can return to it it's so beautiful and powerful

01:20:07.680 and Jonathan you've gifted us with so many things you've said that brought me to tears do you have

01:20:12.100 a closing blessing or a spell do you got one more for us as amy's gesturing

01:20:16.920 you're done oh i'm definitely that person who can keep talking

01:20:22.280 the i only i get to earn this extra spot by uh by being deeply impactful and so i get away with it

01:20:31.620 that's another source of power being able to suck up a lot of extra space

01:20:36.280 the things i would like you got the invitation yeah yeah that's right

01:20:41.500 um what i was thinking of to wrap up that came from earlier was more about uh affirmations 0.73

01:20:52.100 if we talked about masculinity in ways uh like a old skin that we wanted to shed

01:20:58.900 uh that i wanted to think about and affirm the things that were important to me and that have

01:21:05.280 a like mask tinge to them or that are coded both uh coding like programming but also coded like

01:21:13.320 in slime or in sauce and there's some idealized versions uh and that i'm discovering more now is

01:21:23.880 in my now mid-40s and like silver fox um plaid shirt you know lesbian adjacent dad era

01:21:34.220 to um solidity to reliability to a quiet strength

01:21:45.880 that uh like trees can bend in the wind but also stand and give shade

01:21:54.540 um that will break and fall over in storms also

01:22:01.080 yes and that that the deep capacity to nurture is not something that's coded

01:22:09.400 by gender and that the the rich creative aspect of life of living of like engendering things

01:22:22.880 is within all of us um as a like cis man i think one of my major like life envies and like uh

01:22:33.420 tragic uh greek tragic kind of feelings is about not being able to uh give birth

01:22:40.120 and that a lot of my creative energy draws life from this inability to carry life inside of my

01:22:49.560 body in that way and it's an interesting wound to think to carry but also to see

01:22:58.100 what healing that what addressing it and like engaging with it resonates out into the world

01:23:07.740 and all the things that I'm able to do with my life with my energy with this force that's inside

01:23:14.420 of me that's an exchange in some way for not having that capacity and maybe striving to do

01:23:24.040 so but in other ways and so think about generativity now at this period of like what can

01:23:30.000 I offer what can I give back and in giving and in generating what am I offering to myself

01:23:37.060 and what ways am I also showing up and being solid and reliable for myself giving voice to

01:23:44.080 that very small, fragile thing inside of me,

01:23:52.300 the sense of self or this like small child

01:23:54.700 or this son or daughter of mine that is mine but isn't.

01:24:02.880 And to let that person out to play.

01:24:06.940 thank you all so much thank you for being with us at this strange time in the season

01:24:20.620 and strange time in the world strange time to be people

01:24:25.680 strange strange time to be trying to figure out how we make an impact that is healing

01:24:34.040 or fertile at least um and thanks for being so generous with your

01:24:43.340 insights um struggles I don't know it felt like incredibly generous um the honesty that you shared

01:24:55.500 with us today so we don't we don't generally um type vulnerability as a masculine trait and I

01:25:03.840 think all three of you have made us rethink that binary for sure yeah so i'm gonna say 0.98

01:25:10.640 blessed fucking bee but i'm also just but yeah i'm gonna say blessed fucking me 0.99

01:25:18.160 and we're gonna say happy llamas yeah and blessed fucking bee 0.99

01:25:24.920 yeah but i also just if you guys have two more seconds because connor and rachel have been with 0.95

01:25:32.380 us the whole time if you do want to um unmute or turn your cameras say hi respond to anything

01:25:39.520 um I did want to give you the opportunity although I know that's not always

01:25:43.880 um something that folks are here for hi Rach hey I just wanted to say thank you I think that

01:25:53.100 that's exactly the one of the biggest gifts that that you folks gave tonight was your generosity

01:26:01.180 of vulnerability and really appreciated hearing all that. Thank you. Yeah, I also wanted to thank

01:26:07.880 you for sharing so much of your personal experiences. And I think one thing I was

01:26:15.200 thinking of throughout was I was curious if anyone had maybe a role model or someone who's in your

01:26:22.340 life that maybe acted as permission to go against the grain or to be some sort of deviant in a way

01:26:31.160 and if even if it's not you know maybe recorded just curious if there was someone like that and

01:26:38.860 kind of maybe some of the first steps you might have experienced um in terms of maybe changing

01:26:46.000 either mannerisms or aspects of of how you experienced gender yeah I want everyone to

