Season 2 Episode 7: Ritual Movement 555 with Cass and Bear
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Cass had mentioned the band DEHD and their new album Poetry Cass and Bear also mentioned (and sung some) of Ritual Union by Little Dragon
Our intro music is by Mother Marrow
Full Transcript:
[Music]: Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Mystery. Mystery.
[Jasper]: Hey, queer witches, my name is Jasper Joy. I'm a poet, tarot professional, and Buddhist witch. I am white and identify as genderqueer and neurodivergent. My pronouns are they and he.
[Ava]: And this is Ava. My pronouns are they, he and she and I'm a white genderfluid and neuro queer artist, channeler and spiritual realmlist. And,
[Jasper]: we are the Queer Conjure Podcast. Together, aligned with our spirit guides and ancestors, we tend to various pathways towards queer, magical liberation. We do this with deep gratitude.
[Ava]: Listeners can expect interviews, deep dives into our passions and intuitions, witchy practices, and more.
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[Ava]: Before we begin, a content notification, we are going to be sharing a wide spectrum of experiences ranging from community pleasure and personal joy to structural harm and interpersonal suffering. We are embracing the shadows as well as the light. We will include specific trigger warnings in the episode descriptions for the heavier topics.
[Jasper]: So get your cauldron, baby, because here we go.
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[Jasper] Hi, Queer Witches, Jasper here. It has been a while since we've published an episode here at Queer Conjure, and that's due to these really pain in the ass bullshit technological issues that Ava and I were struggling through. Luckily, we were able to meet a new friend and bring her onto the Queer Conjure team, and we're getting back on track.
So now we're a team of three. We've got me, Jasper, your founding elder and tarot educator, Ava, our social media oracle, and introducing, brr, brr, brr, brr, Hailey, our administrative cartographer. And I'm so excited to see how we progress from here on out. In this episode, I was able to interview Cass and Bear of Ritual Movement 555. It's gorgeous, y'all.
I've gone to a couple of their dances and I had an embodied, spiritual, existential, chaotic exploration of both times and left feeling like a changed person. So, Ritual Movement is a collaborative project between Cass and Bear that seeks to create spaces where people can connect to self, community, and source.
They currently facilitate dances, rites of initiation, small groups, and couples work. Ritual Movement centers queerness and creative emergence and holds the vision of weaving a community that welcomes all parts of us and fosters resilient resilience through authentic connection. So I hope you enjoy this episode.
It gets pretty heartfelt and pretty intimate. Bless it be.
[Ava]: Do do do, do do do do!
[Jasper]: Hi friends, how are you?
[Bear]: Hi, hi Jasper.
[Cass]: Jasper. Hi.
[Jasper]: Yeah, so I want to invite you to introduce yourselves in any way that feels good to you. Whether that's a spiel about your professional projects or like, how groggy you are from when you woke up today, whatever you want to share.
[Bear]: Alright, well, I am Bear, he, they.
[Cass]: And I'm Cass, she, they.
[Bear]: And, we professionally are Ritual Movement 555, which is a community organization that's really situated on the intersection of queerness, spirituality, and social change. We facilitate ritual based dances, nature based experientials, and workshops. So really we're facilitators and we offer things to the community that we also need and want to be the beneficiaries of.
[Cass]: I really appreciate our origin story and just how Ritual Movement came to be. Bear and I were both working at a local queer residential treatment center. Which was unique in the sense that this was a person centered residential treatment center. And so the founder really, like took heart and care to offer smaller beds. Like, there were only eight, eight folks there at a time. And there was a lot of acreage and really room to… recover, whether from trauma or from substances.
And so Bear and I, yeah, both met and both would look at each other often and want to run groups together. Like, “hey, what about, what about a song circle or what about…” and then one of us maybe said dance. And so with another coworker, the three of us, just really wanted to offer a little more dynamic programming that was movement based. And we also just love music and have created many, many playlists together over the course of a few years and so we started dancing once a week in the basement of this large ranch style house and found that there was really a lot of profound transformation that took place.
