Justin Robinson, aka Botany Bae is a profound teacher regarding wisdom of the plants and merges ethnobotany, language, history and culture into his understanding, storytelling and plant identification lessons. He is also a remarkable musician and cook. Be sure to connect with his journey and support his work! Justin Robinson Links: https://www.instagram.com/countrygentlemancooks/ https://earthseedlandcoop.org/ Thymelights: https://www.instagram.com/gullahgeecheeherbs/ https://earthseedlandcoop.org/ Links Mentioned in the show: https://www.instagram.com/gullahgeecheeherbs/ https://www.instagram.com/undergroundplant.trade/ https://www.instagram.com/asoulfultouchwellness/ Thyme in the Studio links: https://www.patreon.com/thymeinthestudio https://www.instagram.com/thymeinthestudiopodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/aida.zea.arts/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/403582056803336/ https://www.etsy.com/shop/AidaZeaArts https://www.aidazea.com Contact me: sara@aidazea.com Music by komiku Topics covered in this chat: Dendrology Importance of teaching Pivoting suring covid Online offerings Teaching on instagram Background with the harp Joanna Newsom Alela Diane Harp speaks to Heaven Self care Doing things for self Busy mind It took a long time for things to be this way, it will take a long way for things to not be this way capital/financial resources Lift the burden Space for solidarity and healing independently Do our own work Future farmers of Amaerica-racialized history to it Separate institutions There is no such thing as black and white Ethnicity and place Terminology Use of language Soil, weather conditions Different beliefs Unexamined ideas Race as a political identity that was weaponized Get under a banner and forget where you come from Black as a Term of solidarity Also problematic as it erases culture, geography and the true complexity of a group a people and does a disservice to all people White people haven’t escaped Ancestral Assimilation and being able to “pass” Ancestry work Honoring ancestors Questioning Whiteness and Blackness as oversimplifications Reclaimed term by the community Is this a name we came up with ourselves? Let’s be friends and connect on instagram! @thymeinthestudiopodcast Sign up for my newsletter at my website www.aidazea.com If you are digging the show Please be sure to share this episode with a friend and leave a review on apple podcasts. Click on the link below to leave a review. It only takes 2 minutes and means the world to me! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thyme-in-the-studio/id1394325119 If you enjoy the show and are in a secure place financially please consider supporting black business and organizations.If you would like to help amplify the voices of creatives and plant people on this podcast you can join my patreon at https://www.patreon.com/thymeinthestudio. I am donating 10% of Patreon funds to Crafting the Future this month and will continue to donate 10% to a Black Empowerment organization each month moving forward.
Justin Robinson, aka Botany Bae is a profound teacher regarding wisdom of the plants and merges ethnobotany, language, history and culture into his understanding, storytelling and plant identification lessons. He is also a remarkable musician and cook. Be sure to connect with his journey and support his work!
Justin Robinson Links:
https://www.instagram.com/countrygentlemancooks/
https://earthseedlandcoop.org/
Thymelights:
https://www.instagram.com/gullahgeecheeherbs/
https://earthseedlandcoop.org/
Links Mentioned in the show:
https://www.instagram.com/gullahgeecheeherbs/
https://www.instagram.com/undergroundplant.trade/
https://www.instagram.com/asoulfultouchwellness/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/technology/facebook-youtube-twitter-black-lives-matter.html
Thyme in the Studio links:
https://www.patreon.com/thymeinthestudio
https://www.instagram.com/thymeinthestudiopodcast/
https://www.instagram.com/aida.zea.arts/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AidaZeaArts
https://www.facebook.com/groups/403582056803336/
https://www.aidazea.com
Contact me: sara@aidazea.com
Music by komiku
Topics covered in this chat:
Dendrology
Importance of teaching
Pivoting suring covid
Online offerings
Teaching on instagram
Background with the harp
Joanna Newsom
Alela Diane
Harp speaks to Heaven
Self care
Doing things for self
Busy mind
It took a long time for things to be this way, it will take a long way for things to not be this way
capital/financial resources
Lift the burden
Space for solidarity and healing independently
Do our own work
Future farmers of Amaerica-racialized history to it
Separate institutions
There is no such thing as black and white
Ethnicity and place
Terminology
Use of language
Soil, weather conditions
Different beliefs
Unexamined ideas
Race as a political identity that was weaponized
Get under a banner and forget where you come from
Black as a Term of solidarity
Also problematic as it erases culture, geography and the true complexity of a group a people and does a disservice to all people
White people haven’t escaped
Ancestral
Assimilation and being able to “pass”
Ancestry work
Honoring ancestors
Questioning Whiteness and Blackness as oversimplifications
Reclaimed term by the community
Is this a name we came up with ourselves?
Let’s be friends and connect on instagram! @thymeinthestudiopodcast
Sign up for my newsletter at my website www.aidazea.com
If you are digging the show Please be sure to share this episode with a friend and leave a review on apple podcasts. Click on the link below to leave a review. It only takes 2 minutes and means the world to me! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thyme-in-the-studio/id1394325119
If you enjoy the show and are in a secure place financially please consider supporting black business and organizations.If you would like to help amplify the voices of creatives and plant people on this podcast you can join my patreon at https://www.patreon.com/thymeinthestudio. I am donating 10% of Patreon funds to Crafting the Future this month and will continue to donate 10% to a Black Empowerment organization each month moving forward.
Justin.R
[00:00:00] Sara: [00:00:00] I am beyond honored today to be speaking with Justin Robinson. He is a phenomenal scientist, musician and cook, and has the most inspiring Instagram I have seen in a long time. He. Discusses plants and ethnobotany and plays music and talks about current events and just weave story with informing people about plants and plant wisdom and plant history.
And yeah, I think you're really gonna enjoy hearing his wisdom today. So thank you so much, Justin, for being here today.
Justin: [00:00:45] Thank you for having me. Yeah, my
Sara: [00:00:47] pleasure. Oh, I'm not sure if I, I can't remember if I just mentioned it, but your Instagram is country gentlemen cooks and I'll have that in the show notes and at the end as well.
but yeah, I just [00:01:00] curious, I don't know very much about you. I oftentimes have guests that are old friends, but I just. Felt really called to reach out to you and just to amplify what you're doing in the world, because it's just really beautiful and really powerful. And so I'm curious, just to know a little bit more about your backstory and how you got into plants, where you grew up, but just a little bit about your background and some highlights, low lights, anything that kind of calls out to you for you to mention.
Okay.
Justin: [00:01:36] where I'm from North Carolina. I grew up in near Charlotte, North Carolina. I would say it's sort of a. We grew up in the, I grew up in the suburbs. It's my sister and I, and know we're first generation off the farm. My parents both grew up on farms. And, a lot of my introduction to plant knowledge was through my mother who was, not an [00:02:00] herbalist in any sort of, since of diagnosing people with things, but always used herbs as the first.
