Episode Seventy-Two: The Interview - Gerald Hausman

Gerry's life is one from a fairytale-from his mother being able to talk to birds to his being hit by lightning... (and so many other stories!) his life has been one of wonder. This is the kind of episode that will remind you of the magic in the world.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 72 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

In this episode I get to interview Gerald Houseman,

Who is an author and storyteller of both adult and children's books,

More than 70 in fact,

Including The Future is the Beginning,

The Forbidden Ride,

Horses of Myth,

And the book that I discovered this author through,

Stargazer.

I went to my local used bookstore here in Santa Fe,

New Mexico,

And I always go right to the New Mexico section.

I take my time.

I just know there's treasure to be found there.

And this last time I found Stargazer,

A book that I hadn't heard of.

It's very interesting.

It's book one of the Stargazer trilogy.

On the back,

Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction fantasy author Roger Zelazny says,

Gerald Houseman Stargazer is a very different book.

A paradoxical southwestern fantasy drawing upon local folklore and Indian myth.

A smoothly told tale of no small complexity and more than a little mystery.

But it was the dedication that I found inside that intrigued me and really hooked me.

Bernie and Ann,

As I walked out one snowy winter morning with love,

Jerry.

I thought,

Who is this?

I have to meet this person.

And so,

With not a little nervousness,

I emailed Jerry Houseman and he responded right away that he'd love to be a guest.

This interview was a little bit like stepping into a fairy tale where you step into a place where you don't know where you're heading,

What direction you're going.

And it started on the day that I was supposed to interview them.

I showed up to the cafe where the interview was to take place and it had a big closed sign on it.

The sign said,

Closed on Monday.

And I thought,

Wait a second,

It's Tuesday.

I think I looked at my calendar and yes,

It was Tuesday.

And I thought already this interview's a little strange.

Both Jerry and his wife,

Lori,

Pulled up soon after and we decided instead we go to their house.

We drove there,

I crossed the threshold and we sat at their kitchen table.

And I think most of you know,

Or at least suspect,

That the kitchen table is the perfect place to share stories of myth,

Magic and miracles.

Now most of you know that I do my interviews over Zoom,

So this was truly a special treat.

Not only did I get to sit at the kitchen table,

Have one of the most interesting and fun conversations I've had in a long time.

Jerry and Lori are people after my own heart.

They're steeped in mysticism and myth,

Fantasy and fable,

But they're also down to earth and grounded.

It was a sheer delight talking with both of them.

Every once in a while,

You'll hear Lori's voice.

And it was really sweet to hear the interplay between these two as they finish each other's sentences and contribute to each other's stories.

And so now,

Without further ado,

Episode 72 of Bite Sized Blessings.

Not very long ago,

I was struck by lightning.

You were?

Yes.

It happened in Florida.

Lori was a witness to it because she was standing by the front door of our house,

And I was talking to a guy in a pickup truck,

And the lightning hit his truck and turned everything all around me.

And from where you were standing,

Too,

Turned everything pink.

And when it was over,

My neighbor across the street said,

Wow,

He said,

How did you make that pink light?

And I said,

We didn't.

But,

You know,

I went back.

First thing I did was call this doctor friend of mine and I said,

Dr.

Jim,

I said,

I seem to have been hit by lightning.

And he said,

Oh,

Boy.

And I said,

What should I do?

And he said,

Just get ready for a weird night.

I think you would describe yourself as a storyteller,

Obviously,

You've been saying that.

But how else would you self identify?

How else?

Who are you?

If you were to go to a party and introduce yourself,

Who would you say you are?

Well,

A kid asked me that.

And I said,

My answer was,

Would you like to see me walk on my hands?

And this kid said yes.

And so I did this.

I was on a stage.

And this is exactly what I did.

I put one hand here,

One hand here,

And I walked like this across the stage.

And so this teacher came up to me later and she said,

I think that's the first time I saw this one boy laugh.

He's been serious,

She said for two years,

And she said he laughed at that.

He thought that was funny.

So a lot of the stories that I would tell at schools were funny stories.

Some of them were inspired by kids.

