Mina Rose of Cargo Faërie: Music, Art, Dance, and Magic

Mina Rose is a Romani and Jamaican interdisciplinary artist, singer-songwriter, and flamenco dancer. A descendant of Urania Boswell, Queen of Kent Gypsies, she carries forward a lineage of musicians and storytellers, grounding her creative practice in memory, tradition, and resilience.

Her work moves fluidly between music, visual arts, herbalism, and metaphysics, weaving ancestral knowledge with contemporary expression. As a musician, Mina has released two EPs, supported Jorja Smith on tour, and performed for BBC Introducing at Reading Festival, blending the sounds of London’s multicultural landscape with echoes of her heritage.

She is the founder of Cargo Faërie, a metaphysical platform and “secret garden” where tarot, astrology, and ritual meet storytelling, alongside Chai Faërie (herbal teas and hair oils) and Nyam Suh (food and cultural journalism).

Since 2009 she has nurtured Girl Down Brockley, born from her love of analogue photography, evolving into a vintage clothing project. Mina continues to creatively explore how her mixed heritage and diasporic identity transforms into new cultural expression.

Follow @thisisminarose and @cargofaërie, and visit, https://minarose.co.uk/, https://linktr.ee/thisisminarose, https://cargofaerie.co.uk, https://cargofaerie.substack.com

The Romani crush this episode is La Singla, and here's info in the documentary

Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast. Please subscribe, rate, + review, + share with your friends! 

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @romanistanpodcast. Subscribe to our Patreon to join the conversation and our private community for just $5 a month. Or donate any amount to Ko-fi.com/romanistan. We depend on your support to keep going. 

You can book readings and events and take workshops with Jez at jezminavonthiele.com, and book readings and holistic healing sessions with Paulina at romaniholistic.com. Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic. 

Get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling wherever books are sold. If you love it, write us a review. 

Visit us at romanistanpodcast.com and email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries. 

Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens

Conceived of by Paulina Stevens

Edited by Viktor Pachas

Music by Viktor Pachas

Artwork by Elijah Vardo

Transcript

Meet Mina Rose

SPEAKER_05 0:07

Welcome to Romanists, where your friendly neighborhood gypsies.

SPEAKER_07 0:12

I'm Paulina. And I'm Jez. And today we are here with Mina Rose, who we have been wanting to talk to for a really long time.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

It really has been a long time, Colin. Yes, so happy.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

Mina Rose is a Romani and Jamaican interdisciplinary artist, singer, songwriter, and flamenco dancer, a descendant of Urania Boswell, queen of Kent gypsies. She carries forward a lineage of musicians and storytellers, grounding her creative practice in memory, tradition, and resilience. Her work moves fluidly between music, visual arts, herbalism, and metaphysics, weaving ancestral knowledge with contemporary expression. As a musician, Mina has released two EPs, supported Georgia Smith on tour, and performed for BBC Introducing at Reading Festival, blending the sounds of London's multicultural landscape with echoes of her heritage. She is the founder of Cargo Fairy, a metaphysical platform and secret garden where tarot, astrology, and ritual meet storytelling, alongside Chai Fairy, herbal teas and hair oils, and Niam Sa, food and cultural journalism. Since 2009, she has nurtured Girl Down Broccoli, born from her love of analog photography, evolving into a vintage clothing project. Mina continues to creatively explore how her mixed heritage and diasporic identity transforms into new cultural expression.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Yay, welcome! Thank you. It's really lovely to be here to speak to you guys.

SPEAKER_07 2:09

We're so happy. So we love to just start with the basics. Um tell us a little more about yourself, where you're from, where your family's from, your visa, anything you would like to share.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Cool. So um I'm born and bred Southeast London, Lucem to be specific. Um my dad is um British Jamaican, so he was born here. Um, but his parents were born in Jamaica, and um, they are both Indigenous Jamaican and African Jamaican. And um my mom on my maternal side, um we are Romney Child, English gypsy, and um uh specifically the Boswell and Lee clans. Um, and as I said before, we descend from um Urania Boswell Lee, the queen of Kent gypsies. Um she inspires me a lot in my life. She's like my feminine matriarchal strength that I walk with. So um, yeah, um so a lot of our family were based in Epham Forest um and in Kent, a place called uh Tugmarton Common. Yeah, we've we've been settled in brick and mortar for a long time. Um but my granny um she still had the the bug because she needed to move, so she's moved houses many, many times, and I've seen a lot of the UK, a lot of Scotland, um, Newcastle, down south, everywhere. So um, in a sense, we've continued moving around. Um but yeah, um, about urania a little bit as well. Um her story's amazing. I actually wrote a post on my Instagram about her, which goes more into depth, but she used to read Queen Victoria's Palm. Um she predicted the Titanic, she saved a guy from going on the Titanic. Um, she used to carry donkeys on her shoulders. There's so many amazing stories about her. Um, her funeral was filmed in 1933. Um, there were 20,000 gypsies that came to celebrate her when she passed, and um, yeah, that's filmed and documented on YouTube um on the British Path. So yeah, it's really beautiful to have um that that source and um guidance and ancestor with me. So um yeah, that's a bit about me and my family. Wow, thank you for sharing that. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Um, do you identify as a rebel and why or why not?