Go to for pretty much any remedy. So any sort of cold or stomach aches or whatever, those were always shared in a cabinet that was just bullet like sticks and,
And so those were just what we took as a matter of course, that was the first thing that you, that she would reach for, if something's the matter. And I would call that like largely like kitchen medicine, which, you know, most people of the other older generations would of everybody sort of knew some sort of basic remedies.
and, so she taught, she taught my sister and I, that just, yeah. But just by being around it, it wasn't like sort of any instruction, like this is this and this, this move, we're experiencing it as it was happening. and then I didn't [00:03:00] get into plants until I was in college. I've always been interested in being outside and nature and sort of my first interest was it was animals.
When I was a kid, and later I guess I was an undergraduate. I started to get more into plants. I wanted to find a career that I could basically be in the woods. and so I then went back later after I've had a couple of career shifts in my life, and got a degree in forestry from NC state.
Sara: [00:03:33] Is that how you learned a lot about in addition to everything that you were learning from time with your mother and a time with the plants personally, is that where you mostly learned about plants
Justin: [00:03:48] and honey? I got a lot of information about, and, and way of conceptualizing about Woody plants at and through forestry [00:04:00] school.
So those are trees and shrubs, the other things of herbs, small things that aren't Woody. a lot of that was personal work and personal sort of spending time with those particular plants. I also really love to garden. So. We break all those things up into separate categories now, botany and horticulture and forestry.
And they really are the same thing. in terms there were from different aspects of the same kind of kinds of energy and the same though, different entities. but it really is all the same thing. So I have, you know, grown a lot of these plants and, and rescued them from the wild and, You know, learned how to be, how to look close to them, learn what they do across all of their life cycle.
so yeah, it's been a combination of things, not just sort of school learning, but a lot of like, just spending time outside. With
Sara: [00:04:57] plants. Yeah. That sounds [00:05:00] like wonderful. A wonderful time to just being with the plants. And I don't know, I feel like there's just a sense of peace just sitting among tall grass or sitting in flowers.
Like there's just something that happens when you're. With plants that just feels so healing and so transformative and just kind of calls you back.
Justin: [00:05:23] You know,
Sara: [00:05:27] , I love it. The storytelling and just. With all of the glimpses of lessons that you're offering on your Instagram. I'm just noticing that the way that you tie together storytelling, and you have this deep knowledge of the plants, and I can feel that you've spent time with them. I'm I'm curious if there's , Any favorite teachers that you've had along the way, in addition to your mother or other people that have helped you [00:06:00] learn things, or is it really just kind of the plants themselves teaching you a lot
Justin: [00:06:04] of things?
It's all of those things. one of my most favorite teachers as my dendrology professor at NC state, dr. Richard Bram, Did geology study of trees, studying identification of trees. and not only was he, you know, just very, very well versed and tree, all the things about trees. He had three degrees in forestry, but he was.
you know, and he was sort of towards the end of his career when I encountered him it's at the university. but he had such a, there's still a Glint in his eyes whenever he would show anybody like how a pine cone was arranged. like how many, I mean, he probably taught that same course for 25 straight years or maybe more and.
Yeah, I think he just, he just retired in 2019. so yeah, probably taught that [00:07:00] class for 30 years and he still had a Glint in his eye and like, could we get, I can see the passion and just like hit, add duration for, all of these beings. And so he was definitely one of my favorite teachers and taught me a ton about, Those are the, what I learned in 40 schools, a whole lot about the identification of plants that's within Darren.
That's what the identification of Woody plant. That's what dendrology is largely centered on other aspects of forestry, like civil culture, which is the growing of trees. then of course there's an economic side and mapping and lots of other things. but yeah, that, he was definitely one of my.
Favorite teachers so much passion for
Sara: [00:07:45] wow. He sounds just like so inspiring. Just hearing a mother makes me feel like excited about plants and want to go hang out with a pine tree. It's amazing. The difference that a teacher can make. I'm curious [00:08:00] if you're kind of thinking of. Doing more teaching. Cause I feel like you're a natural teacher, the way that you're presenting information, I could see that going for it as like an online class or something.
They didn't know if that was something that was, you were thinking of, or you're just, offering this knowledge as it comes to you and kind of letting it unfold as it naturally occurs. Yeah,
Justin: [00:08:29] it's, it's both. One of the reasons I started doing the botany sort of lessons or offerings is because, because of COVID, had been teaching, I've been teaching this maybe once, once a month or something, and just small groups and sort of, sort of the pay, what you can kind of thing.
And we, you know, maybe be an hour, an hour and a half on a Saturday. And because COVID like, we can't gather in that sort of those sorts [00:09:00] of numbers anymore, even though it's outside and social differences, I just don't want to, you know, I'll have a situation and offer that to people and. And, and, you know, not be fully safe.
So, and I really enjoyed teaching, so I figured, well, this is a way to sort of get some of this stuff out. partially because I do have, I do have the knowledge, and certainly, certainly not all of it. I have some knowledge and I want to be able to share that cause it doesn't do me own. It doesn't do me much.
Good. Well, it only does me some good if it's just me, who knows it. And so if it feels important for me to share, share that so other folks can, you know, walk down the path or driving their cars and. Have a world open up to them. They did that. They didn't know was there before. Right? Of course it's always been there, but sometimes if you look at a forest, it looks like a green wall.
especially from a, you know, going 65 miles down 65 miles an hour down the highway. [00:10:00] but once you start to know what the trees are, know who they are. that landscape totally transform. It doesn't look like a wall anymore. It looks like a look like a portal.
Sara: [00:10:11] Hmm. Oh, I love that. That's so true. It's like a portal into another place.
That's so exciting. I'm curious too. I don't know. Just thinking of portals, I'm also thinking of your music. I just saw that you. Play the harp. And I was just, I think I was looking at a Layla Diane's Instagram and she shared a video of you playing the harp and it just broke my heart. It was so stunning. I am curious, also your connection with music and how you learn to play music and how that kind of connects to your life path as well.
Justin: [00:10:57] well, I've played music since I was a [00:11:00] kid. Mama come from a family of musicians. my mother and sister both played when I was a kid. and my grandfather, lots of members of my family are musicians. so that parts just sorta dad in the wool. but I started playing violin when I was maybe seven or eight.
And then, I started playing professionally. How old was I? Maybe 21, 22. and then as I sort around around was finishing up my professional career. I started playing the heart, mostly because of I at my harvest, Joanna Newsome so much. and. There was a heart. It was a black art teacher where I live.
