TUS01601- January -Self Evident Part 2

Marc Moss: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Tell Us Something podcast. Tell Us Something is a nonprofit that helps people share their true personal stories around a theme, live, in person, and without notes. I’m Mark Moss, your host and executive director of Tell Us Something. Tell Us Something is supported this year in part by a grant from the Montana 250th Commission, which was established to coordinate statewide efforts to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America.

The objectives of the commission include promoting civic engagement, and Tell Us Something, at its core, does this by encouraging community members to share and listen to the stories of those who live, work, and play here in Montana. We are grateful to the Montana 250th Commission for their generosity.

This week on the podcast:

Scott Davis: The air starts getting hazier as we’re getting closer and closer to the fire. We’re coming up on people that are really [00:01:00] struggling in their event. Pretty much every single one of them is walking at this point.

Marc Moss: Four storytellers share their true personal story on the theme self-evident.

Ruthie Castle: I began to think, “What if I wasn’t an unruly kid? What if I was just trying to exist in a neurotypical society while being neurodivergent?”

Marc Moss: Our stories today were recorded live in person in front of a packed house on January 20th, 2026, at the George and Jane Dennison Theater.

Emily Farrell: I live in a place that is mostly made up of a lot of trees, sweeping majestic mountains, and the overall belief that nothing too strange or unexpected ever really happens to you, a belief that, for me, would not survive the upcoming weekend.

Marc Moss: The theme that night was self-evident.

Shayla Paradeis: I had this sudden strong urge to turn around and thank the forest. And so I did. I [00:02:00] turned around and I put my hands in front of my heart and I bowed just ever so slightly.

Marc Moss: The University of Montana stands on the aboriginal territories of the Salish and Kalispel people. And we must acknowledge in the year of the 250th anniversary of the United States that our founding fathers arrived here as colonialists and stole this land from the indigenous people that were here long before Christopher Columbus made a wrong turn and landed here.

For millennia, winters were a time for indigenous communities that were here, and continue to live here, to come together, passing down history and wisdom through the art of storytelling. We recognize the deep, sacred relationship that they have with this land, and we are grateful for the opportunity to have shared our own stories in this place.

Remember this Tell Us Something [00:03:00] stories sometimes have adult themes Storytellers sometimes use adult language

In our first story, ash falls from the sky and a nearby wildfire casts an ominous glow over the high desert as Scott Davis pushes past total physical collapse in his first 100-mile race. With the air quality hitting dangerous levels and the race officially canceled, Scott must decide if his broken body can endure the final six miles of the race in the dark.

Scott calls his story Are We There Yet? 100 Miles of Ash and Fire. Thanks for listening.

Scott Davis: Thank you Driving into Central Oregon, it’s a hot August summer day, blue sky, high desert, dusty, and there’s a single black line of smoke rising off in the distance, which is a bit ominous ’cause I’m about to run my first ever hundred-mile trail race in [00:04:00] just two days in the same area.

It’s even more ominous the next day when at packet pickup, which is down in Bend, Oregon, ash is literally falling from the sky. The race organizers have told us, uh, they’re monitoring the situation, but they’re optimistic that the weather is, is gonna change and we’ll be able to actually have the race. So the race is meant to start in Bend, Oregon, do a lap around the Cascades, and then finish in Sisters, Oregon, a small town about 20 miles north of Bend.

And so the fire is then also a little bit north, um, of Sisters as well. So we’re starting further away and gonna slowly make our way closer. Um, but the morning of the race, uh, they were correct. We had blue skies, clear– You wouldn’t have guessed anything was wrong. And the race got off, I assume, normally.

It was my first one, so, uh, I didn’t really know. Um, but at mile 50– Well, I’ve ran ultras before, but this is the first time I’ve gone this distance. [00:05:00] And at mile 50, um, I’ve actually found myself in third place, not because I’ve gone out with the leaders, not because I’ve even necessarily passed a lot of people.

I mean, it’s a hot day, it’s really dusty, um, and a lot of the leaders have dropped out. Um, but being in third place is pretty good motivation. Uh, and even though my body is hurting quite a bit, I’m, I’m feeling optimistic that things are about to change, um, at this 50-mile mark. Uh, for one thing, I’m about to start running with my buddy Dustin, so I’ve got a pacer for the, the rest of the race.

