Latest / The PAUSE with Ari Clibe / Interview with Stephen Otis, When Spider Weaves Delight

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Interview with Stephen Otis, When Spider Weaves Delight · The PAUSE with Ari Clibe

0:30
This old 83 year old woman,
0:33
you know, who's still protecting c.
0:39
It's beautiful. She's wild.
0:48
I told you there was a hog in her yard when they showed up.
0:52
There's a hog just like she had butchered a
0:55
wild hog. Okay. I was just sitting there during the
0:59
interview and it stunk because she couldn't move it because
1:03
she didn't have the ability to lift as much anymore.
1:06
And so she's like, yeah, you know, we share everything here. Like,
1:09
my friends come and eat too. The possum and the skunk and the vultures.
1:13
I'm friends, you know, we're all friends here. And so like
1:16
we just share a meal together. It was just this like really
1:20
cool, like natural cycle that she just lives in.
1:24
You know, she's just one of the. She spoke about
1:27
all the animals is like just as herself, you know, she wasn't
1:31
separate from them. It was like really cool for the kids to
1:35
see that just in the cycle of life and death
1:38
and feeding and giving and true
1:42
reciprocity, you know, it was great. I think people
1:46
are struggling with how we reference the
1:50
natural world since we're so disconnected from
1:54
it. And I've been talking to folks about the storytelling
1:58
cohort that's upcoming and after.
2:02
People are real excited because they sense I'm excited.
2:05
It sounds like a great thing. The first question that
2:09
comes up every time is,
2:12
how do you reference nature? How's it
2:16
not going to be colonialized or objectified
2:20
or, you know, manipulated? And how do
2:23
you catalyze all the distance and the
2:27
over culture that we've put just ourselves,
2:30
right. Like the trees. These trees are still doing tree.
2:34
Right. I'm curious if your experience with
2:38
Carol and the way she uses language to connect
2:42
and say we're all friends in terms of the spirit of reciprocity.
2:47
My friends, yeah, they asked her a question.
2:50
They're like, when did you become interested? Why are you so
2:54
passionate about protecting nature? They asked her that and
2:58
she sat there for a little bit. She was like,
3:02
almost like it's been a long time since she's thought of it that
3:05
way. And she was confused by the. The disassociation
3:08
of the question itself because. Of the word protection.
3:12
Yeah, I'm not protecting. No, I'm just part
3:15
of it. Yeah. And she said, do y'all have friends?
3:20
Yeah. She goes like, yeah, everything is a friend
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and there's dangers. You know, they're not all friends that just totally
3:29
care for you, but everything is, you know, I have
3:32
friends here and there's a Community here. And we're just.
3:35
Y'all are part of it. Y'all. We're the same.
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And it was so cool just for. For them to hear that.
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It was really cool for me to hear it, you know, to me,
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for that to sink into me, you know, because I. I struggle
3:51
with disassociating too, because I live in this culture, you. Know,
3:56
and we need to survive in this culture as well.
3:58
Yeah. So. And if the culture's practice is to dissociate,
4:03
we can choose. There's nothing wrong with choosing. Yeah,
4:06
right. Yeah. And there's a
4:09
cost to that choice because now we come back here and we have to
4:13
reattune. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really
4:17
hard. It's so hard. It's living in both worlds like that.
4:21
Yeah, it's hard. Kind of curious
4:24
what else your daughter's project,
4:29
you know, carrying forward and
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how does she present that? How does she. Is it still a performance? Yeah,
4:36
so it's a 10 minute performance. And so they tell the story of
4:41
Cumberland Carroll turtles because Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan are
4:44
involved in that and just protecting Cumberland island because
4:48
Jimmy Carter was like, really impressed with him. I remember that. Yeah. It was a
4:52
real important part of that. Especially since he just passed.
4:55
I had not known that. And it shows
4:59
more and more about who he was as a leader rather than just
5:03
as a president. Yeah. Just the care that
5:07
he showed and took and paying attention.