Really being able to also consistently be with folks in that way, week after week, and to hear their feedback. It became this thing that some people loved and then some people loved to hate at the same time, like, “Oh, if you go in that room, it's going to be confronting, like, you can't hide." And yet watching people really be able to like… drop into their bodies and experience a greater sense of embodiment and freedom. Yeah, it was really a lot of grist for the mill of inspiration. And I think deepened our sense of sacred work. And, but then, I'm talking a lot, but the residential, the residential center closed. And so, it was like only open a year and then it just was not able to sustain itself.
And so, when it closed, we kind of had this moment of looking around and asking “what do we do about dance?” And we decided that it needed to live beyond the reaches of the treatment center. I think maybe I turned to you (Bear) and said, “I want to dance to major arcana.” And you said, yes.
[Bear]: Yeah. I was like, “I don't know much about the tarot, but let's go.”
[Cass]: Yeah. And so, then we started out in the galaxy room, which is a little funky venue downtown. Now we've done one full dance revolution of the major arcana and now we're on our second and getting ready to dance the Wheel of Fortune.
[Bear]: Just something that I wanted to layer in as Cass talked about our origin story is, I feel like, you know, what the treatment center we worked at was trying to do was, was create a space on the fringe of recovery for queer folks, and yet, you know, it was still… mediated and moderated by the board of ethics ,and these certain clinical constrictions that we wanted to find the fringe of the fringe. And, that's what this dance space felt like. It felt like, how can we dissolve this subject/object relationship, this power dynamic even more fully. And create a container that we also enter, that we also allow ourselves to be transformed by.
I feel like that model… was really what proved to be so transformational for people. Was like, we entered into the space and we were space holders, but we were a part of the container. We weren't, you know, sitting back with our clipboards taking notes. We were dancing with people. So taking that out of the confines of the treatment center has just proved to be so expansive. That's what I wanted to layer in.
[Jasper]: Amazing! I like this part about being space holders as well as being part of what's within the container. That, to me, sounds like one of the ways that you take the hierarchy and the ‘power-over’ out of it. I think that's really beautiful. I really like the phrase, the ‘fringe out of the fringe,’ too. That feels really in alignment with what Queer Conjure is trying to do. Actually, a lot of this feels super connected. Yeah, Cass, I'm curious why the major arcana specifically was calling you to be part of the dance?
[Cass]: Hmm. Yeah, well, I've always been drawn to… the occult and the esoteric ever since I was… I grew up in a, we both grew up in really small, small towns. Well, Missouri and then Maine. And I was just that kid that was like, going to my little local library and finding the one shelf with like ten books, like, right? And just seeking out you know, tarot, astrology, and the librarian would look at me and say, “does your mother know that you're like, checking out these books?”
And so, it's just always been something within me that has stirred my interest. And, I've worked with the tarot for a really long time. I was self taught for many, many years, and then kind of formalized my education by seeking out a teacher and, and then read professionally or just read for the community.
I think I wanted a way to bring Tarot more alive. Like, I'm always looking for ways to deepen my understanding and to expand my sense of these archetypes. And so, I think it was just, I don’t know, just a little seed that dropped into my mind one day. I said it and I didn't really think that I could find anybody that would say yes.
[Jasper]: I love that you watered that seed and that Bear said yes. Bear, I'm curious what has your evolving relationship with the cards been now that you've had a whole cycle?
[Bear]: Mhm, yeah, it’s been profound. I mean, I have, pulled cards for years from the Motherpeace deck, that circular, you know, goddess based deck that's received some, you know, criticisms. But, so I had a relationship with that specific deck and the specific book that goes along with that deck, but in terms of, I, I always, for some reason,considered myself to be an outsider of the tarot. I was a student of astrology. So I was like, the tarot, that’s something I really… It's really interesting, but it hasn’t taken me, I haven’t been, you know, initiated into the mystery fully.
And then, diving into this practice of, really of like, meditating on the archetypes sequentially for two weeks at a time, initiating ourselves (which we can get into more later but) and making playlists, like finding music and dropping into “what is the felt sense of this archetype?” It’s really just shown me that these archetypes are alive in all of us. And, finding that map and the territory within my own psyche of like, where these archetypes already live and how I'm already connected to all of them in different ways. It was just, it's been this process of revelation. And I think… After the first year of dancing through the major arcana, I finally said to myself, “you know, I think I’m, I think I've been initiated into the mystery. I think."
