Rob Waters (National Poetry Slam champion) on reminders of truth and love

Rob Waters, Gomeroi poet and storyteller and the current Australian Poetry Slam champion joined me for a rich and deep conversation about an all-encompassing spirituality that exists beyond the boxes of a compartmentalised life. Rob shares about the grounding role of Country and Story from a First Nations perspective. We then explore the prophetic role of the poets in speaking truth in an unjust world, while also acknowledging that listening ought to precede speaking. 

Towards the end of the conversation Rob shares two powerful poems and some particularly poignant and challenging stories. There’s great wisdom here for those who take the time to open their hearts and listen. Big love to Rob for sharing with us ❤️ 

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Transcript

Will Small: Rob Waters, my brother, friend, role model, many things, many words I could use to describe, uh, to describe you. But, uh, welcome to the Spiritual Misfits Podcast.

Rob Waters:Thanks for inviting me, man.

Will Small: Absolute pleasure. Um, lots of ways I could introduce you, but I'm interested in how you introduce yourself at this point in time.

Tell us a little bit about who Rob Waters is. 

Rob Waters: A lot of things, I suppose. Um, Firstly, I'm a Gomeroi man, so I acknowledge country. Acknowledge that I'm not on country. Grew up, you know, multiple places. I currently find my feet down here, uh, on the Central Coast, uh, which is not my country. I'm a Gomeroi man, as I said.

Um, I acknowledge the old people from here that look after this place and take care of it. And the custodians of this place, you know, we look at that idea of [00:01:00] custodianship. And like I say, we, we never stopped as Aboriginal people, never stopped caring about country. I never stopped caring for country. So I don't, I don't say traditional custodians because we're still custodians.

I'm a husband, a father, I've got five kids, me and my wife, uh, two granddaughters, um, a poet. An educator, um, storyteller, an all round good guy. Depends on who you ask, but yeah.   

Will Small: Oh definitely. You are, without a doubt, one of the humans I hold at the top tier. Highest regard. And, um, it's interesting.

There's a lot of times when I reference, um, Things that you have shared with me, um, always give credit where it's due, but you've just had a big impact on how I think about poetry, spirituality, being human. Um, so I'm, I'm always grateful for [00:02:00] the wisdom you've shared with me as well as the friendship. Um, and, uh, you know, you're humble, humble, but you are the current Australian poetry slam champion.

 Rob Waters: Oh, that little thing.

Will Small: That little thing. For people who aren't like in the, in the poetry world, what does that mean to win the Australian Poetry Slam? 

Rob Waters: Um, I think it's like, it, it was last October or whatever it was. October, November. I think it's just, just set in. It's just setting in now. Um, it took a couple of months of, holy crap, what just happened?

Surreal. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's epic. It was like the biggest, the Australian Poultry Slam is the, the biggest, um, slam competition in, in the country. Um, they have, uh, local heats that go to regional heats that go to state heats. People come from all over the country and you got a microphone, a spotlight and two minutes to share your story and, [00:03:00] um, myself and a young, a young girl, KJ, um, from, um, Victoria, um, we, we ended up, uh, tying twice in the national final.

So, which has never happened before, right? Never happened before, never happened before, which was really, really cool. Um, I was, I tell people that I was nervous. I was that nervous. It was crazy that when I went into the final, the last, um, the last reading, I thought anyway, um, my nerves got a hold of me and I came off and I wasn't happy with the, with, with what I'd given and all that kind of stuff and, um, came back and wasn't confident and then they read out and they said, all right, we've got a tie here.

Um, and it was being between young KJ, who's a 16 year old homeschool, um, poet who she's only been writing for a little time. That was her third poetry slam. She did a local [00:04:00] one, regional, like he did the local, the regional, the state and then national. So fourth poetry slam ever, um, made me want to hang up my pencil.

Yeah, in my notepad. Um, 'cause I've been doing it a while. Um, they, and they said, yeah, there's, it's been a tie rah. And said, so we came out, um, done the, um, done a bit of a, you know, done a flip the coin kind of a situation and KJ came up and she won. She looked at me and said, what do you wanna do? You won the, you won this, the, the toss.

So what do you want to do? And she goes, okay, I'll go first. And I just, I just thought it was the most gangster move ever. Like you've got these young 16 year old girls standing there with this old dude like me, she goes, yeah, okay. It's the national final and it's at the opera house. And yeah, I'll go first and just went out and absolutely nailed it.

Like nailed it to the point where I was backstage and I, I heard every, I don't know [00:05:00] whether it helps or hinders, but I heard her, her performance. I heard a final performance and this wave of calm came over me. And I thought, I think she's got it. I think she's, even without hearing the, um, hearing the scores that, that, you know, Miles asks for the scores and even without hearing the scores, I thought, I think she's got this.

And that, like I said, that wave of calm came over me. So I didn't really, the nerves didn't disappear totally. But they settled. They settled enough that I was able to give what I was supposed to give to that next poem. Um, went out, read the next poem and they went back and um, they counted all the scores and that kind of stuff and Miles just, we heard on the microphone, Miles goes, okay, this hasn't happened before.

We've got a second tie. So myself and young KJ looking [00:06:00] at each other going, holy crap, do we have to read again? Yeah. And they said, Oh, KJ, are you over 18? No. Okay. So you're the national youth champion. Rob, you're the national, you're the national champ. Cool. Both of yous come out and they gave us both, both got to be the national champ.

So. So cool. Which was amazing. Yeah. 

Will Small: Well, you're, you're very worthy. And, um, We spoke on the phone that afternoon before you went in, and I think I said to you, I was like, it's yours, like it, you, I had a, I had a confidence within my own intuition or whatever that you were going to walk out of that room with the, with the title, um, and, uh, I was so stoked for you that you did, um, very, very worthy, um, and, uh, And I am very interested to chat to you about poetry, both as a personal kind of practice, as well as, as you know, someone who performs poetry, you use your words to speak into rooms with people in them.