5:11
There are a lot of parents who. And a lot of people
5:16
who do have kids that are really worried.
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And then there's parents or there's people who don't even want to have kids
5:24
because they're so worried. They don't feel like they want to bring
5:28
young folks into the world. Yeah. I'm kind
5:31
of curious what your take on that would be.
5:36
Yeah. I mean, fear is such a big part of our culture.
5:41
It's a big part of the religion of our culture.
5:44
It's part of the separation too. Right. Just being afraid.
5:48
I think when parents begin to calm
5:52
down and collect themselves and rest,
5:57
then that fear starts to dissipate. It starts to lessen.
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And so rather than making choices based on what ifs, what could
6:04
happen, starting making choices
6:07
on what is like, is thinking rather than what could be
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thinking. And I think that there's not like a quick answer
6:14
to that. There's not anything to say to somebody that's
6:17
afraid to be like, it's okay, it's okay. I mean, that helps. Cause community
6:21
helps. But when that fear
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lessens, then it just kind of goes away. And Then they
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start existing in the moment more, you know, and then feel better
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about the natural cycle of humanity, which is we
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give birth, you know,
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not everybody, but like it is a very natural cycle and it's
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happening all around us all the time. So if we connect to bird
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language will start hearing like the little chirps,
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the adolescent, you know, gripes,
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feed me.
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And it's like such a natural part of the, you know,
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birth death cycle. And becoming like becoming
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okay with the birth death cycle, I think is one of the things
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that dissipates the fear.
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Yeah. When we see it, when we're in it and we see it, it becomes
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more normal. More. Yeah. So I think that's
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important. That's why connection's important.
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Yeah. You know, it's like you don't have to be
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afraid. And if we're connected
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in community too, when something does happen,
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then we're, we're still together. And that's, that's a beautiful
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thing too. You know,
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sadness and joy,
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like share the same space. Siblings. Yeah, it's the DNA
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of life. Yeah, it's just,
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it's just the way it is. Like, that's what is, you know, that's is thinking.
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So I'm real big on that right now, you know, even for me,
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you know, I struggled with fear. I grew up, you know,
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I grew up in like a really hardcore conservative
8:03
Baptist church and I was brought up that way. So I have a lot
8:07
of fear, like in my gut, you know, so I've been
8:10
sorting through that and. But the more I connect, the more it just
8:14
goes away. I don't have to live in it, you know, operate out of
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it. So no easy answers. Yeah.
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That'S what we need to hear. Sometimes I
8:36
look at like there's complex systems and then there's complicated
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systems. And so like the more we mitigate the natural world
8:44
and let it be less wild, because there's such order to wildness.
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It's not just chaos, you know, the mitigated world is
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more chaotic. So we build complicated systems and we don't
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know what to do with them. But if we allow things to be complex,
9:00
then they're also awesome and they, they have awe in
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em. You know, we were just like, wow, look, just. I can't possibly begin to
9:07
understand the complexity of life and
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even the complexity of me.
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And I'll just let it be. I let it be awesome,
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beautiful. And so it, it, that's. That to me
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is like this idea of worship, you know, it's not
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bowing down, it's Just being in awe of the beauty
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and life around. And we're okay with that. We're not okay
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with complicated things because we have to solve
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it. You know, gives us a chance to solve it
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because we believe we need to solve it. So we end
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up creating more complicated problems and more complicated systems
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so that muscle can be exercised. How do all
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these parts fit together now? Oh, my goodness. I have all this stuff and
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they break down and I gotta fix it.
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Stress. So anyway, there's, like, a wisdom tradition
10:02
I'm thinking of, and one of them, you know, it's been around over a
10:06
thousand, thousands of years. So where revelation
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happens, it was actually described not just like,
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there was love in everyone's face and hearts
10:17
and eyes, but there was also awe. And the
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two absolutely were there. Yeah, yeah. There's like,
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that being drawn closer because, you know, when we feel love,
10:27
we feel closer, but. And the awe pushes us,
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like, whoa. We take a step back. Yeah, right.