And, part of that was realizing or learning that there is no point of arrival. It is a mystery and it's a perpetually evolving relationship between self and the esoteric other that… is just endlessly fruitful and fascinating. I consider myself to work for the major arcana. We clock in, so… And, you know, we have some say and, we can make our schedule a year in advance. So, we have some say in the pacing, but kind of not also! We also kind of just like, “here's where we are and we are working for these archetypes.”
[Jasper]: Yeah, the part you know, where we have all of these archetypes within ourselves, I often think about how… we're not learning anything external when we're learning about the tarot or experiencing the tarot. All we're doing is like… bringing up the spirituality that's already internal and reminding us how we're connected to all the other things. I'm so glad you brought that up.
So I have been lucky enough to make it to a couple of the dances recently, and I've really enjoyed them. I also noticed that I had to like, jet as soon as it was over because I had such an energy in my body that I wanted to protect and didn't want to like, chit-chat and hang out and I wanted to hold that energy longer. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that amount of like, invocation within my body during the dances.
They're also a weird time warp, I have to say, because they're about an hour long, right? And like a whole lifetime of experiences happen during that one hour time. Yeah, so, I'm wondering how the two of you feel like, right before, during, and after. Because it is such an alive… it's more than alive though, it's like… really, really tapped into what makes queerness divine. So I'm sure it affects your bodies and your emotions.
[Bear]: Yeah, well, yeah. Gosh, there's so much we could say.
[Cass]: Yeah, well, I think what's really… still ringing in my ears is your (Jasper’s) word invocation within your body. Somatic invocation. And you (Bear) use the word initiation. I think what's coming to mind, just when you ask, “how do we feel like, before or during or after?" and I think in order for us to feel grounded, it's really important for us to have prayer points and invocations all along the way.
So… there is a lot of work that we do before dancing to ground and resource. And yet, it begins when we initiate ourselves into that archetype, which usually is
[Bear]: two weeks before the dance.
[Cass]: We have an altar that we tend to on Bear’s Mountain and there's a lot of water nearby, so it looks like us either going… up on the mountain, or down to the water, or starting a fire, and, or just initiating ourselves while we're driving! It's not always that way.
[Bear]: Sometimes we, we… we fit it in where we can!
[Jasper]: Yeah!
[Cass]: I think that curiosity is a thread that we weave throughout this entire journey and that we also really… invite others to experience too. That there's no right or wrong way to do this, not bad dancing or good dancing, but really this is just arriving and being with whatever one is bringing. So I try to also turn what we are offering back to myself, too. It's okay to lead with imperfection and it's okay that we, we fumble-find and yet…
[Bear]: every single week.
[Cass]: Every single week! And yet we set a container by walking a perimeter in the space and, having an invocation that we say, we pull a card beforehand. And yet, after that, it's like, “well, may we be hollow bones.”
[Bear]: We hold hands and we walk, we do five big circles of the room and we do prayer, pull a card, eat chocolate, light a candle. And just asking, and you know, “how can we be the strongest container holders that we can be?” and “may the space be protected,” “may everyone who walks in here tonight get exactly what they need.”
To kind of, piggyback on what you're saying, Cass, I lean into the structures that we've created. So we, we do that. We do our little private invocation and then people arrive and then we do, you know, some way to signify that we're dropping into ritual space.
Another thing I just want to bring in is we really strive to balance sacred and profane, so we just really try to bring in the profane, which is… something that sometimes I find lacking in certain spiritual settings or communities. And so, yeah, making (sure) we do silly little rituals that seem nonsensical, but are, feel really important to me.
And also uncompromisingly holding reverence because there's also a lot of queer spaces that don't have that feeling for me. And I still love and respect them, but I, some queer spaces I find don't hold that, like spiritual orientation or reverence. So just, you know, being unwilling to sacrifice either of those things, the sacred or the profane.
