season 1, episode 10 - talking to our ghosts with sj jones

our guest for episode 10 is sj jones! sj is a fibre artist who lives at pheasant ridge farm, a small subsistence homestead located on the rugged shores of the minas basin in pisiguit, mi’kma’ki (nova scotia). sj is a graduate student in the history department at dalhousie university where they are researching the relationship between folklore and contemporary regenerative agricultural practices, in the context of traditional shepherding and wool production in the maritime provinces. you can find them on instagram @pheasant.ridge.farm.

each season we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #snortandcacklebookclub, with a book review by ash and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. this season's #snortandcacklebookclub read is witchcraft in early modern poland 1500-1800 by wanda wyporska.

take the fibre witch quiz at ashalberg.com/quiz. follow us on instagram @snortandcackle and be sure to subscribe via your favourite podcasting app so you don't miss an episode!

seasons 1-3 of snort & cackle are generously supported by the manitoba arts council.

transcript

snort & cackle - season 1, episode 10 -

sj jones

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays in the background.] Hello, and welcome to the Snort and Cackle podcast. I'm your host Ash Alberg. I'm a queer fibre witch and hedge witch, and each week I interview a fellow boss witch to discuss how everyday magic helps them make their life and the wider world a better place.

Expect serious discussions about intersections of privilege and oppression, big C versus small C capitalism, rituals, sustainability, astrology, ancestral work, and a whole lot of snorts and cackles. Each season, we read a new book about witchcraft practices around the world with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub with a book review by me and the occasional guest helping us close out the season. Our book this season is Witchcraft in Early Modern Poland, 1500-1800 by Wanda Wyporska. [Music fades out.]

I am here today with my oldest dear one, SJ Jones. SJ is a fiber artist who lives at Pheasant Ridge Farm, a small subsistence homestead located on the rugged shores of the Minas Basin in Pisiguit, Mi’kma’ki.

SJ is a graduate student in the history department at Dalhousie University, which is where we first met, where they are researching the relationship between folklore and contemporary regenerative agricultural practices in the context of traditional shepherding and wool production in the Maritime provinces, which obviously I love so much more.

Also, I apologize, I feel like my tongue is just like constantly tripping over itself. I need more coffee. Welcome SJ. Hi, my love. [Giggle-snorts.]

sj jones: Hellooo. Oh, it sounds so much better when you say it.
ash alberg: It's such a good bio. [SJ laughs.] I love it. It's very like official.

sj jones: Thank you! Oh, gosh. [Ash hoots.] Yeah. Hopefully, maybe when I become a [sound cuts out].

ash alberg: [Ash chuckles.] It's, I feel like you're just putting your life into academic structure and you're like, you're already doing all the things.

sj jones: Yeah. I ... so this week we just started classes again at ... in-person at Dal.

ash alberg: That's weird. But also Nova Scotia has done a good job of controlling shit.

sj jones: Yeah. And we have to show proof of vaccination and stuff, but --

ash alberg: Wow.

sj jones: Yeah. I'm definitely a lot older than all my classmates [Ash cackles and snorts] and I, when I was looking around and walking around campus ...

ash alberg: Riiight.
sj jones: I was just looking at the undergrads and I was like, you guys! You’re

little!
ash alberg: I'd like ... Yeeaah. We were babies.
sj jones: Yeah. ‘Cause what, we met in the fall of 2008, right?

ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah. Fall of 2008. Yeah. So we were like fresh little 18-year-old babies. Also, I should put some of this into context for folks before we like pop too far into it, which is that ... So, I've loved you my whole adult life. And we are twins, like actually birthday twins. We are born on the same day. We are extremely similar humans.

And we were ... like we're slightly less messy. I feel like we're like figuring our shit out now as adults. And we have a lot more insight than we did. We have grown into much more functional adults that I actually think we probably ... anybody looking at 18-year-old us is, would have been like, mah, these two will turn out all right.

Like we were a fucking mess in our undergrads [SJ giggles] and fuck. Yeah. [Ash laughs.]

sj jones: Ooh, being on campus, it's really back there in the same spot.

I walked around and, oh, I walked past Coburg coffee. It's a cafe near town and I just had these like flashbacks of me and you walking there with our handshoes in the fall

ash alberg: Yes!
sj jones: And waiting in line for like two hours because --
ash alberg: For so long!
sj jones: Everybody took so long to make coffee. [Both chuckle.]

ash alberg: Oh, my god, they were the most dysfunctional and it was so frustrating because it was like, it was literally like right up the street. It was like half a block away from the Arts building. And we would have these five minute breaks, max 10 minute breaks, that were like, okay, enough time that if Just Us! was down the street, we would have been able to like, go get our coffee, come back or go get our lattes, come back.

But I don't know what the fuck it was about ... I do know what it was about Coburg at that particular point in time, but aw fuck. But we literally would stand in line for 20 minutes and there would be like maybe three people ahead of us and the staff, some of the staff were great. It was actually weirdly split along gender lines, which was super fucking annoying.

And so it would have been quicker for us to actually walk down to Just Us!, which was like normally would be like a five-ish minute hike on itself. But if you booked it, you could do it in three and then get your coffee and then come back. And it would still be significant. There were times where we would do that and then see our friends still waiting at Coburg for their drinks.

And it's like, for fuck's sake!
sj jones: Totally.
ash alberg: Oh god, that's hilarious.
sj jones: Yeah. So it was a bit of a trip down memory lane. ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: yeah, and I went into the art center and like, remember that place where we used to sit?

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: What is it with adolescents and a corner to sit in?

ash alberg: Yes. There, there is something about that. Yeah.

sj jones: That ... the hallway outside of the bat, like the studio door that we did like all of our ... anyway.

ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: It was just, yeah. It’s good. And I love my department, the history

department's amazing. Yeah, I'm beside myself excited. It's great.

ash alberg: I'm so excited for you. This is just so cool. And like also I find it super fucking funny that we both went in for theater. Both of us were also like, so fucking weird that, bless our profs, they never really knew what to do with either of us through the whole degree.

And like every time, like I was cast as Death. What was it? Oh my god. What was the one where I wore the really good pants? Um ... not Sales Person, the Accountant. And then The Lady Butler [laughs] and we just ...

sj jones: Oh yeah! Oh, you were really good as The Lady Butler!

ash alberg: Thank you. I had fun with that one! Also the nice thing about being The Lady Butler was that when we were wearing our corsets, my costume was actually able to be loosened a bit because I was literally wearing like a man's shirt on top so that when my, when we like ... yeah, but I needed to loosen my corset, then they actually had space to do that.

And it was the like waistband of my skirt was the indication. Whereas for the rest of our classmates, it was like, you were in these like tiny little dresses that ... with like large skirts, but like the bodice was not going to let you open up that corset at all. Yeah. But yeah, like they didn't know what the fuck ...

sj jones: And I basically had no speaking roles!

ash alberg: Yes, that's right! You were consistent. I think one role was actually called “the mute.”

sj jones: Yeah. Sure was. [Giggles.] [Ash laughs.] Questionable now. ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: Very questionable, but ...

ash alberg: Yes. Also like to be specific, like this was a very old script. It wasn't like ... it was like a fresh script. I, like, the character's name was “the mute” from I dunno, I think this, that particular script I believe was written in like the 1800s-ish sometime. But yeah, we like, we did some weird shit.

And also we were both training on the side quite consistently with the alternative ... Halifax has a really strong alternative theater side and indie theater side which is actually honestly stronger than the regional programs. Like most people are working within the independent theater companies.

And then they'll like ... [snorts] I think it was ... somebody referred to it as “working the pole,” which is also like super fine. [SJ giggles] And it is a, it's the same thing where it was like, you would take a role at Neptune because you needed the money. And so it was like, like meme chose, in terms of the reasoning behind, it was like, “I'm going to do this. I'm ... it's something I'm really fucking good at. And also the pay is a lot better.”

So you go and you do that. And then you go back and you wait on your grants for your indie shows. But so we were both doing that on the side. And then also just like messy human beings. And both of us, our ... our entire class was doing double majors.

So you were doing German as your double major? I was doing gender studies. It was, it makes sense. But yeah, and then somewhere in there we also managed to have like more than the ... maybe not more than the usual high jinks, but like the high jinks that one would expect of like undergrad students.