He will accompany me for the next 25 miles. And, um, my body is hurting a lot. Uh, it’s been a lot of running, but we’re about to do the biggest vertical climb of the race, meaning it will start being more glutes and hamstrings, a little less quads. Um, and I’m thinking like, “Okay, I’m gonna get this second wind,” which maybe seems a little crazy, but the year before, I did my first ever 100K, [00:06:00] and halfway through the race, I just had this amazing second wind and I finished and, um, I got third place, and that was very, very cool and a little unexpected.

And so I thought, “All right. This might be another situation like that. I’m gonna start feeling better.” Um, my body, for context at this point, um, I’m so sore. I don’t know if you’ve ever been so sore you can’t really straighten your legs or muscles at all. Um, that started happening about mile 30. Um, we’re at we’re at mile 50 and I’ve got a long way to go yet.

Uh, this is the hottest part of the day and, uh, my second wind does not come. We- what does happen instead during this next 25 miles is the air starts getting hazier as we’re getting closer and closer to the fire. We actually start crossing paths with a 50-mile trail race that’s going on at the same time, so we’re coming up on people that are, uh, really struggling in their event.

Um, pretty much every single one of them is walking at this point. [00:07:00] Most of them are starting to wear masks. Several are sitting on the side of the trail, and at least three or four of them are legit laying down in the middle of the trail. Um, I kept running, not because I’m cruel, but Dustin, my buddy, did stop and check and make sure everyone was okay.

The fourth place runner, the only runner to really catch me, um, catches up to me at this point, and I ask him, “What does it look like on the course?” Because I’m really nervous that now there’s gonna be, like, a bunch of people passing me and I’m gonna lose third place. And he says, “Oh man, it’s carnage out there.”

Uh, which is an apt description both of the, the course, but also of my body, which again, I’m, I’m continuing to get more and more sore. Uh, my feet hurt so bad I would eventually get X-rays thinking I had broken them. I’ve got chafe the entire length of my thighs that I just keep slathering in Vaseline at aid stations, which then gets covered in the dust [00:08:00] of the high desert.

Oh. So I put more Vaseline on. Um, Dustin later would describe me as the dirtiest human he’s ever seen. And he is the parent of two, uh, three or younger children, so. Anywho, um, Dustin and I are able to keep my third place as we make it to the 75-mile aid station, and here I’m gonna switch, and my friend Zach is gonna now take me the rest of the way.

Uh, and it does not take long before… Well, uh, this is also the furthest I’ve ever been. Um, my 100K was my previous furthest, so now at mile 75, every single step I take is the furthest I’ve ever gone, and I am very aware of that. Uh, at, pretty quick into that stretch, um, that fourth place runner passes me looking fresh as a daisy by my standards, and I am…

My run is [00:09:00] slowing down to a jog, to a walk, to pretty much a shuffle, uh, and I’m just waiting for more and more people to, to keep passing me, right? Things are getting dark, um, both mentally and also because the sun is legitimately setting, and the sky is filling with ash from the fire. It’s getting pretty bad.

In our headlamps, the, the little stream that you can see, it’s just full of particles, um, smoke and ash. Um, and you can see at one point when we’re running along the ridge, you can see the glow of the fire off in the distance and hear the ambulances, um, and the fire trucks, right, attending to it, and we just keep on going.

Um, by the time we make it to the second to last aid station, we’re 13 miles from the finish. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m gonna not be on the podium, right? I’ve, um, the fourth place guy is well past me. I am making peace with the fact that I’m gonna probably have to walk the rest of the way, uh, which [00:10:00] as a half marathon, that’s a long way to go, and I, I start crying to myself a little bit leaving that aid station thinking about this daunting task.

And, um, I don’t get to have my moment really because that fourth place runner, who’s now in third, is being carried back to the aid station. Um, he is– he fell and hurt his hip. Um, I, I don’t know what all happened, but I can say that if I had fallen, there’s no way I would’ve gotten up. Uh, so once again, I found myself in third place, though not necessarily feeling deserving of it and trying not to get too excited because I am walking so unbelievably slow that I can’t imagine anybody wouldn’t pass me.

Um, we’re doing like 23-minute miles, and I’m not exaggerating. Um, I, I had done my race prep plan and anticipate as like best case, worst case. My worst case was 17-minute miles, so we were wildly off course. Um- And so we’re [00:11:00] walking in the dark, and I’m just waiting, like, all right, people are, are gonna start passing us.

There’s just gotta be an army of these runners ’cause we’re going so slow, uh, and we don’t see anybody, right? It’s just, it’s just me and Zach and the air, which is so full of dust and ash. I had Zach look up what the AQI is, and it, it’s 250. Oh. Um, well, I don’t know for how long, but w- the moment that we checked, it was at 250.