And then, yeah, during dance just usually I, I, I've, I'm trying to work on this, but I often will make myself like sick from just dancing so hard, or I've been really working on trying not to get whiplash, but I did get whiplash again after this last dance, but there's a lot of like, holding the energy and moving a lot of it through my body and I will often do…
I'll be moving, but I'll be doing a meditation of, like, a visualization of just imagining all the bodies in the room, like, pulsing together and, through a common energetic cord, like, shooting down into the earth, up into the sky, and, and I'll, like, run the perimeter. I'll dance through people, so there's a lot of, like, tending of the energy during dance. And then, it's so sitting in circle at the end, the feeling of just, like being in that sacred pause together and hearing people share from the depths of their being like, whoa, what this experience is like for them and hearing the bravery of people who feel afraid to add their voice to the space but do anyway.
I just feel filled with so much gratitude at that time. Then we close it out and then we always, we have our post dance rituals, which often entails going to the grocery store to get stuff to make a steak and blackberry salad. And yeah, it's like a, yeah, it's our ritual. And then, and then we do feedback right after.
So we talk about what went well, where can we tighten up or what, you know, we, so we do that every, every night after dance. So it's kind of the arc. And then usually, I mean, often, sometimes we were like, what, like the playlist was bad. What did we do with some, sometimes we get down on ourselves, but that's, it's been a while since that has happened and more, mostly it's more just like, reveling in the gratitude of this thing that we… kind of create, but like it's, it's so co-created like the, it's the people that come that make it what it is and that also, like, create this container that is a gift to us as well that we need.
[Cass]: Yeah, yeah, it's like a really creative collective, archetypal compendium… that amazes me and fills me with awe EVERY, SINGLE, TIME.
[Bear]: Yeah, we've worked so much on this project, we work every day on it and it feeds our souls. Trying to figure out how can we, like, actually offer a service that is compensated and that we can sustain ourselves with so that we can grow this work and offer these spaces while also creating accessibility and not things that are so expensive that they're out of reach. Knowing the priority is to just keep doing this. It feels so good and it feels so right.
[Jasper]: I feel warm and fuzzy about a lot of that. I have very similar feelings about Queer Conjure, of, this is something that I do need to sustain me financially.
But what's most important is that Queer Conjure has its own soul and my soul's relationship with that soul is what feels most important and that's something me and my business partner talk about a lot. But there's like even more souls happening here. It's like… your two souls, the soul of 555, and then the souls that are coming into the container, and then the container probably has their own soul, it's a web of souls.
[Cass]: It's a web of souls, as can be.
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Bye!
[Jasper]: I am wondering if you can explain why you chose the name
[Bear]: So, Ritual Movement 555. Honestly, we were dreaming up names, and I, the song,
[Cass and Bear Sing]: Ritual Unions Got Me in Trouble Again by Little Dragon
[Bear]: That song came on, and it… Just the, and thinking about ritual and movement and like, like lacing ritual into movement, into dance, but also our, our secret or not so secret desire to foment a movement based on ritual. And what would it look like for ritual to be just a part of this movement of culture towards the edges and towards change. And so, yeah, so it's both like, ritualizing movement, adding ritual into movement and a movement of, of, of a culture that values and centers ritual.
[Cass]: Yeah. So ritual reconnection and then the 555. I… had just been seeing 555 again and again for maybe a few years. And it just felt like this very prescient almost, thing, like, like something's coming and I don't know what. And then in the fomenting of just all the ingredients that led to us creating this.
So I was like, “Oh, this is it.” This is, this is like the 555 and five being, like a number of change and transformation and even chaos, the ability to give shape to the chaos of our experiences and also five being like, connected to our humanity, right? Like five fingers, five toes just felt right. So Ritual Movement 555.
[Bear]: And I'm not really one of these types that gets into angel numbers necessarily, or knows anything about, you know, 444 or 555 whatever. But I just think it sounds so fun and funny, like it sounds like a username to me, like Ritual Movement, 555. It's just, to me, it’s another element of the profane, like, in our name and it's I mean, it has both deep meaning and it's nonsensical. Yeah, and I got it tattooed on my wrist when we went to Mexico in December.
