Latest / Mooney's Mythic Podcast / Owen Staton and Tarisha

Transcript

Owen Staton and Tarisha · Mooney's Mythic Podcast

0:00
[music]
5:36
SPEAKER_03: Remember,
5:37
SPEAKER_03: I said last week that I wanted to play you that track,
5:40
SPEAKER_03: but I was waiting for Teresa to email me with permission and she had
5:45
SPEAKER_03: and I didn't check.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: So playing it for you now.
5:48
SPEAKER_03: Wasn't it great?
5:49
SPEAKER_03: I felt really like that threshold wheel turning into deep into the earth
5:57
SPEAKER_03: as we go deep into the earth.
6:00
SPEAKER_03: In this wintertime, in this autumn time.
6:03
SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Mooneys Mythic Podcast.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: I'm really happy to have you here.
6:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm so delighted that you're listening.
6:09
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: I've had an exciting week and I've got lots on lots of different storytelling things on.
6:16
SPEAKER_03: Let me tell you what you can attend or be part of in these next weeks.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: Tomorrow morning starts my story wintering course,
6:28
SPEAKER_03: so if you're quick off the bat and hot off the press and you want to jump in,
6:33
SPEAKER_03: come on down with us.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: We are looking at Greek myths and I'm not talking about the Greek myths that we know.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: I've been looking,
6:43
SPEAKER_03: I've been doing a lot of research and there is so much power
6:48
SPEAKER_03: that has been locked away from us through these myths.
6:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm...
6:54
SPEAKER_03: I just want us to reclaim our complete selves by reclaiming different parts of us
7:03
SPEAKER_03: through these myths.
7:04
SPEAKER_03: And I'm today thinking about Artemis because that's where we're going to begin.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: And she is born and she midwives Apollo.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: And she is the goddess of the forest, of childbirth, of
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Of wildness, of animals.
7:28
SPEAKER_03: And so they're the places that we're going to be looking at in the first week.
7:32
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to tell you anymore.
7:35
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that's really exciting me.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: And then I am going out into the forest on the 23rd of October at six o'clock.
7:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm doing a show called Once Upon a Forest.
7:45
SPEAKER_03: It's a mythic trail in a woodland glade and you have to get in touch with me for the address.
7:50
SPEAKER_03: If you don't know it, go into Eventbrite.
7:52
SPEAKER_03: I'll put the link on.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: Go on to Eventbrite and once you've bought a ticket, I'll send you the address.
7:57
SPEAKER_03: But we've got some circus,
7:59
SPEAKER_03: we've got some music,
8:00
SPEAKER_03: we've got this epic tale that I want to tell you that will be really good company
8:07
SPEAKER_03: for your wintertime.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: And then on the 3rd of November,
8:12
SPEAKER_03: my seven week women who run with the Wolves groups starts in person in Glastonbury.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: So if you can come on down to that,
8:19
SPEAKER_03: we go through every story in the book with ritual,
8:22
SPEAKER_03: with song, with creative writing, with craft.
8:26
SPEAKER_03: And then that book will be the best,
8:28
SPEAKER_03: best, best company for you throughout the wintertime, I promise.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: And for the rest of your life.
8:34
SPEAKER_03: And I trained with Clarissa Pinkola Ristis in Colorado and it was
8:38
SPEAKER_03: a real deep light bulb moment for me.
8:41
SPEAKER_03: And I feel absolutely clear that this is amazing work.
8:46
SPEAKER_03: And I think it's the sixth or the seventh one I've done.
8:48
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, come on down.
8:49
SPEAKER_03: I've got a couple more spaces for that.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: Just skipping back for a moment,
8:53
SPEAKER_03: I am at Wellington Garden of Light on the 24th of October,
8:56
SPEAKER_03: which is a gorgeous event.
8:58
SPEAKER_03: If you're a family and you live near there and you want to come out to Wellington,
9:02
SPEAKER_03: it's really beautiful.