And there's a whole [00:07:00] lot there that we could discuss, but, um, I, I love to generally ask people to give a little bit of the backstory of, you know, the kind of spiritual spaces they grew up in and to kind of maybe think through the phrase spiritual misfit. And whether or not it resonates with moments in their story.

So for you, Rob, like I'm interested, one, would you describe the household that you grew up in or the family that you grew up in as spiritual? What did that sort of look like? And along the way, have you ever felt like a spiritual misfit? Does that phrase resonate or not? 

Rob Waters: At the time, I don't, I don't, I don't think it felt like a very, it didn't feel too spiritual.

Sure. Um, the house that we did grow up in. Um, but as I, as I look back, I see that it was. Um, you know, we weren't, we weren't, um, didn't go to church. We didn't, you know, that kind of stuff. We did, Nan, my grandmother, she was, she was more on that spiritual [00:08:00] side than a lot of us. Um, she had her, she was in her ways and she had, um, you know, Easter was done properly.

Christmas was done properly. The, you know, um, we do our, like, instead of going to church, we'd go to Nan's house for Sunday dinner. Um, and that was our, that was our thing. Um, but yeah, we grew up grounded in culture, I suppose, Aboriginal culture. Yeah. Um, we grew up understanding, I don't know, it wasn't that we weren't without, without spirituality.

Um, it's just that it was looking back, I think it's, it's more in what you do, not in so much what you say. Sure. It's, you know, it's, it's more in how you, how you live it. Um, 

Will Small: I think it's a modern thing to talk about spirituality as an optional extra or like a particular sphere of life. And I [00:09:00] wonder if like, uh, uh, you know, so like Jesus never talked about spiritual life in the, in the stories about Jesus, he would never use the phrase, are you spiritual?

Do you have a spirituality? But life is just all interwoven, all interconnected. All of it is multi dimensional. And I wonder if that's more true to like a First Nations way of seeing the world as well, in that spirituality is not like this thing for some people. It's just, it's just woven through all of life.

Rob Waters: Very much. Very much. It's a, it's a lived, experienced reality that everyone just goes through. Um, I think we get when people hear, and myself, I'm a bit guilty as well, when we hear that idea of spirituality, I think I've just done it then, is that we, we, we think of spirituality as spiritual practice or, you know, these, these instances of, um, I don't know, moments of [00:10:00] doing spirituality or moments of being spirituality or that kind of stuff instead of knowing that it's, it's, it's, it's so much more than that.

Will Small: Yeah. Well, it's like you, you go, there's a whole, you go to a church is a spiritual place. Yeah. Which implies that when you're not at church, it's not a spiritual place. It's not a spiritual place. Exactly. Which is that, that's not helpful, right? Yeah. 

Rob Waters: Yeah. Yeah. Very much. It's like, um, yeah, that it doesn't happen outside of that, You know, that Sunday morning at church.

Yeah. So that, um, or maybe it's a night, something, or maybe it's a, maybe it's a Christmas thing, or maybe it's an Easter thing, or maybe it's a, like, that's when we do the spiritual stuff. And then, then we draw a box around it. We compartmentalize it and then everything outside of that is, You know, instead of understanding that we, how we do what we do and what, how we live, what we live is, is very much grounded in, in faith and grounded in, um, spirituality, whether that's the [00:11:00] word that you want to call it, whether it's culture, whether it's like as aboriginal people and first nations people around the world, I think we, we know that everything is.

Connected. 

Will Small: Exactly. That's, I think, one way of, I think spirituality is a bit of a slippery word. People will have different things they attach to it, but I think it's like an awareness of the interconnectedness of things, both within you, like your body and your heart, your soul, your mind, whatever you want to talk about.

It's interconnected and interwoven, but then, and this is one of the things that you've, you've helped me to kind of expand my understanding around, but yeah, the way that you stand on land and country, the way that you connect to place, the way that you see. The animals as part of this ongoing conversation in which everything is interconnected.

It's a much more beautiful vision of life than I go to a place one day a week. Where I do this little practice, and then I go back into the normal, disconnected places. 

Rob Waters: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, [00:12:00] I think, for me, getting that idea of, um, of spirituality as a, as more of a thing that we just do, and a thing that we, that we just are, is a, is a big thing.

Mm. Because we just, that's who we are. Mm. We, we live it. We, you know, we go out and we, Like, it, like, like I was just talking about with the Australian Poultry Sam stuff. Um, you said that you, you felt that, you know, I was gonna win and all this kind of stuff. I'd got to just before the final reading, and I talked to one of the guys, um, Jayden, I said, man, can I go outside?

I just need to get out . I'm in this box, I'm in this, the opera house and I need to just go out. And my wife knew what was going on. I just felt. I needed to get out and I went out and and he showed me a little [00:13:00] side exit kind of a thing went out to the water, put my feet in the dirt and just talked to my old people, my ancestors kind of thing.

And the wind picked up. And it was a nice little reminder that, yeah, we're here with you. You got this. You know, and, um, sometimes when we go, I feel for me anyway, sometimes when we talk about it, you go into that church, you go into that, that's when you practice spirituality or that's when you practice, um, you know.

Praying too heavy, you pray, or that's when you practice, you know, that it disconnects it from all the rest of Yeah. Your actual living of the Yeah. What you're praying about. Yeah. Um, you know, we're not just spiritual people from 9:00 AM to 12:12 PM on a Sunday morning, . Yeah. We're not, or on a, we, you know, a like on a Thursday night when we go to a Yeah.

Like to a, [00:14:00] to a church group or to a, a cultural group or whatever. You know, it, it's not, that's not. Outside of that time, we're also spiritual people. Um, and the idea that this Western society has got us locked into, you know, everything's compartmentalized. Mm. Everything's boxed up, everything's put away and everything's set on the shelf and it fits within these time constraints and it sits within and then, you know, church is, Then, uh, and then outside of church, you've got to be, you're the, you're the poet dude from nine to five.