SPEAKER_03 4:56

I definitely do. I am a rebel for sure. Um I think just the way I live my life, my everyday existence in a sense is rebellion, just um in in terms of the system and where I come from, being Jamaican and Romanine, both are very strong. Um people who have been oppressed, and I feel like just existing in itself is an act of rebellion. Um, but in general, like I I like to live in a way where I'm not stuck into the system and I like to be able to explore life and flow in life rather than be trapped by um external systems. And since a child I've kind of been that way and always felt like an outsider in a sense, so in in general, I maybe not actively thought I was a rebel, but I've always had this feeling and spark inside of me of like you're doing things and seeing things very differently to how a lot of people around you are seeing things, and I think that's given me confidence to be a rebel and be different in my in my later years, especially the past few years, to be honest, um, with the state of the world. And I think we've all been faced with a lot of ways in which we have to choose what we um stand for and what we believe in, and kind of have to stand with it actively and bring it into our awareness and bring it into our surroundings and have these conversations with people and um express our opinions a bit more. And I think um I found my rebellious nature a lot more um and it's become a lot more prominent in the past few years for sure.

The Word Gypsy And Reclamation

SPEAKER_07 6:46

That's beautiful. I was just teaching um as like a guest lecture yesterday, teach uh in explaining you know the word gypsy and how people can identify with it differently, how it's used differently in different places. And I was curious on your take, um, because I just love uh I love a powerful reclamation. And I feel like as you're using this word, it feels like that to me. Can you share a little bit about like how you feel about the word gypsy, how you may identify with it, what you um and if you have any like feelings about non-Roma using the word?

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Yeah, of course. Well, growing up, um I always just knew it as Beromini Gypsy. I just knew I was Romney Gypsy. I didn't really um have that perspective of it being a slur. Um I did know that people would um have a very closed-minded perspective on gypsies, but I think in the UK it is kind of used a lot more and people own it a lot more here. My opinion on other people using it, um I think if we're in conversation together and we're having a conversation and I'm using it and we're speaking and we're having a very um respectful and aware conversation, then I'm not gonna be offended, of course. But I think when people are saying things like, oh, I got gypped and using it in a negative context, which can happen a lot, and I do think actually there's been a rise in that recently. Um growing up, it always felt like it was romanticized more than um used as a slur, but in the sense it still can be used as it is still a slur, even if it's been romanticized, but it wasn't used actively in a negative way towards me ever. But um yeah, I do think nowadays, um, with the rise of opinions and people being able to express their opinions a lot more, um that side of it is is shown more. So I do tend to say to people, you do know that you really should be saying Romani uh or Ramani Chow or like there's other ways you've got to understand. And I use it as an opportunity to speak about the history and educate people in a sense. So um, yeah, that's my my stance on the whole.

SPEAKER_07 9:04

Yeah, thank you. Because I mean it's it is used more neutrally or more casually in the UK comparatively to the US, and that's been something that I always want to make sure that I highlight for people that it's like um we had a really sweet listener write in and be like, I am seeing street signs that say like gypsy hill everywhere. Should I like do something? Because she was in she's studying abroad. And I was like, the Roma over there would do something if they cared about it. So he was more neutrally.

SPEAKER_03 9:32

Thank you for bringing up this like interesting point. Yeah, I love that gypsy hill. I live very close to Gypsy Hill actually.

SPEAKER_05 9:40

Oh, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_07 9:41

It was really sweet of her to write in. I was like, oh, you're a doll.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

Um, like in community are very against using the word romani, and they're like only use gypsy, like we never we don't never heard of romani, blah blah blah. And I'm like, well, we are in community and like we rarely even deal with outsiders, like you guys don't understand. And they're like, we know it's a slur, but when we're talking, like that's the word that we use. And I'm like, oh my gosh, okay. So everybody's different, and then Roma, some some of them here are like, no, like, so it is interesting.