9:03
SPEAKER_03: Everywhere's lit up and I'll be doing oracle storytelling,
9:07
SPEAKER_03: which is where I go around and people pick three cards and I make up a story
9:11
SPEAKER_03: or they ask me a question and I answer in rhyme.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: It's really enchanting.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: Then on the 30th at St.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: Ben's Church, St.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: Benedict's Church in Glastonbury,
9:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm doing a show with Ted Waters, who is an incredible singer.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: I'll play a track or two from hers on a show soon.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm really proud to be part of that.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: It's for Samhain.
9:35
SPEAKER_03: It's a really deep,
9:40
SPEAKER_03: Nourishing evening and we're inviting everybody to bring a stone.
9:44
SPEAKER_03: We're going to create an altar with a pool of sacred water so that everyone
9:49
SPEAKER_03: who comes can bring us an ancestor stone,
9:52
SPEAKER_03: something to represent part of their ancestorship that they want to create.
9:58
SPEAKER_03: To let go of,
9:59
SPEAKER_03: to clear,
10:00
SPEAKER_03: to help flow more smoothly and also invite you to bring your photographs
10:05
SPEAKER_03: of your ancestors,
10:07
SPEAKER_03: anything that's going to help you feel connected to your ancestors
10:11
SPEAKER_03: during these stories and songs.
10:15
SPEAKER_03: Can you hear that bubbling?
10:16
SPEAKER_03: That's my lunch.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to have lunch in a minute.
10:19
SPEAKER_03: Then I'm off to the prison again and I'm doing some other bits that you would have
10:23
SPEAKER_03: to get a stretch to come and come and see me.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: And then on the 18th of December,
10:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm doing a really gorgeous,
10:32
SPEAKER_03: magical show at St.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: Benedict's Church again with the glorious Sarah Curtis, whose music is transcendent.
10:42
SPEAKER_03: She plays the harp, she plays the piano.
10:44
SPEAKER_03: That's going to be very Christmassy.
10:47
SPEAKER_03: Very magical and a real family event.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: So come on the 30th with your friends, with your ancestor stone, with your memories.
10:58
SPEAKER_03: Come for a really deep,
11:00
SPEAKER_03: enriching time and then come on the 18th of December for some different kind
11:08
SPEAKER_03: of magic.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: So I've got quite a lot,
11:12
SPEAKER_03: as you can hear,
11:14
SPEAKER_03: rumbling around and lots of threads of stories that I'm hunting and following
11:20
SPEAKER_03: and wanting to stay present with.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: So what I've got for you today is a proper treat that I recorded a while ago.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: So it's an interview with Owen Statton, who's a great storyteller.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: He has a podcast called Time Between Times and the richness
11:34
SPEAKER_03: of his very Welsh voice is a real treat to listen to.
11:41
SPEAKER_03: So I'm going to pop up this interview for you and I'll see you on the other side.
11:56
SPEAKER_03: So I have got Owen Staten here from the brilliant Time Between Times podcast
12:04
SPEAKER_03: and great storyteller.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: And he's been brilliant because he had me on his show a lifetime ago.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having a chat with me.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: I rarely talk to other storytellers.
12:15
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: Me too.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: We all sort of work in isolation sometimes, don't we, which is a strange thing.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: For people who love to speak,
12:24
SPEAKER_00: we don't tend to speak to each other very much,
12:25
SPEAKER_00: I think, or storytellers on the whole.
12:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and sometimes I find when I'm hunting a story or when I'm really focused on
12:32
SPEAKER_03: the podcast, I couldn't listen to your podcast.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: It would completely put me off.