And so I was like this, this all makes sense. and so I started to play and, it's an instrument that I actually don't play all that often because, it's got such powerful energy. It's not always the right moment for at least this is just, you know, just my personal relationship with it. [00:12:00] That doesn't mean that's true all the time or for everyone.
But there are times where it is the only instrument that we'll do. partially because it. This is one of the instruments, at least to me, that speaks directly to heaven. and the way that other ones don't, they speak to other parts of our realm and in different ways. But that, that one is a direct connection, besides our voice, the human voice, and probably that's our very first instrument.
and then drums are probably our second instrument that we came up with. And then the heart was probably the third.
Sara: [00:12:36] Wow. That is so beautiful. I had no idea. Just, I don't know when you said that the hope is a connection to the heavens. It makes so much sense. And I can see how, yeah, it wouldn't be the instrument for all times, but sometimes it's [00:13:00] the only instrument for certain times and that's.
And I could see, especially with the current situation with Breonna Taylor, with George Floyd, with it's these deaths that, which is, should not be happening in these horrific deaths and attacks on the black community. I can see how it's just such a beautiful prayer and offering that you're playing.
That music and yeah, I'm seeing there's a shift in culture happening, or it feels like a shift in culture happening. And for me, I'm feeling like I need to make changes in my life. I'm curious if you're sensing. That the world is changing for the better or your perspective on current events?
Justin: [00:13:59] I think [00:14:00] I vacillate between hopeful and hopeless.
Yeah. Given a particular moment or given a protective, this set of things. I think this moment is calling all peoples to be different, better, to be a higher version of themselves, or a worse version of yourself, depending on where you are. But it feels like at the time of, drawing of drawing. No, I don't know what the course, I don't know.
I don't know what the result of that will be or how that will shape up or whatever, but it does feel like a drawing out in a centralizing moment. and I absolutely feel called to be, to be different, to be in a different space, to be moving, moving differently. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I'm not fully sure about a certain culture.
I mean, maybe. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. but you know, we don't have any con you know, we have control, [00:15:00] we'll have full control over how we shift the, well, not quite, but we have a lot of control over how we shift and that's the most place. That's the most important place to focus.
Sara: [00:15:12] Yeah. That's true.
Good reminder. And I've yeah. I feel like.
White people have a lot of work to do and it's so I hope we all do that work on and help make the world a better place for black people. And yeah, I feel like there is just a drawing out, a changing, a shifting and. It's it's big, it's big work and it's long overdue work. And I'm just hoping that things can really fully emerged into a beautiful place of equality for all people and for things to evolve [00:16:00] And grow and , I just, I want things to be more equal and to be better for all, all people, but especially for black people, I feel like there's just
the centuries of trauma and just, yeah, we've. Done poorly for a long time and it's time to do better.
Justin: [00:16:23] So,
Sara: [00:16:24] yeah. I'm sorry. I'd love to talk more about your work as well. And I'm curious too about. Nourishing yourself during this time and food and cooking and how you're taking care of yourself and how you take care of other people and keep your cup full at this time.
Justin: [00:16:54] well, that's interesting. I feel like I'm having to learn all of that [00:17:00] over again at this moment.
This is a hard moment. and you know, I had so many strategies that were in place, but just everyday keeping my cup full before Colbert. And so many of those got sort of exploded during COVID. and then, then add this additional sort of why I would call this like acute trauma. There's a running trauma.
That's always under the surface. and this particular set of events in the past month and a half, are acute, So, yeah, I've been making, trying to do the basics, right? The basics are sometimes the best place to start. have I had enough water today? Have I eaten three meals? Have I moved my body in a way?
That's just for me, have I spent any time outside? Have I done something that is just for me today that does not have any impact on anybody else? Good, bad or any, or any other. [00:18:00] Way, like, this is just simply for me, it's not, well, I'm going to, you know, wash all the dishes or something like that. Well, that's not just for you, that's a chore when you would have to do that.
And no matter what the circumstance was, versus something like I'm going to read for pleasure, or I'm going to take an extra long bath or I'm gonna. You know, whatever I'm going to go skating or something like that. that is just about you, you getting connected to you, that feels like, you know, something that feels important to, for me to remember, I.
Have the tendency to be extra busy. I've got a bit of a busy mind. and so for me, it's, it's, I need constant reminding to continue to slow down. Cause even in the time of COBIT like I've found things to be busier about. and that's not necessarily the right move.
[00:19:00] Sara: [00:19:01] Yeah. That's an interesting reflection.
I feel like. I can relate to that too, because it has, for many people, I think Kobe was, was just a time of slowing down and just getting really quiet. And I tried to do that, but I also just like, I'm like, Hey, I want to do all the
Justin: [00:19:22] things
Sara: [00:19:25] drinking too much coffee, or just wanting to be. Active and keep myself distracted.
Maybe it's part of it. I'm not sure, but yeah, there is something about that. yeah, just remembering to slow down. Good things happen with that too.
Justin: [00:19:42] That's exactly right. And you know, like tonight, you know, I was like, I'm going to do all these things. I have a writing project that I need to do and well, the power's off.
I'm not going to do any of that stuff. I can literally do. Nothing except for being with myself.
Sara: [00:19:58] Yeah.
[00:20:00] Justin: [00:19:59] I mean, I can play music in the dark, but, but you know, that there's the, the amount of things that can be done without, you know, light or whatever it was minimal lighter. Hmm. Pretty few. Except for hanging out with you.
Sara: [00:20:14] Yeah, it's true. Indeed. I'm curious. I feel like this is a time of acute trauma and I just want to go back to that for a minute. Cause they just feel like
it just feels really intense and there is something about,
Yeah, I, I'm just curious if there's ways that you feel more supported by people by white people, by black people. Like, are there things that you find that are helpful or that are hurtful during this time that you want to name or [00:21:00] give voice to?
That's a good
Justin: [00:21:01] question. what. I think it's often not helpful is having yeah. Extended conversations with, white folks about trauma or sort of having them here, having tea or having them, have you, having you be active, the sounding board for all the things that they're feeling in this moment that doesn't feel appropriate.
And, what does feel helpful though? It shows up. So, so this is, I'll give this in a succinct way. So in my assessment of a black folks, and it's not also, this is not just a black problem. This is the same things have been happening in indigenous communities and Hispanic communities for a very long time.
They're just not publicized because they're. You know, those folks sometimes are invisibilized. so the number of missing and murdered indigenous women is, you know, and sort of [00:22:00] unbelievable in terms of a ratio of the population. they're in a very similar space as black men are in terms of being targeted.
and so it's not just us. That's what it looks like because we are a larger group and we're easy to see. I mean, literally we stand out, I guess the rest of the population. And so that. Is it is a driver. but this is the, it's the big system that, that grinds lots of different kinds of people who don't fit a particular model into the ground.
so I would say that I'm only speaking for my small community, you know, of people who are descendants of African people. And our African people is that we need two things. We need capital and we need to be left alone. There's like, those are the two things that I see as like the immediate name left, left alone, so that we can do the things that.
