¡Colores!; Interview with Larry Littlebird

Well, the other thing, too, is it was not usual at that time for men to be dancing together. But for us, tribally, it made sense. It made sense. Yeah, there was something there. We both got it. Yeah, sure. It was incredible. Where good and ready to get started later than me. Oh, I'm sorry. No, you're fine. You're fine. Sinking, honestly. Are you ready to go, sir? He laughed at me. Anywhere you want to go, I'm ready. All right. Okay. Okay. Sure. Sure. Okay. Mr. Larry Littlebird. Good afternoon. Oh, it's afternoon. That's right. I should say evening because it shows an air night. Let me start over. That's all right. It's a little bird. Good evening. Thank you for joining us here

today on Cholores. Well, thank you very much. It's an honor to be here with you. Thank you. I want to begin here. Where do stories come from? Where do stories come from? Oh, my God. That's where they come from. Oh, my God. Yeah. You know, that always reminds me. Our relationship with God. And it separates for so many people. And I believe that happens because they forget to tell their story, their own story. And there's nothing more creative in being with the creator than telling a story.

Because the creator loves stories. And that brings that relationship to where it should be, like a father or a mother with their child. And if we are children of God, then that's our rightful place. And that's why it just comes to me when you ask me that kind of a question, and says, oh, my God. Because that is so essential to what a story is. It brings to mind the visual of the, I believe it's Hopi, correct me from wrong, but the Native American storyteller that in scale is large, but seated at the feet of the storyteller, all these small figures. Right. Which you said just kind of gave me that image. As a visual artist and having a visual artist background as well, among other things, film, lots of different things. Why stories? Why stories the medium? You know, again, it's the same thing.

As soon as you ask the question, I feel my heart. And it's not pumping. It's not like pounding. It's got a steady beat. And when you ask me a question like that, it makes me feel settled. Because now I'm pecking relax. Because we're going to do something that is so correct. We're going to share words. And these are stories that are beginnings of what, again, I think is most crucial for us as humans, and that's relationship. And language begins that relationship. And I believe for all tribal people, that's essential. And then for, especially people who have separated

from any kind of indigenous association or root, it's difficult because the technology just draws them away from the moment. And that's really all we have. We have these moments. And again, the beautiful thing about stories is learning to listen. That's the beautiful thing about stories. Yeah, we're going to talk about listeners. Thank you, Larry. Let me ask you this. There's some amazing work that you're doing with the land here in New Mexico. How are stories connected to the land? This, right here. This is the listening ground. And so wherever I am on the earth, I'm one

with that ground. So I'm grounded. And so listening to what's within is what the stories are really truly about. A lot of people call me a storyteller. And I completely refuse that. And a lot of people think that because they hear me share lots of stories that I've got some kind of brilliant memory. And they're not. I don't have a hard time remembering. You know, I tell my wife, I said, you know, you better paint our door or really a bright color so I can find my way home. So I can get lost so easily. But what I'm getting to is that it has

nothing to do with memory. It has to do with listening. And I've been blessed to have had elders my entire life who I was close to, who I could just listen to. And how I understand myself is that I'm more of a story listener. And every once in a while I get to share some stories. And that's why I really love people who will listen because it allows me to listen one more time to a story. Yeah, it's my voice. But I'm remembering where it came from and how it was shared. And now I'm able to share that experience with whoever it is that is willing to listen. It's hard to find listeners though because

everybody's in so much of a hurry. And they get caught up in their sense of that they don't have any time. They don't have time. My dad used to tell me all of the time. He said, why are you in such a hurry? Where are you going so fast? You've got all the time in the world. And that's what I love to say today. You have to just know how to spend all that you have. And he would always relate it to money. You've got 24 hours. How are you going to spend it? Like he'd be asking me to do something. And I go, I don't have time. I'll do it later. That was young Larry.