Actually,

A lot of them,

I think,

Were,

You said,

What else?

What else am I other than a writer?

I think in a way I'm a healer.

And I think that the healing came from a long family tradition.

You know,

Various people who healed with hands and people who healed with stories and people who healed with paintings.

The story circles a little bit.

One day I was jogging in Arroyo and a voice came into my head and said,

There's something you need to see.

What you need to do is just reach,

Not with your eyes,

But with one hand,

Reach into this rat hole on the side of the Arroyo.

And I thought,

That's risky.

But I did what the voice said,

And I felt something cool on my palm.

And I drew it out into the sunlight and it was a black Madonna.

I've had the most mysterious things imaginable happen in my life,

So I didn't really need to do much more than write them or tell them with thanks to the powers.

I ended up putting that in the little church in Chimayo.

I was going to ask,

When you were a kid,

Did you have a sense or did your family kind of impart the idea,

The concept that you come from a family of healers or that you were a healer?

Were you aware of that when you were a kid?

I'm not sure.

I think I was in awe of my mom and dad.

I thought they were very special beings.

My mom especially because she was not only a storyteller,

But she was a storyteller in paint.

And so I had that awe for my mom.

My dad later on,

He was like a dog whisperer before anyone used that expression.

He would invite dogs into the house.

Strange dogs would come scratching on our door and they would want to be let in.

And my dad would let them in and then he would have long conversations with them.

But in a normal voice,

A soft,

Quiet voice,

One dog,

Whose name was Kendricks,

Came back for like five years,

Kept coming back to the house,

Back to the house.

And my father said to me one day,

He said,

Jerry,

You with your paper route,

You get around everywhere.

And I said,

Well,

I get around to a lot of places.

And he said,

Can't you find out who Kendricks' family is?

And I said,

I'll do my best.

And sure enough,

I found the family.

And they said,

Oh,

Well,

When I told the lady about it,

She opened her front door and let me in.

And she said,

You know,

She said,

Kendricks isn't here right now.

He's visiting someone else.

So I grew up with possums,

Bats,

Birds of many different varieties.

My mom wants to put her hand out in the backyard with a finger like this and a robin landed on her finger.

She had powers.

She really did.

And it's sad that at the end of her life,

She lost them and she became very,

Very depressed.

People said,

Well,

She's got Alzheimer's.

I don't think it was Alzheimer's exactly.

I think it was more like she had lost the gift of power and she was all alone.

She didn't have my dad anymore.

He had died.

Was your family Catholic?

No.

My dad was Jewish and my mom was,

She was Protestant,

I think,

For lack of a better word.

Did their religious faith factor hugely in their lives?

I think that their mysticism was what made them so special.

And when she died,

We kept her ashes.

When my dad died,

We kept his ashes.

And it took about five years before we were in the Berkshires in Massachusetts where my mother's family had come from.

She'd always said,

I want to be joined with your father so that when we pass,

We should be together.

So I finally brought them,

The two urns together.

And I was at the lake in Massachusetts where our daughter Mariah right now is heading towards.

And I poured my mom's ashes into the lake,

Which is,

You know,

Where she learned to swim when she was like four or five.

And then I poured my father's ashes over hers.

And the ashes went like this.

And then they came back together and joined and then went to the bottom of the lake.

But it was such an unusual family.

You know,

The granddad who in his 80s was walking down a hill with me,

And he tripped on a root,

A pine tree root,

And he rolled and twisted and fell and got up and rolled some more and went all the way to the bottom of the hill.

And then he just simply got up like this.

And then he dusted himself off.

Yes.

That's,

That's almost like a story from a fairy tale.

It was a family that created fairy tales really in their living.

And it's like,

Where do miracles come from?

I think all of us have them.

But it's a matter of acknowledging them and sometimes praying for them.

I was going to ask you,

The mysticism and the magic in this book really,

I mean,

I've read the whole thing,

Drew me in.

What was the impetus for writing this book?

I mean,

Did you think about it for years or was it more spur of the moment?

That's a really good question.

Do you have an answer for that,

Laurie?

It came from another book.

And the other book was called No Witness.