SPEAKER_07 10:17

Thank you for that little foray. Because I was just like, this is a great moment to talk more about this. Because I know a lot of our listeners might be kind of new to us too, and and not really always understand why we're using Roma or gypsy like interchangeably, as Paulina and I all also do.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Yeah, of course. It's a long, long journey, um, and I'm definitely gonna have to shorten it. But um growing up, I was surrounded by music, musicians, storytellers. Um, my dad and my uncle uh were part of a house music group, collective. Um my stepdad was um and is part of a reggae and scar band, so I was always going to their shows. Um, my mom was like the biggest music fan. Um, and she would take me to festivals. Like my whole childhood was festivals. My first festival was four weeks old at Glastonbury. Crazy. She um she broke in as well. She didn't get a ticket, she climbed over the fence with me. Um gotta get that baby.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Hell yeah.

Music Roots And First Break

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Love that. So, yeah, rebel from four weeks old. Okay. And um, yeah, growing up, I went to many other festivals. Um, one in particular called Beautiful Days, which is run by a band called the Levelers. Um, and that was like I pilgrimage every year. Like I found myself in that space. Um, in particular, there was a tent called um the Rebel Tent. And um they were a sound system from Luton, and um, they would play dub music with their big sound system and and many other types of techno and stuff. But what drew me in was the dub music and um the vibration, feeling the vibration of the music through the grass into your feet, and being able to just like it's a healing, it's a healing. It's you feel it in different parts of your body, and it's a frequency that heals. And um that I took into when I was making my music. That is one thing that really inspired my music that I've made. But yeah, growing up, I continued playing guitar and um delving into music, and it became more of an inward thing for me in my teenage years. I was exploring my emotions and my hormones and all of that in my teenage years in my bedroom by myself. I have siblings, but I grew up as an only child, and um that would be my space of um self-therapy in a sense. I would cry. Music makes me cry a lot. Like there's songs that will play, and I'm instantly crying. My partner's always like, You're really crying to this song. Yeah, like it just it heals me. It's just my way of processing and and understanding my inner landscape. And I went to the Brit School and I didn't study music, I didn't want to apply for music, I studied art and design, but I was still kind of stepping into the realm of music, and in sick form or college, um, just before uni, I didn't go to uni though, but um, I met a group of people who were part of a hip-hop collective, and I started making some music with them and um helping them with their events and stuff, and um, I made this one track called One Up, and time passed and it and it never really got released, it was never pushed. A lot of the time, the songs that we created weren't really um finished and put out there. The producer was very um a perfectionist. So um, one of my friends, uh my best friend Vada, um, she was like, I'm gonna leak your song on SoundCloud, I'm just gonna upload it for you. I don't care what you say, it needs to be out there. And um, this song was actually um, I wrote this song while my mum has a crystal ball, and I would stare into her crystal ball, and that's how I wrote this song. Um I'd put it in front of the window on the windowsill and just look through and just see the world happening like upside down, and that's how I wrote this song. And it's kind of about um connecting to your subconscious and um connecting to the flow and wake up. There's a line in it that says with a wanderer's luck, one up is kind of the hook.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

In this night of wonder we'll see.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

And it's the visions kind of come from my like my Romani heritage, the idea of like wandering and that trust in life and that trust in the flow. Um, and that's what that song is kind of about. And like if my friend hadn't have released it for me, I probably wouldn't have had my whole music career, so I I owe her one for that. Um, and that song really blew on SoundCloud. Um, it never got officially released, um, but it's on SoundCloud, it's still there, and um it did really well, and I managed to get management from it, and that's where my music career kind of began. That's a whole nother story, and a lot of things happened that um ruined my love for music in a sense when I stepped into the industry and tainted it for me. They wanted to change me, they we they would say things to me like, Oh, I had an afro at the time, they're like, Oh, you have an afro, but that artist over there has an afro, so you need to change your hair. You're right.

SPEAKER_07 17:00

Only room for one afro in the industry, apparently.