And yeah, it was a true shit-show. But now, in our early thirties, like both of us are textile artists. We are both deeply invested in and obsessed with local wool production and supporting the Canadian Fibershed and like looking at land and place and the way that plays a role in clothing and textiles.

And you have actually gone further than me, because you are already in the position of like homestead in a rural space. You've got your own sheep babies. You have an entire room with your wheels and your loom and it's, I love it so very much. You also have a lot more critters than just the sheepies, but yeah.

It's fucking wild. When ... I felt like if somebody wants to be like, “I wonder what this class of Dal's acting students is doing nowadays?” Like most of our friends are doing stuff that's like semi-makes sense. And like a lot of them are still in ... I would say about half of them are still like actively doing performance of some sort whether it's like film or audio or stage.

And then there's you and me.
sj jones: There's quite a few of our cohort that are doing like podcasts and ... ash alberg: Yes!
sj jones: Like comedy and podcasts
ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: And scriptwriting and yeah.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah. And I guess this is I wouldn't say I feel like the others are doing like creative writing podcast sorts of things. I'm just like, I'm gonna talk with my friends.

sj jones: Yeah. Sweet. [Both giggle.]
ash alberg: Okay. But yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting time. But

anyway, I think we turned out better than I expected us to.

And also realistically, like if you and I had decided to stay in theater, we would be fucking shit shows. Like I actually ... also to be fair, I don't think that after my master’s I would have been able to do theater for a lot of years because literally like, trauma brain reduced my ability to remember things.

I used to be really good at monologues. I don't do monologues anymore, but ...

sj jones: Yeah. I think I would have a really hard time with monologues now as well.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: I don't, I don't even remember how I managed to fit all that in my

brain. No idea. [Ash snorts.] That skill is gone. [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: Skill does not exist anymore. We can read all the things. I feel like the research is a thing that we've gotten really good at. And like going down nerdy little rabbit holes, but yeah. To stand on a stage and recite a monologue is like, when I'm like, no, it's not there anymore.

So I guess we should have a ...
sj jones: [Audio distortion.] Oh, sorry. Am I ... there's a slight delay, I think? ash alberg: There is a slight delay. Yep.
sj jones: ... in your video. So ... yeah, but you can hear me okay?
ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: Okay. Alright.

ash alberg: Yeah, but okay. I guess we should technically like jump into the official thing, which is ... so here's our questions, which everybody who’s been listening through the season is used to by now, and also is used to the very many tangents that we go on. And probably there'll be extra tangents because I need more coffee.

But so, [laughs] tell us who you are and what you do in the world now. We've now just outlined our early twenties for people. What is it that you are doing now?

sj jones: Okay. So as you said already in my bio, I live in rural Nova Scotia, Mi’kma’ki. I live on a really, quite small farm. It's more of a homestead.

There's some prospects for growing in the future. So we have Icelandic sheep and we've just got our flock to a point where we're going to start breeding ourselves. Before we were buying sheep from some friends of ours.

And now we have the lineages down in such a way that we can just breed on our own farm and have babies, which I’m really excited about.

ash alberg: Mhm!

sj jones: Yeah, so at home I have a studio and I process my own wool off of my sheep, but also people in the community. There's quite a few people who have sheep here or families, and I've been asked to go help shear, and then in return, they'll give me some colorful fleeces that I don't have on my own farm.

Yeah, so it's this really nice little community of sheep people that are ... I guess I'm the only one that knows how to ... that's not true. Heather at Ironwood Fleece is a textile artist. She's a felter, I believe.

But in our community, I'm the only person that spins wool. And yeah, so I do that, I help other people. I ... it's just this really nice sharing. We also have chickens and we have a peacock named Ophelia [Ash sighs enviously] and she's wonderful. And she likes to eat blueberries,

ash alberg: Oh my god. Cute.

sj jones: Which is so cute. [Giggles.] It's painfully cute.

ash alberg: That's adorable.

sj jones: We also ... [audio distortion.] Yeah, and we have two dogs. We have finches in our house. There's always this like beautiful background chirping.

They, they were rescued. I didn't know that like small finches could be like a rescue animal. Like I, I just ... anyways, so Andy's sister had rescued these finches that were homeless because somebody moved and didn't want to bring their pet birds with them.

And then they had a bunch of babies and she didn’t know what to do with them [Ash gasps.] So we took all the siblings. So we have five finches in our house. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Oh my god! [Cackles.]

sj jones: Yeah. And, and two cats, of course. And our newest cat, she was supposed to be a barn cat because there's some rats up there, as there usually is with chickens, and, but we got her for free and she was the tiniest baby kitten and the rats were bigger than her. [Ash snorts.]

So we couldn't just put her out there! We felt terrible. [Ash snorts.] We thought they would attack her.

ash alberg: Yup.
sj jones: Plus they’re big rats. And yeah, she's now an inside cat. But she's all

black, and I think that's appropriate ... ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: ... because I'm a witch.
ash alberg: Yeah, exactly.

sj jones: And now I have my familiar. [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: You do! Yeah. Literally last ... yesterday, when you sent me a picture, I was like, oh my god, your familiar is here. It was great. [SJ giggles.] Not that you didn't already have a bunch of other furry familiars, but there's something about black cats that feels like extra appropriate. Yeah.

sj jones: So then I’m also a graduate student off my farm. Which we've already covered. Yeah, that’s what I do.

I, another witchy thing I want to mention before we get going any deeper is, you might notice that I have a bit of a lisp [Ash snorts] and this is because I have fake teeth.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.

sj jones: So I ... and long story short, I had to have some teeth surgically removed when I was really young, and I've had these like fake teeth that I can

take in and out. And they've broken, again. This is, seems to always happen to me. [Ash chuckles.] but I just haven't fixed them.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: And so now ... [Grrrs.] ash alberg: Oh my god!

sj jones: Like, I ... I think this is a real testament because I used to be really self-conscious. And anytime I, for some reason I had to take them out or whatever, I would feel really upset and I didn't want to smile, but now I'm like missing some teeth! And it's, yeah. So I, yeah, Susan Stackhouse, if you ever listen to this, my lisp is back. [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: I feel like we're constantly apologizing to Susan in our ... or in our recording of all the things. Fuck. Ugh. She was mom at our ...

sj jones: And for people that don't know, Susan Stackhouse was our voice and speech teacher at Dalhousie. I think she's still there. Wonderful professor.

ash alberg: I hope she's still there. She was like, we literally called her mom. We also called one of our classmates mom. But ‘cause it was literally, I mean, we were all shit shows at various points and like I remember one time ... so this is the fun thing about being theater people.

And I feel like it actually has served us very well in our witchdoms since then, because you become like hyper self aware of yourself, your body, where you are in space and also where others are in space and your intuition is honed in a way that like other ... it's not normal for other people. And it is a thing that I am like quite consistently ... It was interesting, yesterday I was having a conversation with someone and I was saying like, “I get this feeling off of you.”

And they were like, “What? How do you get that feeling? What do you mean?” And I was like, “It literally feels like there's like an aura or like a ghost that like, when you say this thing, there's like a little ghost that comes out and is like, nope.” And I was like, oh, right, this is a thing that's not normal for other people.

And probably that's why I am the first person telling you that this is the thing that I feel very strongly every time. And nobody else has ever brought it up to

you. But yeah, so like in our theater world, we would go and do honestly like sometimes deeply traumatic ... It was, the work was not traumatic. Life was traumatic.

The work itself is not traumatic, but you are often like processing trauma in theater, which I think was very healthy for us. But I like, distinctly recall in our fourth year I had a cancer scare and I was like, you had taken me to, to the hospital so that I could go and get my checkup done.

And it was, we knew that there was going to be like a few weeks before I would hear the results and like nobody other than you knew. And we were in, I think it was, it must been a movement class because if it was a ... it was ... no, it, we had a guest teacher come in and was doing like breathing exercises.

My breath got stuck at the spot where the cancer scare was sitting. And I like fully started hyperventilating and then had a panic attack. And I remember going upstairs, shoes weren't on ‘cause we were in studio. And so I like booked it up the stairs and went to go find somebody. And Susan opened her office door and saw me and was like, “Get inside.”