Anything above 150 is considered unhealthy. Uh, like, you shouldn’t be out there. And we make it to the very last aid station, six miles from the finish, um, and they tell me that the race has been canceled. Oh.

Here’s the thing, though. Um, oh, I forgot a very important detail. In addition to all of the smoke, um, before I make it to this aid station six miles from the finish, uh, I start to pee a Coca-Cola brown color. Oh. [00:12:00] Uh, this is a sign of rhabdomyolysis, which is a condition where your muscles start breaking down and release a protein into your body, um, that your kidneys can’t really process, and it can l- lead to kidney failure if not treated.

Um, but I was with Zach. He’s a veterinarian, so I felt fine. H- h- he’s got my back. Um, and we, we make it to this last aid station. We’re six miles from the finish, and I find out that the race is canceled, but here’s the thing. So all racers are being sent home. Um, volunteers have, are going to evacuate their homes ’cause the fire’s expanding, and they just can’t keep volunteers out anymore.

But I’m at the last aid station, and I don’t require any more volunteers, so the race directors have offered to let me finish, um, if I so choose. So, uh, if I can just get this broken body, um, the last six miles across the finish line, in spite of everything telling me I should probably stop, including my own body, um, [00:13:00] we kept on going.

Uh, we had two more hours of slow trudging through the dark. Finished in third place. I got a hold a big, dumb novelty check that was $250 and didn’t even pay for my X-rays. Uh, And, uh, as we packed up and, um, were driving back to the Airbnb, which definitely should have been a hospital, I am now realizing. Uh, didn’t know at the time, but, uh, I said to everyone in the car, um, “I love my body too much to ever do that to it again,” but we’ll see.

Marc Moss: Thanks, Scott. Scott Davis is a bit of a masochist, as two of his favorite things are wildly unpopular in our culture: running ultramarathons and mathematics. One of those [00:14:00] he does professionally, teaching math at Missoula College, while the other is just for fun. A self-described cartoon enthusiast, he has 15 cartoon-related tattoos and counting.

Scott Davis is powered equally by curiosity, a drive that borders on unhealthy, and a high-carb diet. In our next story, after a childhood defined by unexplained meltdowns and a desperate attempt to mask her way through a remote religious upbringing, Ruthie Castle, a graduate student in mental health counseling, finds herself arguing with a professor about how to diagnose neurodivergence.

Her search for clinical answers leads her to become her own guinea pig in an assessment that finally challenges everything she was ever told about being an unruly child. Ruthie calls her story Under The Mask. Thanks for listening.

Ruthie Castle: Growing up, I had a capsule wardrobe before it was trendy to [00:15:00] have a capsule wardrobe.

This meant that I had about five outfits that I would wear on repeat. They were predictable and dependable. I knew exactly how they would feel on my body, where they would touch me, what the textures were like, and I could be certain that I had already cut off the tags or I could wear it inside out. The issue was when my parents would get me a present, a piece of clothing from a thrift store for my birthday.

It wasn’t one of my five, and I felt like I had to wear it. I felt compelled. If I didn’t wear it, it wouldn’t feel loved. It wouldn’t feel like it was enough. It didn’t feel appreciated. So I would force myself to wear it instead of one of my normal five outfits. And the texture wouldn’t be right. The fabric was wrong.

The neckline was different. There was tags in unexpected places. And so inevitably, this would lead to a complete meltdown. If the texture was too much, I had too many sensory issues. [00:16:00] I couldn’t hear what was going on. I couldn’t make sentences. Everything shut down. And to be fair, I was well known for these meltdowns.

It could happen because I was getting my fingernails trimmed, because I was getting my hair brushed, because there was a change in plans, and suddenly I would go nonverbal. I would start biting. I’d claw and cry endlessly. And at a certain point, I knew that these were unreasonable based on the stimulus that was causing them, but it felt like I had no control over them.

I grew up in a religious community, um, about 30 minutes outside of the closest town, and that town had a population of 3,000 people, so it was a very remote upbringing. I was told by the adults in this community that I was too rowdy, I was too loud, and then I’d be too quiet, and I would [00:17:00] share too much, and then I wouldn’t share enough.

I would say things that were rude, but I wouldn’t understand why they were rude. And so I watched the kids around me, trying to figure out how they effortlessly fit this middle ground that I could never seem to find. If I was told that I was too loud, I wouldn’t find a middle area. I’d swing exactly in the opposite direction and go non-verbal for a while When it came time to go to college, naturally I chose a large public school that was known as the party school in the state.