01:26:54.660 answer but I just want to say Fred Rogers to bring the name Fred Rogers into the conversation

01:26:59.900 to me like mr rogers is the epitome of what men can do if they are good and kind somebody else

01:27:06.980 so i feel like i told this story or a number of stories which really slag my mother and uh i feel

01:27:14.680 a bit exposed about that and not representing the whole part of the story and that actually

01:27:18.760 the person who's possibly the most radical uh about helping me in this way uh is my mother

01:27:25.340 who did not code any of these things with like feminine traits and that I learned whether I

01:27:34.060 liked it or not to cook to sew to mend things to take care of myself to take care of my family

01:27:43.120 to bake pies when I didn't feel like baking pies or to like make bread and that I was deeply

01:27:49.120 encouraged to sing and dance and be expressive and be loud as long as I also was like extremely

01:27:59.040 good at school but but I didn't grow up in a space where that felt weird or that

01:28:08.160 was unwelcome and coded my curiosity about these things was deeply fostered and encouraged

01:28:19.120 I think my model is also close and family-tied. It is Jonathan, actually, who from the lack

01:28:40.440 of judgment and guilt and shame gave me the gift of being able to see my own self-shame

01:28:48.760 and explore it and um play with what i was and who i was and who i am and um celebrating it

01:29:04.300 with me

01:29:05.960 definitely being able to have someone

01:29:12.440 close by who's just

01:29:15.140 with opened arms and celebrating

01:29:19.900 my person and like

01:29:24.280 all of what I identified as my flaws

01:29:28.420 or my shame about eating bags of

01:29:32.380 candies and, and stuff like that, um, making me realize that the only thing now that was stopping

01:29:40.800 me was myself.

01:29:44.700 I have two. One, I think the biggest, um, the biggest exemplar for a lot of this stuff is

01:29:53.440 seeing how most of the male figures who were in a position to help me failed me.

01:30:00.980 and learning from each of those failures as much as i would from the permissions

01:30:06.540 of people who would support me who that person was my mom my mom was like 0.99

01:30:11.100 this like extremely strong non-binary person who like lifted weights with bandanas on and muscle 1.00

01:30:17.860 shirts on yeah my mom was fucking rad um she was the best oh am i allowed to say that dang

01:30:25.540 my bad okay oh no swearing swearing all the time yeah I should have I should have been with that 0.82

01:30:32.400 no that's my bad I just forgot I know we always do that in the coven stuff so I should know but

01:30:36.500 yeah my mom was amazing amazing non-binary person she was the best and she really gave me permission

01:30:45.480 to be as weird and out there um as I want to be it's why I still watch the x-files

01:30:55.120 a lot we used to watch that we used to watch sightings you remember sightings oh my gosh

01:31:03.380 unsolved mysteries we were deep we were deep in the like the original lore of the sci-fi channel

01:31:10.680 like deep um and that you know i think being weird um and permission to being weird is one

01:31:21.020 of the greatest gifts and i mean that in a very positive way i don't mean it in like the i'm

01:31:25.940 talking about like the muscular weird where it's like whatever the hell you want to do just go do

01:31:30.480 it you interested in it let's go do it um and that was a big juxtaposition to um other people whose

01:31:39.980 love and acceptance was contingent upon me playing a role that i played within their world

01:31:44.720 i was a main character in her world just as now she's a main character in my world

01:31:51.320 um you know within my death work practice because i talk to her all the time i talked to her

01:31:59.380 this morning i gotta get on that i wanted to say

01:32:04.260 that craft allows me to bear witness to the process of becoming

01:32:10.560 for the thing coming into being that's being conjured by my fingers and from my tools

01:32:19.080 uh as well as uh the person i'm becoming by doing those particular things

01:32:26.940 i mean how because we don't use church language thank you thank you thank you

01:32:34.140 you are the best thank you for this okay bye i love you i love you i love you thank you for

01:32:37.980 conjuring the real thank you thank you thank you thank you so much my wise friends i love you 1.00

01:32:43.580 bye you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 0.99

01:32:48.720 you must be a witch if you want to support the missing witches project find out how 0.90

01:32:57.840 at missingwitches.com

01:33:00.000 and pre-order

01:33:02.080 New Moon Magic

01:33:03.920 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools

01:33:06.140 for Resistance and Re-Enchantment

01:33:08.260 by Risa Dickens and Amy Torek

Missing Witches - August 01, 2023

Lammas 2023： Crafting Masculinities with Remy Savard, James Gardner Davis and Jonathan Ayers

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