And I just sat in her office and busted out crying. And she was like, “Ookay.” And it was just like such a wonderfully motherly ... because my mom was thousands of miles away! And also because I didn't know what was going on at that point, I didn't want to scare her. But I like really needed a mom in that moment. [Laugh-snorts.]

And yeah Susan did that. But that was, it was a wild time in our lives.

Okay. So tell me about your experience with ritual and magic within the context of your life. And I should just like preface this with letting folks know that we will most likely end up talking about ghosts a lot, because we both hang out with ghosts on an ongoing basis.

And I think when we were younger I, I didn't, I definitely didn't talk to ghosts as frequently as I do now, but definitely there were a lot of ghosts that hung out around where we were and just generally around Mi’kma’ki. And you also saw ghosts on a fairly regular ... but we were both like way witchier than I think, at that point in time, we were necessarily like, identifying and making space for but let's talk about that.

sj jones: Okay. Tack, tack. [Making fun of accent.] [Ash snorts.] Woww. [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: Just going to be a crow for a moment.
sj jones: Let's tack about it. [Joking.] Very Cape Breton of you. ash alberg: I, yes, my mother would be proud.

sj jones: The question was ... Oh, okay! Yeah. Also if [audio garbled] but also, I don't know if you'll edit this out or what, but if there is like a space, it’s because we're wondering if the other person is going to talk because of the time delay.

ash alberg: Yes. [Both laugh.]

sj jones: So when ... I don't think I told you this, I don't know if I've ever told you this story, but it came up recently in another conversation with someone. And I couldn't tell you who, but when I was in like grade four, I was in a three-four split in a portable.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: For people that don't know what that is, is like a little kind of mobile home that they would put on school property to expand the classroom space. So then we had an open research project, and that point, my favorite book of all time was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It's a very creepy book and it has these ink pictures. And anyway, I decided to do my research project on ghosts, naturally ... [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Of course.
sj jones: ... and I tried to hold a seance in the classroom ... ash alberg: Oh my god! Who thought this was a good idea?? sj jones: ... during my- grade 4 year old SJ
ash alberg: Oh my god, and your teacher!

sj jones: No, she didn't know. [Ash snorts.] She didn't know that I was gonna whip this out in the middle of the presentation.

ash alberg: Oh god.

sj jones: So I think it got cut short. [Ash laughs.] ‘Cause I like turned off, I turned off the lights and made it really spooky. And I'm pretty sure she cut me off and probably just never wanted to address it ever again.

I don't know. I don't remember if she talked to my parents about it or whatever. [Ash guffaws.] Her name is ... I remember her name. Her name was Mrs. Lawlesster, she was a lovely teacher. Very sweet, like the teacher from Matilda.

ash alberg: Yes!
sj jones: Yeah, like that kind of vibe. ash alberg: [Sighs.]

sj jones: So that, that happened ... [Ash cackles] ... and I haven't really changed all at all. [Ash cackles.] I, yeah, the spirit world is a big part of my life. I live in a really haunted house.

ash alberg: Yes, you do.

sj jones: It's actually her season right now. My ghost is named Elizabeth Terhune. She was a Scottish settler who built my house in the late 1800s. And she died on Halloween

ash alberg: That's fas-- and it, whoa. That's also like extra reasons for her to come out on ... It's “Hello, vale’s thin, this is my time.”

sj jones: Yeah. It was October 31st, 1903 and I believe she was 64. ash alberg: Oh, wow.

sj jones: She had seven children. I don't know what happened to any of her boys. I'm ... we're, me and my partner, wondering if maybe they went off to a war because ...

ash alberg: Ohh.

sj jones: I can't find any mention of them.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: After the, I think there's a 1901 census ...

ash alberg: Okay.

sj jones: ... and they’re nowhere to be seen.

ash alberg: Interesting.

sj jones: And she had two daughters were both 23 years old when they died six years apart ...

ash alberg: Weird.
sj jones: ... in my house. And her husband passed away before her as well, so

I'm pretty she was the last one of her family.

ash alberg: That's intense. And like maybe died of a broken heart?

sj jones: Yeah. She outlived all of them.

ash alberg: That's a lot of grief to hold. Oof.

sj jones: Yeah.

ash alberg: And your house is super haunted. So maybe she's like hanging out with them all the time?

sj jones: Yeah.
ash alberg: But like in a way that she didn't want to. So that's a weight.

sj jones: Yeah. And her husband and her two daughters are buried at a local church near me, just down the road in my tiny community. So whenever I cycle around, like I ride horses just near me, and so I'm always on my bike.

And I'll stop in and have a sit down with them and just tell them I'm taking care of their house. And I try to be respectful. We'll probably bring some offerings to them on Halloween.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: Yeah. So when we first moved in, we had quite a few scares.

ash alberg: Yes. She's a very corporeal ghost. Like she's very ... she moves a lot of shit a lot.

sj jones: [Laughs.] Yeah. So when we first moved in, we'd wake up and the lights would be on at three in the morning. [Ash snorts.] And we assumed that it was like, cause it's a very old house.

So we just assumed the wiring was bad or something, but then it stopped doing that. So clearly something was going on.

And some of the weirdest ones she ... we had, when we first moved in, we checked our shoes in the mud room, which is a porch off of the front of many Maritime homes. And when we woke up in the morning, all of our shoes were in a perfect line on the porch.

There was one day that ... we have this big oak table in our, as our dining room table. And we were thinking of ... my parents are big antique people and we were thinking of getting some interesting chairs from them, or if they see any, to be the bookends of the table. And then one day, there had been this beautiful chair in our house that was a gift from my mom, and it was just at the head of the table. And both of ... me and Andy assumed that the other had put it there ...

ash alberg: Yeah, but you hadn't.
sj jones: ... and we hadn’t [Chuckles.] ash alberg: Oh my goodness.

sj jones: So ... we just, we've always kept it there. We've never ... ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: We've never moved it.
ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: Then one night she walked up the stairs we thought someone had broken into our house. I don't think either of us had ever been so scared in our lives.

ash alberg: Yeah. Yep.

sj jones: And yeah, and then many little things.

ash alberg: There was like, some knives moved around [SJ laughs] and I think those were the moments where it was like, I remember you and I texting about that. And it was like, I think maybe you need to like make ... either like boundary work or make connection, but like a lot of salt needs to be involved. [Laughs.]

sj jones: Yeah! [Laughs.] Yeah.
A lot of the stuff had been happening after I found out, ‘cause it took me a while

to track down the names of the people. ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: And then once I found out who they were, and then I found out where they were buried, it seemed to calm down a little bit.

ash alberg: Yes. Yeah.
sj jones: I wonder if she just trusts us more?

ash alberg: And I think there's a couple of things about this that I think are super fucking lovely. One, one of the things that I love about her is that she's actually, she's actually just keeping her house in order. She's ... it's like this

very, especially at that time, this very like old Scottish motherly instinct, just organize the shit.

Keep things in line. Like we don't have time or space for this to be extra messy. Keep, put your shoes properly! Like I, I do, I really love that about her. I also really love that your response to something that could be fucking terrifying to a normal human ... Not that you're not normal, but like neither of us is normal and I think that's a good thing. [SJ giggles.]

But I love that you, in response to this haunting, were like, “I'm going to go and find out more about my house and understand who the ghosts are that are attached to my house.” And that was your response to it. And then once you did find out then it also wasn't like, okay, now I know it's ... You now continue to make an active effort to connect with those spirits and give them offerings and let them know like, we're, we're doing, we're keeping the house well.

And it's ... to me, if I was a ghost, or if I think of a living person, like that is what we're looking for. And for ghosts, then it's ... house ghosts I always find are more corporeal because they've stayed attached to their space. But also because of that, then it is still their space, but it's not their space in the same way.

And so you, it is ‘kay, you've handed over the reigns, whether you wanted to or not, or whether you meant to or not. And you need to just let us do our thing. But I do appreciate that she's, “Who are these new people? They're making a mess, this is not okay.”

And it's just, it's so interesting that she's so very attached to the house still. I feel like that's a thing that actually happens quite a bit in the Maritimes, to be honest. There's like ... a lot of the most corporeal ghosts that I have encountered have been in, have been in Nova Scotia and then also in Poland. Like there's a lot of much more physical ghosts than I've experienced in other spaces.

sj jones: Yeah. I think, I don't know a person that doesn't have a ghost story ... ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: ... that is from this area.
ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: Everybody does. An interesting thing about my home as well is it's had a very kind of tumultuous past.