And I remember my first week there during orientation week, I went to a frat party. And it was sticky, it was hot, it was loud, and there was so many people. And very quickly, I realized the rest of the world does not operate the way that the community that I grew up in does. So I did what I did then, I watched people.

I learned to dress like the other girls [00:18:00] dressed. I talked about what they talked about, even if I didn’t find it interesting, and used a lot of substances to try to cope. At the time, I wrote this off as being a little different. Like, yeah, I’m a little bit odd, I’m a little bit quirky, and this is just because of the way that I grew up.

Like, I’m homeschooled, I wasn’t well socialized, and I’m just having trouble adapting to this Fast forward about seven years, and I am in my grad program. I’m getting a degree in clinical mental health counseling. And one of the first classes that you have to take as a part of this program is called Skills Class, and it’s an experiential class where essentially you are pretending to be a therapist for one of your classmates, starting in like fifteen-second increments and then building up to thirty minutes.

And all of these sessions are recorded. There’s a little camera up in the corner of the room, and you take these recordings, [00:19:00] and you show them in front of your supervisors, your professors, and your classmates to get feedback both on what you’re saying and the interventions that you’re using, but also just how you’re showing up as a physical form in the room.

Pretty quickly, I’m getting feedback that I need to dress more professionally, for one. So I start to dress more professionally, even though it’s c- uncomfortable and a sensory nightmare again. I’m told that I can’t cross my legs because that shows that I’m closed off to the client, so I learn to sit with my feet flat on the floor, my hands in my lap.

I’m told that I need to make more eye contact, which is weird because they’re just a camera in the corner of the room. How can they tell if I’m looking at the person’s forehead or at their eyes? But I realize that these are just hoops that I have to jump through if I wanna get this degree. The next semester, we are in diagnosis class, and we are learning how to do a differential diagnosis to tell apart autism spectrum disorder and [00:20:00] complex PTSD.

It will probably be a surprise to none of you that I tend to be a bit of a wallflower. Um, I sit in the back of the class. I only talk if it’s necessary for participation. But suddenly, I found myself arguing with the professor. I could not understand how you’re supposed to tell these two diagnoses apart that essentially have the exact same criteria and presentation in a person.

So I’m doing all of this research in my free time outside of class, trying to figure out how to tell these two things apart. I’m sending the professor articles, and I just, I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. So I decide that the best way to figure this out is to go in for an assessment myself. I’m gonna use myself as a guinea pig and see what questions these professional assessors are asking to figure out how to tell these two things apart.

I go in for the [00:21:00] assessment and it’s ridiculously easy. Um, first question that he asked me is if I can hear things that other people can’t hear. Um, I respond, “You know, that’s kind of… I don’t know what other people can hear, but yeah, like, I can hear electricity in the walls and I can hear the lights.” He asked me how I would eat a plate of Thanksgiving dinner, and I was like, “Well, duh, obviously you eat your way around the plate taking a bite of each food so they all end at the exact same time.

Like, this stuff is easy.”

So I’m feeling confident. I’m like, “I’m nailing the shit out of this assessment.”

No surprise, um, came back and he had diagnosed me with autism and ADHD. And originally, I’m super defiant. I’m like, “There’s no way that I’m neurodivergent.” Um, the way it had been explained to me my whole life from therapists was just that I had complex trauma, and that’s why the symptoms were what they were.

I [00:22:00] start to do research again and learn from people’s first-person narratives instead of just these research articles written by people who are not neurodivergent, and things kind of start to make sense. I get flooded with all these memories of childhood, and I began to think, “What if I wasn’t an unruly kid?

What if I was just trying to exist in a neurotypical society while being neurodivergent?”

So now I took a year off after the program, kind of just to de-stress, um, after how stimulating and how overwhelming that was, and more and more these memories are flooding back in. Things are starting to make more sense. Viewing myself through this lens, I have way more compassion for myself. I do research on how there’s such a strong correlation [00:23:00] and comorbidity between autism spectrum disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially if you were undiagnosed, which is very common for females.

We’re very good at masking and observing people’s behavior like I did at the frat party. So I get to this place of why can’t I be both? Why can’t I be neurodivergent and also have experienced trauma? Currently, I am working full-time as a therapist, primarily with neurodivergent, neurodivergent adults who have also experienced trauma.