We know how to do and figure out some [00:23:00] things for ourselves. the other thing I think is helpful is that what white folks can do, who are feeling like anxious and antsy to do something is be a one, do your own work, your internal work that's necessary for folks to sort of be more present to how they're moving in the world and what they're doing and how they're.
How their movement impacts other people and to like protect the thing to T of. Of our space. That makes sense. That's what white folks can be helpful in doing is like serve, serving as a bulwark against, as we figure out our stuff. Right. We really haven't had a as a, as a group of people since the arriving here, you know, You know, Africans have been here since before 16, 19.
That's a date that people have glommed on to as the beginning of slavery, because it is sort of the beginning of [00:24:00] slavery as we start to understand it. But people of African descent have been there since before then. so the. we haven't had any time to sort of catch our metaphorical breasts and that's what we need when the money so that we can continue to invest in our institution and our own institutions.
And, you know, these are many things over many, many, many years, and it won't be solved in a week or a month or an election cycle or any of those kinds of things, because it took a long time to get this way. We'll take some time to not be this way. Well, yeah, that's in short. Those are the two things.
Sara: [00:24:40] Yeah. That makes sense. Thank you for naming that I think, yeah, that there needs to be some, More financial stability and security for black [00:25:00] people in this country. It's, you know, it's like with privilege, we'll use our privilege to help support black people and make their lives easier. And just to lift some of the burden, really not
Justin: [00:25:21] lifting the burden. You know, cause if folks have the things they need, they don't need any help life. They don't need their lives to be easier. You know what I mean? Most folks can't, you know, given, focusing on the things that they need, they can cope with all kinds of situations. When you don't have those things, you don't have the bare necessities.
Like it's going to make everything more challenging. Even things that wouldn't be talenting to other people or wouldn't be challenging and other circumstances then become, you know, a whole situation.
Sara: [00:25:54] Yeah. Yeah. I could see that makes a lot of sense and I can [00:26:00] see how I feel like white people need to do our own work in some ways separately and not be asking black people to do the work for us.
And.
Justin: [00:26:13] Absolutely.
Sara: [00:26:14] And yeah, maybe just to somehow give more space. I think that's thank you for that reminder. So is it helpful, like when people want to share your posts or
Justin: [00:26:29] yeah, that part feels helpful. Okay. I mean, it's Instagram, it's a public forum. I have a phone. Like I don't, I'm not, about how the internet works.
If I didn't want it to be public, I wouldn't put, and you know, I'm very selective about what, what gets up there. It's not, you know, That is some very distill, that's a five minute version of me at a particular time or snapshot or something. you know, like everybody's feed it's, [00:27:00] there are 60 other versions.
And if you go through your camera roll of things that didn't make it on the seed, right. It's, you know, it's a curation, I'm putting out what I want to be out there, which is, you know, the democratization of. The internet and, you know, the be able to control a piece of your own image. It's like a little like a little media platform, but for each individual person.
so yeah, that part feels helpful. again, like if people want to support the best way and this meets breaking out, other people in other communities may have different. Ideas about what they want because every community is not the same. You know, some people need, you know, more political power or some people need, you know, any number of things.
But you know, what I, what I would say is that we need the space to be able to. To do our own institutions, things that have been, you know, systematically, you know, either straight up destroyed or, destroy, you know, they're more insidious means by being defunded and, [00:28:00] and countless programs, even things that seem innocuous, like feature farmers, like that has a whole racialized history to it.
That didn't need didn't need to be there. And like every single system, because I know people who work in lots of different, you know, areas of work, every single system has the same story. It looks slightly different for that particular system or that particular occupation or that particular study. But the, the pathway looks exactly the same.
You, you, you know, people, they say, it's what people say sometimes it's shocking, but the, the, like the individual details of it may be shocking, but the overall pattern is just you like, yep. I can see that happening.
Sara: [00:28:46] Yeah, I guess we need to do our own individual work so that we can help change the political systems and the systems at large that are also [00:29:00] causing, you know, all these disparities and all these inequalities and impressions.
And so, but it starts with, within ourselves and doing our own work.
Justin: [00:29:12] It's personal work and you know, one of the things, and these are, this is one thing I do have to offer to white people in this moment is that figure out how you got to be white. Hmm. Like that's not a real thing. Just like being black is not, I mean, black is a political term and is a political, like a silver of solidarity, but it's not a real designation that doesn't even make sense.
Like where is the home? Where's where were black people from like that? That's where white people from there. There's no way. That's not a real thing. I mean, people. And part of why, you know, why I'm so interested in plant life and, you know, the natural world is because people are from some place. We are earthlings.
Right? All of us, [00:30:00] every single one of them, no one came from the moon or some other place we all were born or not from earth. and just like any other. Organism are shaped by our surroundings and our place of origin. And so, you know, I've said this before and, and others, but other spaces does that. White people don't understand themselves to be indigenous to any part of the earth when that's actually not true.
Right. Where, where are the people who are the indigenous people of Poland, Polish people? Oh, Germany, Yurman.
Sara: [00:30:39] The
Justin: [00:30:39] Swedes, the fans, like those are all indigenous people, but that's not the conceptualization. That's not the mythology of Western Europeans. Like there's somehow that they're not. But they're not, you know, a part of that.
And then, you know, take, put that in the American context and they can get something as like white, which makes [00:31:00] even less sense. I mean, I understand the reasons how it came about, but it's not actually referring to what people assume that it's referring to. We, human beings are gr geographically based as are most organisms.
they have a point of origin. so what happens when you, what happens when you're trying to remake their culture in a new place? And then there's the whole other part about what it means to be of European descent and be in the United States, given that most Europeans were, you know, Nope. People were coming under duress.
Right. People were leaving as political exiles or as real as, or as religious refugees or economic refugees, or it's actual refugees of war, or as, or as, or as criminals or as the fifth son, somebody who wasn't gonna inherit anything. There's all these other, all these reasons. And the fact that the [00:32:00] white people consider themselves white now is a sentence of Europeans were not welcome in the country.
Just that they left. like people don't ever immigrate when their lives are going great.
Sara: [00:32:13] Right.
Justin: [00:32:15] That's not a thing.
Sara: [00:32:17] That's a good reminder. That's a good point. And I can see how have people came here under conditions of. Trauma and escape and trying to run away from something. And so now it's like, everything's kind of resurfacing and we're having to process what we've never processed.