Industry Pushback And Self-Definition

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Wow, apparently. They would say things to me like, um, you don't want to be another SoundCloud girl, and things like that. And still to this day, my first song on SoundCloud is probably the most loved song I've made, which is funny. But and they would say, Do you want to go on X Factor? and things like this, and they were really trying to push me into the industry, but um, I'm a rebel, so I fought I fought it, and I think I did well. Um, I released two EPs, managed to tour. I actually, my managers actually dropped me just before I went on tour with Georgia Smith. They were doing some sneakies, my granddad found out, and then they dropped me. And so I had to release my EP, go on tour, um, design my own website, do all of my own promotion, everything while I was touring by myself. Oh myself. I'm proud of myself. But um, I was so exhausted that um after the tour, I ended up getting chicken pox. Oh no, adult chicken pox is a nightmare. Yeah, it was very intense, but it was again a blessing in disguise. It gave me time to slow down and think about um what was happening, why I was ill, why I was so exhausted, what I needed to prioritize. And um I stepped back into music with a different mindset. And um not long after that lockdowns came and um I was forced to stop music. Um I couldn't perform anymore. That gave me real time to really process what music meant to me. I started making for myself again and remembering that music was actually almost a divinatory practice for me because the way I write, I if I have a beat, I will spend time with this beat and I will plug the mic in, press record, and allow melodies and and sounds to just flow out of me. And then I will listen back and I will just hear the words, like the words will already be in there, like my subconscious will just put the words in there for me, and what I've been trying to say this whole time will already be written for me. A lot of my songs are written like that, where I don't sit there and go, okay, this is my plan, this is my idea, this is the subject matter I want to write. It it's more of like a meditation I go into, and somehow the words appear. So I went back into that during lockdowns, and and I've been working on my own um project, my self-produced project. And um last year I traveled to Portugal for a permaculture course on a farm. And um the owner of the farm is actually a musician and part of a band, and a 30-year-old band, actually, they've been going for 30 years, and there was a lot of music involved um in the permaculture course. Um, he brought out so many instruments, like sitars and all sorts, didgeridoos, and um we ended up writing poetry under an old oak tree and sitting around the fire, and we read our poems, and he realized that uh me, my partner, and two of our friends that were also there, like he had been waiting for us to arrive. And um, we ended up coming back for three weeks to the farm after the course to make a project based on permaculture principles, based on the principles of nature. And we wrote some beautiful music um based on that. So that was last year, and hopefully my project and that project should be coming real soon, and I'll be able to share that. So that's why I'm now with my with my music.

SPEAKER_07 20:59

Wow, I love all of your beautiful influences and your music. Like this, it's it's really it's such a magical process for you to create when you're especially when you're not restrained by um by some bullshit.

SPEAKER_05 21:13

But now I'm excited. I can't wait to hear it. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

If they could see the night we dreamed of Rose Rock and Steve, the traveller's monster week, climb up my high, and tell me you'll be real sometime.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

What inspired your EP London Burning?

Illness, Reset, And Creative Process

Permaculture Project And Sound

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Well, London Burning I wrote around 2018, 2017, I think. And um London was in a very tense political situation. Um, I don't know how far this Um reached around the world, but there was um a block of flats called Grenfell, and that block of flats burnt down. They say 70 people um died. I do believe it was more. Um, there was probably a lot of um unrecorded people living there as well. But the reason that this tower burnt down was because the government had decided to skimp on money and put up cladding on this building because in that area is a big divide in class, and the rich people didn't want to look at the ugly building anymore. So they were like, let's put this cladding on it and make it look nice. And um, this cladding, because of their um choice to not spend the right amount of money, was actually flammable. And I think someone's fridge, I think the story is someone's fridge set on fire or something, and it set the whole building up. Really, it's a really high tower block, like many, many floors. I think it's over like I think it's about 20 floors or something like that. And the whole thing just went up in flames like instantly, and everyone was trying to escape. And um, I grew up in a council block myself, um, not a tower block, but um like a four-story block. And as a child, I remember I went to Brownie's and we visited a fire brigade, and they made us do a map of um how we would escape if there was a fire in our home. And as I was doing it, I'd realized okay, if there was a fire in my kitchen, it would spread into the hallway very quickly, and I would have no way to escape. I lived on the top floor. Um, and the fire brigade told me, just shout out of your window, that's all you can do. So when this Grenfell thing happened, um, it hit home. And so one of my songs on this EP, um, Ashes, is about that perspective of being the high up and seeing seeing the landscape of London from your window, but the fire coming for you and burning you, and it's like that last view. Um that is one of the songs, it's a very heavy, heavy song, and it's it's based in dub. And I wanted to kind of juxtapose it with the dub music, with the healing, the vibrations that I mentioned earlier. And dub is also quite um rebellious and like the Rust movement in itself, it's about fighting for what's right in a sense, and so that song kind of encapsulates that. And the artwork has uh it's a beautiful beautiful artwork. Um I found an artist that made dub posted posters for a local pub and um very old school looking 70s vibes, and I was like, I need that for this. And she listened to my whole EP and created the most amazing artwork, and you can find different elements of each song on this. Um, and then other songs on the EP um Paradise um is about how I internally feel my vision for that. I was sitting in a red room, which was like my internal space, everything's red. And um the idea of the different floors and the different floors, so floors as in levels, and floors as in the negative sides of ourselves, in a sense, and sitting on the floor facing your floors in a place that can be seen as hell, and trying to find your own heaven within that hell, and I think that's really relevant now, in a way, because the world feels like it's burning in hell. Yet we still have to find ways to find our heaven within that, and so the line in the song is a heaven in hell is a hell of a heaven. So the EP is quite dark, but I wanted the music to empower and heal in a sense and make us face these things. And London Burning is just what it is. London is burning, the world is burning. Um, and it's about trying to find those little pockets of joy because if we lose that heaven in ourselves, then it's completely lost. Yeah, and I feel like in another sense, this EP is another act of divination and and prophecy, and the more we connect to our subconscious, then the more we will be able to guide ourselves into the future.