12:36
SPEAKER_03: I'd start talking in a Welsh accent and trying to copy what you were doing, you know.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I suppose there's a compliment there.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
12:47
SPEAKER_00: I find it hard to listen to myself back sometimes because I think,
12:51
SPEAKER_00: do I really sound like that?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I think like a lot of people, you get very sort of self-conscious about your voice.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: I've always had that as a storyteller.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's only in recent years that I've sort of embraced my Welshness,
13:05
SPEAKER_00: if you like, and sort of almost doubled down on it.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: Well, also, you haven't always been a storyteller, have you?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: No, I haven't.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: It's something I've been doing for about 30 years now.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: I sort of fell into the police force at a relatively young age.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: And I was forced to do storytelling because it was something I could do on my own.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Because I was a shift worker who couldn't really get to,
13:30
SPEAKER_00: say, a Thursday night at seven o'clock because my shifts would change every week.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: So I found myself taking on some gigs as sort of like an interactive museum piece, if you like.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I'd often be a Roman soldier or a Celtic warrior in a museum and talk about life
13:49
SPEAKER_00: in Roman Britain.
13:50
SPEAKER_03: Hang on a second, hang on a second.
13:52
SPEAKER_03: So you were a police officer and then like in your days off,
13:55
SPEAKER_03: you were playing a Roman officer and Yeah,
13:58
SPEAKER_00: I've got great legs, sarah, the roman news is fantastic for me.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, true, isn't it?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: It's bizarre.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: I've always been really creative,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: I feel, and I feel that being creative sort of brings out the best in me.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: So I found that even no matter how busy I was getting and how tired I would be,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: I would always crave that sort of performance aspect.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So storytelling has always been in me really.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's strange how it developed.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: As I said, I used to go along and do the Roman or the Celtic warrior.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And I had a half an hour's worth of material, I can remember.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And teachers would come in and put the kids in front of me and then go,
14:36
SPEAKER_00: right, you've got them for an hour.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And then sort of bugger off, you know, as they did in those days.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And so I had to sort of fill the time.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: So I started telling stories.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And I found the kids and the adults who came really reacted well to that.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's how I sort of fell into storytelling, really, which is kind of a strange thing.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I hadn't seen much of it done.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: I used to,
15:00
SPEAKER_00: another confession,
15:01
SPEAKER_00: I know the police is a big confession,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: but I used to be a LARPer, a live action role player.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: I would travel to Devon, to Oakhampton, to do my LARPing a couple of times a year.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: Tell us a little bit about what LARPing is,
15:16
SPEAKER_03: because up until a few years ago, I didn't know what it was.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: LARPing is live action role playing.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: So you played like Dungeons and Dragons and things like that.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: But you would do it in a costume rather than just sitting around a table.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: You would do it in a costume, in a field, in Devon.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And it was like interactive theatre, you know, you'd sort of roll people.
15:37
SPEAKER_03: Is it a bit like a kind of, I'm thinking about like a murder mystery party?
15:42
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: Like with a different narrative.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: We were all Celts and we were all Saxons and we were all fighting dragons and undead beasts.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And there were all these people dressed up,
15:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:52
SPEAKER_00: and you'd camp out and you'd go for the weekend and you'd sit around a fire and
15:56
SPEAKER_00: then you'd have adventures where some people would play monsters while some
16:00
SPEAKER_00: of you would play the heroes in this game.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And I did that for years.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And down in Devon, he's still there and he's an absolute inspiration.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy called Dave Oliver who was a puppeteer and he was involved in
16:15
SPEAKER_00: the organisation of these LARP events.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And he was a brilliant storyteller.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: And he used to just get up around the fire.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: And it was him that inspired me to call Time Between Times Time Between Times because...
16:29
SPEAKER_00: He would always start his spiel with, welcome to the time between times.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And then he would tell a story, and I'd never seen anything like this.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: And there were times, because I'm someone whose mind is quite flitty, I fly all over the place.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: But for 20 minutes, half an hour, I would totally lose myself in the story.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And there was a part of me that thought,
16:51
SPEAKER_00: well, I could do that, because it's similar to what I do with my...
16:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, interactive theatre and the LARPing aspect.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And I took it on from there, really.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I just sort of fell into it.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: It's strange.
17:03
SPEAKER_03: And why did you start doing a podcast?
17:06
SPEAKER_03: Which can I just say before you talk about that, that I love your podcast.