10:34
Yeah, yeah. Awe is like. You have to take a step back to be able.
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And I think awe is on its
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way up. That's what I keep hearing. I hear it's on its way up.
10:44
Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Yeah, yeah. And that
10:48
can fuel more love because then. Then there's movement between
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the front and the back. It's interesting. Like that you say
10:55
you take a step back with awe. Yeah. And that just
10:59
creates space. Space, Right. And so. And then
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space for things to be filled. And if your
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attitude is awe, then your arms are also open,
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and that's reception. Reception you receive. Right. You know?
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Yeah. That's cool. Right? Yeah. I love that idea. It's more of the sacred
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feminine to be in awe rather than just love and, you know,
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attach. Yeah, right. Because attachment. We have a lot of attachment.
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And both feed each other when they're in balance, and when they're not
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in balance, they don't feed each other. Yeah. I love.
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I love just being with kin. I refer to nature as
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kin. That's a robin wall.
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Kimmer. Kimmer. Braiding sweetgrass or. Yeah,
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yeah. She refers to. That's kids. I've tried
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to use that language. I have a dear
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friend who's Cherokee, named Sister Charles,
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and that's some naturalist walks with.
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With them. And it's fun because
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they. They speak like they're one of the,
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like, Cherokee languages on the rise again. But for a while it
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was going away. And they speak like fluent
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Cherokee because they were raised by their grandparents who were.
12:15
Who were medicine. Like,
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they were medicine people. And so they took walks
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all growing up. In the woods, in the forest,
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gathering medicines for different ailments.
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And the way that Sister Charles talks about
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how the nature. Like, when they needed medicine,
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they would go into nature for, like, two days and listen.
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And. And they would be told what
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to use and they'd work and.
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And so they had this relationship with their.
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Their grandparents had this relationship with nature where they weren't,
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you know, they didn't have this, like, just medicine cabinet for redirections.
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They would go and find the solution by listening to the
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land. And the land would speak to them and say. And there
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was ceremony involved in it. There was true reciprocity
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with the medicine itself.
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It was beautiful the way they were describing that process.
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And so when we're doing these naturalist walks,
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when we would say, oh, my gosh, that's blue phlox.
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Or look, that's the. They're like, no,
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no, that's us. You know, like, they would say the Cherokee
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word because they're like, Everything around us has heard us speak
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of. You know, we've had a relationship for thousands of years,
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and there's different names. And so, like,
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the. The land is used to the language that we use.
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And this new language is separated language,
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you know, and so there's, like. It's really important for them to hear
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their names because they've been spoken so much. And we
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have a relationship, a reciprocal relationship
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which develops, you know, develops kin,
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develops this idea of. Of recipe, you know, reciprocal usage.
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It reminds me of the way you were talking about when you talked about Carol
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and she was talking about, these are my friends. Yeah, right.
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They're not all the same. Right? No.
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And the way she refers to them is in a kinship
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kind of way. Right? Yeah. It would make sense that if the
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plants are used to the Cherokee speaking with
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them in a certain way, they're going to respond to that vibration.
14:41
Yeah, right. Because they're super sensitive to vibration.
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Oh, yeah. The trees have songs in their root systems.
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You know, the flowers. You heard that research come out of
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Attenborough. Yes.
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Seriously. We just can't hear it, but we sense it.
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But, yeah, we can't hear it here.
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Right. But we hear it. Our skin is extremely
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sensitive. Yeah. Vibration.
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Tell me about what this is. So we have these two
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dogs that are on the land, and they're kind of herd dogs,
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and they herd the children sometimes, and they're very playful.
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But sometimes they'll bring squirrels as gifts
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because they also hunt. And so they brought two squirrels
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last week, and the kids were upset,
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so they made a little. They buried the squirrels
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and sang a little song to them.
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We behold you, beautiful one,
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that one. We behold
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you, child of the earth and sun
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Let my love wash over you Let
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my love wash over you.