And when I get to work every day, I’m wearing outfits that feel comfortable for me, even if they’re not considered professional. I take off my shoes when I walk in the office. I turn on all of my low mood lighting, no overhead lights, and I get my snacks out, and I sit crisscross applesauce in my chair [00:24:00] modeling for all of the clients that I’m seeing what it’s like to unmask and be in a space where they are radically welcomed, loved, and accepted.

Thank you.

Marc Moss: Thanks, Ruthie. Ruthie Castle would rather talk about her dogs, Pippin and Tigger, than herself. She eats copious amounts of beans and oatmeal on a daily basis, and she read 82 books last year. She spends her free time finding bones, rocks, and other treasures in the plentiful public land around Missoula.

Coming up after the break

Emily Farrell: I live in a place that is mostly made up of a lot of trees, sweeping majestic mountains, and the overall belief that nothing too strange or unexpected ever really happens to you. A belief that, for me, would not survive the upcoming weekend. [00:25:00]

Shayla Paradeis: I had this sudden strong urge to turn around and thank the forest.

And so I did. I turned around and I put my hands in front of my heart and I bowed just ever so slightly.

Marc Moss: Stay with us. Thank you to our story sponsor, The Good Food Store, who helped us pay our storytellers. Learn more about them at goodfoodstore.com. The next Tell Us Something event is September 23rd. The theme is Pursuit of Happiness.

Tickets are on sale now. Get yours at tellussomething.org. You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast, where people share their true stories around a theme live in person without notes. I’m Mark Moss. Storytellers in this episode shared their stories in front of a full house on January 20th, 2026 at the George and Jane [00:26:00] Dennison Theater in Missoula, Montana.

Opening the second half of the Tell Us Something podcast, Emily Ferrell’s world is upended when her magical grandfather flies her and her sister into the heart of the Ringling Brothers Circus to become guest performers. What starts as a dream of running away with the circus turns into a night of sensory overload and a lonely moment of panic that redefines what it means to be brave in a story that we call Send in the Clowns.

Thanks for listening

Emily Farrell: It’s the summer I turned five and I live in Condon, Montana also known as the Swan Valley a place that is mostly made up of a lot of trees sweeping majestic mountains and the overall belief that nothing too strange or unexpected ever really happens to you a belief that for me would not survive the upcoming weekend [00:27:00] I’m pretty sure this is one of my earliest memories.

I’m getting on a small Cessna 182 with my mom and my three-year-old sister, Shelley. This plane has just landed in the middle of a field between the Mission Mountains and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and to me at the time, this all seems pretty normal because the pilot was my grandfather, who we called Grack

Grack was the kind of grandpa who could make an ordinary day into something completely magical. And one of my favorite memories of Grack are his infamous candy trees at our family cabin near Seeley Lake. Every summer, Grack’s trees would grow sugar-coated peach rings from their branches that my cousins and I would harvest [00:28:00] and then gobble up on the back porch before we had even had breakfast.

But today, there were no candy trees because GRAC was taking us to see the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus in Billings, Montana. And at the time, my mom’s cousin, my Aunt Sarah Jane, was the performance director of this circus. So as my mom was loading us up onto this plane, she informed Shelly and I that we had both actually been invited to be in this circus.

Ooh. And we were all about it. Um, we could not believe our luck. We were so down, and for the next two and some-hour plane ride, the two of us were just vibrating in the back of that airplane like a couple of little hummingbirds. We absolutely wanted to be in that circus. And so as you can imagine, as we arrived at [00:29:00] the event center and smelled the popcorn and the zoo animals, our anticipation hit a fever pitch.

And walking into that building, the room was enormous, and there was movement going on in every direction. And at this point, the circus hadn’t even started yet. Uh, we got there a little bit early to meet up with Sarah Jane and find out about this being in the circus business. And as we entered this room, the three rings came into view, which is where the performers did their performances.

Um, there were women in rhinestone leotards that caught every light. There were elephants in these elegant blankets with gold tassels on the ends. And then there were the clowns. There were so many clowns, like, just clowns everywhere, stretching, talking, warming up, and some of them were even smiling and making eye contact with [00:30:00] us.

We found Sarah Jane, where she took us to see the elephants, and I got to ride one. And little me loved elephants. I loved elephants because they were so grand that the earth would shake as they walked, and I loved elephants because around this age, I took a ballet class and the teacher asked me to demonstrate a ballet jump.

And if you don’t know what a ballet jump is, it’s when you throw your foot forward as you jump across the room, and this lady said that my ballet jumps looked more like an elephant than a ballerina. But I actually thought that was really awesome because I had always wanted to be an elephant and stomp around and take up space and be big, ’cause I was little.