And it would always be, what are you doing? And it would help me slow down and then get this other perspective about choosing. That's interesting because you mentioned that relationships really are the infrastructure of stories. And I want to go back to listeners because I think that's amazing. And then how you choose to spend that infrastructure is important. But the land is Hamata. And so I want to just probe a little deeper and think about how does Hamata or Hamata, how does that connect to you, young, young, Larry? How does that take you back and that work you're doing now? How does that connect you to? You see, we only have a certain amount of time. And that kind of a question is I'd have to invite you to let's make a

fire and then sit around that fire. Who knows how long? Maybe for as long as we can keep feeding the fire. Because there's something within us as humans. Every human has this. It doesn't matter where they're born or who they are. There's a resonance that we vibrate with. And there's a sound. Sounds come to us. And they touch us. And it's unfortunate when children get closed down. And for me, somehow, and it's why I'm blessed. I didn't get closed down, growing up. You know, the greatest thing as native people that we're about is our trauma. And

every native person, what the degree of blood is, we're all part of this trauma. And what I've discovered is that somewhere when I was little, I had people. They weren't always older. Everybody always thinks of these old people as being so wise. No, they weren't. They were many ages. But I paid attention to whatever they might be saying to me. And that learning to listen has allowed me to not become fearful about the trauma. But to look at it, see what it is. And then remember a story. And stories come for that very purpose. To help us find our way

through any darkness. They become like a light that's better than a halogen beam. Something that you get at REI, perhaps. Yes. And as a poet, you know, I often, people ask me, this is going to be a long preamble. But the question, I'll separate the question out with them space. But as a poet, I often people always say, you know, so it's so cool you get to go up there and talk. And people get to listen to you and they get to hear your voice. And that must be so like whatever emancipating. And I'm like, that's cool. That's part. That's a cool little part of it. The bigger part is that every time I tell a story, every time I deliver a poem, I get off stage and five or six people come up to me and say, hey, man, I got a poem. You want to hear it. Or, hey, your poem reminded me of this and they tell me a story. So for every one poem I put out there, I get five or six in return. And that's the rewarding part. That's the selfishly rewarding part of what I do. Better than the money. Better than

my voice being heard in a therapy that comes with that. So the question, as a poet, there's a magic in being able to gather people and having people come together in relationship, as you called it. What would happen if there were no listeners? He would think there would be a lot of silence. Look at our world now. There are very few listeners. But there's a great deal of chaos. Now, doesn't mean that chaos has to be harmful. Because you can actually put some incredible stuff together. But there's a tendency for humans to become very confused very easily. Because that's what happens to us. And

that chaos can lead to destructiveness. And I believe that that's what happens. And when people are in some kind of trauma and everyone is to some degree. And then there are traumas that are just, you know, they can be brief or they can be very, very long. But that trauma comes and when we have no way to help ourselves to be still. That's what leads to, I believe, destructive inventiveness. I'll say it like that. And that's like everything from the atomic bomb that was going to bring change the world to be more, bring

about more peace to a destructiveness which is saying that, ah, I'm just not any good. I'm not any good. And we are nothing but good. That's beautiful. Hold up one second. Now I was going to, so I want to, we talked a little bit about this when we met up. What is, what gets Larry up in the morning to tell another story? Oh, man. See, you just got me up. It is like when we met. See, that's what it is. I saw you across the room. You were, and I could hear people talking that you were going to present something. And I caught you right away. I said, wow, look at that guy. And I could see you being ready. And

so I'm attentive immediately. And then you, you started. And I'm listening to your words. But it's not the, it's not what makes you coherent. Isn't the words that you're choosing to describe stuff? It's a sound. It's a sound. And all of a sudden, it mixes with these sounds. And I'm hearing stuff. And it's like, it's like, I always go back to Bob Dylan because I'm not really a music official. I mean, I danced ballet, I danced Flamingo for a little bit. And I really love music. But I'm not into, you know, whatever is popular in the moment. However, a storyteller like Dylan comes along and I listen. And when I see you, I hear that music. And the music I hear is Hollis Brown.

