Jezmina Von Thiele & Paulina Stevens
on Romani Fortune Telling and Cultural Resilience
“Welcome to Romani fortune-telling! We’re your friendly neighborhood gypsies!”
Jezmina and Paulina’s words carry playfulness and mystery.
How did they arrive here? Pulling cards with strangers, telling stories about their lives? The cards have always called their blood and bone: “You can put them away, but eventually they find their way back to you.”
For Roma people, fortune-telling has long been both a job and a spiritual practice. A way of reading human nature, offering guidance, and holding space for healing. Yet Roma have been both celebrated and demonized for their intuitive powers. Many cherish divination not as “witchcraft” but as an art of listening deeply, a kind of common-sense therapy grounded in spiritual tools: “Intuition is a life skill that serves you anywhere, anytime.”
Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens are carrying this lineage forward. For Paulina, author, activist, and entrepreneur, the path was written from the beginning: “Almost every woman in my family was a full-time fortune-teller. As soon as I could speak, I was expected to ‘tell fortune.’ I was taught early that when you are reading, you just get a feeling.”
For Jezmina, writer, educator, and performer, the teachings came through her grandmother, a Sinteza fortune-teller and dancer. She taught her to pray for guidance before an altar of ancestors and to honour the spirit in all living things: “God is a protective energy around us and, like the faces of a crystal, has many names. She showed me the old animistic ways: that everything has a spirit, to honour every living system by speaking with reverence, to seek permission from nature, even when picking a dandelion.”
They co-authored Secrets of Romani Fortune-Telling, exploring Romani identity, culture, and tradition to illuminate an often-overlooked history of resilience. It opens a door into ancestral knowledge and the rhythms of a culture too often misrepresented: “Imagine you were born into an ancient tradition of divination passed down for your culture’s survival. There’s a heaviness and responsibility braided in such a lineage.”
Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority, yet also among the most misunderstood. From this pain emerged a sharpened sensitivity, a way of seeing beneath the surface: “Our connection to mysticism emerges as a profound facet of our identity. Could this intuitive capacity serve as an adaptive response, a collective survival mechanism during centuries of adversity and marginalization?”
For better representation, Jezmina and Paulina are making Roma voices heard through their Romanistan podcast, inviting listeners to approach with respect, to learn rather than appropriate, and engage in cultural exchange.
Read their answers for Inspirators, and step into a world where intuition and ancestry walk hand in hand!
Thank you, Jezmina and Paulina, for being Romani fortune-tellers!
#INSPIRATORS QUESTIONNAIRE
Name: Jezmina Von Thiele & Paulina Stevens
Company / Institution: Romanistan
Title: Founders and co-hosts of Romanistan Podcast
Website: https://romanistanpodcast.com
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jezmina-von-thiele-65701711/
Country of origin: USA
Country you currently live in: USA
Your definition of Regeneration: Someone who builds community through love and stands up, and keeps standing up, for what is right until everyone is standing with them.
Main business challenge you face: Systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-gypsyism, capitalism, oppression, lateral violence.
Main driver that keeps you going: Our vision of mainstream Romani-created representation and human rights for all.
The trait you are most proud of in yourself: Creativity and determination.
The trait you most value in others: Kindness in action.
Passions & little things that bring you joy: We love hearing that the interviews we share on our podcast, Romanistan, or the ancestral knowledge we share in our book, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, made someone feel seen or more connected to our culture!
The Inspirators who determined you to take the regenerative path:
Our ancestors, even though we didn’t always take the routes they preferred.
A starting point for companies or professionals that are beginning the regeneration journey: Ask yourself how you can use your skills and passions to make the world better!
Most used and abused clichés in sustainability that bother you: “It just takes one person.” That can be true, but it bothers us when people put so much responsibility on individuals to change the world when governments and corporations are responsible for so much destruction and greed. Collaboration and accountability are essential.
An honest piece of advice for young people who lose hope: You honestly don’t know how different your life can be, for the better, unless you’re living it.
Books that had a great impact on you / Must-Reads for any regenerative professional:
· All About Love by bell hooks
· The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
· American Gypsy by Oksana Marafioti
· Roads of the Roma: a PEN Anthology of Gypsy Writers
· Origins of Desire in Orchid Fens by Lynn Hutchinson Lee
Movies / Documentaries you would watch all over again: Latcho Drom by Tony Gatliff, Gipsy Queen with Alina Serban, The Future is a Safe Place Hidden in My Braids by Giuvlipen.
Websites / Podcasts you visit frequently:
Podcasts - Dead Scared Entertainment’s podcast O Verda Darano, Amaro Voice, Ologies, Down to Astro.
Websites - European Romani Institute or Art and Culture (ERIAC), RomArchive, and European Roma Rights Center (ERRC).
Music that makes you (and your heart) sing: We love contemporary indie Romani musicians like Ari Kali, Debi Botos, Vadim Kolpakov, Luiee Bloo, Tehno Vrặjitoarele, Millie Raccoon, and more. We have been lucky to interview some great musicians on our Romanistan podcast, and we also have special love for our podcast musician and editor, Peruvian and Ecuadorian flamenco-fusion guitarist, Viktor.
Places you travelled to that left a mark on you: Anytime we are deep in nature, we are happy. We’ve also been lucky to travel on book tour to wonderful cities like Salem, MA; NYC; Portland, Oregon; New Orleans, Louisiana; and more, where we created wonderful memories.
Global Regenerative Voices you recommend us to follow: Giuvlipen, Romnja Feminist Library, Feminist Collective of Romani Gender Experts.
Trends in Regeneration we should keep an eye on: Roma Futurism.
Events we should attend / Best places for networking (online or offline):
Any Giuvlipen performances, the Ake Dikhea film festival, ERIAC exhibits, any Ceija Stojka exhibitions you can get to, Romani-produced events with Romani performers!
Reasons to feel optimistic about our future in 2030: People can band together during critical times and do the right thing. Love and kindness can win.
Reasons to feel pessimistic about our future in 2030: We’re in Trump’s fascist government takeover in 2025 in the US, and there are multiple ongoing genocides worldwide right now!
Regenerative Leadership qualities much needed today:
Anti-capitalist values and a return to Indigenous wisdom. The ability to speak truth to power. True humanitarianism.
The Inspirator(s) you are endorsing for a future edition:
Giuvlipen
The quote that inspires you:
“The White Rose
Never forget
That is history that is living.”
(Ceija Stojka, Romani artist and writer, and Holocaust survivor)
Your quote that will inspire us:
We refer you to the story of the Sinto boxer, Johann “Rukeli” Trollmann, who resisted the Nazis and was ultimately murdered for being a “Gypsy.” Rukeli means tree, and like Rukeli, "you can’t knock us down."