17:11
SPEAKER_03: It's so atmospheric.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: It's so gorgeous.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: It's so...
17:15
SPEAKER_03: For me, it is the time between times.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, we're in this threshold time.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: We're stepping into winter.
17:23
SPEAKER_03: I can listen to Owen's voice telling me stories.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's really kind, Sarah.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate that.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a strange one again.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: I was coming to the end of my police career and it really was the end.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: And I, for the last couple of years, well,
17:41
SPEAKER_00: for a number of years,
17:42
SPEAKER_00: I had worked in the training school in the police headquarters,
17:46
SPEAKER_00: training new recruits because that's sort of a teacher role.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was getting to the end of the police career and it wasn't going very well.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes a really difficult place to work and the pandemic hit and I was home
18:02
SPEAKER_00: a lot and I was doing a job online at the time as part of a recruitment thing for
18:07
SPEAKER_00: the police.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of downtime and I'd always been obviously a storyteller
18:13
SPEAKER_00: and I'd done lots of things.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: But I realized I had about five or six stories that I was always using.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And because I was so busy,
18:21
SPEAKER_00: and you must feel this in that when you perform,
18:24
SPEAKER_00: sometimes you go to your sort of greatest hits, don't you really?
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And you sort of go with it.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: I had about five or six of these stories that I was using.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I'd love to expand my repertoire of stories.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: So I had a bit of time.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: So in a room in my house,
18:41
SPEAKER_00: in the armchair where I used to work,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: I thought,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: what if I sit down here and every week I film myself telling a story and I put it
18:49
SPEAKER_00: on YouTube?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: And I did that the first week and I woke up in the morning and
18:55
SPEAKER_00: a surprisingly large amount of people had listened to it.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And then I became quite ill.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: I've always suffered a bit with my mental health and the police never helped with that.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: But I spent some time in the police rehabilitation centre in Goring on Thames,
19:10
SPEAKER_00: which is a fantastic facility.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: I've done a lot of stuff for them.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was in my room there one night and I thought I can't do the time
19:20
SPEAKER_00: between times this week because I'm not in my place.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: I haven't really got my camera.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, Do you know, I think it would work better as a podcast.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I recorded the first episode of Time Between Times in a ward bed,
19:35
SPEAKER_00: essentially, in the police rehabilitation centre.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And that week, six people listened to it.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: And I just,
19:46
SPEAKER_00: I sort of,
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I went for a while where I'd record the podcast and I'd also upload the recording
19:52
SPEAKER_00: onto YouTube,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: but far more people seem to be enjoying the,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: I think I've got a radio face,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: so I think far more people are enjoying the audio aspect rather than the,
20:02
SPEAKER_00: so I went all in with the audio really,
20:05
SPEAKER_00: and that was five years ago now,
20:06
SPEAKER_00: and yeah, I've been doing Time Between Times for five years.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you have done 265, I saw, which is really, really impressive.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it is, isn't it?
20:17
SPEAKER_03: I just wonder, what advice have you got for me?
20:22
SPEAKER_00: When you say that, 275, it does amaze me.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: I think...
20:27
SPEAKER_00: The advice I have with it was I could have given it up a long time ago.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: As I said,
20:32
SPEAKER_00: I had six listeners and I find,
20:36
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you find this Sarah,
20:37
SPEAKER_00: but at different times of the year,
20:39
SPEAKER_00: the listenership will grow, the listenership will fall away.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Depending usually on,
20:44
SPEAKER_00: you know, this time of year now as we go into winter, it tends to get better.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And my advice always is don't worry about the audience.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Just do what you want to do or what you'd like to say
20:56
SPEAKER_00: because you will gain your audience and you'll gain the audience that you want
21:01
SPEAKER_00: because they're the people who like hearing what you're doing or what you're saying.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: I always found with The Time Between Times and anyone who hasn't listened to it,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I always start the same way.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Whereas I take the listener to the fire pit at the heart of the forest at The Time
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Between Times and And I,
21:19
SPEAKER_00: you know, about 100, maybe 150 episodes ago, I thought, how repetitive is this?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: It's the same every week.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm just doing the same thing.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't bored, but I thought the listeners must be bored silly.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: So I started changing it and I started doing different things.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I started like,
21:37
SPEAKER_00: let's go out on a boat in the sea or something like that,
21:40
SPEAKER_00: or down into a cave and try and describe things.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: And then...