[Jasper]: Oooh!
[Bear]: So we got the 555. And it's cool. The meaning of the, of the numbers has unfolded for me in my understanding of what we're doing, as, as time moves on, where you know, moving from four, which is… the number of stability, four legs on a table, adding a fifth leg creates this instability. It also mirrors where I feel our culture is at, and our world is at, in this time of cataclysmic change and what does it mean to be, yeah. At the frontier of that change, or, you know, we talked about the at the fringe of the fringe and in just standing in the face of change, which is so scary and intense and hard sometimes and what does it mean to stand at the threshold of change and, create culture and create spaces for people to come and step into their power as culture makers and as change makers.
And so that, it's, to me, the 555 is a, is both an invocation and a reminder of the world that we will, that will continue to become, you know, exponentially a changing place and our role within that.
[Cass]: Mhm, mhm. I'm just thinking of that quotation that I think you have up on your wall Bear, which is like, ‘what greater creativity is there than giving shape to the chaos of experience.’
And… I think creativity and community are central to Ritual Movement 555, and that's like embedded in the name too, is really, yeah, wanting to create the space where creativity can really be exalted, and centered, and practiced, and yeah, because I ever think at the end of the day, I think that like creativity in connection, in community are really like the legs upon which, like Ritual Movement stands. So.
[Bear]: I would agree with that.
[Cass]: Would you agree?
[Bear]: I would agree, honey.
[Cass]: So I think when I think of 555, I think of all those things.
[Jasper]: Within the tarot, the number five is often about grief, conflict, things not going the way we wanted them to, you know? This breakdown of what we thought was stable because everything is always changing and then you have three fives. So that brings it to the Empress, which is like this, yeah, like, nothing sticks around, everything is temporary, and you get to have some tenderness around that.
[Cass]: I just love that connection, by the way. I'm still, I had to take a, just a pause 'cause yeah. 'cause then I started to go, oh yeah, it's also 5-5-5 is 15, it's also the devil and I, so I was…
[Jasper]: Mhm. That's a good point.
[Cass]: Mhm.
[Bear]: Are the Lovers. 1, 5, 6?
[Jasper]: Yeah, Lovers and the Devil have a very…
[Cass]: Mhm.
[Bear]: Yes, we've learned that in our bodies as we've gone through this process.
Yeah, I love that acknowledgement of grief and change too because what our dances, a lot of times end up being, are these cauldrons for grief to flow. There's a lot of wild sobbing and just.
[Jasper]: Mhm!
[Bear]: Mutual holding and, yeah, I feel like that's like a big part of being change-tenders at the edge of this culture that is changing and dissolving is, tending grief because that's such, that's just like the bread and butter of, of the changing culture. And, yeah, change is loss - is death - is rebirth - is grief. So yeah, appreciate that reflection.
[Jasper]: That has been my literal experience of your dance. So… I don't shed tears very often, ever since I started testosterone, my tear ducts have just been like, ‘we quit.’ So I often tell people that I ‘dry-cry.’ But the first time I went to one of your dances, I believe it was The Empress, the mother.
And I had this whole moment where I was just like, on the ground, bawling my eyeballs out like big alligator tears. And my friends are like, “are you okay?” I'm like, “yeah, this is great, leave me alone." Yeah, so like, yeah, I honestly hadn't cried that hard since Pulse happened. So it felt very like coming back to a part of my, like, embodied sadness. That felt really good, actually.
[Bear]: Gosh, thank you so much for that reflection.
[Cass]: Yeah, and I'm curious too, do you have a sense of, of what, like, allowed for that to ripen within you?
[Jasper]: Yeah. So many things. I went through a very serious breakup back in October (2023) that… included like this disbanding of family, like there were kids and animals involved and um… And also my child who is autistic, we couldn't find the services here that we needed, so they now live with my ex. So this loss of what I thought family should look like and my child moving away.
I had this moment when I just like… surrendered to what my body wanted to do and I began rocking like I had a baby in my arms and then, this whole floodgate thing happened. And I needed it and it was really wonderful.