I do know that at some point there was a Norwegian family, I believe, that lived in my house and their child drowned, I think at the quarry.

ash alberg: Okay.

sj jones: Which is, there's a flooded quarry that people ... it's a recreation site now. And then there's been families that had really messy domestic issues in my home. My house sat empty for quite a while.

So before me, there was a family that lived here for a very short period of time. Before them, the house had just been empty for many years. So yeah, I think it just ... it needed a caretaker.

ash alberg: Yeah. And I can totally also understand that. If Elizabeth was as active for that other family as she is for you, that would absolutely ... I did get lucky with my house because I didn't actually look at my house before I bought it. Just put the offer in and got it.

I know. I know. And I got, I did get lucky because there's no ... I don't have a house ghost.

Right now I actually, we were discussing this before we started recording. I actually need to do a deep clean, because there are some ghosts that have taken up residence and it's, it's not ... like I came down the other night ‘cause I like heard a sound. And as I was walking down the stairs, I got this like massive whiff of like lemon or pink grapefruit essential oil.

And I was like, what the fuck? And so I went back upstairs, got my phone and got my dog spray. ‘Cause it was just like, it was as though somebody had just walked through the room because it was such a strong scent. It wasn't like, like a nice little filter of a scent. It was like, okay, somebody literally just walked past.

And it took over my entire main floor and I could not figure out what the fuck was going on, but it also was accompanied with a “okay, there's something here.” And Willow was unperturbed, which is usually my indication. But then I also was made aware that ... I think another time last week, possibly, she was

... like, I was fast asleep and she was just awake, sitting upright staring at the door.

So there's some ghosts that I need to clean out before winter comes and I have to shut all the doors again. But yeah, it's like,

sj jones: [Audio distorted.]

ash alberg: Yeah. If you're not used to it, then that is super scary. And so if you buy a house and you're not expecting that, especially with Elizabeth, like that level of haunting is ... would be terrifying. And like you're in a rural area, it's the stuff that all horror movies are made of.

So yeah, it's ...

sj jones: We literally don't have neighbors either. So when you look at our house, we do, but they're ... like they're far away.

ash alberg: right.

sj jones: They're not ... There's many acres between us and our neighbors. When you ... I'm always keenly aware of how isolated and rurally we do live when you drive the house at night time ...

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: ... because there's no ambient light really. If someone's here and the house is illuminated from the inside, like these amber windows, like that's the only kind of glow that there is.

It's ... we have a really dark sky, so it's quite, yeah, it's quite something. You get this feeling of, especially in the night, like you're in a fishbowl ...

ash alberg: Yup.
sj jones: ... and that outside is just this void of blackness. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yes. Yes. I like, there's parts of rural living that I so deeply appreciate, but that ... I think whenever I end up, I will always have dogs, A, but then B, I think I will also probably be training an attack dog, not for the

ghosts, because the ghosts ... attack dogs aren't going to do fucking anything for a ghost.

There's other ways of mitigating that situation. But for humans, like I don't trust that like I wouldn't walk into my house someday and somebody has like broken in or something. That's just, my paranoia goes that way. And so I'm like, OK, attack dog, have that trained so that anytime I come home, open the door, go hunt and then come back and ...

sj jones: Oh yeah. I I definitely have like, plans in place in my mind ... ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: ... should anyone ever come to my house that I don't know, or that feels threatening,

ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: But yeah, I have two, one very [audio distorted] dog and one medium

dog that ... but actually the, our border collie can be way more fierce.

ash alberg: Yes. Yep.

sj jones: She's extremely protective.

So of every, everybody that lives on the farm, whether it's the cats or the chickens, she's extremely protective.

ash alberg: Nice.

sj jones: So it's helpful. And they, they can tell, they'll tell you 15 minutes before someone is close enough, because we live also at the end of a really long lane.

Yeah, but there was something else that I thought of while we were talking about the ghosts that in our homes. When, probably, I don't know, a year and a half ago, before we discovered the family and the names and after the really scary sort of 3:00 AM someone's in the house moment ...

ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: I had said ... we hear a lot of sounds like banging and scratching, and there are holes in our walls, so it's probably animals, but it's still alarming.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: So I remember one day in the night we heard some scratching or

banging. And I said to Andy, we check the attic?

ash alberg: Oh my god! No, you should not check the attic! Fuck right off. [SJ laughs in the background.]

sj jones: His response to me was, “Absolutely not. That's clearly the portal to hell.” [Both laugh.]

ash alberg: Oh my god. See, this is why Andy and I get along so well. [Cackles and snorts.]

sj jones: He's, “What are you ...? No, absolutely not. Definitely not checking the attic.”

ash alberg: God, that's so funny. Fuck. That's great.
sj jones: [Laughs.] But I think now if we thought something was in the attic, we

wouldn't be scared to go look in the attic.
ash alberg: A hundred percent.
sj jones: Because we're comfortable with the situation. And ...

ash alberg: Yes. And because you've also claimed the space, right? Like you've made it very clear that this whole space is our space and we are care-taking this whole space. It's not like, here's a room that we literally never go in.

sj jones: No. Andy used to travel for work a lot before COVID ...
ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: ... and I used to make my mom sleep over with me. [Giggles.]

ash alberg: Yeah. I ... that's a reasonable thing. I think also like, your mom and your dad live like a farm over or something like that? But is their house not a similar situation? Is your dad ... are you not then leaving your dad to his ghosts ... whatevers? [Snorts.]

sj jones: Yeeeaaah. So I think my dad isn't really tuned into that. ash alberg: Okay. So he's not going to be bothered.

sj jones: But I think my mom, I don't like ... I don't think that she would sleep here by herself.

ash alberg: No, I can definitely ... like the times that I've met your mom and your dad, both of those things absolutely ring true. [SJ laughs.] Like your mom is very attuned to things and your dad is just this like, wonderfully like, “happy go lucky, this is great, this is the best.” Just like he's ... Yeah, so not oblivious, just like very happily living like on this plane.

And your mom definitely feels like she almost floats a little bit above this plane.

sj jones: yeah. And my mom really likes to read like Victorian dramas and like Gothic novels. And so she gets scared easily and she'll be nervous. And I’m like “What do you ...” “Well I read this book and there was this spooky lady.” [Ash snorts.] Yeah. It was just super cute.

ash alberg: I love it. God, she should never watch Midsomer Murders because that is frequently ... I like, I started bingeing Midsomer Murders pre-COVID and have not watched it since. And it got to the point where I was like, ooookay, this is a little much. ‘Cause it frequently is also like, haunting attached ‘cause it's in a rural area in the UK, like lots of ghosts hang out there.

So yeah.
sj jones: Yeah.

ash alberg: So funny. God. Okay. So then how for you, does your magic and ritual work show up in your work?

sj jones: Okay. So I was thinking about this actually last night when I was putting my sheep away. My sheep live a very luxurious life.

ash alberg: Yes they do. Yeah.

sj jones: And they have nice, fresh, fluffy beds to sleep on every day. We put them in barns at night and then they're rotationally great for the other, I don't know, at least 12 hours or 10 hours of the day ... no, more like 14. Anyway, that's an aside, but I wake up every day and I have the exact same routine in the morning, and in evening, every day.

I've done it the same every single day for two years. So the ritual of letting the sheep out, checking them, smelling them, deciding where I'm going to put them wondering where they'd like to go, because often they know when their pasture is too depleted before I can see it with my own eyes. And so this lovely relationship with those beasts, in particularly with the rams because they are huge horned animals ...

ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: I think our biggest ram is at least 200 pounds.

ash alberg: Yeah. And like also Icelandic sheep are on the smaller side of sheep. So like, for folks that don't understand sheep breeds, like Icelandics are considered smaller. Their horns are fucking intense, but a small sheep is still like a 200 pound, very ... Rams, especially like as Aries, we know rams are moody fuckers.

Like they change their minds and they're also very stubborn. They don't like being told what to do. Yeah.

sj jones: Yeah. And having this ... and think it's worth noting that I got rams before I got ewes.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: So ... which a lot of people gave me guff about, like, “Why would you take intact rams?” And it was because they had a beautiful wool. And they, you know, they were on their way to be sausages for somebody else.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: And so I'm like, yeah, I'll, we'll see how this goes. [Ash cackles.]