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So that life and death in the forest is, like, just a part of
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their learning. Here we have a bird
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cemetery right over there. So when we find birds, you know,
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because the hawk will eat birds here, and so whatever's left.
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Or birds will fly into something or they just dive
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cold sometimes, too. And so we bury the birds in our
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little fairy garden over there.
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I get to sing to them and that, you know,
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that decreases the fear as they grow up. They just.
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That cycle, they're kind of used to it. The kids named this camp
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Camp Arrowhead because we found, like, six arrowheads in this dry
16:44
creek bed that are really old, and we try to
16:47
let them lie. One of my Cherokee friends was like, if you
16:51
find anything normal past, let it stay.
18:09
Yeah. Fairies here.
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Yeah. Talk to me about the fairies. The fairies are magical. Like,
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we. The kids. Like, when the kids are out here,
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the magic world and the natural world is just the same.
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And so it's like, they're just naturally
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spiritual. And they love invisible things, but invisible things.
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They see them. So there's this
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magic everywhere. And so they're always looking for fairies. Or if they see colors,
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those are fairies. Like birds fly. And sometimes
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they're fairies, or they'll find, like, little, you know,
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wings, like from maybe cicada
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wings. Like, when the cicadas come out, they leave their wings everywhere.
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And those are fairy wings because they look like little, you know,
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and so they're like, I found fairy wings. Look at this. There's fairies everywhere.
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And it's like the season of fairies. Because they find so
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beautiful. Yeah. So they're. They just live in this world of magic
19:15
that is real. You're putting
19:19
together interesting language. So you said the magic
19:22
world is the natural world,
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and it's real. Do you realize, like, in the same
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streams of words you put magic,
19:35
nature, and real in the same. And they're all the same. They're all
19:38
the same. They're all the same. I just. I certainly
19:42
would believe that that needs to be pulled apart a little bit.
19:46
Some awe there of what you said. Yeah. I mean,
19:49
that world, if those are all combined, those ideas are all
19:53
combined together, that is. I mean, that makes the world,
19:56
like, awesome. Like, it's full of wonder.
20:00
And so the idea of, like, the stories that
20:03
they play out and live in is just part of the landscape.
20:07
It's blended. Yeah. That's the nature of wonder for
20:10
a young child. And so I think that for us,
20:14
I mean, we were all young children once, and we still are.
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Like, we're always young. And if our world has awe in
20:21
it, then our curiosity is alive, our wonder is
20:25
alive. And so I think it's really good to blend those
20:28
things to play.
20:31
It's a play. It's a play. It's a play. And even
20:35
though we all carry, I believe, a young person inside
20:39
of us, or lots of versions of ourselves,
20:42
earlier versions, some have been denied the
20:46
ability to be wild. How do you rewild
20:50
yourself and the people, the young people that you're working with
20:53
who might be caught in video game world and call that real
20:58
and magical? Yeah, I think,
21:01
like, there's a story that comes to mind because sometimes
21:04
the children will get caught up into these. Like,
21:07
they'll get caught up into a story maybe for yet.
21:11
I had a kid here who, when he was
21:15
6, I think he was 6, maybe 7 Essex
21:19
Parks, like, all the ones that have been made, and he wasn't
21:23
ready for the level of intensity that
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they were in. He has this amount he sees at this stage
21:31
in his life. It is, in a sense, real to him. And so
21:35
he was coming to class and he was a dinosaur.
21:38
When he showed up and he was attacking all the kids, like,
21:42
as a dinosaur, he's like. And the kids are like,
21:46
stop eating me. And he just wouldn't not do
21:49
it. Like, he just. Because he was caught in this world,
21:53
that was real to him.
21:56
And he was scared because he saw dinosaur
22:00
and violence and his little brain was just like, he was trying
22:04
to work it out because kids work out their emotions,
22:08
like, that's their therapy is play. And so he was bringing it to
22:11
his community and he was scared. So he was projecting
22:14
dinosaur onto everybody and, like, started hurting them,
22:18
right? Because he was out of control.
22:22
So we were like, oh, man, what do we do with this?