[Cass]: Mmm, mhm, yeah. Sounds really powerful and cathartic and I appreciate your willingness to just share the, your, like your personal connections and your vulnerability. And yeah, as someone with a child who I split time with, I can really relate to what you're saying.
[Jasper]: I actually think that being queer means we have a portal, like we are a portal and that, how do I explain this? So when we look at the major arcana, we have The High Priestess. And my understanding is that what is behind her veil is The Moon, everything that's happening in The Moon card. And for me, queerness means that we are already behind that veil and in The Moon depth, like, we're already there, partially, even if we're not aware.
To be queer means that we're going to have religious trauma and religious wounds. And… yeah, I'm just curious how it's been feeling to try to build those bridges and also like, create the communities that you wish you had.
[Cass]: Mhm. Well, I'm just gonna say what comes to my mind. Just initially is the irony that we dance in a church. And… it's the point of discussion among us and often… people who come to dance. And… one person one time said, ‘I just saw Jesus as a trans mermaid.’
[Jasper]: That was my bestie that said that!
[Cass]: Was it your bestie? Nice! I guess for me personally, as someone who did grow up, like, having to go to church every week, and inherently despising it and just wanting to be, like outside with dirt on my hands and feet and yeah. Just frollicking like in the sun there's such an opportunity for shedding shame and deconditioning oppressive narratives, that there's almost this like sense, of like really radical composting, that feels like it's happening in that space. Like it feels like this regenerative offering mushroom compost to soil that no longer is nutritive.
[Jasper]: Radical composting. Oh, I love that! That's such a good way to say that.
[Bear]: And… I was raised pagan, so I was outside in the, with my hands in the dirt all the time. And… but still came in with this strong… analysis around religion and God and spirituality. That it was all shit and that God doesn't exist, my parents, that wasn't… what they were teaching me or communicating to me. They kind of just let me find my own way.
And I think just from a young age, picking up this, this social and political analysis and leaning into queerness and what does that mean? I sort of… found myself in the middle of this snowballing consensus around what it means to, like just have an anti-oppressive analysis and to be queer growing up in the northeast sort of like toxic liberal, like Democrat…
[Jasper]: Yeah.
[Bear]: Energy that you know, really told me what to think, it's like, you, you're an atheist, it was just another box that I found myself within and so… like, yeah, and, and the queer community that I found myself in really echoed that. Like here's what, here's how you think, here's what you think, here's what it means to be queer and in solidarity, and here's what solidarity looks like, and you know, it's a lot of lip service.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Northeast, but that's just, I have a lot of love and a lot of criticism of the culture that I come from up there, but yeah, finding… you know, like, what, the parts of me that are queer are the parts of me that are reaching for what is true always, and what is emergent, always, and I really find that in divinity, and in spirituality, and in like, prayer, and connection to the elements, and so, yeah, there's been sort of like a, I would call it ‘queer ego,’ but just this ego around… like the analysis that I am supposed to have as a, as a queer activist person, you know in 2020, whatever.
I feel like with Ritual Movement 555, a huge purpose is to bridge those worlds like bridge being a bridge, bridging the world of queerness and mutual aid and anti-oppression work with the divine and with creating spirit community that is infused with spirituality.
[Jasper]: I'm curious if there's anything you want to add on before I move on to other questions.
[Bear]: Yeah, there is something, but do you (Cass) want to add something?
This feels like, maybe a more sensitive topic, but you know, a part of the deeper work that we do is this rites of passage work. We studied at School of Lost Borders and have, you know, this specific lineage and yeah, it feels like Earth… connection and like, Earth based spirituality is really important to both of us and important to a lot of the people we know and, a lot of our time is spent… in awareness and considering how to do that in a way that doesn't contribute to Indigenous erasure and communicate specific, elements of different indigenous… cultures and then there's specific non-permissions things that cannot be used or reproduced or, or taught. And I feel… this sense of, I don't want to say urgency, but this, I feel this like, deep need for people to connect meaningfully with the land that they are on and for myself to connect meaningfully with the land I am on and to, both feel into my personal ancestral lineage and the ancestors of the land that I live on.