And so building this kind of respectful relationship with them has been beautiful. And I lay my hands on those two boys many times a day. So they, I can go in with them. Even now, when they're ... we have ewes on the property and we're getting close to mating season, and I can go in and they’ll saunter over to me and they want their noses pat like dogs.

So I think that having that relationship with such kind of primitive-looking creatures, because their horns are huge, spirally, amazing things. And it's always this kind of fine line of, are you coming over to me because you want me to touch you? Are you actually coming over to me because you want to take out my knee caps oorr ...

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: What’s ... [Ash guffaws.] ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: There is such magic in that communication with a species that is nothing like a person or even a dog. I call them similar to dogs, but they're ... you can't tell what they're thinking.

ash alberg: Yeah, totally. Totally. Because they ...
sj jones: They have don’t have ... [Both talking at the same time.] ash alberg: Sorry, go ahead.
sj jones: No, go ahead.

ash alberg: They do behave similarly to dogs in a lot of moments and the, I think, especially the sweetness with which they can attach themselves to humans, right? Like they're not consistently like that, but they do enjoy physical affection. They enjoy spending time next to you.

The curiosity of lambs is very similar to the curiosity of puppies. But yeah, they also they're ... like, Willow and I have a language that I can sometimes understand a bit of what sheep are thinking and connecting with them, but it's not the same size of vocabulary. Like it's, they are speaking a very different language.

Like they are ... And there's something interesting, I think, about like, dogs were the first domesticated creature and sheep were the first domesticated livestock. There is something about that like, millennia-long relationship with both species that like, there, there's clearly a reason why we have grown in this symbiotic relationship for so long with both.

And there's an affinity there that also probably there's a bit of a similarity there. But they are still quite different.

sj jones: They ... and you wake up and you throw on your warm clothes and there's mist in the pasture and you let them out and maybe there's still a morning star. Like that to me is magic.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: That is the definition of magic.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: So that, that's my everyday life, but now I've also incorporated that in my academic life as a up and coming scholar [Ash cackles.]

ash alberg: I'm excited for your thesis and I will read all of your books.

sj jones: They're all about folklore! Or it's going to be heavily about folklore and how that relates to regenerative agriculture that hopefully can see us, the next generations, through.

So every of aspect of my life, there's no separation between. And sometimes I'm reading something, a text that is relevant to one of my classes or something that I think might be interesting to add to my bibliography for later writings, and it's about witchcraft and ...

ash alberg: Yeah

sj jones: the, a story from Lunenburg of an old woman who seemingly cast a curse, and then the response of that family was to pee in a little bottle and put a cork in it, a couple of pins and hide it.

ash alberg: That's hilarious.

sj jones: And, so in order to relieve the curse ...
ash alberg: Yeah!
sj jones: There's a lot of pee in bottles with pins in ...

ash alberg: And it is interesting, the pee is okay, like bodily fluids, like they're, it's like slight, also slightly less ... I feel like often blood work is like a really specific like sideways type of magic. And so pee is like ... also it's sterilizing. So I don't know ...

sj jones: It's ... I have this great little book called, I think, Witchcraft in the Maritimes?

ash alberg: Oh, cool!

sj jones: It's, yeah. It’s ... oh, what's his name? I usually have it on my bedside, but I don't. He is a folklorist and I think you can tell that he’s been heavily influenced by Helen Creighton, who, for those of you don't know is like the ... a very famous folklorist from the Maritimes who went around and collected stories and songs.

And she wrote a famous book called Bluenose Ghosts. So he's obviously, he writes very similar to her which is, it's very plain language, which it's accessible and right to the point. And he's, “Oh, there was a man in Sambro...” And yeah, it's a great little book. I picked it up at one of our ... we have a ton of local, little, tiny bookstores that carry kind of independent press stuff from the Maritimes.

And I read it all the time. It's like my bathtub book. Like I ... ash alberg: I love that.
sj jones: Yeah, I'll get a bath and read about ...
ash alberg: That sounds ideal.

sj jones: There's a, yeah, there’s a lot about harbingers, and the Maritimes is just so rife with that. It's an area ...

ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: ... of conflict and ...
ash alberg: Yeah. Yeah.
sj jones: Deep history, old history in what is Canada. So ... [Both talk at the same time.]

ash alberg: Yeah. And there's also there's so many different like cultures and like ancestries that have overlapped that are all quite spiritual and all have very tight connections to... Scots absolutely have a really strong spiritual, like talking to spirits. And especially I think with the fishing, and fisher, like the fishermen being lost at sea and haunted ships, the number of haunted ships and the wreckages around the Maritimes is so intense.

And then you have Mi’kma’ki legends and Glooscap and and they weave into one another so much. And yeah, there's ... you're also very much at the whim of the elements, which, when you add in the element of the ocean and water becomes, I feel like it makes things even bigger.

Like it's ... what I, like when ... we've both been to Iceland and like Iceland is at the whim of every fucking element. Like it is such a wild space. Even the areas that are inhabited. And so it's very easy to see why connection to folklore and belief in other things remains as strong because you are consistently tested and consistently at the mercy of things that you have zero control over.

And so there's also going to be more of like a ... not necessarily a reckoning, but an attempt to make good with those things so that you stay safe.

sj jones: Yeah. And a story for when tragedy happens, I think as well.
ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: ‘Cause it's so hard, I think to ... when, when it, when a ship sinks ... ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: You want an answer.

ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: How ... I think it's only, I think it's quite human nature to come up

with the reason, right? ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: If you don't have the science or even ... it's not going to give you a reason anyway.

ash alberg: Yeah, exactly.
sj jones: Or it’s, “Oh, see, you took too many fish from the sea ...” ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: and so it had to take something back, right?
ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: This mentality it, it’s like a finite ...

ash alberg: Yeah. It's so interesting too, just like the way that, because it ... like somebody who's not as attuned to both nature and spirit may think, “What the fuck do you know, like what do witchcraft and regenerative agriculture have to do with each other?” And it's actually fucking everything because the vast majority of rituals are rooted in ...

And, we're talking about at a time when like, many of these things were established at a time when you were living subsistence lifestyles. One season's harvest literally determined whether you lived or died. And across the world, everything was very much attached to harvest and food. And the times that we are celebrating and the gods that you are like giving offerings to, and the things that you are most concerned about, is pretty much food supply.

And the theft of food or the spoiling of milk, or the spoiling of beer, like curses are attached to food and drink. Offerings and blessings are attached to food and drink. I was just doing a Ukrainian patternwork and spellwork class that then ... I am not Ukrainian, but Slavic stuff.

I was like, hey, give me like an in to things that are Ukrainian, so that then I can see what's the overlap with Polish and then I can go down my own little Polish rabbit hole. Which is so much fun, but it's ... so there's one day in particular, August 15th every year, which is now a recurring thing in my calendar, is Matka Boska Zielna, which is, “divine mother of the herb” is what it translates to.

And because Catholicism has such a strong hold on Poland and has for the past, five or six centuries in particular, then the divine mother is frequently seen as holy mother at this point, but it actually roots further back to two older goddesses that pagan Poles would pray to and pagan Slavics would pray too.

And on August 15th every year, so prior to August 15th, and it's interesting that it's such a specific date on the calendar because usually things are not. But on August 15th, prior to that, it was forbidden to take anything from that year's harvest. If you were to eat an apple or to eat some nuts or harvest some berries or something like that then you would be punished.

And August 15th, on Matka Boska Zielna, then you would create bouquets and wreaths of herbs and flowers and have them blessed. And then those herbs and bouquets, or those wreaths and bouquets would then be used over the coming year to make medicine and food. And so for everybody yeah, it was an important day. And you would bring things, but particularly for the herbalists and the women healers who then were actively using these as medicines, as poisons, if necessary, as culinary ... more so though for the medicinal use.

It was an incredibly important day of the year because you needed to get those things blessed in order to then use them to help your community then through the rest of the year. And then anything that was left over would then be burned in the ashes, scattered as an offering.

And I was telling this to someone who’s of Filipino heritage. So like the Catholic bit overlaps, but otherwise completely different portions of the world. At the time that these were both established, like that would not be a regular trade route of any sort. And they were like, I recognize ... as I was explaining this thing, they were like, “I know exactly what you're talking about. We do the same thing in the Philippines.”