Justin: [00:32:42] Correct. And right in an act, seeing that trauma that was inactive on your ancestors, right. re, re, re reenacting that and on other people, because there's been no healing from that actual trauma, that [00:33:00] those. People like the Huguenot or the pilgrims or the Catholics in Baltimore or the Waldensians or the Moravians or the Pennsylvania debts or the Hessians or the, I can go on and on and on that Jacob bytes, the people who had to leave the Highland clearances.
The Scott Irish, all of these groups of people that the people from the Irish Republic who left because of the potato, all of these folks left because shit was not going right in their countries. They were no longer, there were, there were no longer welcome or they could learn longer, make a living one of the two things where was always going to be true.
So people were so dealing with the trauma of basically escaping with your life and sometimes not anything more than that. cause folks to, like, instead of saying, we don't want this system anymore, they said [00:34:00] we do want the system. We just don't want to be on the bottom. Right.
And then you get this very simplified oversimplified version of it, but you know, You know, it's, it's a, it's a big part of the picture that I don't ever hear anybody address. And then what it means for white folks, unless it is, unless you are all English, what does it mean? So, you know, and I would because the top, a lot about language on my feet and the origins of words and all that stuff, because I think that.
The shapes, how we think the shapes, how we think there's things. and so saying white versus European American I'm of European descent or Swedish or whatever. Now there are ethnic communities in the United States, right. And ethnic white people. you know, the, you know, there's a bunch of folks in Chicago. [00:35:00]
of course the pencil, you know, people in Pennsylvania and, you know, people in Minnesota, the Norwegians and the Swedes and stuff, those folks keep up a lot of the ethnic traditions. and so I'm not necessarily talking about those people, but I am also, but what it requires to be quote unquote white, which is a, not again, a, not a real, not a real thing is to assimilate.
Into idea of Englishness, not whiteness because whiteness is not a real thing and to Englishness, right? There's a reason why we don't speak Swedish or Finnish or German was Germans had a huge influence on the United States. That's it. Folks had to recruit people into an assimilate people into an English identity.
so there's no real thing, such thing as. White people realize that to continue to be [00:36:00] in the same space, like wondering what happened to the traditions. What about the sacred plant traditions of Europe, but where are right now? I understand in a new context of being here, that those traditions would change, but what were they before?
W where are the sacred groves in all this, all these questions, the more digging that you do, there's so many more questions come up. Like, where are the sacred groves? Where are the plant Madison and the, and the magic and these other pieces that are, that are true for humans all over the earth. And it's connecting to place.
Where is, and so that's the question for people of European descent to go and explore, especially once who are here, what that means, what it means to be an exile
Sara: [00:36:56] thank you for naming that. And I think that is [00:37:00] such a good reminder to realize that the idea of blackness or whiteness is. Very abstract and we've just kind of invented it and yeah.
Yeah. I'm not, I don't really know, where to take that, but I've, I've always felt like, or you just haven't known like, okay. Is it better to say African American or black and yeah, I just,
Justin: [00:37:38] I guess I haven't done. All, all those terms, they're all loaded, right? There's no right term. I mean, I don't always know whether it's, whether they say like, why that is that a pro?
Like, is that right? Like where are you actually from white is not a, there's no land of white people and not a real thing. You try to say, well, that's Europe. [00:38:00] Well, Tell that to a Flemish person and, and, till at somebody who live in, in Belgium. And are you on the Flemish side or are you on the French side?
Right. White doesn't even make sense. They're like those, those are about that's about ethnicity and it's about place. and this place then ethnicity. Right? Cause you know, only it's those things like they go together, but. Places though is the single most important factor. Because even if people are different ethnicities living closely together, they're going to be more STEM, liberal, who they're living in the same place.
They've got access to the same water, the same soil, the same weather conditions, the same geology. and so people more or less start to become more similar, even if they have different beliefs. Hmm. and so I want, I want to be challenging the notions, all the time. Like, what does it mean? Why are these things unexamined?
Why are they, why do white people except one that term, because it's not honoring to those two to, it's not [00:39:00] honoring to your ancestors. . Your ancestors weren't white. They didn't come from any, they were, I'm not sure where your people are from, but they didn't come from nowhere,
Sara: [00:39:09] right? Yeah. Mostly, Norway Denmark and Poland, right?
Justin: [00:39:15] Those are places where additions with language, with food, with dances, with customs, with a dress, with a statics, with language, with all of those things. That's not, that's not a land where white people come from. Those people are Danish or they're Norwegian or they're Polish or they're, whatever. Right. And those are not the only ethnic groups in those places.
And so like, we get to, we get to hold all parts of ourselves, but, but not collapsed it into this sort of political identity that has been weaponized, right? Because you just needed us versus them. Right? The English people who work here at the time when these sort of ideas of race are being constructed in the [00:40:00] 16 and 17 hundreds.
They were outnumbered. And so they had to bring people into their ranks. And so they did that by creating what we now know as white, these people are all white, so they're us. Right. But in order to, in order to get under that banner, you had to forget who you were before. Hm. Right. And then, you know, all people of African descent became black.
Right. And that's not a, you know, that's not a term that. You know, and for the most part, I don't use that term. I mean, I do, I begin, right? It's, it's complicated. It's not, it's cut and dry. It's a term solidarity. And that connects me to people who are African descended all over the globe. And that's a name that somebody else has given us.
Again, it's not connected to a place it's not connected to culture. It's not connected to anything. It's, it's not even descriptive.
Sara: [00:40:57] Right.
Justin: [00:40:58] You cool. You know, [00:41:00] black people come in all colors. Like there are people were very vague, very dark who may fit closer to that. Not to be fixed close to that man and people who are very, very, very, very light and what we mean and people who are African descended, not black, that's not, that's not descriptive.
It may only be descriptive of a few people, in the same way, you know, that pale colored scan would only be descriptive of a very few people too. Yeah, and that, but that does a disservice to everybody in that system, white people, you know, quote unquote white people, so called white people as well.
Why people haven't escaped and that's, if I have anything to offer this moment is white people haven't escaped this either.
Yeah. You've been sold a bill of goods about, you know, who you are, like your family just had a simulate. Do you know any of your families like ancestral languages?
Sara: [00:41:55] No. I tried to learn Norwegian for a minute. And then [00:42:00] I was like, no,
Justin: [00:42:07] you were doing on your own, right? Yeah. That wasn't in your community. There's there's like, Your grandparents or your great grandparents or whomever, decided to no longer speak those languages. And there had to be a reason for that. Right? Cause that's not true for every community. We just move into other places and continue and keep their own one, which is like, Africa is a great example of that.