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know if you feel about this,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: but when you are recording a podcast,
21:52
SPEAKER_00: you sometimes feel that you're shouting into the void
21:54
SPEAKER_00: because you know there are listeners and you know because you see the numbers.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: But very rarely will anyone speak to you or come back to you or offer anything.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: The listeners are there, but they don't tend to speak.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: But you try changing something, right?
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And then boy, do they come alive, right?
22:13
SPEAKER_00: So they all started coming forward then and going, hang on, what are you doing?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, we like this.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: We like the fact that it's the same every week.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: We like the fact that I know what I'm getting when I put your podcast on.
22:25
SPEAKER_03: It's like it's settling in, isn't it?
22:26
SPEAKER_03: It's like once upon a time.
22:29
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yeah.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And so I learned that.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: But I think the biggest bit of advice I could give you is, I love doing this, right?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And I get weeks where I think, oh, I've got to do a podcast.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do this week?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, it's one of the highlights of my week.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
22:50
SPEAKER_00: especially in later years when we're all busy with work,
22:53
SPEAKER_00: you know, it was the pandemic.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: It was all those sort of things.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes this is the thing that I do for me every week.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: And I still enjoy doing it.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And every time I upload,
23:06
SPEAKER_00: and I got this,
23:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm rambling now,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: but many,
23:10
SPEAKER_00: many years ago,
23:11
SPEAKER_00: I used to appear on a, I used to record on a gaming podcast in America.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: It was called the D6 Generation.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: And it was all about reviewing board games,
23:21
SPEAKER_00: role-playing games, computer games, that sort of thing.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And it was back in about 2006, 2007, when podcasts were just coming to the fore.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: And the guys who hosted it were in America.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm so friendly with them.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And I would just contribute little bits and bobs.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And Russ,
23:40
SPEAKER_00: the host there,
23:40
SPEAKER_00: he said to me, I never get such a kick as when I press upload on my podcast.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And I sit back and I give it to the world.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And I thought that's a bit pompous,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: saying that,
23:54
SPEAKER_00: but I now know exactly what he means because my listenership isn't huge.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's there, it's steady.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I've got a good amount of people, but it fascinates me.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And every week I think, is this the one where lots of people, more people are going to come?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Or is this the one that people are going to really enjoy?
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Or is this the one that people are really going to, is going to mean something to people?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And that for me is a big thing.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And Even though you don't get much feedback,
24:20
SPEAKER_00: the feedback I get when you said earlier on,
24:23
SPEAKER_00: you know, I love settling down for the story.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And I can remember last year, I was having a particularly bad day in work.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And I got an email out of the blue from a lady in Spain.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: And she said, look, I've been having a really tough time.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And the only way I can get through it is by going for walks.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And every time I go for a walk, I listen to the time between times.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: And I almost cried, you know, I almost cried.
24:48
SPEAKER_03: Well, I remember when you emailed me to say you enjoyed the prison episode and that meant
24:55
SPEAKER_03: a lot.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: And I'll tell you the story that really settled me that I was listening to recently
25:01
SPEAKER_03: of yours was the Selkie story.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: I thought you told that exquisitely and I felt like it had teaching for me.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: And I could feel my whole system settling down.
25:12
SPEAKER_03: And that's what it's about for me, you know, is like the nourishment that it gives.
25:15
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, that story, I can feel it now.
25:37
SPEAKER_03: You know,
25:37
SPEAKER_03: I can I can remember one of the children going into the loft and finding
25:42
SPEAKER_03: the seal skin.