And then from nine, from five onwards, you're the dad dude. And then from then, when the kids are asleep, you're the, this guy or, you know, like everything's all compartmentalized where it's all the same thing all the time. And we forget about that. Um, and we, we get, but we get caught up in it. We, we get caught up in that, that, you know, so when we talk about being a [00:15:00] spiritual misfit, I think it's looking at the understanding of what are we being misfits from, you know?

Yeah. There's this idea of what it means to be spiritual. And that's given from this, the current society that we live in, you know, it's boxed up and it's, it says that to be spiritual between the hours of 9am and 12pm on a Sunday afternoon, you've got to go to church. We have to be whatever, I don't know, there's, there are, there are things in place that says that this is what it is to be spiritual and anything outside of that.

Whereas it all happens outside of that as well. Yeah. 

Will Small: Um, that's right. And those things can be, they can be helpful and they can be, I, I see them as helpful, you know, to kind of like connect some other things here. Like one of the things we've talked about a lot is the power of story. Yes. And I love that you talk about, and maybe you can talk about it in a moment, the difference between like the lower S story and then like the big [00:16:00] S story.

And I think that the spiritual practices or routines or rhythms that people can engage in. They're only good if they're reconnecting you with the big S story, but when they just become like these little s Stories and I've got my little life over here and yet these things happen in these special places and times But I'm somehow totally different from you and you know I think that's when they become unhelpful and it's interesting like you were just saying like the spiritual misfit you feel like a misfit It may be because you've been given a very like malnourished understanding of what it means to be a human, what it means to be a spiritual being.

And what, maybe what you're feeling like this misfit is this part of you feeling like actually there's a much bigger, more expansive. story than the small one that I've been given. That, that does compartmentalize the world and it does break people up into different groups and creates others rather than seeing myself in, [00:17:00] in the face of the other.

How do you see story in that bigger sense as being something that actually helps kind of hold people together and connects us with more than our little moment? 

Rob Waters: Because as Aboriginal people, I think story is. That's the key for, like, is the big thing, you know, that big S story kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's the key that holds all of the stuff together.

It's the, it's like this big invisible spider web that just, that holds all of the, like, the lore and the language and the relationships and the water and the air and the everything all together and that we live our story. Um, and we live our, live our story every day, and we, we connect with it and we are it, and we, you know, we're supposed to do that and sometimes we forget about it.

Sometimes we, we, we we're taught [00:18:00] different that, you know, that it only like, like religion or spirituality can only exist within a certain timeframe or can only exist within a certain space or, you know, like I say, Sunday afternoons. Or Sunday mornings or whatever, whereas it, you know, we know that, um, story's been given to us and it's our, it's our job to pass that on.

It's our job to relive it and learn it and, and love it and, and to give it freely and to give it with love. You know, one of the tenets of Aboriginal culture is love. You know, I've got a big family and I tell people, you think I like them people all the time. Some of them I don't like at all, but I love all of them.

Love every single one of them. Cause that's my job. I'm here to, you know, if, if, when, when, [00:19:00] when shit goes south, I will be there in their corner every single day of the week. Cause that's our job is to love. And, um, Yeah, it's one of the big stories that we were given first up. Yeah, you know We talk about being humble like that's a big thing for me I think I've got a there's a story about the the old crow that we were given and I've got a crow feather tatted on the side of my neck and I try to Remind myself every day of the importance of not being an idiot not being a big no no.

I try every day. It's Do I succeed every day? No No, not at all. And I'm the first one to stick my hand up and go, sometimes I'm an idiot. Um, a lot of the time I am, but all of the time I'm working better to try to not be. Um, all of the times I'm trying to remind myself, [00:20:00] and that's by putting that tattoo on the side of my neck.

Um, and then, and another, another tattoo that I got recently was, you know, the day I tried to, that I've given up alcohol. Hmm. And it's, you know, very visible kind of a space so that it's a daily reminder, not just for me, but for other people when they see it, they go, Oh, what's that tattoo about? And then that reminds me of my relationship and it reminds me, and I got that, I tell people that I got that for me.

I got that tattoo for me. I got that because, um, my relationship with, with alcohol has not been a good one. For a very long time. Um, and I've given up for the kids and I've given up for the partner and I've given up for the mom, my mom and dad, for my parents. I've given up for everybody else and I've never, ever given up for me.

And this one's kind of a reminder that this is why you're doing it now. You're doing it for you. Um. Massive respect, [00:21:00] man. You've got to, I've got to do it for me now, you know, and it's, I think we need those constant reminders of grounding ourselves and reconnection with self or reconnection with country or reconnection with whether it is that spiritual, you know.

spirituality, or whether it is that higher place, or whether it is country, as we know, country, whether it is that BS story kind of thing, is that we constantly need to be re grounding ourselves and reminding ourselves of the importance of engaging with that, so that we don't get lost in the big scheme of things.

Will Small: There's so much I loved there, man, and I do think that it's kind of like you, you can never really step out of the big S story. It's who you are. And I've heard you describe it before, you know, in these ways, you know, sort of a phrase I think you said was something around like we're made by [00:22:00] love for love.

That to me is the same big S story I'm trying to live into. Made by love for love. But like you said, we often need reminders of that. It never stops being true. It's always true. But whether it's a tattoo, whether it's a practice, whether it's something that grounds you, they just reconnect us with what was always true and is always true.

And it's not like we step into and out of it. It's that we remind ourselves of what is the truer, the truer thing. When we often, maybe, Like deceive ourselves a bit or just forget the real state of things, you know things being in that kind of made for love Um, and that's how everything is interconnected wherever you come from whoever you are I feel like that's a much bigger story that we can all get around And we might have our different ways of practicing that our different words that we use our different poems that we use our different little stories And that's you know to me my [00:23:00]tradition i've got this set of stories That are beautiful and valuable, but only if they're pointing me towards a story that has room for everyone and a story that includes everything and is no longer about like a competition or a, so yeah, um, deep resonance with a lot of what you're saying.