SPEAKER_07 27:49

That's so powerful. I'm really glad that you told us that story because I had not heard about that event. And um, did you hear about that, Paulina? No, but it's really freaking sad. Yeah, that's devastating. And so scary as a little girl to learn that like the best you can do is shut out a window. Like, that's terrifying.

London Burning And Dub As Healing

SPEAKER_03 28:10

And so helpless. I had really bad dreams and it really affected me for a long time. I before I went to sleep. I obviously you always say, Oh, I love you too, Mom, when you go to sleep. But when I was a kid, when I said it, I said it like I might not wake up because I might get in a fire and I might die. Like, I had so much anxiety after that.

SPEAKER_07 28:31

Yeah. That makes sense. I love you for real. Hey Romanistan listeners, if you want to join the conversation, ask questions, share opinions and stories, suggest topics, and be a part of our private community. Join our Patreon.

SPEAKER_05 28:51

For just$5 a month, you can become a citizen of Romanistan and help keep the podcast going. We'll also share behind-the-scenes content from the show and other projects like books and decks.

SPEAKER_07 29:05

Join at patreon.com backslash Romanistan Podcast and through the link in the show. I mean, you're such a multifaceted creator too. I mean, not only are you inspired by so many things, but also you're expert in so many things. Art, design, yoga, wellness, like all of this seems to be captured under Cargo Ferry and its related projects. And we would love to know more about what you're launching.