And so when I got on that elephant, I just felt it, you know? I felt like I was borrowing a body that wasn’t my own, and I felt like the star of that show [00:31:00] After I rode the elephant, Sarah Jane took us to see the clowns that we would be walking out to be in the circus with, and these clowns were like a completely magical family of souls.

Some of them were on stilts, some of them were on unicycles, and all of them were just completely whimsical and cute. Now, leading up to this circus, my little sister and I had been watching a video about this circus on repeat, and one of the acts that both mystified and completely terrified us was a man named Tahar the Alligator King.

And Tahar was a Moroccan alligator wrestler with striking good looks, big muscles, and a clean-shaven, shiny, bald head. Tahar was known for hypnotizing his alligators [00:32:00] and then putting his shiny, bald head right between their jaws So as my sister and I are standing with these clowns, we’re on the edge of the ring as the show begins, and Tahar was performing his act right in front of us.

And this is when I remember my excitement beginning to quietly turn into significant anxiety. I started to become very concerned about where Tahar and his alligators might go next, and whether they might make their way toward my three-year-old sister. But luckily, I didn’t have too much time to spiral because at that moment, Tahar’s act was over and the clowns were whisking us away into the ring.

But at this point, I’m completely overstimulated. I’m sweating. I’m worried about rogue reptiles and holding onto this clown’s hand like it was my only lifeline. The [00:33:00] clowns led us out around the perimeter of this circle as the ringmaster announced us as the circus’s special guests. And that was it. That was our big moment I wish that I could say it was more magnificent, but I think I was more excited to get back to my seat, ’cause Grax scooped me up, and from the safety of his lap, I continued to watch the show.

And the three rings w- sta- continued in constant motion as the ringmaster, uh, announced where to look, like a traffic cop of awe and wonder. My mom pointed out Sarah Jane, who was standing on a podium directing the performers and wearing a top hat, a coat with tails, and neon hot pants There was a man who was shot out of a cannon, which I later learned was the most dangerous job in the circus.[00:34:00]

And as I watched this spectacle unfold, I remember just being completely transfixed by the way these performers were able to blend the lines between humans and animals. People were flying around like birds, elephants were doing dances on tiny stools, and tigers were jumping through hoops of fire. Uh, as the performance ended, Sarah Jane invited us to see the train where the performers and the animals all lived together.

And I’m pretty sure this was the part that, uh, fantasi- or f- made me the most excited, because I began to fantasize about running away with that circus. And Sarah Jane’s train car was as magical as I possibly could have imagined. It had a little bed on cables that went up and down, and windows on both sides, and to me, it felt like a tiny fort [00:35:00] on wheels And at this point, I’m pretty sure my sister and I were completely exhausted, ’cause the next thing I remember, my mom was putting us to sleep in this little space.

And as I was drifting off, I was totally in my fantasy of running away with this circus. Until the train lurched. I sat straight up. The car was dark. There was just some soft light coming through the windows. My sister was asleep. My mom was gone, and I wasn’t sure if I had dreamt this or if I had, uh, if it had actually happened, but in that moment, my f- fantasy completely collapsed and I started to panic.

I wanted to look for my mom, but I thought if I got off that train, it might take off with my sister in it, so I just stayed there, trying to be very brave and very quiet at the same time. [00:36:00] And as I sat there, I thought about the show, and I thought about the elephants and the flying and Sarah Jane’s hot pants, and I couldn’t get over the way that these performers seemed to bend the laws of nature.

And then I started to think about Grack and how he had always kinda had his own kind of magic like this with things like the candy tree. As we got older, becoming teenagers and then adults, the candy tree grew barren for many years. But now, Shelly and I both have kids of our own, and most of my cousins do too, and I’m happy to report that the candy tree blooms peach rings quite regularly now.

My oldest is 16, so I’ve been a mother for quite a while, but sometimes it still feels like I’m just per- performing the role, and underneath the responsibility, and the bills, and the work, sometimes I just feel like I’m a kid [00:37:00] who’s in the costume of being a parent. Sometimes I even feel like I’m all alone in a, in a box on wheels, and I can’t control where I’m going.

And then I remember that I’m still the very bravest big sister, stomping around and taking up space like an elephant doing ballet. And I know that little me would be so proud. Thank you.

Marc Moss: Thanks, Emily. Emily Farrell is a communication major at the University of Montana, as well as a mother, writer, and lifelong learner. A dedicated puzzle enthusiast, she enjoys playing cards, sampling fine cheeses, roller skating, and kicking her kids’ butts in Mario Kart. Emily grew up in the Seeley-Swan Valley, where she developed a deep love of catching [00:38:00] frogs, building snow forts, and jumping into ice-cold rivers and lakes.