Um, how, how does like being a writer or a storyteller or a poet fit into that for you at a personal level? When did you start to, to write and what is some of the kind of motivating forces for you as a, as a poet? 

Rob Waters: Um, I've been looking at, like, been doing poetry and writing and stuff like that, like, my whole life.

I grew up within a family of storytellers. I grew up within a family of songwriters. And, you know, I had an uncle who was a really cool dude that he, uh, he's passed on now, Uncle John, and he had hundreds of songs. That he just he got he had them all [00:24:00] stashed away and he said that he just knew off by heart We'd go around.

Oh, i called john Can you sing this song about such and such and sing this song about such and such so I? Kind of grew up in a creative kind of a family creative household forever. So it was something that i'd always done um, and I was I don't know, more of a, more of a shy kind of a kid. And spent a lot of, a lot of time, it was just me and my little brother.

Not my little brother, my younger brother. Um, me and George. Um, then the other brothers come along. Neil and Bradley and Thomas. And we, yeah, mum was a school teacher, so we grew up with the love of words and the love of learning and that kind of stuff as well, which was really cool. Um, when we were young we invented a game called Palm from a Hat, because it was a, what's the name?

It was a blackout and we didn't have [00:25:00] Scrabble or Monopoly or whatever, but I'm like anyone that knows me I'm always wearing a baseball cap. Mm hmm, and we were like, all right cool everyone write down a word and we had a like an hourglass like a three minute hourglass and Everyone write down one word can be anything.

It can be happy. It can be sad can be Socks can be marmalade can be just anything can be a feeling can be a place whatever right down one word And then you stick that word into the hat you jumble it all out and Five brothers would pull out a word and you'd have three minutes to write something. 

Will Small: This is awesome.

This is like the first, first slam poetry in your life, 

Rob Waters: right? Yeah, yeah, it was slam, it was slam. Living room slam and a bike out kind of thing, you know what I mean? With me and my little brothers and it was really cool. Um, and we, yeah, we just came up with that game. And youngest brother Thomas, he was a little bit too young when we first started doing it.

[00:26:00] So his stuff was, he'd come in and do like this interpretive dance or he'd do a, I don't know, like, yeah, it was, I don't care what it is. You just create something, give me something creative around your word. Um, and it was. So we, yeah, like I said, grew up in that creative kind of a space. Always knew that I wanted to do something about it.

I published, um, the department of education published one of my poems when I was 15, um, a long, long time ago now, um, I look back at it and it's like, Oh God, it was pretty good for a 15 year old poem. You know what I mean? Like, um, yeah, so that was, that was published back then. Um, and then at that age kind of found hip hop and rap and me and my cousin were going to be the next big rap group.

Come on, we're going to take over the world. We're going to be the next NWA and all this kind of stuff. We had this little, I don't know if it ended up [00:27:00] like it was, we had this little group called two by four. It was me and him. It was us. To the people, by the people, for the people. Oh, that's rad. Yeah, yeah, it was really cool.

We were very political and we were Yeah. Yeah, we'd do, do stuff at, um, high schools and, and uni places and stuff like that. Um, some of you may not have heard of 2x4, but, uh, we were kind of big in some places. Yeah. But, um, yeah, it was, it was the hip hop scene. It was the, uh But always, always had that love of writing, always had that love of telling a story, um, and as Aboriginal people, and like you can see the roots of hip hop where that came from, you know.

It was, it was based very much in that telling the story of people who hadn't had a voice for a long time, you know, the misfits, and letting them, those voices be heard, um. People that have been downcast or pushed away and [00:28:00]people that are sitting just outside that box Where this is the normal stuff inside this box and then that's the other stuff outside and it's like well keep your box We're out here doing hip hop.

Yeah, keep your box. We're out here doing slam poetry, you know So it was just always something that we'd grown up within and grown up Kind of doing that, you know, that Misfitty type kind of place. I 

Will Small: love that. It's very cool. You know, I think that you could use the word spirituality. You could substitute it for the word creativity.

You could substitute it for the word poetry. A lot of the time, I think of them as doing the same things, which is, in each of those spaces, I'm trying to explore my inner world, and that can be the stuff like the, the things we might tattoo on ourselves, or the [00:30:00] things we might want to see when we look in the mirror that remind us about who we really are, but equally, there's a side of each of those things, my spirituality, my creativity, my poetry, that is about speaking out to the world, that is about trying to help reshape What has become distorted or that is about trying to, you know, um, yeah, advocate for a better, more just, more kind reality, where less people feel like misfits because they're not forced out of the, out of the center or whatever.

And in that sense, like I look at, um, my tradition and a lot of the Bible is poetry, often from, you know, You know, the prophets and the prophets who often spoke in poetry were generally telling people how, how fucked up society was, but also saying there's a different way. And so I kind of see whether it's hip hop poets, slam poets, artists of [00:31:00] all kinds, I often see it as participating in that long tradition of trying to be prophetic where you're calling out what is wrong and pointing towards something better.

Um, Is that a way that you would understand your role as a poet? 

Rob Waters: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would be. And I've, I've never really looked at it that way. I'll get it. Like I said, it's just something that we do. It's just something what is. And I think without that self examination of it, that we don't realize that, you know, um, I don't know, part of growing up in that, you know, that, that misfitty type of like as an Aboriginal person in this country, Hmm.

Disconnected from the mainstream and, and, and

Um, quite visibly disconnected and quite visibly, uh, for, like, since Day Dot, um, you know, there's the, we are the other, [00:32:00] always been the other, kind of thing, um, that it's been so, so long trying to get our story out there and so, so long of our story being the other story, you know, it's like, oh, well, it's not the Australian way, well, Fuck, I'm not, I'm not the, I'm not the, um, you know, the quarter acre block with the, the, the, the, the fence and the, the 2.

