The Challenge to be Free

The Challenge to be Free

An Interview with the Irrepressible Elspeth of Haven

Resonance Magazine www.resonancemagazine.blogspot.com
Copyright ©2008 by Evan Pritchard non-exclusive permission granted for general reprints

What is freedom? Different strokes for different folks, apparently. Everyone looks for freedom by different means; meditation, politics, free verse poetry, religion, wilderness, music. Nonetheless, we know it when we see it, and when we see it we want to be around it. That must be why so many people want to be around Elspeth Odbert (“Elspeth of Haven”) these days, to hear her stories, her stream of consciousness lectures, workshops, CDs, and more. At seventy-eight, this mountain mama from the hills of West Virginia exudes a brilliant, sometimes glaring, light, and a feeling of freedom that is becoming an increasingly rare commodity in this world. She has a bad case of wanderlust for a girl of her age, and travels around the country in her RV “Harvey,” sometimes with her husband Nybor, meeting with her fans and followers and sharing her innate wisdom, a habit that has earned her the nickname, “The Crone on the Road”.
You never know what she’ll say next. Listen to her unrehearsed talks, her quirky stories and jokes, and you get the feeling that anything can happen, and it usually does. She might share a private anecdote from a riverboat gambler or corporate CEO she went out with, or repeat a story she heard from a Memphis call girl. She catches people off-guard and opens their minds; that’s her gift. But mostly she talks about how women can find themselves in the world and really be happy in life as single girls, working girls, mothers, grandmothers, or great-grandmothers, all of which she can speak on with great authority, having been there and done that. She speaks from experience to women of all ages, and says, “I don’t worry about wrinkles, honey: Wrinkles are my resume!”
Partly due to her mixed blood Cherokee background, people call her Grandmother Turtle, yet it has been duly observed, “She is a grandmother the way Auntie Mame is an aunt.” Her wise elder persona has also been described as “Minnie Pearl meets Deepak Chopra.” She speaks sometimes with the voice of “she who must be obeyed,” and other times with a self-deprecation that is almost shockingly funny. She drawls, “I am an ego-ridden old woman who wants to hear herself talk—but on my best days I am also a conduit for messages that come to me from the source of all knowledge, so pay attention. I will try to bring you my best!” Do you get the impression she’s not exactly a “people-pleaser?” You’d be right. Yet the more she harangues, the more people flock to hear her.
The Challenge
Elspeth, always the outdoors type, with a background in handmade craftwork, never thought of herself as a writer. In a recent interview with Resonance Magazine, she recalls, “One day back in 2004, I was in the midst of giving classes on ‘Reclaiming Yourself,’ and late at night, half in a dream, I heard a voice say, ‘I challenge you by mystery and magic to become….’ I saw the words written in front of me in blazing letters on a dark background, but the concluding words were not visible to me. The words repeated again, but even though I was then fully awake, I was reluctant to get a pencil. I asked, ‘…to become what?’”
As would anyone else, she became seized with a desire to know the outcome of this riddle. She was not disappointed. She explained, “The words followed, ‘I challenge you to become the person you were meant to be.’ Then a whole torrent of words came all at once. ‘…to cherish the sacred earth, to honor the blowing winds, to nourish the healing fire, to drink deeply of the flowing waters. I challenge you to live life more fully, to awaken to the infinite possibilities around you, to know that you are the only limiting factor in your life…’”
Those words are only a small part of the inspiring poem that now bears the title “The Challenge.” She continued telling her story. “Still unwilling to get up and look for a pencil, I repeated it to myself and memorized it. When daylight came, I wrote it all down and read it aloud to my class. After I finished, the class was dumbstruck for several minutes, until one small voice said, ‘Can I have a copy?’ Then another asked, and another. Later that day I typed up the poem and made it into a wall hanging/poster as framable art. Almost immediately, six hundred copies were sold, and then more. It is estimated that thousands of bootleg copies of that poem exist, somewhere.”
She added, “Eventually, The Challenge became, as they say, ‘part of the folk process.’ People around the country were quoting it, posting it, not sure who had written the words, thinking them to be from some ancient text. It was recently set to music by Jonathan Dickau and the Diversity Band, and will be recorded with Randall Harris later this year.”
Still, Elspeth did not think of herself as a writer.
This summer, (2008) another half dream at 3 AM left her with a story book (for all ages) that incorporated The Challenge as part of the plot. That story became Gylantra’s Journey, a Parable, soon to be released. In the enchanting story, a young woman literally meets her potential in the form of her future possible self, and hears the challenge from this mysterious teacher’s lips, which she has only heard in fragments before, through dreams and songs in her head. It awakens in her a fierce desire to be free, to throw off the shackles of her world and become who she was meant to be.
When the book was finished, Elspeth, like her alter ego Gylantra, had learned that the only limiting factor in her life was herself. When her fans demanded that at least one of her guided healing journeys be put on tape/CD, she found it necessary to write a script of it in order to record it. She did so, and again it was a breakthrough for her as a writer. In the end, she learned she could write things down after all. Some “old dogs” can learn new tricks. Elspeth is, at seventy-eight, just now becoming a novelist, rock star, and media celebrity. Call her a late bloomer; it just goes to show you’re only as free as you feel.
For more information on Elspeth Odbert (Elspeth of Haven) and her public appearances, log onto www.elspethofhaven.com, or contact Eri at (202)236-6764 or email him at darrylsol@earthlink.net

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