Her work and life are shaped by curiosity, humor, and a strong conviction that connection, much like play, is both an art and a discipline. Closing out this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast, Shayla Paradise has a profound encounter in a Montana cedar grove and begins her lifelong quest to truly listen to the natural world.

This journey eventually carries her across the globe to a sacred ceremony in the Australian bush, where an unexpected lesson from an elder and a conversation by a river change her entire understanding of what it means to belong to the Earth. Shayla calls her story The Shape of Embodied Listening.

Thanks for listening

Shayla Paradeis: I was twenty three years old the first time I heard the [00:39:00] trees. I was walking in my favorite forest in northwest Montana It’s this beautiful old growth grove of cedars. And right before I came back to the parking lot, right before stepping out of the woods, I had this sudden strong urge to turn around and thank the forest.

And so I did. I turned around and I put my hands in front of my heart and I bowed just ever so slightly. And as I did, I felt this sorta emulating energy coming out of me almost like a wave, as if the being that is me had somehow come out of this body into the field around me, and I could send a thank you.

And then I immediately felt something come back, like [00:40:00] this warm touch on the back of my heart that sent this warm sensation all throughout my body, and I realized we have real communion with nature

And since then, I’ve been on a journey of cultivating that practice, and I’ve been treating it like it’s my job to listen to nature and have communion with it, and to be good at that practice, to take it seriously, and to kinda keep growing and keep listening and cultivating that skill And throughout that process, it has brought me to some incredible teachers, uh, some of them indigenous elders.

One in particular in Western Colorado, a sweet old man named Chi. And still unknown to me, he could somehow tell that I was doing something that I didn’t really know I was [00:41:00] doing, and he helped me learn a few practices, like calling in the four directions, setting sacred space, or saying hello to country.

So when you get somewhere and you get out of your car, you offer it your vibration before you do anything else, and basically stand there and say hello. Offer yourself. And these teachers that I’ve been working with eventually connected me to elders in Australia. So in the spring eq-equinox, our spring equinox, their fall equinox of twenty twenty-four, I got invited to go to a ceremony called the Rocky River Corroboree, and it was hosted by a man, a custodian of the land of the Rocky River.

Uncle Lewis Walker is his name, and I was asked to attend and to stay at the [00:42:00] healer’s camp I arrived, uh, as the sun was setting, by plane in Brisbane, and then I rented a car and drove on the left side of the road down windy paths in this sort of jungle bush of wild grasslands and eucalyptus trees. And I got there in the dark to camp, and, uh, I got out of the car, and I just felt buzzy and sort of like I didn’t belong.

I had really strong imposter syndrome. And I don’t identify as a healer, so I didn’t know why I was invited to be at this camp. And the next morning when I woke up, I went for a little walk to say hello and kinda get oriented. And when I got back to camp, one of the elders scolded me for wandering. I was like, “Oh, no, I did bad,” and I’m already an American and so afraid of cultural misappropriation in this situation and not sure that I belong and nervous.

And [00:43:00] right after that conversation, everybody stands erect in the camp, and this man is walking toward us in a long black robe with red trim, no smile on his face, real serious eyes, and it’s Uncle Lewis Walker. And he comes into camp, and he says, “Where are the Americans?” And I was g- hiding behind the outer circle.

But there were only three Americans present, so I stepped forward, and he looked at me with real pinpoint focus, just met me with his eyes, and then he drew out, and then he pinned right back in And he went, “Good.” And he smiled a little bit. So that helps me relax and, and enjoy the ceremony, uh, which started that night with Uncle Lewis Walker standing on the stage, r- a grass stage, with a banner over him [00:44:00] that says, “One Blood” in red writing on yellow fabric.

And there’s a big fire in front of him, and we’re on a plateau where his voice in the microphone echoes over the river valley. And he started the ceremony by inviting us all to cleanse ourselves and make eucalyptus smoke, which we did. We brought these branches in, and there’s probably 250 people at this gathering.

We threw in these branches and cleansed ourselves in the yummiest smoke I’ve ever been in. And then we started to dance, ceremony dance, to the didgeridoo. And the first song was for the kangaroo, so everybody dances like the kangaroo, and then the emu, and then the eagle, and then the goanna, where you crawl on the ground all around the fire to the didgeridoo.