And again, Philippines also being a very Catholic culture. Like it's ... the, there is quite a bit of folklore that has remained and is still heavily believed, but it is

also something that is in the same way, I think, in Poland, it's like not, it's not what is going to be the first thing that people are going to tell you.

And so that's one of the things that I love. And also what I loved about the Ukrainian patternwork class was like seeing these very traditional patterns, which definitely overlap in Polish patterns, but I'm looking at them and I'm like, oh my god, some of these images I recognize as being images that my Maori friend is using in their work.

And so it's like this collective consciousness of human brains that are like, at times that were so much further apart and where the travel and the connection was not happening in the same way. We just intuitively knew these are symbols that we are going to use. And these symbols have magic attached to them.

And the things that we need to do are attached to the same thing and like the tree of life, on both the Scottish and the Polish side for me, are both incredibly important imagery and they are completely different cultures. And yeah, there would be some crossover, but not to the same extent.

And yet these are both things that through centuries have been, and through millennia have been seen as, okay, this is important. This is a thing that we need to use and frequently it does go back to the harvest and to the season and asking for blessings and then giving offerings as a thank you for those blessings.

sj jones: Yeah. That's super interesting! It reminds me of ... it makes me think of like the spiral and sacred geometry just generally.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: And how, like you were saying, it, it doesn't seem to matter from which part of the global culture is or was, and no matter how isolated or with contact, there are some shapes and symbols that everybody seems to have a story about or are part of some kind of worship.

Super interesting. And it's ... as different as we are, that, that age old saying, there's, there are so many similarities. And especially in a time where everybody is so divided ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: I think it's so heartwarming to find those connections within vastly different cultures and spaces.

ash alberg: Mhmmm. Yeah, it's fun. It's very, it's weird sometimes. But lovely.

So a lot of the folklore that I think is like, first comes to mind within the Maritimes is certainly like, white settler folklore. And then also like Mi’mka’ki Glooscap legends and other legends as well, but for me, I grew up knowing about Glooscap because my mom's side of the family, like Cape Breton was where they came from.

But when I was a child, I was always going to Parrsboro, which is on the Bay of Fundy. It's at, it's the highest tides of the world. Glooscap is very much ... and Two Islands and Five Islands are all like, there's a lot.

The Glooscap legends actively happen in that region. And like the whole region, but like in particular, that region is a lot. So I always grew up like going home and visiting and hearing Glooscap legends and just like knowing that was a thing.

But there's also ... and then there's the, so there's a lot of Scots and Brits. There's also quite a heavy French history, which Acadiens, the ex ... expolation? Is that the word?

No. What was it called? The expelling?
sj jones: Expulsion.
ash alberg: Yeah. And they were actually ...
sj jones: Can you hear me? Have I lost, have I lost ...
ash alberg: but I think ... No, you're good now. I got ya.
sj jones: I'm gonna, I'm gonna just switch my internet to my cell phone data. ash alberg: Okay.
sj jones: Cause I feel I'm getting choppy.

ash alberg: Okay, sounds good.
sj jones: There's apparently a time limit on my internet.

ash alberg: That's super weird and inconvenient. This is also the thing of like rural internet in “Cananada,” as I refer to it. Yeah, it's rubbish. But yeah, so and so the Cajuns in Louisiana are actually the expelled Acadiens from the Maritimes. But then there's also the former Black slaves from the south, the railway, the underground railway literally took them up to that region as well.

So there's a lot of Black history. And so in particular like West African, if you root it far enough back, but more if you don't route it that far back then, like Southern Black American slave history that then became its own racist bullshit in Canada, because Canada is not immune to racism in any way, shape or form as we are, always were.

So how are you finding the, trying to find the research? ‘Cause there actually, there's a lot of books that are written about just like hauntings around Canada. And in particular, the Maritimes. Like there’s, I very distinctly remember as a child, just everybody's bathroom ... ‘cause in the Maritimes also, everybody has books in their bathroom.

Because it's, “You're going to be here for a while. Feel free to read these books.” And frequently those books are, it's like, there's a Reader's Digest and also a book about the region's hauntings. That's every single Maritime bathroom.

And but it's frequently, there might be like one or two Mi’kma’ki stories in there. Mostly it's about white settlers and somebody killed somebody, blah, blah, blah, or somebody’s shipped sunk, blah, blah, blah. There's very little information about Black history in that is like widely available if you're not just going and looking for it.

So how are you finding that at this point within your research?

sj jones: Yeah. That's actually a really interesting thing that you bring up because I am of mixed descent. My mom is a Scottish, very Scottish/Welsh/English mixture, so the British Isles. And then my dad is Black and Quebecois. I'm a lot of different Nova Scotian identities.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: Kind of mixed into one. And I have been ... part of my thesis proposal was looking at ... so when sheep arrived, which I believe the date is 1604?

ash alberg: Okay.

sj jones: I want to say 1604. The French brought the first sheep and apparently the sheep were so excited to see land, they jumped off the boat and swam to shore.

ash alberg: That is hilarious and I don't blame them at all.
sj jones: This was on, this was, it happened ... I forget the name of the little

community, but on the south shore of Nova Scotia.

Part of my research, which I'm just beginning, I ... it was ... when I was doing this, it was during COVID. So I couldn't actually go to different museums or centers to get my hands. It was anything that was available online.

So I'm interested in, specifically when we had Black loyalists settle and then of course the settlements in Preston and in Five Mile Plains, which is now Three Mile Plains, and what happened when those settlements were established and whether or not they had sheep. There is, there's some examples of Indigenous communities integrating sheep, like the Coast Salish people.

ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: Those magnificent sweaters ...
ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: ... that they’re famous for. I believe it's Coast Salish. ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: So looking at how these communities that didn’t necessarily have sheep as part of their ancestral knowledge or sense of agriculture, how they mixed and what kind of folklore we bring up out of that.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: And, my sister, who is also working on some genealogy aspects of our own family, thinks she's found one of our ancestors who was, as far as we can tell one, of the first families to settle in north Preston.

ash alberg: Okay.

sj jones: And he had a farm. And so what I want to know is what he farmed.

ash alberg: Yes!

sj jones: And then I'm really interested to know if he had livestock and if that included sheep.

ash alberg: Yeess!
sj jones: Because there isn't a lot of documentation. A lot of it that is accessible

online is primary resources.

ash alberg: Right.

sj jones: So you're reading census documents ...

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: ... which you also have to take with a grain of salt because [audio distortion] manually wrote this stuff in. It’s not always accurate.

ash alberg: Yeah, exactly.

sj jones: Yeah. So I'm looking for that between specifically sheep and the Black people in Nova Scotia. I uncovered this document that was, it’s a letter written to some official, I forget his name, who was part of the government. And it was this man who had a wool kind of industry of his own.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: And he employed people to spin for him. ash alberg: Okay.

sj jones: I think he himself was a weaver, but he employed people to spin for him.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: And in this document he ... and it's from, I dunno, the mid-19th century, he describes how he would like to employ women from Preston because they're better spinners.

ash alberg: That's so interesting!

sj jones: I know! And so clearly this is a part of the culture --

ash alberg: There is a connection that is there. Yeah.

sj jones: And unfortunately his business proposal was not given the go ahead.

ash alberg: Ahhh.

sj jones: And in this document, he talked about supporting the community and boosting their community economics essentially.

ash alberg: That's so interesting! sj jones: Yeah, so --

ash alberg: Because also there are a lot of sheep breeds that are specific to Africa. So like the connection, whether there were sheep in the, on the plantations or wherever folks were coming from, if they were in the States, ancestrally there's a lot of tie in with sheep.

sj jones: Yeah, no, there is. From my ... again, I haven't gotten very far in this research, but there's a lot of meat breeds, specific to --

ash alberg: Yes. Yep.

sj jones: So I've always wondered if, cause I know that there's a lots of, tons of weaving traditions across the African continent.

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: Very complicated in spiritual, spiritually connected or not ...

ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: ... traditions. And I don't know enough about it, and I don’t know what kind of fiber they used or use today, ‘cause it's still a modern thing.

ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: Yeah. I'm really interested in studying that and learning more about that. And hopefully uncovering more documents that, that paint the picture because it's a gap.

ash alberg: Yeeah.

sj jones: So far as I can tell, there's quite a gap there.

ash alberg: That's super fucking cool. I'm very excited to, for everything that you uncover more of. I also appreciate your tenacity when it comes to digging through those old records, ‘cause fuck, like every once in a while I like go down a little rabbit hole because I do actually really love old documents.

There's something about them that's just super satisfying, but also yeah, who the fuck knows with accuracy, and like when you get pieces of something, but not much. And then it's sometimes there's so much detail, but other times it's just like a name and maybe a number. And you can guess from the number maybe they're talking about their age, maybe they're talking about a salary, like who knows?

Yeah.

sj jones: I, over the summer, I did a summer class [for] my upcoming MA, and I spent a lot of time digging through the NS, the Nova Scotia archives, online. My sort of summer research project was to create a historical picture of the land that I steward. Like the idea of Sankofa, go back and get it, look backwards to see what is useful in order to choose the right path forward.

So my research project was to like go into a deep dive of my specific plot of land in Kempt Shore ...

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: Nova Scotia. And so to show what that means for the land, but also to

show the methodology that other people could follow.

“Oh I've always wanted to know about my farm! Oh, yeah, we have an archive. I wonder if I ...” that kind of a thing. As a learning tool to share with other people who maybe don't know that you can go and look up that kind of information.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: So it was really interesting. And I'm situated, so I'm on the Minas Basin in that fertile crescent where the Acadians built the dyke lands, created this kind of agricultural hub. So yeah, it was really fascinating and I really enjoyed doing that work

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: And, and from doing that work, I created this image of ... in my community, there were so many people that identified as being a farmer and so many who either worked at the quarry or the one seamstress or the one midwife. You could [audio distortion] based on who was producing food and based on who else was living in the community, you could guess as to what they were producing or how large their chunks of land were.

If half of their food went to market or ... ash alberg: Yep.

sj jones: ... you could determine some of that by analyzing many years of census taking.

ash alberg: That is so interesting. And also makes a lot of sense, right? It is that like pattern analysis. That's, yeah, that's super cool. So what's something that you wish you'd been told when you were younger about magic or ritual or witchcraft?

sj jones: Oh, that it's real! [Both laugh.] And that it is part of, I think, part of a person's health. Like tuning into magic and in witchcraft and growing things, because it coincides ... I, to me, witchcraft is growing things.

ash alberg: Yes. A hundred percent.
sj jones: And nourishing. One of my favorite things to do is go out into my herb

garden and randomly pick things and make a tea. ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: And it's oh, there's basil in this tea. And oh, I, oh, I have two camomile flowers!

ash alberg: Yeah. They're going to go into the tea! sj jones: It's like the angry soup version, but for tea.

ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. I love this so much. Oh, we didn't tell the angry soup story.

sj jones: Oh, the angry soup!

ash alberg: So one time we were both very depressed, which manifested in ... for me, especially being really angry, I think you as well, although you were also a little bit better at the like apathetic version of depression than ... I was just angry all the time.

sj jones: I don't know if that's a skill! [Laughs.]

ash alberg: [Gobbledy-gook]. I feel like I ... neither of us needs to go back to this place. Let's just put that there. But we were also very good at holding each other when we were as fucked up as we were. And so there was one day in particular that I was living in the gingerbread house and we woke up in the morning.

sj jones: Also, not a real gingerbread house!

ash alberg: No we refer to ... [Ash cackles.] Right. Yeah. Context. We referred to it as the gingerbread house. It was super cute and like a gingerbread house, but it was an actual house.

sj jones: Like the Hansel and Gretel house, like ...

ash alberg: Yeah, it really was like different colors in every room. And it was like a one and a half story that like, there were three bedrooms on the half story upstairs. So we all had like weird leanings into our, like the roofs were interesting. But the house itself was incredibly cute and sweet.

And I lived there for most of the time that I lived in Halifax. And so we woke up and were very angry and also needed to eat food, which was a thing that also we could be good at not doing. And so we decided to make angry soup. And so literally and also in Nova Scotia, specifically in Hali, there is a wonderful farmer's market that runs year-round.

Whereas here I deal with May through October is when I get a farmer's market and then I have to make due with not, which makes me very sad all the fucking time. But in Halifax year-round, you can have wonderful vegetables. And so every Saturday, go get your veggies. But of course also that meant that inevitably there would be like some old veggies living in your fridge that needed to be dealt with.

And so we, I literally do not know what we put in this soup. I think apples were in it, for sure. There was a squash, probably some carrots. We put a bunch of herbs ...

sj jones: Lots of garlic!

ash alberg: Lots of garlic. Yeah, definitely lots of garlic. But I don't know what the fuck else we put into it. And we refer to it still as angry soup and it was so nourishing, but we just needed to process all of our feelings in this soup.

And so we made the soup and then we also made like a nice like honey oatmeal bread, I think is what we determined was?

sj jones: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

ash alberg: And it was very good and nourishing and stuck to our bones in a way that we needed at that time slash always need. And yeah. But we still refer to it as angry soup.

And now we just joke about the fact that we make not angry soup and that when we spend time together, we will make things that are just as nourishing, but that are not, it's like the non-angry soup version.

sj jones: Yeah. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: But I love that tea and I think we, we've had this discussion before about how like water-based things are ... there, there's something really good about them. Baths are good and soup and stew is good and tea is good. And it's it's what you, and also we put plants and all of them all the time it's here's the herbs, like baths are also, there's lots of herbs in a bath. Like it's yeah, you just soak in the plant friend goodness.

That's so funny. I love that. I love that I ...

sj jones: No, definitely ...

ash alberg: Sorry, go ahead.

sj jones: No, definitely that it's ... Yeah. That is witchcraft or magic is very much about plants. [Laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: To me. There's nothing more that I love then when I've bundled up my garlic and herbs and they're hanging from my wooden beams and I can stand under them and admire the little bundles.

ash alberg: Oh, and it just smells so good. [Sighs.] sj jones: Yeah. And it ...
ash alberg: Sorry, go ahead.

sj jones: No, it's just the, there's something so pleasing about that aesthetic to me.

ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. If I had more wood beams in my house what I’d do instead is I take twine and I hang them off of like nails and things. And so they're pressed against the wall, but at least I still get the hanging feeling. And part of me wants to just put a bunch of hooks in my ceiling and be able to just like, hang things off of that.

I've actually got, I harvested a bunch of my indigo because I was like, oh, it's getting to the season where I need to be harvesting my indigo to then be making into a lake later, into pigment. But I'm loving it ‘cause this is the first year where I had enough indigo to actually harvest in this way.

And they're, they're bright green leaves, but as they're drying, they're turning into this deep teal. And so it's so clear that there's so much pigment just waiting in them, and I'm so excited and it's like honestly just so satisfying. Auch.

sj jones: Yeah, I bet.
ash alberg: So good. So what's next for you?
sj jones: Augh, what's next for me? So other than my farm, I ride horses. ash alberg: Mhmm.

sj jones: A lot, almost every day. And it's, I do endurance horseback riding. So it's a sport that it's you and your horse, and you're often in the woods. Talk about magic!

ash alberg: I was literally just thinking to myself like that is a whole other kind of magic, and like the relationship with horses is a deep magic. Like horses are such majestic, powerful, also moody as fuck creatures that I like, I deeply love horses. And I'm very jealous of the fact that you get to ride horses on a daily basis.

This makes me really happy for you. [Laughs.]

sj jones: Yeah.

And I got to a part of this really great experience. The barn that I ride at is just 30 seconds on bicycle from my house. [Ash giggles.] So, I’m riding this horse, he’s an Egyptian Arab horse. His, his name’s Aziim, and he had been just a pasture horse for many years. And I got to be the one to haul them out of the

pasture and go through this dress and challenges that a horse that is herd-bound, that hasn't been ridden in four or five years ...

ash alberg: Yeah
sj jones: ... and I can't even. The things that he has put me through, the things I

have put him through.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: And crying and getting ... me getting quite hurt sometimes [laughs.]

ash alberg: Yes.

sj jones: Getting ... he's, he's extremely moody. He's, he's, because of his breed, he’s very reactive.

ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: So you can't ride him and think about your breakfast. [Ash cackles.]