22:25
What do I do with this little kid? Well, we're gonna
22:29
have to catch a dinosaur. So we. I was like, hey,
22:35
what do you think about, like, building something to where we could catch a
22:38
dinosaur and, like, train the dinosaur? And he was like,
22:42
yeah, yeah, let's do it. And so for,
22:45
like, two weeks, we built this facility out of sticks
22:49
and rope and whatever we could find.
22:53
And when we got done building it, I was like, all right,
22:56
let's go get a dinosaur. He's like, we should
23:00
lead the dinosaur here and trap him. So we left little acorns and
23:04
this and that and made a Trail to the facility,
23:08
and we caught a dinosaur. And then he's like. I was like,
23:12
what now? Should we train the dinosaur? He's like,
23:15
yeah. And so we trained the dinosaur, you know, all day.
23:19
One day. And then
23:22
he started referring to the dinosaur as his friend
23:26
dinosaur. Then he became, like. He worked out his fear,
23:30
and he got unstuck from that story by
23:34
living in a different narrative that he
23:37
could make sense of, right? And he stopped attacking.
23:59
I mean, there's all different kinds of students. Like, my wife was working with
24:02
a student who was a natural leader.
24:05
He had a strong voice. He was intelligent.
24:10
But he was also, like, really fascinated with war because
24:15
his parents were. And so he was
24:19
coming to school every day, and he was, like, attacking forts that
24:22
kids had built and trying to take them over.
24:25
So then again, we were like, all right, what story is he
24:28
living in? And my wife, Sarah,
24:32
she was like. One day, she was walking down the trail, and she was thinking
24:35
of the narrative, because we try to enter into the narrative,
24:38
be like, let's change this narrative into.
24:42
Or add something into this narrative that would heal it.
24:46
And so she's walking down the trail, and she just stopped. And she was like,
24:50
did you see that? He said, what?
24:54
She's like, did you see that tail? He was
24:57
like, no. She's like, it's over there. It was a big tail, and it
25:01
just went over the hill over there. Oh, my gosh. What is that?
25:05
And she just kept walking the whole day. He was
25:09
like, what. What. What is the big tail? Is there a
25:13
creature here? And she. He kept asking her questions, and she's like,
25:16
there may be a. A large creature here,
25:19
and I'm not sure of its intentions,
25:23
but I think you might need to, like, protect this camp.
25:27
Because he had this energy, right, of, like, taking.
25:30
And, you know, and so he
25:33
was like, yeah, I can protect the camp. She's like, well, what do you need
25:36
to do that? He's like, I need some helpers.
25:40
And so she's like, that's a great idea. And so he, like, went around and
25:44
was like, do you want to help me protect the camp from the creature?
25:48
And the creature never had, like,
25:51
a total form. It was the creature. So it was this idea
25:55
of needing to protect. And everybody started. He was, like, recruiting people
25:59
and giving them jobs because he was using his leadership skills,
26:03
you know, and other. Other kids actually wanted to follow him because
26:07
he was really creative, too. They just wanted him to stop attacking
26:10
them and using that force for, like,
26:15
hurting. And so then that force started to become healing.
26:18
And so he recruited and they came up with this month long story
26:23
where they were building things and finding where the creature
26:27
was. And they ended up luring the creature
26:30
into this. Right over here is where it happened. Luring the creature into
26:34
this area to catch the creature.
26:37
And they finally caught the creature and. But everybody got involved in
26:41
it and they were doing different tasks. Like there was a group
26:44
making food. Yeah. There's a
26:48
group building traps. There's a group like, like looking at tracks and tracking
26:52
the creature. And they had these different crews. So it became this wonderful
26:56
creative story that everybody was involved in.
26:59
And he got to use his skill and everybody else got to use their
27:03
skill. And he kind of organized it, you know, and they. They loved it.
27:07
So it's teaching him to, like, early on learn.