25:43
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, it was so the images were just, oh, thank you.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's brilliant.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: But what I like to do as well is I like to challenge myself in
25:52
SPEAKER_00: that sometimes I will I'll find like the seal skin in the loft and I'll try and.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Really go for that and see how far I can go in describing it,
26:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:01
SPEAKER_00: and just sort of in my own head and push that out and sort of go and go and go
26:06
SPEAKER_00: until I feel I need to move on to the next part of the story.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: I've never done that.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to try that.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm going to try that.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Another thing that I do,
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I haven't done it for a while now, but I've got some storytelling cards.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: They're just in the middle of tidying up here,
26:20
SPEAKER_00: so I haven't got them to hand, but they're like tarot cards.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: And they've got pictures of characters from stories in them,
26:27
SPEAKER_00: like the king, the fish, the selkie.
26:31
SPEAKER_03: Are they the story world ones?
26:32
SPEAKER_03: The story world ones, exactly.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Kathleen Matthews.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was using them this weekend, actually.
26:40
SPEAKER_03: I find them great.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're fantastic.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes just do a podcast and randomly choose four and just go with the story.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've been thinking about that,
26:50
SPEAKER_03: because this weekend I was using them for,
26:52
SPEAKER_03: I did a thing called Chill on the Hill,
26:54
SPEAKER_03: it's this Iron Age hill fort near here,
26:56
SPEAKER_03: Ham Hill,
26:57
SPEAKER_03: and I was doing walkabout storytelling,
27:00
SPEAKER_03: people were picking three cards,
27:02
SPEAKER_03: I was telling a story,
27:04
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:04
SPEAKER_03: it was just going fine,
27:05
SPEAKER_03: and it kind of goes on autopilot,
27:06
SPEAKER_03: and sometimes I do them in rhyme,
27:09
SPEAKER_03: you know,
27:09
SPEAKER_03: however I'm feeling,
27:10
SPEAKER_03: and then the organiser,
27:12
SPEAKER_03: Katie, said to me, oh, can you do this one over the microphone?
27:17
SPEAKER_03: And then so I did one,
27:20
SPEAKER_03: the audience came up,
27:21
SPEAKER_03: picked four cards,
27:22
SPEAKER_03: and then I rhymed a story to, I don't know, 200 people over the microphone.
27:27
SPEAKER_03: And I thought, oof, I feel like that stepped me into doing it on a podcast.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, absolutely.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And I think you should test yourself as well, you know, as a storyteller.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: And that goes back to the,
27:42
SPEAKER_00: you know, I had five or six stories and I've decided every week to do one.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And that to me has been, it keeps me alert, it keeps me honest as a storyteller, I feel.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And it makes my repertoire sort of grow.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, again,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I haven't done them for a while,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: but I used to do a lot of episodes where I would just do like sort of
28:05
SPEAKER_00: a guided journey to help people relax.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: And with those, I'm trying to do them totally unscripted.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll have an idea in my head what I'm going to do.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll do a little storyboard.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part,
28:15
SPEAKER_00: then I just try and go through that and try and create as much imagery
28:21
SPEAKER_00: as I possibly can, you know.
28:22
SPEAKER_03: That's what I wondered when I was listening to your podcast,
28:25
SPEAKER_03: because I don't use a script and it's just not my way.
28:29
SPEAKER_03: For me, it's like once something's written down,
28:32
SPEAKER_03: to lift it back off the page again, I don't have the knack for it.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I might do a map or something if there's lots of information I want to get in.
28:41
SPEAKER_03: But the detail that you have in your stories, I was like, oh, I think he's scripted bits of it.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: I think he's definitely scripted because of the No, no, no, this is your way.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: I've never done that.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I've not gone back to a tried and tested couplet.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: No, but what I'm saying is I have phrases,
29:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:14
SPEAKER_00: that a storyteller will use that,
29:17
SPEAKER_00: you know, enables me to get through something or it's just something I can go to.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, no, I will sometimes I'll write names down, right?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Because if there are names in the characters,
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I've got a habit of forgetting characters' names, you know?