You have to ride ... right? ash alberg: Oh my god.

sj jones: Or you’ll think about your breakfast on the ground. But now we have this ... I've been riding him for six, or six months, like consecutively.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: And now I go and he meets me in the pasture. He used to run away from me. I used to like first spend 20 minutes, him cantering around the pasture and me following him and trying to catch him. We don't do that anymore, so that's nice. [Ash laughs.]

And he, he just, everything about him, he smells good. Like his sweaty horse smell. It's the best, it’s so earthy. And I, yeah, I, and it's the first sport activity that I didn't worry about what I looked like and I wasn't self-conscious.

ash alberg: Yeeaah.

sj jones: And we bear through the woods and we stop at the puddle and he drinks the puddle and, oh, we found an apple tree in the middle of the woods, and we're going to eat some apples because we've been riding for 15 miles. [Ash laughs.]

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: We’re hungry.

It's ... yeah. It's, I think a lot of my interpretation of magic and ritual and witchcraft is between those relationships with myself and other beings that aren't human.

ash alberg: I love that. It feels like really true and very innate. And also something that is like not ... it's not prioritized in our society anymore. And I think also, especially when people think of how do they approach witchcraft, they think about what crystals do I buy or what tarot deck should I get?

And it's, and those are also ways of engaging with your witchcraft, right? Like I've, now that September has come, I'm able to get back into a rhythm because the school year actually is my, that's my happy time, whether I'm in school or not. But now that I'm back into routine, then I'm like, I am pulling daily cards and getting that, that is its own kind of routine.

But there is also something deeply necessary, I think, as humans and deeply magical as a result, that comes from being in relation with creatures other than ourselves. And with beings other than ourselves, including plants. And water and rocks. And when you pick up a rock and it's the right way for you.

sj jones: And fire!
ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. And fire, fuck. It's, yeah. There's something just

so necessary there.

And I, I really love that you just described it as that. ‘Cause I think it's also ... I don't know that it's necessarily an easy way in for people. ‘Cause I think also it actually ... I do think that this is where like ... neither of us do theater anymore, but I think our theater training and by, “I think,” I know our theater training has served us very well in our lives since in terms of our ability to tune into our bodies and tune into ourselves and our emotional and otherwise states.

And also to tune into others and do feel that coming off of others, like we, we are much more in tune with that like deeper level. I joke at times that I'm just like, I skip people’s sun signs, I go straight to their moons. Like I ... it's just ... and we're connecting over here.

‘Cause yeah, it's just, I don't care about like this initial like facade of a thing. It's what's underneath that. But I think that for normal people that is actually a really difficult thing to do.

Yeah.

sj jones: I definitely I ... I have an altar and I am a collector of items that get used in my altar work. [Both giggle.] So I, I do, I think, and I don't want to, I do I do engage with my magic in that way as well.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: I'm really into cairns ...

ash alberg: Yes!

sj jones: So like building rock monuments.

ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: I actually think about them. I spend a lot of time just thinking about them and picturing them in my head.

ash alberg: I love that.
sj jones: I just and I like, of course I like their relationship to sheep lore. ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: And shepherd lore.
ash alberg: Yes.
sj jones: So I build them whenever I can.

ash alberg: That's so cool.

sj jones: Sometimes I put things under them on the purpose. [Both giggle.] But yeah, I'm also, I'm really grateful that I moved into a property with such mature trees.

ash alberg: Yes
sj jones: I have these two willow trees that, they've gotta be a couple hundred

years old.
ash alberg: That's amazing.

sj jones: They’re huge! And so when you drive up my alleyway, you feel like you're, you've been transported almost to the Bayou. Like there's draping willow branches. It's pretty remarkable. And then we have this ancient orchard, like huge old apple trees. A big chestnut tree.

ash alberg: Nice.
sj jones: And we have some poplars and oaks. Working with willow and oak

and chestnut ... ash alberg: Yeah.

sj jones: ... and in bringing pieces of those beings in my yard into my house or ...

ash alberg: Yep.
sj jones: ... on a trip to somewhere else is integrated into my rituals as well, I

would say.

ash alberg: I love that. Yeah, there is also something, we haven't really talked too much about trees, but like trees have their own wisdom and magic and like they're ... different trees are sacred for different reasons. And it was totally fascinating, again when I went down the rabbit hole of Polish history, birches are incredibly sacred.

They are the most sacred of Polish trees. And there's lots of different rituals that you use with like hanging birch bows and sweeping your floor with birch and

wearing birch. There's lots of things that we do. But I've always had an affinity with birch trees, like since a small child, like my half sleeve is ...

sj jones: Yeah.
ash alberg: It's things that have always rooted me and I didn't necessarily

understand why. It's just, they always have been.

And as I learned more about ancestrally, what is ... what is this, these safe spaces and what are these protection charms and all of that, then I'm like, oh, these are things that, as a small child, I had an affinity for. And now I'm understanding more that like that affinity is rooted much more in my blood and bones than I recognized or realized at that time.

And the ... that I am grateful to live in a biosphere that is, it's the same band around the world or around the earth. And so my ancestral ties for my ancestral biosphere reflect here in a way that I potentially, I would, there would be either differences or juxtapositions or you would find, what are the commonalities or what are the cousin plants when you're shifting biospheres.

And that has its own kind of magic, but I am realizing how lucky I am to have grown up with the same kind of plants that ancestrally were important for me because clearly my bones and blood knew that I needed them around and that they are important and that there is like strength and power in, in and grounding and walking amongst them, and being able to do that without even realizing that is that important is a blessing.

Yeah.

sj jones: Yeah. That's, wooo! That's power.

ash alberg: That's quite fucking cool. Yeah.

sj jones: Yeah. Something that you're super attached to turns out that there's this like deep bone attachment and yeah.

ash alberg: Yeah.
sj jones: That's amazing.

ash alberg: Yeah. It’s like hey, I gotta make a bunch of birch things to hang around in my house. ‘Cause I also, like I have this weird habit of collecting birchbark, like deadfall birchbark, and I know ... I don't ever do anything with it. I just collect it and bring it home.

And then I'm like, I could do something with this and do something other than leaving it in in paper bags around my house, as you do.

sj jones: Yeah.

ash alberg: I guess we're running up on time. I knew that we were going to use basically the full-time. This would be a long episode and I'm okay with that. I think people are used to that at this point with the podcast. And if you're not, you haven’t listened, that's fine anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Thank you for this, my love. This has been just delightful. And I love you so much, and I appreciate you so much, and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to do this with me.

sj jones: Oh my gosh. I would do this all day. [Both laugh.] [Audio distortion.] If we are ever in close proximity to each other for extended period of time, again ...

ash alberg: Yup.
sj jones: It would be really cool to make some kind of like gathering. ash alberg: Yes. Oh my god. Yes.
sj jones: This conversation goes on for a long weekend
ash alberg: Yes!
sj jones: With other people. Yeah.

ash alberg: I love this. I feel like it is going to naturally end up happening whenever COVID fucks off enough that I can come out so that we can do the photoshoot because I'm pretty sure Megan plans on coming down and joining us. [Laughs.] So just the three of us on our own is ... [audio distortion.] [Ash snorts.]

sj jones: Oh, no.
ash alberg: God, it's going to be great. Andy may or may not want to stick

around.

sj jones: Yeah. We might ... I'll move him in with someone else. With the dogs, so we don't have to worry about it.

ash alberg: Yeah, sj jones: Yeah,

ash alberg: It's going to be great though. Yeah. Oh god. Okay. Thank you again, my love. This has been just the most wonderful.

sj jones: Thank you. It’s awesome. You're the best. I love you.

ash alberg: I love you.

sj jones: We’re the long game, the long game couple.

ash alberg: Yes. Yes, that's true. I love that. Also, I love that you brought up the long game. [Cackles.]

sj jones: Always.
ash alberg: Whole other story that we won't bother going into for people this

time. [Both laugh.]
sj jones: Yeah. Not this time.

ash alberg: [Upbeat music plays.] You can find full episode recordings and transcripts at snortandcackle.com, just click on podcast in the main menu. Follow Snort and Cackle on Instagram @snortandcackle, and join our seasonal book club with #SnortandCackleBookClub. Don't forget to subscribe and review the podcast via your favorite podcasting platform.

Editing provided by Noah Gilroy, recording and mixing by Ash Alberg, music by Yesable.