It's, it's uncomfortable and yet I feel it is so important to be having these conversations. The rite of passage we offer is very similar to a vision quest, but that is, that's not a term that we have permission to use. Yeah, like meshing the idea of a vision quest with like a western culture that's obsessed with manifestation and, the receiving an external vision, like it feels like the potential for toxicity is high and so we do something called a forest vigil, which is sitting in the forest and sitting with what is and finding our essence and our gifts in that way.
[Cass]: So then how, like, I'm like curious just to hear you connect rites of passage work with queerness and how that works as a bridge.
[Bear]: Yeah. I, I place such a personal value on, on social analysis and political analysis. And, I also feel and see the ways that that has created obstacles to… folks and folks in the queer community connecting with divinity and spirituality. And connecting in a meaningful and reciprocal way with the land.
And so, yeah, I guess I'm, I guess there's nothing conclusive except to say that this… work feels really important. It feels really important to create pathways for people to de-shame their relationship to divinity and to the earth and to their own indigenous ancestors. And, and it feels like doing this work and being involved in rites of passage work and land based spirituality here on this continent is. It also relates to reparations, it also relates to like, tending an active and alive relationship with this land here.
And it feels, yeah, that feels like the opposite of Indigenous erasure to me where… yeah, there's a connection to an, a lineage that is alive and that is still happening. And despite, actual genocide and actual absence of a strong indigenous presence in many parts of this continent. There's an alive tending to be done. There are relationships to tend to… beings here and now to future beings and to ancestors, individual ancestral lineage and ancestors of this land. That feels like, really important to me and anyways, I wanted to bring it up because it's hard to talk about and so I think it needs to be talked about.
[Jasper]: Mhm, yeah.
[Bear]: Thank you. Thank you both.
[Cass]: Yeah.
[Jasper]: I'm thinking about something that Ava says a lot about how this work is supposed to be uncomfortable. Like, we are supposed to be looking, feeling the… uncomfortable bits and working with that and how comfort is a respite. It's not supposed to be the constant state of being it is like you know, it's what… we feel comfort so that we can continue to doing the uncomfortable, stuff that make sure we're not just doing things like performative land acknowledgements and you know, taking things that we were not given permission. And that goes very deep for me too.
I know that my existence in any environment as a white person is like a lineage of harm. So, yeah, I'm really glad that you brought that up.
What if we wrap up with like, a couple of fun questions, since we have been really digging deep. I ask questions like, “what does divinity mean? Why is queer witchcraft important?” But I feel like we've already done those things. Let's see, what do I want to ask? Yeah, what music is making you really happy right now? Like, is there a song you have on repeat or you can't get out of your head?
[Cass]: Yeah, yeah, I've been just so ready to answer this question. So the band DEHD has a new album out called Poetry. DEHD: D-E-H-D… They're a little three piece rock band out of Chicago. And… I'm pretty much just listening to the whole album on repeat, but there's one song called Hard to Love that is in my head. You're probably getting kind of tired of it
[Bear]: No, I love it, honey.
[Cass]: Yeah. Oh I think I really love just these, really just the sweet punk vibes, that come… from the collaboration between all three, members of the band and every song. It just feels, it's like, so like, raw, and passionate, and tender. What was the line? It's like, just want someone a little rough and tumble and talks about sun setting and bad boy in a fast car. That's a different song, but I'm just now melding everything.
[Bear]: That's her gender in a big way. Bad boy, fast car.
[Cass]: Bad boy, fast car vibes.
[Jasper]: MHM! That's the whole archetype right there.
[Cass]: Yeah, leather jacket under the city bridge. Yeah, they're just really great love songs.
[Jasper]: Mhm.
[Cass]: Mhm.
[Jasper]: Yeah, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes and I'm definitely gonna go listen myself. This isn't one of my official questions, but I feel really inspired to ask what has been a highlight of the springtime for you recently?
[Bear]: I'm just gonna divulge this.
[Jasper]: Divulge away.