It morphed from one book to another until it was four books.

I think Jay DeGroat was,

He's my Navajo roommate in college.

We've been friends for 50 years.

And he's very much the man in the,

He's the stargazer.

And I remember reading it to him and showing it to him and saying,

Jay,

Do I have your permission to do this?

And he said,

Sure.

He said,

It's wonderful make believe.

And I said,

But you're denying the fact that your family was a bunch of healers.

And he said,

Yes.

He said,

My father was a horse healer.

And he said,

My grandfather was a man who could make it rain.

And he said,

My father rode in a UFO once.

And that's in the book.

So he was very much the inspiration for the book.

How would you,

If you were going to describe this book to someone,

How would you sell it to them?

I'm so curious.

Well,

I think what Laurie was saying was we never did sell it.

We just lived it and then wrote it.

And then people found it.

And those that found it were like you,

Special people.

Not your,

How should I say,

Your average reader.

But people that go into books,

Deep into books.

Is that how you'd describe it?

How would you tell somebody about No Witness or Stargazer or any of the others that grew out of those two?

It's a true New Mexico story.

And she ought to know,

I'll tell you why.

Because you mentioned Mabel Dodge Lujan.

Her family ended up selling their ranch to Mabel Dodge Lujan.

Not exactly.

Circuitously,

That's how it happened.

It went to Manby first and then Manby.

Did Manby know?

It was D.

H.

Lawrence who did the trade,

Right?

Yeah,

He did.

Lawrence ended up living there.

I read their letters to each other.

It's the book.

They're amazing,

Right?

Yes.

But those things happened then.

I think it's really interesting in this book.

To me,

It's a journey.

I mean,

The main protagonist is on a journey and he's being given wisdom about different things.

To me,

Through that wisdom,

There's healing.

And I was so bereft at the end when the Stargazer kind of faded away,

Disappeared.

And I thought,

Ah!

Partially because I'm a big believer in just,

I feel like we're losing so much information and knowledge and memory from people all over the world,

Let alone the indigenous populations of the Americas.

I was going to ask,

With your healing that you've been doing,

Has it ever felt like a burden for you?

I don't know.

Sometimes when those ancient gods or goddesses come calling,

It can be an onus and be almost too much to take on.

Has it ever felt like that?

Interesting you should raise that question because somebody asked that question last night.

We were visiting a friend and she explained that she was Cuban.

She said a lot of the people in Cuba deal with nihilism,

Which is mysticism of a certain kind.

And it's in Jamaica,

They don't like it.

They think it's witchcraft.

She said,

My sister committed suicide a week ago.

And she said,

I wondered if you would be interested in doing,

I think she was what she was trying to say as a seance.

And I said,

I don't do that.

And I said,

I'm just a believer.

And because I grew up among Navajos,

I'm what I would call an old believer,

Not just chronologically,

Which is also true.

But the idea that the old ways are the best ways,

And they still exist.

I mean,

They certainly exist in this book that so many of those stories are true.

And as Jay said,

So many of them aren't.

I've never felt that it,

You know,

Honestly,

Never felt that it was,

It's hard to explain it,

But I've never felt that it was special.

I always felt that it was,

You know,

I can,

There's certain birds that I can talk to.

Well,

My mom showed me that.

She always said,

You must get the beats right.

It's not how well you whistle.

It's the beats.

That's what the bird repeats.

Birds,

I'm sure,

See everything that's going on.

So they might have the latest news.

That is definitely,

That's a good one.

It was Jay who told us about what he called the star car.

He said a star came out of the sky and landed in the desert in front of his father.

And his father approached it,

Knowing that there would be a being from another galaxy.

And he approached it and a voice said,

Get in.

Being a practical Navajo,

He said,

I'm too big to get in that tiny little car.

How do you expect me to get into it?

And the voice said,

I'm doing it right now.

I'm preparing you.

And he said that his father went,

And he said his father was about this big.

And he says,

His father got into the car.

They went for a little space trip and came back.

And he said the whole thing took under five minutes.

And so he told me that story.

I put it in here.

But then I met other people like Dr.