People speak multiple in which they will apply it. They simply acquire another one. And so it's not simply that we live in a new place. We're going to get a new language that is assimilation and being, and honestly being able to pass as, as English.
Sara: [00:42:53] Interesting. Yeah, I think it is so good to question that and [00:43:00] to, you know, I'm doing more ancestry work and just kind of looking at my ancestors and trying to honor them. And so I think that's really good to question the language of. Yeah. Using the term white when that's not fully honoring or describing anything in and black is not describing, you know, it can be a term of solidarity and it also.
Is not telling the whole picture and not giving the whole story. So I think that's, that's really good to question that
Justin: [00:43:40] and that term is a reclaimed term, right? People started calling himself black because it used to be a slur. Right. And so that is a reclaimed term by the community, but not an arm that originates within the community.
So. Yeah. You get to ask your same. You get to ask yourself those same questions about [00:44:00] your own community came up with ourselves or did we just assume it?
Sara: [00:44:07] Yeah, I think that's, I really liked that you're questioning everything and especially looking at language and how that. Molds our way of thinking the words that we use and has such an influence on our culture at large as well.
Justin: [00:44:29] Absolutely went off on a tangent there.
Sara: [00:44:34] It was, I think it was very helpful and super interesting.
So, no, that's great. I'm curious if there's. Anything you want to say about food or know, thinking of culture and thinking about, place as well. I feel like food is such a part of that. And, being in North Carolina, growing up there, what that was like food [00:45:00] culture there, or if there's any favorite foods that you like to make for people,
Justin: [00:45:04] Yeah, I love food.
I love talking about food. I love cooking food. It's funny. I have all those things. I, I think I enjoy eating food, but I don't like spending a lot of time eating. It's funny, like over pretty quickly, I'll spend four to seven hours cooking something, but I want to be done with that meal in like five minutes.
Isn't that weird? so yeah, North Carolina is a big foodie place and not in any sort of in a, a moderate sense that people mean that we're talking about like, you know, restaurants that people travel to, but this is the place that just cares a lot about food. And because I grew up in North Carolina in the eighties and nineties, it's pretty different now because we have so many more chains and, you know, different.
Different kinds of cuisine. But when I was growing up, it was pretty much on local stuff. [00:46:00] and, our local stuff and the occasional Chinese restaurant and the occasional Mexican restaurant, you know, sort of, you know, I'm putting air quotes on all of those things. but you know, they were different to us.
But yeah, growing up, my mother's family is a great cooks. so we had, you know, my mother is a great cook and so we had lots of good food, lots of special things that we got to have. And we, when we get together with our family, everybody has a sort of a specialty that they would bring, and we'd have such wonderful food.
And I learned how to cook from my mother. and so starting, my mother was also, he is also, she's still, just an adventurous eater. and so I got exposed to a lot of things that I probably would not have because she was interested in things like if something new would appear in the grocery store, she'd just buy it.
just because it was new when other people would literally bypass it for the exact same reason. Right. And you have the same object and people sort of are, no, I don't [00:47:00] know what that is. I'm not interested in it. Versus another person says like, what is that? Neither one, neither one wrong. And they're just two different ways of, of, of seeing the same thing.
So, yeah, we were introduced to things that wouldn't be cosmopolitan by today's standards, but for those standards and from where we live, we're very cosmopolitan. so,
Sara: [00:47:23] there's something about that I feel like, and just noticing that too, and celebrating that your mom did that for you. I think it's a big deal, you know, because.
A lot of people yeah. Take food for granted, or they just want to eat the same thing every day. They don't want to experiment. And so I could see how maybe growing up and having, getting to try more unique things maybe helps. Bring about more of a curiosity for you about wanting to understand the world around you and wanting to [00:48:00] understand plants more.
And I could see how that might like fuels curiosity of life in general.
Justin: [00:48:06] Absolutely. yeah, as a kid, I just wanted to know, always wanted to know the why I'm a Scorpio. I'm a double Scorpio. So like that's sort of investigative. Thing is just in there. Right. That's what, that's, who I am. Right. I am in there.
And then my mother also helped to fuel that. Just like she was just an adventurous, I'm saying this in the past tense, because she's still on mother's, he's still alive, but like that period of our lives is gone. But during that time, she was just an adventurous eater and just like wanted to have adventures and was wasn't adventurous, kind of a mom.
and so she definitely likes, you know, help to like, just expand on horizons. I remember going to an Indian restaurant for the very first time. I think we were on vacation. I think we'll go on to. Lowered word or something. and we went to an Indian restaurant just because we [00:49:00] didn't know any Indian people.
We had never had any Indian food. We had literally no reference for this app. Oh, wow. Maybe we saw a picture of India at one time. and I will, and I was maybe 10, nine or 10. I was 10. And I still remember to this day, how that restaurant smelled.
Sara: [00:49:16] Oh, I bet that's because I
Justin: [00:49:20] never smelled those smells before.
I know now what they are just smell of a smell of cumin and the smell of fennel and the smell of Corey. And they're in this mill of cardamom. But I had never, ever smelled those smells before. And I remember it, I remember the taste and it was so different and I will never ever forget it. but my mother, introduced us to that.
Yeah, I think we ate vindaloos, which is not the first thing,
Sara: [00:49:51] but it's fun to say
Justin: [00:49:55] now they're probably my favorite, [00:50:00] but when you're the very first time trying Indian food.
Sara: [00:50:04] so
Justin: [00:50:05] yeah, it's a big job.
Yeah. And I remember that now, but what do I make for people? while I like cooking lots of things, our cuisine is really garden based. so yeah, you know, basically you can cook an entire Southern meal from what you have pulled out of the garden that very same day. Like it doesn't need a lot of processing.
And so what makes you pick it that day? You're got to cook it and eat it that day too. And so a lot of our meals are based that way. So, it really is farmed this garden, the table. I mean, cause people have, you know, farms and stuff, people were farming, cash crops, tobacco and whatever their gardens, that's what they were eating out of.
so. The [00:51:00] gardens are much, much closer to the house they weren't out in far out in the field. and so people were eating literally right outside from right outside of their doors. I mean, my grandfather's boat, their gardens were literally right behind the house. And so. You don't have to go anywhere.
He went literally out the back door, you're in the garden, you got to pick whatever you're going to eat that day. And that was the end of it. You just started cooking immediately. And so we ate, you know, I it's a lot of the same things, you know, yellow squash and squash and onions and, you know, sweet potatoes, on the stove and frat chicken and cabbage and Collins.
And. Poke salad and all kinds of things.
Sara: [00:51:44] so good.
