Meet Chasejamison Spears | Yoga instructor & author

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chasejamison Spears and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chasejamison, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I started teaching yoga in the middle of the pandemic. I had just gotten my degree in Sociology and graduated into a society that felt like it was falling apart at the seams. I had to move back into my family house, whose walls hold a lot of big emotions. And I noticed that breathwork and somatic movement had become a beautiful release for me in that transitional phase. I wanted to develop my healing skillset, and show others from my community how to learn from and regulate their emotions.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Growing up as an only child, books played the role of a sibling to me from a young age. Even as an adult, the stories that stick with me and force me to finish them are usually set in alternate worlds, with dystopian societies and supernatural beings. Surrealizing the world is how I survived it.

I explored my ancient connection to nature through my first (self-published) book of poetry titled, Becoming Friends With Trees & Other Creative Prophecies. I interwove poems from the first half of my 20’s with the homies Devon’s illustrations and Latrell’s photography. As a co-founder of Black Seeds Bloom (multi-media artists & healers collective), I always intentionally connect my writing process with my community building, revolutionary healing, and spiritual enlightenment.

Currently, I am working on The Book of Cadence. This story started out as a weird dream I had a week before the pandemic started. I actually included it in BFWT&OCP as a flash fiction story called maati333. It is about a world with a purple sky, where my main character’s tel-empathy and subconscious prophecies lead her family across the rising ocean and into a part of society they thought had been lost. This will be the first in a trilogy of climate fiction afro-surrealist stories. I am deep in the first draft writing process for this book, and with the support of Bootstrap Publishing all three will be shared with the world across the last half of my 20’s.

I am motivated by Octavia Butler, Missy Elliot, Assata Shakur, and every Black woman in the universe who speaks for the future. My writing usually centralizes Black womanhood in connection with magic, dying empires, organic patterns in nature, and liberation. I see the main character in The Book of Cadence as my descendant, who is in constant conversation with the voice inside her mind that creates her dreams. Some themes that I am exploring in my writing include the Ocean as the mother of all life, post-capitalistic indigenous societies, and matriarchal family structures in dystopian settings.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oakland is one of the tiniest towns in the world but it has the biggest personality. You can find amazing food, art, and people on every corner.

I would start with a sweet treat from Gregorys bakery by Lake Merritt, and a walk by the water.

Then we would slide over to Obsidian Healing Camp in West Oakland and check out their free library, music studio, apothecary, and more.

I would probably take them to Ensarrro (my favorite Ethiopian restaurant) for dinner.

And if it’s a Friday we could go to chabot space and science center to look through their telescopes at the moon!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate my shoutout to my grandmother’s Jessie Mae Johnson and Neomia Spears. Thank you for showing me how to pray, how to cook with love, and how to celebrate myself in a world built to break down Black women.

Website: https://Www.blackseedsbloom.org

Instagram: @cjamswriting

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasejamison-cj-manar-spears-73929a67?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app

Twitter: N/a

Facebook: N/a

Yelp: N/a

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@madamcjda3rdproductions333?si=ap3gzzfUkUdr5qRr

Other: My Tumblr is @madamcjda3rd

Image Credits
@heyzinah