29:33
SPEAKER_00: So I will write the characters' names down and what they do next to that.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: But I just,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: for the most part,
29:40
SPEAKER_00: some of the best episodes I've found is where I've just,
29:42
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I've leaned on the floor and just put the mic next to me.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: I'll just go with it, you know, and I really, really enjoy that, you know, that type of thing.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: Do you know what story you're going to tell for your next podcast?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't at the moment.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: I've only just done the most recent one.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
30:03
SPEAKER_00: I usually get to about this time of the week where I've started doing them on
30:07
SPEAKER_00: a Sunday.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: There's a mix between a Friday and a Sunday.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: But I've just done the Sunday one, well, Sunday.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And I usually get to about tonight when I start looking and feeling and thinking,
30:18
SPEAKER_00: right, what am I going to do this week?
30:19
SPEAKER_03: What's the weather like?
30:21
SPEAKER_03: Where's the moon?
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything happening that I find is relevant to the story?
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Have I seen something or something happened to me that makes me think of a certain story?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I always try and bring some relevance to it.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Just the way that I'm feeling at the time, really.
30:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, I really appreciate your generosity in sharing your stories in the way that you do.
30:47
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate your craft, the work that you've put into it.
30:53
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, thank you.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much.
30:56
SPEAKER_03: Oh, thank you.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: The fact that there are people listening to it just makes me so happy in
31:03
SPEAKER_00: that people actually are out there,
31:05
SPEAKER_00: they're enjoying it, and it makes me really happy.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: And I think as well, Sari,
31:11
SPEAKER_00: you should,
31:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:12
SPEAKER_00: obviously I don't know how you feel,
31:14
SPEAKER_00: but when you put the show out, I often listen to your show on my way home from work.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I've got a bit of a drive from work and it goes on.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of those things that just, it takes me away somewhere.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And your show is very chatty.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: I almost feel like I'm with you.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I could talk to you.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: And you're always really, you talk about what's happening in your life as well.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: It's really nice.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: Ah, well, great.
31:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, long may our podcast continue.
31:44
SPEAKER_03: I'm just wrecking my brains now I've got you here.
31:48
SPEAKER_03: But I know for that question that when I say,
31:50
SPEAKER_03: oh, thanks and goodbye, I'm really like, I wish I'd asked him that.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: You had a question for me.
32:01
SPEAKER_03: I just know that as soon as I say goodbye, I'm going to think about that question.
32:05
SPEAKER_03: I'm just trying to think of that question now, but maybe that's not.
32:09
SPEAKER_03: I wanted to ask you about the deeper meanings of stories or
32:18
SPEAKER_03: the kind of nourishment
32:19
SPEAKER_03: that a story is.
32:20
SPEAKER_03: I just wanted you to speak into that a little bit.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I'm different from a lot of storytellers.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: I haven't, in all honesty, I haven't seen a lot of storytellers.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a few,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: and I've been to a few shows,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: and I've been to a few, so I've always sort of done it my own way.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: But A lot of people,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: and there's no criticism here at all,
32:41
SPEAKER_00: will do storytelling on the cusp of maybe an environmental theme
32:45
SPEAKER_00: or it could be something about something that's happening in the news or some sort
32:52
SPEAKER_00: of protest almost story that means something to them.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's not something I've really gone into in my storytelling.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I think whenever I tell a tale, I do it purely for entertainment.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: And what's always been good for me is,
33:11
SPEAKER_00: as I said,
33:11
SPEAKER_00: I've often suffered with,
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I get a little bit lost in my own head and that can sometimes,
33:17
SPEAKER_00: you know, spiral a little bit.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: And when I tell a story, I do lose myself.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And I love a story that takes me away from where I am and puts me somewhere for just
33:30
SPEAKER_00: a little while.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Selkie, who keeps us skin in the attic, or, you know, Gellet the Hound, or any story.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: All I want is that for a few minutes to lose myself in a really good story.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: It's in how the story makes me feel.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: And that the story makes me feel happy or a little bit scared or something.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Then it's a good story for me.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not a political or I don't really have an agenda when I'm storytelling.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about a folk musician once said to me that there's a thing
34:00
SPEAKER_03: in folk music where they say, sing it plain.