Justin: [00:51:45] Yeah, that was good. Cornbread and tea and cakes and cobblers and all that stuff. We really do have a very rich cuisine here. you know, and it's, it's changing as all things do. You know, and there's people [00:52:00] who I, you know, I'm proud of myself being able to cook the most traditional stuff and to be able to, you know, add my bit to it.
so yeah, that's we had a lab, a lot of great food memories, growing up, we love take in the South. We just love it.
We just love it.
Sara: [00:52:20] yeah.
Justin: [00:52:20] And so I have a lot of fond memories and I don't eat that same way now. I've actually learned how to cook a lot of vegan stuff and a lot of Quito stuff, which is, you know, Southern neither, And learned lots of different work arounds for it and be still being able to have this same kinds of feelings with it.
you know, having a similar mouth feel assemble, it tastes without having that, you know, car bloating or the, you know, Whatever, you know, there are different reasons. you know, but you know, it's not, it's not that sort of food is unhealthy or, you know, something else is more healthy. It's all in sort of context.
How does what you're eating fit [00:53:00] your lifestyle.
Sara: [00:53:01] Yeah.
Justin: [00:53:04] How does it fit your place and your lifestyle, that lesson being the thing that, well, that can be the thing that people use as their metric that should be in the world. Yeah, those, those are the things they usually ask. Does this fit my lifestyle?
Does it fit my place?
Sara: [00:53:17] I like that. So good. A frame of reference for building a delicious plate each
Justin: [00:53:24] night.
Sara: [00:53:27] I love that. I'm curious too. I saw on your Instagram that you're a
Justin: [00:53:32] Papa.
Sara: [00:53:34] Congratulations. How has that been for you? What is that like?
Justin: [00:53:42] it's quite a journey. I wanted to be a one, has to be a dad for a long time. And it is totally, absolutely challenging in every way. And it's the [00:54:00] most wonderful thing.
There's a whole set of things I've already learned from this particular child that I don't think I would have learned any, any other way. What would have taken me so much longer to learn that, children really aren't gift. They really are like, that's not their sole purpose is to, you know, get our lives together, the adults, but that sometimes the secondary effect.
Sara: [00:54:21] Yeah. I could see that I don't have any kids, but I am an auntie. So my brother has kids and that's, that's plenty for me. Yeah. I always learn so much from them. And I just, I love spending time with my niece and nephew. They're just so transformative to be around. So I love.
Justin: [00:54:48] And the kids
Sara: [00:54:49] and their kids, and
Justin: [00:54:51] they're
Sara: [00:54:52] not easy.
I'm curious if there's any lesson that you want to share [00:55:00] that you've learned from your child so far,
Justin: [00:55:04] so
Sara: [00:55:04] far? There's anything nameable I don't know. I feel like sometimes it's things that are like, it's hard to give voice to sometimes.
Justin: [00:55:13] Yeah. Well, the baby's extremely friendly. Like, I'm not sure that I thought that friendliness could be a character trait or personality trait.
I just assumed that friendliness was just social lubrication. Right. You're just friendly because you need people to, you know, you don't, you can't be bristly all the time. She won't do things for you, you know, or, you know, just being in community. I think, you know, and this was a, was a, was just a learned thing and human child.
while the pleasure of knowing is a friendly person, like she just is, she's waves at the trees. She waves at spiders. She weighs that. You know, [00:56:00] Beatles.
Sara: [00:56:01] I,
Justin: [00:56:03] and I was like, Oh yeah, you can actually be just friendly. You can just be enthralled and happy to see these creatures like existing alongside you. and I was like, Oh, that's, that's new. That's a new, that's a new awakening for me.
Sara: [00:56:20] That's a beautiful.
That's so that's just like, it makes me
Justin: [00:56:29] heart
Sara: [00:56:31] saying, I love the thought of that. That's her waving a beetle.
Justin: [00:56:39] I mean, it's really fun to see her life. She's like so excited to
Sara: [00:56:43] see.
Justin: [00:56:47] Lucky to be in a, both in like, nurture that and to like, be around, be around a little creature who is not going to be afraid of it. Well, you know, I mean, granted, we don't need spiders all over us. Right, right.
[00:57:00] Sara: [00:57:01] But like
Justin: [00:57:03] first reaction doesn't have to be dismantled them. It doesn't, it doesn't. And it doesn't have to be, you don't even have to ask by just sleeping, you don't besides your bed or whatever.
and even though I did as a kid, I was a super weird kid. The SG might imagine given all the different things I'm interested in, but the, yeah, that there doesn't have, there's this middle ground of like, just being able to regard to be in space with a creature what's another being and just be friendly, right.
Again, it doesn't mean that you need, you don't need to touch each other or that you need to interact. All that much. but just like, I'm happy you're here and you can just stay there and I get to do my thing and you get to do your thing.
Sara: [00:57:53] It's so beautiful. I really love that. Yeah. Something about that, [00:58:00] just, yeah, it makes my heart sing. Thank you for sharing that story. I'm curious. I want to honor your time tonight just soon, but I'm curious if there's other things rising to the surface that you want to be sure to talk
Justin: [00:58:17] about. I guess other than, you know, Yeah, our personal journeys are the thing that leads to like the, both the systemic and institutional change, because, you know, I know, again, we're all on our journeys.
I'm no different than anybody else. Piece of the journey. It may look like I'm further ahead or further behind, depending on vantage point. It's not either one of those things. It's just where I am. everybody else is on their own journey. Right. I mean, it looks like they're further behind or further hand on somebody else's vantage point.
But, but really, [00:59:00] because, you know, we sometimes think about like, when we say systemic racism or systemic, anything to send an impression. That the system itself is an entity, right? It's actually what it is. And it isn't in the same way. We talk about the economy. The economy is not like a free roaming, you know, dragon who goes and sleeps in a cave and wakes up and get the numbers the next day.
Those
people. It's not, it's a group of people. And so in order for systems to work, people have to agree to it, right? That's the personal work. You can't, you it's both right. Systems needs to be dismantled in terms of like, you know, there are certain ways that institutions are set up and if the system is dismantle, but the.
People have done no actual transformation in their own personal lives. They will go and [01:00:00] recreate that system or the thing that spurred the system in the first place somewhere else in some other, right. We get on always no form of that will take, but. If the, you know, the root thing is that in fact address, it's going to show up as guns brought up somewhere else.
It's like a sucker. I don't like a plant that sends up suckers like sassafras or, or, sumac or anything like any of those kinds of plants, they just send up suckers from the mother plant. And that's how that is my sound systemic. Anything oppression of any sort, works. If it's not, if people haven't done personal work, both right.
In order for. Because every one of these systems at polices judicial system, the political system, there's a clerk somewhere who's filing the paper, right? If the person hasn't done any transformational work, they will just like, well, I'm just doing my job. Right. And holding up the system. Right. It may be that [01:01:00] they're a vital part in dismantle.