Finding Heaven Inside Hell

Community Q&A And Patreon

Building Cargo Fairy

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Yeah, Cargo Fairy, wow. Um, as you said, I I I feel like I can be a jack of all trades, you know, I catch you a lot. And something I've recently um been working on is syncretizing everything and seeing the strands between everything and how they all actually come together. So Cargo Ferry is like a biodiverse garden. It's a place where everything I'm doing can grow in one space. I can do my videography and photography, my music, my tarot, my my metaphysical studies, my rituals, and everything that's going on in this crazy brain of mine can find a place and hopefully attract other people to this garden who find themselves in a similar space to me, where um whether it's from having mixed heritage and feeling pulled in so many directions or just being a creative and trying to like live in this world and and express yourself. And um ultimately I want it to become a place where we can come together and find a new perspective. So that's where the idea of the fairy comes in. A cargo fairy is someone who can carry the weight of the world, but still be fly as a fairy. And fairy, in a sense, to me, is about finding a new perspective on life, shrinking yourself down to see like there's a whole world on a leaf, and you can delve into yourself in that way and find a whole world within you and find the value in your life without having to be looking for the external and the material and realize how much beauty there is and magic that exists in this world and within yourself. And I think um ritual is really important in the sense of living with ritual and seeing what you do as valued and important, whether it's brushing your teeth or um which side of the bed you get out of every day, just these little things and anchoring yourself into the now, into the present, and finding each moment to be beautiful. So um Cargo Ferry is going to be a place for people to come together and find that perspective together. Because I find a lot of people do that alone, and I myself am a very known hermit, like I hermit myself a lot, and I'm now feeling really drawn to finding others, whether it's in the physical or online or wherever, that can um be a part of that, and it's gonna span a lot of things from taro readings, which I'm about to start offering now. Maybe when this is released, they'll be on offer. But um, I have been creating my own tarot spread called the spiral spread, and um really, really delving deep into tarot and what it really means to me. And um, I realised that it's just the breath. Taro is just the breath. It's it's like box breathing. I know a lot of people do box breathing with meditation when you breathe in and then you hold, and then you breathe out, and then you hold. So like the suits, the foresuits, the ones, the cups, swords, and the pentacles. The ones and the swords are the in-breath and the outbreath, and the cups and the pentacles are the pauses. If you saw it as a cross, so they would be the equinoxes and the solstices, everything goes into the fore, right? But this breath of breathing in the fuel, the life force, the wands, pausing and feeling in the water and the emotions, breathing out with the swords, with the thoughts, and trying to manifest, and then again the pause when things have materialized, and before they return to the divine, the inertia, the the material. So, in a sense, tarot is the breath, and it's just finding out what breath you're on right now, what's happening in this cycle of breath. So, I'm going to be offering written readings for now until I find a space where I can offer in-person readings. But um, they're going to include uh a video of me pulling the cards and then a 2,000-word essay on the cards that are pulled with a really beautiful PDF that I've spent so much time designing and done all the artwork for. And I'm really, really excited to be able to offer this to people and also offer an opportunity for a follow-up as well. So it won't just be you get the reading and that's it. You'll be able to follow up with me and speak on it too. Um, and then Chai Fairy and Yamsa also come into it where I in person would like to offer dinner parties, moments for people to come together and share and drink and eat well. Um, and my mom runs a community garden um at the back of my flats, which um is a beautiful story in itself. Um, but I would love to host Cargo Ferry secret garden parties there in the future. So if anyone's in London, then keep an eye out for that. But um, that garden actually, I think it's worth telling the story because um when I was about five or six, I used to play downstairs on the grass and my block, and um behind the second block, I live in the front block, and then there's a back block, and behind that one, there was a door, like a big metal door that was always covered in ivy, and it used to have hay coming out from underneath the door, and I would always be like, What's happening behind that? Like, I was so curious until one day um there was a young boy that came out of the door, and I was like, Damn, what's going on behind there? Like, I'd love to know what's going on. And he introduced me to him and his whole family, and it was actually um a Romani family, and they had a stable behind there, and he introduced me to his horses. Um, there was one um black and white uh cob called Bella, and she had like the long hair on her feet, and it was like walking back in time. And um as I got older, the family moved on, and I was no longer able to go through this magic secret garden door until I was around 16. The council decided that they were going to offer funding to start a community garden behind there, and it then ended up turning into like a dump site, and um we had to then clear the whole space and build this garden. And um yeah, it's been 14 years since then, and um, it's grown into such a beautiful, beautiful space, and I really believe in um being able to care for yourself and not relying too much on the system and the government. So being able to grow fruit and veg and all of that is such a blessing and so important, and I really want to share that with people. So hopefully, Cargo Fairy again can expand into that. It's a realm. Cargo Ferry is a realm I would like to create.

SPEAKER_05 37:13

I really believe in that tool. So you're talking a little bit about your own your your practices, basically, spiritual practices that you offer on a professional level. I'm curious to know what are your favorite personal tools for healing and divination and what does your own practice look like?