34:03
SPEAKER_03: That the song is there.
34:05
SPEAKER_03: It's been handed down for centuries and it's all in the songs.
34:09
SPEAKER_03: You don't need to add anything to it.
34:11
SPEAKER_03: You just need to sing it plain and allow the song to speak for itself.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: So there's something about allowing the stories to speak for themselves.
34:20
SPEAKER_03: And also I was thinking about When I was a young storyteller,
34:25
SPEAKER_03: I thought to myself, gosh,
34:29
SPEAKER_03: I think I'm telling lots of stories about sort of disappointing boyfriends
34:33
SPEAKER_03: because that's what I was like processing in my life.
34:37
SPEAKER_03: Actually,
34:37
SPEAKER_03: other people,
34:39
SPEAKER_03: this is not the forum
34:40
SPEAKER_01: for it,
34:41
SPEAKER_03: you know,
34:41
SPEAKER_03: and to kind of, yeah,
34:45
SPEAKER_03: I want to tell stories that Create safety and allow people to drop into
34:52
SPEAKER_03: and feel things and unravel.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, I want to do all those things, but I don't want to put an agenda or
35:00
SPEAKER_03: I do want to unskew stories because
35:05
SPEAKER_03: I learn a lot about how I should be as a woman,
35:09
SPEAKER_03: pretty, kind, nice, from listening to grim tales and things like that.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: So I am very careful to...
35:20
SPEAKER_03: You know,
35:20
SPEAKER_03: make all the characters,
35:22
SPEAKER_03: you know,
35:22
SPEAKER_03: understand the whole thing as different archetypes that could all belong
35:28
SPEAKER_03: to one person.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: That's it, isn't it?
35:30
SPEAKER_00: It's all about you creating something.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: And what I find is if I can focus on a tale...
35:36
SPEAKER_00: It stops me, my mind wandering into places where I don't want it to go.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: It focuses me.
35:40
SPEAKER_03: That's really good.
35:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's good for me too, Owen, and I'm really glad you're doing it.
35:44
SPEAKER_03: So thank you very much.
35:46
SPEAKER_03: Have a listen to Owen Staten's pod, Time Between Times.
35:51
SPEAKER_03: Put it on before you go to bed.
35:52
SPEAKER_03: Put it on when you light your first fire of the autumn.
35:57
SPEAKER_03: Put it on when you put your cardigan on for the first time or anything.
36:00
SPEAKER_03: Put those thicker socks on.
36:01
SPEAKER_03: Have a listen.
36:02
SPEAKER_03: It's really gorgeous.
36:04
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Owen.
36:05
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for talking to me.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you, Sarah.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And I love the pod and keep doing what you're doing.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: Oh, bless you.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: Mmm.
36:18
SPEAKER_03: That noise was me rubbing my hands together gleefully.
36:22
SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for listening, guys.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: I will be back next week.
36:26
SPEAKER_03: I want to tell you about Laurie Anderson.
36:28
SPEAKER_03: I want to tell you about the Shovel Dance Collective.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: I want to share with you more of my creative life.
36:37
SPEAKER_03: If you want to support this pod,
36:38
SPEAKER_03: please go on to Patreon,
36:41
SPEAKER_03: put a pledge down for the support of this pod,
36:46
SPEAKER_03: share this pod with someone,
36:47
SPEAKER_03: tell them about it,
36:49
SPEAKER_03: leave a comment, you know, all those kind of things really supports this.
36:52
SPEAKER_03: And I would absolutely love to be able to carve out more time in my week to be able to do this.
37:00
SPEAKER_03: Blessings and peace.
37:01
SPEAKER_03: I really hope you're well.
37:03
SPEAKER_03: I really, really hope that you're all really well.