He lives on the other side of town with his five children. And his house all broken down. I see, I see that. And that's what I hear you. And I'm getting this wonderful feeling in my, it's, you know, I can feel the whole inside of me just, and I've been excited. Because I'm going, wow, here's somebody that I know. And I don't know how I know you. But I know it. And sure enough, once you had given your presentation, I couldn't do anything except go up to you and just say, oh, man, that is incredible. Because something happened. So that's how that works. This idea of, you said, filling up like pouring a picture, pouring a picture. And then people like, if you're,

it feels like a, it feels like if you're doing it right, right? There's a book called Flow. And if you're in the flow and you're doing it right, that's what's happening. You're filling people's cups. Yeah. I want to ask you, this is a, this is more of a, I guess, this we're going to talk shop for a second, right? Oh, right, cool. And get into the mechanics of the story. I guess there's two questions. And I don't know which one's the right question. So I'm asking both of them. The first question is, how do you know it's the end of the story? Or, let me restate. So first is, how do you know it's the end of the story? Or what do you see at the end of the story? Oh, that's a cool question. Because you're talking filmmaking. Say, and, and, if you don't see the end of the story, you could be working on that for a long, long time. And, and what the end of a story in a film are, or in,

see, you're describing literature. In the oral, it's not quite like that. But for a moment, we're speaking of shop here. Okay. So, the ending is because that's what is touching you. That's what you're feeling, and that's what you're hearing, and that's what you're seeing. And, and we often, we get tripped up because we don't start there. Mm -hmm. Instead, we go way off here somewhere or way off here somewhere, and we try to get here. Mm -hmm. So, they're starting there. Yeah. That's beautiful. You mentioned oral. So, we talked about that too, and that was really beautiful. So, you made a distinction between kind of oral culture and literature. And, I think when we sat down,

I said, when I hear you say that, I want to spell it, A -U -R -A -L, like, Aura, or, but can you tell us a little more about this oral quality, this oral characteristic? In the beginning, what's the word? That's it. And here we are. And here we are. We always come back to that. It all circles the way. Yeah. Here we are. What happens to us as humans is, we get caught in our own descriptions. Mm -hmm. And yet, we're in this word, but we're not quiet, to hear what this word is saying. And right away we go, Oh, I know what it's saying. And we have our opinion, which is valid, to have an opinion. But we get caught up in our own opinions. And then we lose the silence again.

Mm -hmm. And so we have to find a way to get back to that place of silence. And that usually requires doing, most of the time, without thinking. Right. But not the kind of, when people say, well, you can't do anything without thinking. Well, it's not that kind of logic. It's almost illogical. And I believe that that's where, for me, I know, my whole thing with hunting is like that. I'm always hunting. It never leaves me. And I'm aware of it. I'm aware that there are things over the hill. And so here I am, but how do I get over the hill to where there are things? And so

there's this hunting, brings me to that, a threshold like that. And it's constant. And it can be applied. And I believe this is what happens in oral cultures. People have to have relationships which nurture that quality. And a lot of times, it's just simply from silence. We're all full of questions. We've all got lots of questions. And we want to ask them all. But again, going back to my own experience, I've been reminded constantly by, in this case, older people who they may say something like, you ask too many questions. And at first it's kind of like abrasive. But if you hear that enough,

then you finally get, well, if I don't ask any questions, how am I going to know anything? You finally hear that. And then it finally comes to you. If I could just learn to keep my mouth shut, I'll hear something. And I might be able to listen long enough to find something. And that's hunting. I hope that I don't know that. That's beautiful. Thank you, Larry. You did it. You landed it. So Mr. Larry Littlebird, thank you for joining us in the studio today and helping us figure out how to pause a little bit and hear the answer. This is wonderful. Thank you. Thank you.