Fry,

Who was a real man,

By the way,

Worked for the aeronautical people down in White Sands.

He had,

He had ridden in a star car too.

So when he heard my Navajo story about the star car,

He said,

I rode in one.

And I said,

Where did you go?

And he said,

We went to New York City.

Were they shopping?

And he never told me.

His wife was sitting right there and she said,

Okay,

Dear,

That's enough.

That story,

Everybody's heard that story.

When I was 10 or 11,

I saw what looked like a parallelogram in the sky on a camping trip.

And we were at about 5000 some feet.

It was a bunch of kids and a counselor,

A summer camp counselor.

And we woke the counselor up and we said,

There's something funny happening in the sky.

And he said,

What does it look like?

The smart one amongst us said,

It's a parallelogram.

And he said,

I know what that is.

Do you?

And the boy said,

Well,

Yeah,

My father's a mathematician.

Okay,

So what does the parallelogram do?

The boy said,

Well,

If you look at a certain angle,

You see the star that starts it off goes from the left to the right and then down to the left and then to the right again.

And it's exactly like one of my father's drawings.

I had not very long ago,

I was struck by lightning.

That were Yes,

It happened in Florida.

Laurie was a witness to it because she was standing by the front door of our house.

And I was talking to a guy in a pickup truck,

And the lightning hit his truck and turned everything all around me.

And from where you were standing to turned everything pink.

It was just it was a strange thing.

And when when it was over,

My neighbor across the street said,

Wow,

He said,

He said,

How did you make that pink light?

And I said,

We didn't.

But,

You know,

I went back,

First thing I did was call this doctor friend of mine.

And I said,

Dr.

Jim,

I said,

I seem to have been hit by lightning.

And he said,

Oh,

Boy.

And I said,

What should I do?

And he said,

Just get ready for a weird night.

Did it hurt?

It didn't.

There was no real hurt.

Well,

In your back.

I think my back felt really under great pressure.

But the rest of me was normal.

He said,

The doctor advised me,

It'll just go to bed.

He said,

And get back up when you feel you can.

And I said,

Well,

Do you need to see me or should you see me?

And he said,

Let's see how this goes.

Music My friend,

This is my friend,

Jay talking,

He said,

I went back to rainy butte once.

My father said,

Don't be afraid of what you see up there.

I didn't know what he meant.

Starting out,

But after a while,

I felt it more than thought it.

The horse came out of the sun,

A golden horse with a mane of sun rays,

With feet of Flint butterflies.

The horse came out of the sun and thundered on the clouds.

And then I remembered again what my father had said,

Don't be afraid.

There was a circle of pollen glowing around the horse's head.

The horse had a wildflower hanging from the corner of his mouth.

He galloped right at me.

I could feel him coming,

The force of his body moving through the morning.

I wondered what he would do to me when he hit me.

I took a deep breath,

I released it,

I let go of my fear.

The big horse kept coming.

I closed my eyes and the sun horse passed right through me.

I think that native people have had these experiences and they're not like that one.

I've heard different variations on that.

And there's always this incredible belief system that has to do with the sun,

The rays of the sun.

And I think that's kind of what lightning is.

Navajo myths are full of lightning horses and expressions of lightning.

I read this.

Do you know Vine Deloria Jr.

?

I just read his book,

Within the Last Six Months,

The World We Used to Live In,

And it is groovy.

And he talks about basically in the late 1700s,

1800s,

Early 1900s,

What medicine men or shamans were witnessed doing.

And how that knowledge is being lost.

And that some of the stories that have been told,

There's no explanation that can be given for what people saw or what they experienced.

And again,

It goes back to that,

What I was talking about before about the loss of information,

The loss of knowledge.

And it's heartbreaking.

But you've hit on the very reason why it doesn't feel like any one person is being empowered.

It's more about how you recognize something that is empowering.

And it could be something as simple as,

You know,

Like the other night when I said,

There's a creature growling on the other side of the fence.

We never found out what the creature was,

But the growl was very different from a dog and different from a coyote.

And it was kind of like,

Like that.

It could have been a man.