Like if you know a clerk do the super important job, if you can't find the papers, then the thing didn't happen. right. Okay. I asked the clerk, said a judge at a court system. If they don't do their jobs, the thing didn't happen. The judgment didn't even get in. It, it doesn't matter. You could have, you could have gotten sentenced to whatever file properly.
It actually can happen. And there's no record of it. so the personal work. Then the institutional, right? Because the institutions are not, they're not freestanding. They're not, , they're not entities and of themselves. and it's an important to remember that it's the, both, and this is systemic because there are a lot of acting under the same notions.
And that's what makes, and it's hard to, it's hard to, that's a lot to hold. There's a lot of different things to hold. I even sometimes have trouble holding him, because sometimes like, well, we can't do this one by [01:02:00] one and it has to be both dismantled and done one by one.
Sara: [01:02:05] Yes. Wow. I feel like there is something.
Really important in that. And I really like how you gave the example of the clerk. Yeah. We need to do it all. Every person needs to do our own little part too, work on becoming anti-racist and we also need to work on the structures at large and dismantle those change. Those.
Justin: [01:02:37] Yep. All at the same time, it's like the work is there's a lot. yeah, . There's a lot to be done. It just is. and we have to start immediately.
This is their first foray into this. Get to like take some deep breaths and then get to work.
Sara: [01:02:56] Yeah, absolutely.
I'm curious, [01:03:00] how can we support you? How can we connect to you? Are there. Is there any, anything else rising to the surface you want to name?
Justin: [01:03:09] no. I think in general for whoever's making sure they're supporting black businesses. And if that business is not just supported black businesses just off, but I want to be specific about what I mean support.
And so if that business is making a black product or something, that's something that's specifically for community like. It may not make sense for you to buy a bunch of that or to go into that space. But it made me like, Oh, I just want to make a donation to your business. That was also fun. Right? You may not need to purchase the product right.
In the same way that I don't know, you know, seeing people who are street, then there's their, whatever. Sometimes you don't need the thing that they're selling. Right? Yeah. I'm like an ice cream person or whatever. No, who's an [01:04:00] independent person, not who's paid or whatever. You may not need those, you know, those rocket pops or, yeah, this is a source of income for this person.
You could just donate it and have them keep the product. Right. If it's not, if it's all the same to you. Right. You know, and that's what you feel like you want your money to do. Then you can do that too, without having less than a restaurant or. Black UCAS, yoga studio or something like that. It may not be appropriate for white people to show up in the space and take classes.
Cause then you may be making that space, not feel comfortable. It's a black folks, but it may be like, I want to support this by you can just, you know, I want to just donate. And so that's, that's another way to just be of service. So support these businesses, especially because, you know, they were already in a, not in a world of the quality, these businesses were struggling anyway.
And then in a world of, [01:05:00] COVID are struggling, even harder. And the recession that will sort of come is coming it's happening, whatever we haven't felt the full effects of yet. It's happening. Like the situation is pretty dire for a lot of these businesses. So, go support them and support. And if you, and if possible, support them without.
Needing to like receive the thing. Of course, if you want the thing, then buy it. I'm like, Oh, I don't want to, you know, I've seen people do this in the past. Like, if it's a, let's say I'm just giving us a snap on like a yoga retreat or something like that. I've seen people like buy two or three slots.
And not actually use them, like no, give these to people for on a scholarship basis.
Sara: [01:05:47] Oh, I love that idea. That's so beautiful. Right.
Justin: [01:05:51] And so that you're, you're donating, the person is the business owner is getting the money and the community is [01:06:00] not having to like then, you know, potentially be traumatized by seeing a white person in this space.
Cause sometimes that just in itself is a traumatic experience. Depending on the community and depending on this space. so that's a way, that's a way to sort of move through that into, cause I understand that people's inclination is to do something in this moment. in there you can't do something.
There's not, there's no, there's, there are things to do. And then also that should always be informed by what the community is saying. So if there's a, you know, people almost always take, take free money basically, and it's not really. Truly free in that way. Like people have been, you know, gifted might've seen ever, and hate heritage, anything that's like, that's free, that's free money.
Right? You didn't actually anything besides being born into that particular family, that's [01:07:00] like, That's not actually your money in any real sense. You didn't, you, the individual didn't do anything for you may, your parents may have decided to give it to your grandparents because of your association with them, but they did that.
So sometimes the money is it's. So, and I don't mean to say free money in terms of like, people that don't deserve it, but, you know,
Sara: [01:07:22] no, I know what to me, like, it's not like working for the money.
Justin: [01:07:27] Right, right. and so that's something that I would, that's something I would encourage so that, you know, folks who.
Don't have enough money and you really need to access some of these services. You can have access to it without money being the thing that bars them from, from access.
Sara: [01:07:46] I hope such a great idea. I think that's really beautiful. And is there a way people can donate money to you for your, the education that
Justin: [01:07:57] you're offering?
There's a [01:08:00] cash app, a post on there's a post on the feed that has my cash app on it. and I'll do another one. and I, I'm going to do a few. I'm going to start, I think I'm been doing a video every day and that's a little too much.
Sara: [01:08:13] it seems like a lot of work, actually. I was like,
Justin: [01:08:18] yeah, it's often a court two or three at a time.
If I'm in a good. but it's still, you know, even at a minimal level with, you know, minimal production, it's still a tiny production. So, so I'm going to do a few, do some fewer, in the coming days, as I sort of figure out what the, what the actual pace is. and, you know, oftentimes. you know, sometimes plants want to be highlighted and sometimes they don't.
So
donating helps. It allows me to some people to [01:09:00] do it and without having to be extra stress and, you know, Oh,
Sara: [01:09:06] Oh, nice.
Justin: [01:09:07] Like an auntie. I don't get paid for this,
Sara: [01:09:11] so
Justin: [01:09:12] yeah, it feels fine to be supportive.
Sara: [01:09:15] Definitely. I will definitely make sure I have a link to the show notes and then a link to your Instagram as well So that's, I think that's a great way. for people to support you and yeah, you're doing such beautiful work. And so I think it's definitely worth. A lot to the universe. So thank you for doing that.
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for making time to talk today. I feel like it was just really wonderful to connect with you and thank you for sharing all of your deep wisdom and stories. And it was. Just really incredible to learn more about who you are and your [01:10:00] experiences and your background, and just to understand how to move forward with grace and in a more, Aligned way as we move forward.
Justin: [01:10:10] Yeah, I think that's, that's what we're looking for is balance.
Well, thank you for your time and yeah, we'll be in touch,
Sara: [01:10:18] but sounds perfect. Thank you, Justin. Have a beautiful night. Okay. Talk to you soon.