Tarot As Breath And Practice

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Well, as I I think I mentioned before, like I see my life almost as um I think the way I perceive life is a form of divination. I think I'm always um interpreting things in my everyday as messages or signs, patron, you know, and um from basic things like on my walks, I walk dogs and things like that. So I'm in nature a lot of the time, I'm in cemeteries a lot of the time, and um in South London we have really beautiful cemeteries that are like woodlands. So I spend a lot of time there, and whether it's picking up a a feather or seeing the seeing the light through through the through the trees in a certain way, or walking barefoot through my for my whole walk through the woods for three hours and or seeing what herbs are around me. My mum is a mushroom head, she loves mushrooms and she loves going on walks to find the mushrooms, which will be happening real soon. Um but I see all of these things connecting to the subconscious and every day, I think is how I like to connect and and my spiritual practice is based in life and every day and nature. I just I'm a firm believer of walking with the subconscious and not trying to control, not to be too much in the realm of thought, but to be in the realm of feeling, the feminine principle. Um and I think in this world we are pulled a lot into the masculine principle, facts, logic, intellect, um it's it's a form of resilience and rebellion to connect with the feminine and the the gut, the subconscious, the heart, and allowing that to guide your thoughts, because if it's the other way around, then things go left. Another way, actually, that I do really one practice that I've taken up a lot recently um is um drawing. I used to draw a lot when I was very young, um, fairies in particular, and one of my inspirations was Brian Fraud. Um he illustrated the fairies oracle. Um my mum she gave that to me when I was young because I used to play around with her tarot cards and she had this folder, and um, I used to play around with it so much, I clipped one of my fingers in um the mechanism of the ring binder, and um she was like, All right, we're putting this one away, take the fairy cards, and those cards stayed with me. Um, and I've read from my friends over the years, and um, but the artwork itself, that realm is connected to my subconscious. I think I that's how I visualize those parts of me. And um, recently I started exploring that, and um I started this practice where I will draw circles, I will just continuously draw circles, and within those circles, faces start to form and beings start to form, and I start pulling them out of the circles and seeing them, and that process really clears my mind. It's like an image of I'm capturing what's going on in my internal and an image on the external, and it lets me face it, and it really, really helps me like to center and just remember and ground. So that's one of my practices that I've been doing recently.

SPEAKER_07 42:02

That is so cool. I also love the Brian Fraud fairies, and I love that he like channels you know, to to create it, so it makes sense that as a little kid, obviously very naturally psychic and gifted, you were just like, I'm here. I'm with these fairies.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Yeah, that's me.

SPEAKER_05 42:21

I I love just your like way of living. I use everything I do is my spiritual practice at this point. Literally, every time I talk to someone, every thought that I have, everything I'm looking at. I know I want to hang out. I'm like, I really get you. We'll be in London soon. Yeah, no, please, please come and stay in this space.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Yay.

SPEAKER_07 43:20

People of mixed heritage feeling uncomfortable or unsure about how to like accurately represent themselves, authentically represent themselves. And that's something that I always really loved about um your presentation is that it's very naturally interwoven in what you do. Um, so yeah, we'd love your take on that.

Secret Garden And Community Growing

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Yeah, that has been a journey. That really has been a journey for me. I never felt like I belonged anywhere growing up. Both sides of my family never really came together. So, in a way, I've had to like mold myself in two different ways. And it caused me a lot of trouble growing up in my mind, and I think a lot of my teenage depression. And stuff stems from this lack of seeing myself anywhere. Even with like other people who were mixed, we might not be mixed the same. And so we have different cultural references and different upbringings. And it was really difficult to find. And I mean, you don't find many Romani Jamaican people. So I had to really work that out for myself. And um, what I realized is I was seeing myself as two parts rather than a whole. You are still one. And everyone that came before you still led to you, and your perspective on life is valuable because it's unique. You are seeing things in a unique way because you have the blessing in a sense of experiencing multiple cultures or ways of life. And I think it's really important work being able to bring those things together because if you can't do it internally within yourself, how are people on the outside who are physically different going to find the common ground if you can't even do it within yourself? And I think it's part of the spiritual work that needs to happen for the rest of the world to be able to see the commonality within ourselves rather than the difference. And I think nowadays there's so much talk on identity, identity. What boxes are you ticking? Like, what are you? Tell me. Like, and there's so many new names and terms, and I think in a way it's separating us rather than bringing us back together. And I think bringing your parts back into yourself. And I've never been able to tick boxes, I've never been able to choose my identity. It's flowing, it's fluid, it's always changing. I'm I'm always perceiving myself differently, again, based on your surroundings, based in the environment you're in. And I think going into nature and connecting with mother there and finding who you are in that space when you're stripped back, away from all the influences, even culturally, because nature is always nature, and being in that space, bringing yourself back together, sewing, finding the threads to sew yourself back together with, and the beauty in those threads. Again, that's kind of what cargo fairy is to me, in a sense, those threads to bring everything together and syncretise. I love researching and looking into religion and cultures and finding the common threads between them all and seeing how we're all talking about the same thing, but just based on our own cultural perspective with the things that we have around us, we express them in different ways. And that's really helped me to walk out into the world and see myself in everyone and connect to people. I can speak to anyone, I can talk to anyone, and I love it. That's one thing I do love about London, despite the stress and the heaviness. There are so many different people to talk to. My day always feels so much brighter when I've spoken to someone new and been able to share and find common ground with them. And again, that's why I don't like to be in the system because I miss those opportunities, those random moments, those little synchronicities that you might miss if you're constantly doing the same thing every day. She is a um flamenco dancer, a deaf flamenco dancer. Um, she was born in 1948 in Barcelona, in the Chantilly Towns, and um she became very famous um in the 60s but disappeared in the 30s, um in her 30s, sorry. And there is a documentary about her that was released recently. Who was the writer that wrote, I think I wrote it down. Yeah, there was a documentary um released by Paloma Zapata, which um was trying to find La Singula because she's been missing, and she was such an amazing flamenco dancer. There's so much passion and um energy in her dancing, and one part of the documentary that really stood out to me um was when she said that she was inspired by the rhythm of the trains, so she would feel the vibration of the trains, and that chakat chakat chakat chakat is what inspired her dancing, and again I connected with the dub and the vibrations and that feeling. And I I danced flamenco myself, I've been dancing flamenco for four years, four years, yeah, four years of flamenco dancing, and she has been one of my inspirations, deep inspirations. Like, I really recommend if you haven't seen her dance, go on YouTube. There's so many videos, and it's so powerful, like mesmerizing. Um, yeah, Flamenco is another way as well to express and release and connect to my ancestors and connect to our culture, and it's given me a lot of confidence as well in my life, and um just beginning of the week on Mondays in my classes, just stamping it out and just manipulating energy with my hands and with my feet, and yeah, it it really helps. Like over summer, I haven't been able to go because we don't have classes, and um I always just lose myself a little bit when I'm not there every Monday having that that moment to dance Lamenko. Um, so yeah, La Singla is my roomy crush.