[Bear]: Yeah, I’m just going to divulge away. I'll just say just another thing that we didn't mention is that we both, you know, being our little queer country mice and we have a lot of our roots have to do with being in recovery from various things.
And I am, just, about seven years ago, I got sober from alcohol and that was a huge, beautiful thing in my life, and it's been so wonderful, and just this springtime, I'm doing another layer of, of sobriety with some other things in my life.
And so I'm, I kind of feel like I'm waking up again for the first time, it's really beautiful. And I'm like, like it's a little also hard because my dopamine circuit's a little like, conditioned to… other inputs that I no longer am using. But yeah, just, feeling like, I can go to a yoga class and I can like, meditate, and drink water, and just like really returning to really simple elemental things. And just feeling this new wave of presence wash over me and yeah, watching things bloom, watching things grow in the gardens really feeling present to this season has been, just in and of itself really, has been really wonderful, it's been a highlight.
[Cass]: Every spring I cherish my first jump in a cold river. So yeah, so I've had a couple of really great river plunges and just being able to just, really lizard on a hot rock, is one of my favorite things. So, really just having the opportunity to just lay myself down… on a big, big hot rock and just decompress and let the river go by is always really rejuvenating and, and feeds my soul.
[Jasper]: Oh, that's so sweet. My, my kiddo Phoenix has a hard time regulating temperature. So whenever we go to a river or something, like, you know, a few minutes and they'll be like, I'm going to go lizard now. And they'll just like, lay naked on a rock. And they’re like ‘I’m a lizard.’
[Cass]: Yeah!
[Jasper]: And it is such a wonderful feeling. Thank you for sharing that.
[Cass]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Jasper]: How can people find you on the internet and support the bridges that you're building?
[Cass]: They can find us on Instagram @ritualmovement555.
[Bear]: We also love an email ritualmovement555@gmail.com.
And you can come to our dances, which are every other Sunday night from 7 to 9 at Haw Creek Commons. And we also have, and you can see that we have a master flyer with all those dates for the whole season laid out on our Instagram. And also we have just started a morning dance wave series that's family friendly. For, yeah, so we strongly encourage kids and elders to join and that is, yes. So that's the Saturday morning. So it's a smaller, there's, yeah, there's more room to move, it's smaller and more time to share and a little bit lighter of a wave. It's still, we still hit ‘em pretty hard with the chaos, which is kind of our signature move, but you know, it's just a little like, more digestible. and then, and that is, those are not on consistent Saturdays, is there anything else?
[Cass]: I don't think so. I think I'm just like, I'm sitting with this quotation, I can't remember who said it, but it's like, ‘the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.’ And I think I love it that it elevates at once, like, like our love and appreciation for mystery, but also just sometimes like, experiencing life sometimes at like 60 what the fuck's per hour? ‘Cause things don't make sense these days and I'm just really grateful to like, be in a space and also just like, sit with you and like a space that does make sense. Like, it's nice to just have these like touch points and also I feel like to create a space where like when everyone's dancing and when like, I'm like, ‘this makes sense.’ Right. And so, yeah, just, I'm sitting and ending this conversation just with gratitude for, yeah, just feeling into that, like, this makes sense. Like in this moment, in all the senselessness it's really sweet to have these conversations. So, thanks for doing what you do and offering your work.
[Jasper]: Yeah. Thank you. I'm very grateful to the both of you for showing up in such a lovely way, even though you had to come down the mountain for it. So, I really appreciate your time.
[Jasper]: A quick reminder about how to support our work. Give us some stars and leave a review wherever you listen to our podcast, become a free or paid subscriber on our Substack, book a tarot reading through Calendly and possibly most important, tell your friends about us. We want to keep this podcast going and we need your support to do it.
[Jasper]: The Queer Conjure podcast is co-produced by Jasper, Ava, and Hailey. Our theme music is by Mother Mero. @QueerConjure is our Instagram. And please feel free to email us at queerconjure@gmail.com. Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again. Mmmmwah!
[Music]: Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Don't fear the mystery. Mystery. Mystery.
Season 2 Episode 7: Ritual Movement 555 with Cass and Bear