5 kids and the car and the, you know, hillside started back. That's not who I am. I'm, I'm so much more than that. Um, I don't know. And so much, so many of our people are more than that. And I've always been more than that. And our culture is the oldest surviving culture on the face of a planet for a reason.

Because we've understood that, the importance of telling a story and the importance of disconnecting ourselves from, not disconnecting ourselves, but reconnecting ourselves with it, yeah? [00:33:00] Disconnecting ourselves with the idea that there's only one way of doing it. And that we just gotta, we've gotta reconnect.

You know, that's what I tell people. Sometimes you gotta disconnect to reconnect. Sometimes you gotta turn your phone off, and you gotta turn your TV off, and sometimes you just gotta go out bush and sit down in the scrub and just listen for a bit. Sometimes you gotta be there with, you know, the birds, and be there with the animals, and be there with, and just sit down and get some dirt on your toes and just be.

Cause we forget that life happens out there as well. Um Yeah, that's where, that's where we do a lot of our learning is out there. And we forget about that because it's not nine to five or nine to 3 PM. And it's not, you know, we're not sitting in rows in a classroom behind Mrs. Johnson, isn't it? Like, you know, um, that it, that, that way of knowing and that way of [00:34:00] learning is not seen of as valid, but it's, it's always been.

Like, we get a pretty good track record as Aboriginal people, um, of, of sharing story and of learning and part and connection with country, you know, learning that story of country. Um, um, a quote recently, my, my son, Jaden, I was on the phone with him the other day and one of the most beautiful things that he said, he turns around and he goes, dad, people forget, he said that country is something that we learn from and not something that we should take from.

I like that. Holy crap. Yeah. Yeah, my son's 24 years old, you know, um, reminding me that there was a book that somebody talked about country being clever. You know about the importance of, of realizing that, that if all of our stories and all of our language and all of our culture and all of our stuff came from country, well, she must be pretty clever too.

Mm-Hmm. And sometimes we don't, [00:35:00] sometimes we're too busy listening to our own voices that we forget that she has a voice. Yes. And that she has a story to tell if only sometimes that we'd, you know, be quiet. Um. And as Aboriginal people, I think our story has been kept quiet for so long. Um, like I, and I keep pushing and I keep pushing and I keep pushing about this idea of truth telling.

Yeah. It's like, what about truth listening? What about people just shouting up and listen to what we've been saying for 250 years or saying for a hundred thousand years, you know, like if Aboriginal people just say science has caught up to us and said, it's like, I'd take kids out. Um, and in a school setting, I'll take him out to the back oval to a football field and say if Aboriginal in this country for 100, 000 years, just say, for example, we know it's been a bit longer, but whatever, let's, let's settle on 100, 000 years.

You sit yourself underneath the goalposts of a rugby league field and you look to the other goalposts, there's [00:36:00]100, 000 millimetres there. So it's 100, 000 years. So if we break those down into years, 250 years is about the 25 centimetre mark. So that's how long Australia has been around. It's nothing. We study ancient ancient history and look at the, you know, the, the pyramids and stuff of 3000 years ago, which is a long time ago, but that's 30 centimeters on a hundred meter football field.

We've got, what about the rest of that connection with place and the rest of connection with story and the rest of that telling of story and living of story and that we could, we could listen and learn from as. As Australia was, you know, the world's gone, seems to have gone and get it got itself in a bit of a shitty way at the moment.

Um, and it's heartbreaking to say [00:37:00] that we, that we, that we forget a lot of those. A lot of the important stories about love and about looking after each other and about taking care of each other and, and, and that kind of stuff. And we get caught up in our own self. Yep. Um, you see the stuff that's happening in, in, in Gaza and stuff.

That's just,

I'm speechless. I can't find words for what's happening over there at the moment. Over the last 150 days, over the last 70 years, or over the last however long, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I, yeah. It's, 

Will Small: it is, it's so heavy. It's, um, you know, a conversation that stood out to me actually was between Dr.

Cornel West and Gabor Mate. Gabor Mate. Um, you know, his family were Holocaust survivors. He used to be a Zionist Jew. [00:38:00] He's, he's an old fella. So is Dr. Cornel West. Both of them know what it's like to experience suffering throughout their lives. There's a black man in America and, and a Jewish man, and they were reflecting on the Gaza situation.

And both of them at their stages in life were just saying we have never seen or felt anything more dark in our lives than this. You think about some of the periods of history they've lived through, I find that deeply confronting, because I definitely feel like it's the most darkest thing I've witnessed in my life.

But then to have those guys saying it. It is, it does leave you speechless. And it's one of those things where I find it, it's really difficult because in a way, um, it's easy to feel like there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can say, there's no point even trying. But then I'm like, do I want to live in a world where that was everyone's attitude?

No. I have to believe that even [00:39:00] when things feel helpless, darkest, we have to use our voice, we have to use our words, we have to use whatever tools we have. Even if we don't feel like it can change anything, which is because we don't want to, I don't want to live in a world where people don't act as if their words and, and the stories we tell can remind people about the deeper truth.

Rob Waters: Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit, it's a, it's huge. It's huge at the moment. Um, and I, I think I suppose even as an Aboriginal person here living in Australia and the shittiness of the situation that we go through, that, that, I need to be able also is to remind myself of the privileged position that I hold here that I'm able to sit at my own dinner table with you and have these conversations in a place where I'm not scared of you know, scared [00:40:00] of war every single day.

Yeah. Um, and that I'm able to share my voice without fear of it being. Fear of, fear of my, my, my voice being taken away, my life being taken away. Mm-Hmm. You know what I mean? I, I, yeah. And I, I also give these words in knowledge that it's, I'm speaking of an experience that isn't mine as well. Mm-Hmm. And I know as an Aboriginal person, what it's like to have your voice taken away.