27:11
Leadership is good, but like, it's. What kind of leader
27:14
are you going to be? Are you going to be like a. A community
27:18
developer, a community helper, or are you going to,
27:21
like, take communities over? Are you going to be the top dog or
27:25
are you going to be one of, like, you use your gift as one of
27:29
the group, you know, as a specific skill set.
27:32
So that was really cool. And he just kind of started to change and
27:36
learn a different way of being.
27:40
But the imagination is so important.
27:44
I think imagination is so important for us,
27:47
for us to be open to ideas. Not fixed mindset, but growth
27:50
mindset and just live in imagination, live in wonder.
27:56
I think as adults, the wisdom is like,
28:00
we're trying to balance. That we were talking earlier about is thinking like,
28:03
balance, what could be and what is, and like blending
28:07
those. Spring is here. So we're all creative
28:10
now. But that's a really. I think
28:14
the wise path is, knows how to do that, knows how to
28:18
create within balance. And I guess
28:21
that's reciprocity.
28:29
After the day went by just like as a personal vision
28:32
quest and was just sitting,
28:35
listening. And I struggle too, when I go
28:38
out, because I oftentimes I like, I want to hear.
28:42
You know, I'll have a desire to hear something. And so I'll.
28:46
I'll listen. Not really just with spirit or listen
28:51
naturally. I'll just. I'll try to force my
28:54
listening and I'll be hard on myself because I'm like, oh, why am
28:58
I not hearing anything? Like what? I'm here to do something. I'm here to do
29:01
this. And whenever I get in that state,
29:04
I usually try to take a nap. I'm like, all right,
29:08
fine. I'm frustrated now. I'm anxious
29:11
now. I'm like, I feel bad about myself, like,
29:15
why can't I do this? I'm no good.
29:18
Those bad narratives that I sometimes
29:22
believe in and that are hard. So I'll just
29:25
take a nap. And this one time, I laid down and I took a nap.
29:29
It took me a while to go to sleep, too, so I was pretty worked
29:31
up. But I finally did, and it was warm, the sun.
29:35
And when I woke up, all these little spiders
29:39
had were, like, putting webs,
29:42
like, on my toes. And I saw this one that was building a web
29:46
from my toe to this branch and back
29:49
to my shoulder, and it was crawling like tiny
29:53
little spider. And then I looked around, and I didn't move. So I was like,
29:56
I'm, like, in their web. Like, they're,
29:59
like, building a web on me. I'm like a tree.
30:03
I'm a plant, you know, I'm just, like, in their environment.
30:07
And I just watched that happen for, like, an hour.
30:10
I wasn't thinking. I was just fascinated by watching
30:15
these tiny little, you know, creatures with butt.
30:17
Ropes. How brilliant
30:22
and magnificent they were. Just like. And they're
30:25
skilled, and they're web weavers. And after,
30:29
like, an hour of that, they were just like,
30:32
you're a weaver. You're a weaver, too,
30:35
and you weave delight, and we love it.
30:39
And it was just this really simple message like that, you know, when you
30:42
go on a vision quest, you want to hear something. I was just learning.
30:45
It's like, oh, I don't have to hear anything.
30:48
I just have to be here. And then when I let go of,
30:52
like, my trying, that's when I heard, you know?
30:56
And my imagination was like. Was the language,
30:59
too. It was like, me using my imagination is powerful,
31:03
and it's part of the language of my spirit,
31:06
you know? So, like, ever since then, I was like, oh, how can I
31:09
weave delight in where I am? How can
31:13
I weave delight in my teaching? How can I weave the light in my family?
31:15
How can I. How am I not weave it? I'm not really weaving delight here,
31:18
you know, but that's something that I love to do,
31:22
you know? And so I learned that about myself, too. Right.
31:26
I learned that. And so it's like, one of. What a beautiful lesson.
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Yeah, it was a great lesson. Yeah. Yeah. I had to let go.
31:33
I had to just, like, stop. Yeah, I had to stop. I had to rest.
31:37
Yes, pause the narrative. Took a pause. Yes, took a pause.
31:41
And you. You noticed that about yourself.
31:44
Like, to me, that's courage.