SPEAKER_07 50:35

So excited to learn about her. I hadn't heard of her before. I'm obsessed with La Chunga. I like you know, deep love for her so much, and now I have someone else to become obsessed with.

SPEAKER_03 50:47

So excited. I did a post on my Instagram about her actually. Um when I was reading um Women Who Run with the Wolves, I really found like there was like connections there. So I I wrote a post maybe a year ago, maybe. So yeah, you could check on my Instagram as well.

SPEAKER_07 51:06

Excellent book. So exciting. Speaking of your social media, how can people best find you, support your work, or work with you?

Everyday Divination And Drawing

SPEAKER_03 51:16

Well, my main page is this is Mina Rose. Um, and you can find links to all my other pages there. Cargo Ferry, Chai.fairy is my tea, and um NYAMSA is my Fruit and Food Journalism. Um, but yeah, this is Mina Rose. Just hit me a message, please. Like email me, um, sign up to my Substack on my Cargo Fairy Sub Stack as well, and you'll get um a discount on your tarot reading too. So yeah, I'm always happy to talk to people, so just drop me a message.

SPEAKER_07 51:50

Wonderful. Well, it was such a pleasure chatting with you. We're so grateful that you took the time and um we want to hang out with you someday. Let's let's make that happen somehow.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

Please, yes, let's do it. I would love that. Final way.

SPEAKER_05 52:05

Thank you so much for all your wisdom, and you are an inspiration for sure.

SPEAKER_07 52:11

Oh, truly.

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Thank you. Thank you guys. So you guys, and thank you for offering to let me join you. Like it's it's been beautiful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_07 52:21

Oh, yeah, that's been so fun. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in, and please check out all of this magic. We'll have lots of things on the show comments.

SPEAKER_05 52:43

Thank you for listening to Romanistan Podcast. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share with your friends.

SPEAKER_06 52:51

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Romanistan Podcast.

SPEAKER_07 52:55

Subscribe to our Patreon to join the conversation and our private community for just$5 a month. Or donate any amount to our coffee fundraiser, ko-fi.com backslash romanistan. We depend on your support to keep going.

SPEAKER_05 53:13

You can book readings and events and take workshops with Jez at JasminaVontila.com and book readings and holistic healing sessions with me, Paulina, at romaniholistic.com. Follow Jez on Instagram at Jasmina.vontila and me at RomaniHolistic.

SPEAKER_06 53:33

Get our book, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, wherever books are sold. If you love it, write us a review.

SPEAKER_05 53:40

Visit us at romanistanpodcast.com and email us at romanistanpodcast at gmail.com for inquiries.

SPEAKER_07 53:48

Romanistan is hosted by Jasmina Vontila and Paulina Stevens. Conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor Pachas, music by Victor Pachas, artwork by Elijah Vardov.