Ele Jones Interview

Ele is a non-binary and queer artist and creator. They work with sound and storytelling to help shift our world into more harmonious frequencies. They work with magic, astrology, and humbly in ceremonial spaces with different indigenous and entheogenic plant and animal medicines to Turtle Island. They are anti-racist, white, and an Ashkenazi Jew and are committed to a life of decolonization. They are a student of various healing modalities to help connect to our collective and ancestral stories, and awaken our human family into more love and accountability. They are engaged in a movement called The Divine One, inspiring the inclusivity of marginalized folks in conscious and spiritual communities. They have spent a large portion of their life growing up in cities in the US and Canada and studying and working in the arts. Over the last 5 years they were called to the wild, traveling through Latin America and Europe, focusing on inner work and developing their gifts to be of service. They love living with the land wherever they go, and honor the magic breathing through all life.

A note to listeners from Ele:

I want to thank Mira for this beautiful opportunity to tell my story and for the gorgeous piece of art she crafted in response. As a gender non-conforming person participating in a womxn centered project, it feels important to name a few things.

Firstly, I believe BIPOC trans women and femmes need to be centered and protected in any movement around justice. These are our sisters and siblings who experience the most violence and potentially have the most wisdom about healing our world.

As a masculine-leaning white trans person speaking about my connection to womxnhood and nature, I have a very small and privileged slice of perspective. The advantages, freedoms, and safety I have been afforded by both being white and masculine presenting have given me a perspective that is not representative of the majority of trans experience on this planet. I ask that you hold my story humbly and continue to educate yourself around intersectional trans inclusivity on your journey to understanding our human family.

Secondly, it feels necessary to affirm that our bodies do not define our gender, though they inform it. It is paramount in the alternative/healing new age cultures that we transform our language around bodies and gender to make space for everyone. Someone of any gender can bleed with the moon and give birth; this act isn’t inherently tied to womxnhood, as there are many womxn who don’t. We need to shift our language and our understanding to one that acknowledges (and even celebrates) that our human family exists along a spectrum and thrives in diversity.

Finally, I encourage us all to continue decolonizing our definitions of both Womxn and Nature. Language is merely symbols for something that often cannot be so simply defined. In a Colonial framework, both Womxn and Nature are limited to how they can procreate, what resources they can produce, and how they can be conquered. The truth is you cannot limit these forces, no matter how hard systems of oppression try. Womxn and Nature are infinite power, creativity, and expression.

For me, the greatest clue in how to decolonize my mind comes in breaking down the illusions of separation. Between the feminine and masculine within me. Between myself and nature. Between my spirit and body. The liberating truth comes when I see the connective tissue of it all…that it is not linear, from one box to the next, but rather an organism swirling in a dance of liminality. And when we cannot separate reality into parts, then we cannot value some parts over others. So I pray that we face tomorrow holding both the ancient wisdom of our ancestors and the innocent eyes of a newborn child, and somehow realize that they are perhaps the same."

Resources for LGBTQIA Allyship

OUR INTERVIEW

Stories Of Rematriation Art

Nature Is Not Binary

(Acrylic on Canvas) 48X36"

This piece is about Ele’s identity as a Trans and Non-binary person and their journey and connection to the Earth. Their love of astrology is represented in the stars, the moon phases, and the animal archetypes. As well as, certain animals such as the frog can change genders, showing that nature is not binary, just like Ele. Throughout this piece are colors symbolic of the Trans Pride flag, colors of white, blue, and pink.

“When you look at the Earth around you, when you take a walk, you can see variants and spectrums of everything, it is not just two things. Animals and plants don’t just come in two variations in a biological way. When you look out in nature there are so many ways that Nature can manifest in terms of gender variation." ~ Ele Jones

Quotes from interview:

“I’ve always loved stories and people’s stories, and that we can connect to each other’s humanity and to the larger story that we are all in, by sharing our voices, our bodies, our dreams, and our hearts, and expressing them in whatever way feels relevant to that person and that person's gifts. And I was now and I currently am committed to helping people share their stories and expressing my story.”

"I have been investigating what is womxnhood and what is womxnhood for me, and what is femininity and femininity for me, and how does it relate to my body and how does my body relate to the earth. And how does the Earth encompass these archetypes and how do they resonate with me, and not just the Earth, but other natural phenomena like the moon, the sun and stars, and sound. Why I am excited to speak to your project, I spent most of my life navigating as a ‘woman' and society telling me that is what I am, and me trying to fit into that. Regardless of whatever our gender is we all presumably have a mother and grandmothers who have experienced violence as a result of the oppressive structures we have been talking about. And we are all living on this planet together which is increasingly being exploited, degraded, fracked, and sucked dry of all the abundance and life that she had been giving us freely. So we are all survivors living through that. I think anybody of any gender would connect with your project because of the fact that we all have those things in common, that we came from wombs and we live on Earth. And at the core of it, everybody has a relationship with femininity. It is not necessary that everyone identifies with their femininity, or embodies it. There are Trans and Non-binary people that live in every aspect of the spectrum. I like to think about gender and identity as a sphere, masculine and femininity being opposite sides and you can exist in different places on the spectrum and that can change, or you are inside the ball or not even on the ball. Some genders are totally outside this framework.”

“Regardless of what body you were born with and what gender you were assigned at birth, femininity exists all around us in our world and exists in the ways we relate to each other because we have gendered so many things as a society in a fixed way and in a toxic way, that we are constantly having to navigate, decolonize, and deconstruct femininity and masculinity. In one way pull them apart, but in another way remember that they are not separate and that masculinity is not dominant to femininity.”

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