So I do not, um, want to be speaking for people that aren't, you know. Yeah, for voices that I don't have permission to speak for. Yeah But I do want to point out the You know, we need to point like you say we need to speak. We need to point injustice out We need to you know, people ask, you know What would you do if the Holocaust [00:41:00] happened or what would you do when such and such happened?

Well, what are we doing? 

Will Small: I think that's the depressing thing about that question because been asked a lot, you know, if if you were alive in the Holocaust What would you want to be doing? You And I think the really depressing thing is, if I was alive in the Holocaust, I wouldn't have been able to stop it.

I can't stop this. But that doesn't mean I should be silent about evil. And I think I completely agree with not wanting to take the space of another voice who's more equipped to speak about these things. I think that makes me think about the same thing around. You're saying Aboriginal voices have always been speaking and the problem is with the listening.

And it's the same thing now where it's actually there is plenty of voices on the ground with a deep connection to the, to the [00:42:00] experience of what is happening there who are speaking and our inability to listen is just as much as a problem. If not more than our inability to speak, they're, they're interwoven, you know, listen, and I think you've said, you've said before, we've got twice as many ears as mouths, right?

So we should be using them in that proportion. But yeah, it's, it's 

Rob Waters: horrendous. Um, it is. And I, for me, I think like social media is a big thing too, plays a big part in what we're, what we're able to see now, but also in what we're able to ignore. Hmm. You know, what we're able to hide from the algorithm, um, that, you know, there's so many, so many times that, that, that people are like, why are you always sharing that stuff?

Why are you always sharing that stuff so well, why are you always ignoring it? Mm. Why are you always, why are you not engaging with it? Yeah. Why are you not sharing it? Or, you know, there's a, there's a good thing that, [00:43:00] um, that we're able to be to, to, that we're able to share. The truth, and it's a, it's a horrible truth.

It's a brutal truth. Um, so there is, uh, I don't know if there's goodness in, in that social media or whatever, but we've not been able to share the frontline truth like it's been shared now, you know, a lot of, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. My head, my head just goes multiple places with what's going on over there.

I know, like, I know that it's just not right. I know that it's, that there are a whole family, like, there are, like, I'm, I'm, I shared this thing on Facebook the other day, or social media or whatever, the other day, that they've lost more children in the last 150 days than over the last four years. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, the majority of people that are losing their [00:44:00] lives are women and children, but that's, that also silences the story of their Palestinian men, you know, not all, not all Palestinian men are terrorists. And you know, up until, up until, but he, what's his name up until Nelson Mandela got out of prison.

He was a terrorist. He was an imprisoned terrorist. 

Will Small: Technically. Well, the whole, that's the thing, the whole situation. The power of language, the power of the words that we use, the words that we don't use, they really shape, you know, some people's hesitation to call it a genocide. When it, you know, according to what that word means, of course it's a genocide.

But when people talk about it as a war, it, it creates different images in our minds around this kind of two sided conflict. Yep. Yeah, man. Oh, it's, there is, there is no way [00:45:00] to, in any sense, in a conversation, wrap anything up neatly there or, um, I think we have to sit with the discomfort of it. We have to sit with the ugly truth of it.

And, and, um, I would hope that there is some good in being able to sit with it, at least to soften our hearts or at least to try and re humanize. I mean so much what we're seeing is the, I think you can only, you can only treat another people group like that if you've de humanized them. If you've turned them into terrorists or animals or something in your mind that is less than human.

Yep. I would hope that the truth would help us to re humanize. It's just, it's just horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I did, I did want to, uh, hear some of your poems and share those with our listeners. If you are willing. It's sort of an open, open mic invitation, um, yeah, [00:46:00] I, I, I do think it's come up in this conversation, but poetry is a powerful way to speak truth.

And sometimes it's a way to, to hear truth that we may have missed with longer, more, you know, words that weren't as. Yeah, pointed as, as poetry can be. So if you're willing, share with us some of your powerful words, man, let's have a look at what we've 

Rob Waters: got. Um, 

Will Small: we'll pull it from the hat poetry from, 

Rob Waters: just open up the, open up the thing and just point to something.

Let's have a look. Let's have a look. I've got, um, new stuff, old stuff. It's very new and this is very, it's very short. Um, and it came out of a dream that I had recently. Um, in the, well, the title's called I Dreamt of Apple Pie in Summertime Last Night. And, [00:47:00] um, and it's a, it's a little reminder for me, I suppose, of the importance of, of going home and getting back to my grandmother's and grandfather country and taking my shoes off and, and reconnecting back up there and reconnecting with my old people and, um, um.

The privilege that I have to be able to do that, I suppose. Um, like I said, I grew up in a, in a, like that, the big loving kind of, it was, and it was a big family, like we'd, Christmas time we'd eat in shifts. Second sitting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, all right, well, um, I was, when I was in the, I was in the army years and years ago.

Um, but anyway, it was in the army and my friend Benno, he goes, Oh, we had this, we had a huge Christmas last Christmas that all my family turned up, um, like uncles and aunties, cousins and that, like, it was like [00:48:00] 13 people turned up like, bro, that's Sunday dinner at mum's house. It's nothing. Like if you're not eating in shifts, that is not, that is not Christmas.

It's like, we'd, um, all our elders would eat first. And then a little, a little people that eat first and then elders and then the rest of them, we'd fight over what was, what was left. Um, so there's good places. Like if you're, if you're a little person, you're lucky. Cause you're going to be, you're going to get all the good stuff.

If you're old guy, I'm not there yet. Um, you're going to be getting all the good stuff and then we'll get whatever's left, but yeah, this one's called. I dreamt of apple pie in summertime last night. Old hands fold flowers through water. A pinch of salt, a touch of sugar, just enough butter rubbed through tiny wrinkled fingers to bring it all together.

Her rolling pin, a magic wand, fire waits already within her oven, it heats that tiny [00:49:00] kitchen like summer sun pressed down upon her tin roof. Children laugh in the distance. Apples heat and bubble, crust brown like skins of little ones who refuse to wear shirts in the afternoon sunshine. A cool breeze kisses her through half open windows.