And then we sit with embodied animal [00:45:00] spirit, and we listen. And Uncle Lewis Walker told us a story about the Pleiades, the seven sisters. And he said that in his lineage and in his oral tradition, it has been long known that there are eight sisters, and that the eighth sister is this unseen energy bet- between them all.

The woman who put out the fire by bringing the water. And he says he calls this gathering in part for all of us to understand how important it is that we access that energy to bring the water to put out the fire, and to come together to do it at this crucial time.

After his ceremony, I was introduced to a [00:46:00] woman named Ria. Ria was getting a PhD, and she’s from a colonial background like myself, in listening to river. And she had a real relationship with this land and a great relationship with Uncle Lewis Walker. He was really one of her mentors. And she took me to this beautiful part of the camp, the women’s camp, they call it, and it was a soft swimming hole.

And we went for a nude swim together and we sang and we listened to song, and I felt like a mermaid. It was amazing. And I could kind of feel this beautiful blending of my song and her song, hers of river and mine of forest. It was really quite a splendid experience. And when we were walking back to camp together, I asked [00:47:00] her, “Ria, what do I do with all of this?

Like, how do I carry this back to the people that I come from and share it in a way that’s useful or appropriate or respectful or tangible?” And she just looked at me and laughed, and she said, “It doesn’t work like that. Like, right now, where we’re standing, it has so little to do with what you’re doing or saying or even thinking.

What’s going on right now is that those magpies are interacting with you, and those cicadas are reacting to your vibration. There’s stuff happening all around you. It matters very little what you make of it or how you shape it.” And I had this huge aha moment as the shape of how I think changed [00:48:00] It’s a dialogue, of course.

So while I’ve been spending so much of my time thinking there’s this, like, cultivation of this linear growth that just keeps adding and getting better, it’s really that there’s this ever-tethered, ever-present shape, multidimensional, that we are and that everything else is, and that we can’t really do it wrong

And so while I had been looking so deeply into nature and wanting to listen, nature had been also looking very deeply back into me. Our journey is our offering

Marc Moss: [00:49:00] Thanks, Shayla. Shayla Paradise is a walking ecosystems storyteller who identifies as a wild animal. Although she looks a bit out of place in some social settings, she is mostly well-behaved and has managed to walk across entire countries five times without a smartphone to navigate. Her narratives from meandering experiences over 18,000 miles of through-hiking are poetically expressed in her book, Footprint of a Heart, and through events as a public speaker and singer-songwriter.

Shayla is a believer in beauty, a seer of connectivity, and is consistently mesmerized by the experiences of being human. Lately, she has been activated to remind us of what we have by telling stories of the Earth, animals, and stars. Next week on the Tell Us Something podcast.

Linda Grinde: I could smell horse sweat and leather and, and gun smoke in the air, and I was holding my rifle and felt the weight of it against me and the [00:50:00] sweat running down my neck, and I could taste the salt and the dirt on my face.

And I looked around and I saw my friends standing up in the back of these wagons.

Nora Mahmoud: One day after the lesson, a student called Lily raised her hand and asked a question. “Can one person change the life of someone?” I looked at her and answered, “Well, Lily, one person, one conversation, one teacher, one place can change the life of someone.”

Marc Moss: Four storytellers share their true personal story on the theme the power of place.

Madeline M: I was drooling all over the flashlight and about 15 minutes in and I’m just crying and I’m like, “Please, take them, take them.” Nothing’s happening. I, I kinda stick ’em in my armpit and then I go back into the barn. I finally call Andy and I pl- say, “Please, like, get down [00:51:00] here.

I, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Cathy Scholtens: We tore into that chocolate like a pack of wolves. You just take a bite. If you didn’t like it, you just spit it out, just threw it on the ground. It was insane, and we weren’t saying much, okay? It was very quiet. We just … And then we heard it.

Marc Moss: Tune in for those stories on the next Tell Us Something podcast.

The next Tell Us Something event is September 23rd. The theme is Pursuit of Happiness. Tickets are on sale now. Get yours at tellussomething.org Thanks to our media sponsors MissoulaEvents.net, Mike’s Print and Copy, Missoula Broadcasting Company, including the family of ESPN Radio, The Trail 103.3, Jack FM, and Missoula’s source for modern hits, U104.5.

And thanks to our in-kind sponsors, Float Missoula and [00:52:00] Joyce of Tile. Thanks to Cash for Junkers, who provided the music for the podcast. The song is called Buzzin’ and can be found on their album, which you can stream at cashforjunkersband.com. You have been listening to the Tell Us Something podcast