The supernaturals will come to you if you're not afraid of them.

So I feel like,

You know,

These are experiences that we have.

Do you ever participate in any training at all?

Just through Jay.

Jay helped me and there was another Navajo named Ray Joe,

Who one time when I took,

If I said ayahuasca,

Anybody would understand it,

But it was actually morning glory seeds.

And we crushed them up and mixed them with honey.

And I took too many of them.

And my brain was like,

Boom.

You know,

It really just,

My brother found me sitting in front of our fridge.

And I was,

My brother said,

What the hell are you doing?

And I said,

I'm singing to the fridge.

Fridge first sang to me,

Now I'm singing to the fridge.

And he said,

Jerry,

You better have a cup of black coffee.

And so I went outside and I sat,

But there was,

There were train tracks right in front of the house.

And I sat in front of the train tracks.

I felt this presence close to me.

And I looked over to my right and it was Ray Joe.

And he said,

I heard you singing to the fridge and I thought I better come out.

And I said,

Did you hear the fridge singing back to me?

And he said,

I did.

He said,

We hear those things.

And I said,

So I said,

What are you going to do for me?

Are you going to help me?

He said,

I'm going to look after you,

Make sure you don't hurt yourself.

And I said,

Yeah.

I said,

You know,

I was going to run down the tracks.

And he said,

Yes.

He said,

That wouldn't have been good.

You know,

The first time I heard a coyote speaking to me,

Actually speaking to me,

I told my friend Ray Brown about it.

And he says,

Oh yeah.

He says,

We have that happen all the time.

He said,

It's nothing special.

Ray Brown was really another one of those teachers.

You know,

I don't talk about him much,

But he was.

Well,

He's in the book.

Yeah,

He's in the book too.

And Jay DeGroat is the one who said,

When I told him we had an infestation of ants and we couldn't get rid of them,

Jay said,

Have you tried giving them something?

And I said,

Like what?

I said,

Like a medallion or something?

What are you talking about?

And he said,

He said,

Show me their nest.

And so I walked outside and I showed him the nest and it was teeming with ants.

And he said,

Okay.

He said,

Don't disturb them.

But he said,

You want to give them something they'll like.

And they'll remember you for it.

And he said,

They'll leave your house because they're in there looking for something they like.

And I said,

Okay.

I said,

What would it be?

And he said,

That's up to you and the ants.

And I said,

Okay.

So the following day I went outside and I had some fresh Jamaican herb.

I brought us a really nice sprig of it and gave it to the ants.

And I gave them a little ceremony with it and left it there.

Came back out around twilight and it was gone.

There was nothing left of it.

Not even a trace.

And one ant popped out of the hole and just looked at me and then went back in.

And I thought I thought I heard that ant say thank you.

Thanks,

Boss.

I like the boss.

Thanks,

Boss.

Thank you so much for listening to Episode 72 of Bite Sized Blessings.

It was sheer joy having this conversation with author and storyteller Gerald Hausman and his lovely wife,

Lori.

For more information about Jerry,

His books,

His works,

To watch some videos of him storytelling,

Go to Gerald Hausman dot com.

You'll find the link under the episode show notes on the Bite Sized Blessings Web site.

I need to thank the creators of the music used in this episode.

Music L.

Files,

Alexander Nakarada,

Horst Hoffman,

Frank Schroeder,

Chilled Music and Winnie the Moog.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite Sized Blessings Web site at Bite Sized Blessings dot com.

On the Web site,

You'll find links to books,

Music,

Playlists and art that I think will lift and brighten your day.

Thank you for listening.

And here's my one request.

Be like Jerry.

Live in the imaginal world.

Live realizing that myth,

Fantasy,

Folklore and magic are just different names for a different reality.

Live in the magic of that idea every day.

That's what we've what we found out was that kids were the biggest market that we had.

OK.

And adults were a good secondary market.

But it was kids that I love to talk to and love to share stories with and then and then gather stories.

So I even marked some of these thinking you might find them interesting.

You know,

There's there are stories that kids started to started to tell me.

Here's one that this it's a one liner and the kid said,

You're Donald Duck sucks.