A gentle reminder of those old ones that have moved on now to that place where they wait for her. But she waits by that table, and the only thing she measures there is love. 

Will Small: Beautiful. It's like a series of photographs, that poem. I feel like I can see that kitchen. I can see those hands. I can feel that love.

Rob Waters: That was, yeah. Yeah, it just came as a, a nice little reminder on one night when I, it's like I could taste the apple pie. I love it. Could feel the, [00:50:00] feel the heat on the, on the old gin roof kind of thing. Feel that I needed to get home and, and check out. And go home and see, see the, see the film, which will be happening very soon, which is really cool.

All right. This one's one that I wrote about, I, um, recently at a, um, at a writer's festival and just the,

dunno, the, the, the idea of being, being sitting there and, you know, A place with all these important famous people and, and eating fancy breakfasts and stuff like that whilst there's other stories that are happening outside, um, outside the window, I suppose, that are looking in and witnessing the same stuff that I was witnessing.

Um, yeah. This one's just called Festival Breakfast. Multi grain sourdough.

Roasted pumpkin, [00:51:00] topped in seed, soaked in honey and chili. Coffee black and bitter at times. Juice, sweet as her, who I miss. Famous faces sit within, arms rich, covered with thick black framed glasses, linen clothing and sideways glances that asks me, what are you doing here? What am I doing here? Well, we've always been here.

Like auntie that sits just across the road, draped in black tracksuits, stitched with sadness and wanting, peering through bay windows at pumpkin lattes and festival programs. Her skin as black as coffee and eyes twice as bitter. You see, to her, I look much the same as them. Yet through thick framed glasses, it's not just her, but I that do not belong here.

I'm a picture frame sitting slightly [00:52:00] sideways, begging to be straightened. I'm a doorway left slightly ajar. A dripping tap, a mere inconvenience, not even a visitor to this place, an intruder interrupting intermittent interludes of cups of coffee, of caffeine, baked eggs and pomegranate seeds. We catch each other's eye, old auntie and I, and a simple nod is all it takes.

And later they will acknowledge country, they will pay their respects to elders past and present and sometimes emerging, and they will return here and walk past auntie sitting just across the road as she shakes her cup and she waits for change.

Will Small: I haven't heard that one before. Here's a spiritual misfit moment right there, right? When you're like, I'm in a space that suddenly looks different and suddenly 

Rob Waters: I don't want to fit. [00:53:00] Yeah. And I think it's, for me, I don't know, one, one of, one of your poems that I loved, um, from your, from your latest book, you know, was that one about He always comes, it's God, He always comes in skin.

Yeah. Always comes in He always comes in skin. skin, yeah. Yeah. Um, and just the, that, that God or Jesus can, can appear in multiple different places and that, you know, that, yeah. Maybe sometimes it is the person that's sitting there on the side of the road that's got a cup full of, cup full of change waiting to, waiting for, for change, not just change change, but waiting for actual change.

Yeah. Not just waiting for money. Um, somebody that's, that's there willing to like, just want you to come and talk to them. I want you to, you know. That God can exist in multiple places, and not just inside that church from 9am [00:54:00]to 12pm on a Sunday afternoon, or Sunday morning. 

Will Small: There's a story Jesus told where he says, you know, he literally identifies and says when you fed someone naked, when you gave them a glass of water when they were thirsty, when you visited someone in prison, anytime you did any of those things you did it for me.

In that story, Jesus goes so far as to say, when you see me out the window as someone begging for change, like you're looking at the face of God. Yeah. Like when you're sitting in there in that moment, and there's all these people around who are the important people, and you see someone who's on the outside, you're looking at the face of divinity.

Mm hmm. Um, so it's, yeah. It was a 

Rob Waters: Very powerful. Oh, I Yeah. It was a, it was a reminder for myself, I suppose, just being able to sit there in pretty fancy motels and, you know, and you sit there with all the famous people and [00:55:00] you're rubbing shoulders with, with all of this stuff, but there's an existence. It happens, it happens just outside of, you know, half a centimeter of glass that's sitting on the, sitting on the road across like sitting in a On the side of the road, just across, looking, looking into us, gazing in at what, what this is and what this, this existence is.

Um, and you know, we, we can get a microphone and we can get a pedestal and we can get, um, spotlights and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and be so much about us that we forget that this, you know, There's so many other stories that aren't being told there's so many other places that aren't able to have their voices heard or because Sometimes we don't give up the microphone or sometimes we don't give up the spotlight or um, sometimes we're too busy eating the pomegranate seeds and the [00:56:00] drinking the black coffee and In those fancy places that we forget that just outside the window aren't he's there waiting for um a change in not just the money but change in You know I went to a poetry gig with, um, with Luca for when Luca Lessen did his, um, performance on the, this, this.

At the State Library, um, of Agape and, and other types of love. Amazing show, go and see it if you can. Like, um, this is not a paid, kind of a plug thing, but I love him. Um, but yeah, that, that show's a really good show. We went to that and we left and when I, um, when I was coming home, We went to Coal, uh, to Woolworths at Potts Point, went over this fancy, like it's fancy, proper fancy.

We're cruising around and my wife, she's like looking at Lamborghinis and stuff parked outside of Coals and Woolworths. And she's like, holy [00:57:00] crap, like look at this place. Um, and I've, we've walked out and walked across the road and I've turned around and as I did I saw this old, um, Aboriginal man just sitting on the side of the road.

Woolworths who I didn't see on the way out. And I said to Kirsten, oh, I've gotta go and see uncle here, um, just to check and see if he's all right. Rah. And he's got his cup, you know, full of change. And, um, he's like, what have we got? Do we have bottles of water? Do we have no, what, what do we got and what can we, um, turned out we had nothing.

So we just were like, all right, well if he needs anything, we'll just go to Woolworths. He's outside. Went over and seen him and said, oh, uncle, are you good? You good? And he, he smiled at me. He said, yeah, yeah, nephew, I'm good. You got food? Oh, plenty of food, plenty of food. You got, you got water? Got drinks? Oh, plenty of drinks, plenty of drinks.

I'm good, I'm good. I'm just sitting here, just having a look. Oh, where are you from? He's an old fellow from the Tanami Desert. Um, [00:58:00] and said, oh, do you need anything? Do you need, need anything? I said, oh, can you go in to that place there and buy me a couple of drinks? They won't let me in. Um. Because of our who's dressed or whatever Yes, your uncle.

Well, I'll go in there and he said oh you can buy yourself something to look Okay No, I just I just bought some stuff up. I'm good. But yeah, no, no. No. Yeah. Yeah, if you want to buy me them things Yeah, yeah, he whips out a 50 note and hands me this 50 note from the side of on from the ground And just hands it upwards and I was like, okay.

So me and my wife have walked in and bought him the drinks and come back out and give it to him. Give him his change and that kind of stuff. You sure you don't want nothing nephew? No, no, I'm alright uncle. What are you, what are you doing? Oh no, I just live down the road here. I just come and sit here and just watch the people.

Um, He's had, he got a house just up the road and people walk [00:59:00] past and do exactly the same as I did. See this old Aboriginal man sitting on the ground with a, this plate and people just chucking coins and notes and stuff like that. And, um, he's got a place there in Potts Point amongst all the Lamborghinis and the Ferraris and that kind of stuff.

Um, The assumptions that we make. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just the beauty of, of there's a, there's all, I'm just sitting there just saying, Oh, do you want anything? I love that. He's asking me and it was like, no, you place, Rob, pull your head in a bit, you know, pull your head in. Yeah. Humble yourself. You know, it's like that.

Yeah. When I see that, that crow feather. Yeah. It's like, when I see those numbers tattooed on my arms, it's like when, you know, when I go and see my granddaughters or, or whatever, they, they, they have a way of being like, You ain't shit. Know your place. You ain't shit. [01:00:00] Know your place. You're, you're, you're still Jenny from the block.

You know, you're still Rob. You're still, you're still, you know, you're, you're, you're still who you are. Um, and then we need a nice reminder every now and then that, you know, that we get, we get important and we get big and we get loud and we get, you know, we might be the Australian poetry slam champ or we might be the, you know, the national this or we might be that.

This, that, or the other, but when we get home, we're still doing the dishes. When we're, you know, when we walk past people in the street, they might be there. They might be there just going, look, you need anything? They might be the ones asking us, do you need change? And quite often we do. I love that, man.

Will Small: Thank you for sharing that story with us. Thank you. Well, uh, I could chat to you for forever, but I do have to run in a moment tragically . [01:01:00] But, um, yeah. First of all, thank you for Thank you for your time and your thoughts and your story. Um, stories and story. Mm. Um, what would be your last words that you would wanna leave with anyone listening as they.

Yeah, try and find, you know, it's, I think one thing that's come up in this conversation is sometimes being a misfit is actually, it's good to remind ourselves that there are things we don't want to fit with and we, we can both belong. We can have a deep sense of belonging without trying to fit into every system that is not good for us and every box that tries to hold us very much.

So yeah. What would be your final thoughts for people as they navigate some of that? 

Rob Waters: Um, I don't know, just, but like you say, sometimes we just don't fit inside the box and that's okay. Mm-Hmm. , we didn't make the box. We, we [01:02:00] weren't there when the box was, when people were talking about the box, we weren't there.

Mm. You know what I mean? Like, um, as long as we, you know, there are rules, there are things in place and all that kind of stuff, but as long as we're living with love. As long as we're living true to ourselves and giving, I think that's what's important, you know? As long as we were there, you know, we might be, we might be outcasts.

We might not be like, oh, I didn't grow up as being one of the cool kids, that's for sure. And you know what? That's okay with me. That was always okay with me. Um, I didn't get, no, in primary school I didn't get the school captain stuff. Never even ran for school captain. They didn't even, like, it wasn't a thing.

Um, my kids got school captains. I got school cupped in your high school, but anyway, it's not something I'm gonna hang my, uh, hang my hat on. Um, but it's okay not to be the school [01:03:00] captain. It's okay just to, it's okay to be that misfit. It's okay to be, sit outside the box and as long as you're living your truth and as long as you're being, you know, doing the best you can, I think that's important.

Um, live and with love, you know. For me, that's a big, big, important one, listening to country, listening to family, listening to all those little signs and stuff around us. And just, I don't know, being a voice as well for people that don't have a voice or people that with their permission is a big thing that I'm slowly starting to learn at this ripe old age of nearly 50 years old.

Um, is yeah, I'm a storyteller, but making sure that I'm telling the right stories and hoping that I can tell that story with respect for the, where it comes from, [01:04:00] um, place where it's grounded and giving respect to it, giving, you know, giving it respectfully and giving it to people that are there out there to listen.

And even the ones that aren't there to listen, maybe sometimes when they, when they switched their microphones off, they might. They might hear it in the background somewhere, and it might be something that they need, and it'll get there when it gets there. They'll hear it when they need to hear it, you know.

When we're too busy doing us, we, we, we, we can't do all the other things, and sometimes we just need to sit down every now and then and have those little reminders, like Aunty there at that music festival, shaking a cup and waiting for change, or old fella that was there at, you know, Potts Point, Whether it's a tattoo, whether it's a catching up with friends over a coffee and I talk about spiritual misfitism, you know, it's a nice [01:05:00] little reminder that it's okay if you don't fit every now and then.

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Maybe we fit exactly where we're supposed to be fitting. 

Will Small: Spiritual Misfits Podcast is brought to you by Meeting Ground, a church for the misfits. We know we are only one small and humble faith community. But we're making this work in the hope that we can encourage and empower other people in similar spaces.

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