to listen (better)
i choose today to be still and silent enough for the atmosphere to shift within and around me; meet me here.
signs and signals
To be present is an ancient practice. Tuning oneself to a new depth of silence. Attuning to the range of stimuli that colours each moment. This is the kind of presence that requires you to throw yourself recklessly at the patch of green before you, and from the experience of that, learn to distinguish between the weeds, thorns, rocks, and habitats of tiny creatures. You find yourself rolling and creeping atop the earth as if to find a small lost precious thing. Squinting and gently feeling the warm flat soil for a bump or graze against your palms. To touch the earth this way, to listen for songs from the underground, to curate yourself as though a magnificent art piece under the gaze of the sun—this, my dear, is both a process and product of the intimacy of listening.
archaeology of the internet
Recently, a recurring thought and feeling has been the importance of ‘cutting out the noise to catch the right signals’. There is so much coming at me – and in many forms. There is an abundance, and in some ways, an incessant over-production of information/content. It feels like the world has been holding back for so long. And all at once, a crack appeared—which over time has turned into a wide-open gorge. A once imperceptible crack cut open this giant of a wall.
While it might be natural that a clearing would permit matter to flow in the direction of its least concentration, there is also something peculiar about this moment. In my observation and reflection, it appears that whatever is being spilled out or broadcasted or shared or tweeted and re-tweeted is not only in gigantic amounts, but it is also coming at lightning speed. From this perspective then, we are not swimming in an ever-deepening ocean, we are also in fast-moving currents.
I would be remiss if I fail to acknowledge my own contributions to the archives of the internet. In my own desire to connect, build new relationships, invite engagement, and share the beauty of flowers, I have also poured several buckets into the fast-flowing waters of information/content. Now, I am creating new protocols to help me more mindfully decide what I choose to share and reshare, and what I would rather keep in the nooks of my own memory, giggles, fantasies, and unstructured journal entries. A few of the questions that guide my practice of intentional limitation are:
Must this be shared?
Must this be shared now?
Must this be shared publicly?
Must this be shared in this form?
And, in all honesty, sometimes, when I am just about to click send, I decide at the last moment not to share it (at least not at that instant). In these situations, I feel a tiny punch on my ego; a little bruise to my avatar that is portrayed on the interwebs. My mistake has been believing that I am my avatar, or that the perceived value and reputation of my avatar directly feeds into my inherent worth. I am learning that wisdom is transcendent, omnipresent, and unrestricted to one-minute feeds, videos, encounters, and one-line messages—that alone gives me permission to move slower.
There are so many one-offs these days. One-hour podcasts. One-hour interview summits. One-hour “master” classes.
What happens if we dare to spend more time together? What happens if we dare to circle back? What happens if we sit next to someone and their body of work and give it time to develop so that the encounter works on us and in us?
~ Kimberly Ann Johnson
create an environment of listening
Make your abode a sanctuary where answers to your heart’s questions fall down on you as you move between chores, as you rise from a nap, and as you prepare a cup of tea. Make it so that your windows allow you to glimpse at the possibility of life beyond the void. Curate an atmosphere that allows your guides, ancestors, and teachers to reach you when you need them most and for you to be in natural conversation with them. Clear the bush and tangled twigs of noise that are growing on the red-brick walls of your house.
You have permission to access silence without cost, without fear, and without apology.
My teacher speaks of the possibility of touching into a new quality of silence. She shares how her practices of meditation and energy work have supported her to develop clarity of vision in how to move past the noise into a field of silence that connects her with oneness. It fills my heart to reflect on how this could feel in my own body and spirit. I am, in my own way, developing practices that are sustaining, nourishing, and grounding. With discipline, curiosity, and an openness to life’s embrace, I look forward to also exploring new fields of silence and a deepened sense of connectedness to all life. I am excited by the potentiality offered by a committed presence.
Quite often, however, we are paced by our conditions and circumstances. That is to say that we are not sovereign over our rhythm and cadence. We move as though dictated by the clock, deadlines, notifications, and expectations. We are no longer lost in the moment; we are lost amidst the elements. Unfortunately, this means that how we respond to our feelings and emotions, how we listen to those around us, how we engage with tasks, and even how we observe our thoughts, looks like a volatile tug of war. Rather than a negotiated dance or a well-calculated and measured move, we are quick to react (and this is quite evident with the hundreds of ‘reactions’ we give to incessant messages/posts). The space between stimulus and response increasingly looks so evasive and minute that we might miss it if we are unwilling to pause and examine our habits.
So, dear one, could you pause here? Could you imagine not finishing the remainder of reading this piece today? What if your imagination and spaciousness filled in the rest of this page and my words were simply landing strips?
I am willing to sacrifice these pages of my stream of consciousness for the peace of your silence. I hope you give yourself the gift of reaching within until you can go no deeper, squinting at stars until you can see no further, listening for echoes from lands far and near until you can hear no longer, and touching your skin against the wetness of morning grass until you feel no texture.
Nudge yourself to a place/space where nothingness is the norm—first for one minute, then two, then three, then no time, and repeat to the end of time.
The way that I hold practice with the word embodiment is that it points us to this reality that our bodies and our lives are much more than we get told in this current moment—that our bodies are much wilder and wiser than we are trained to know them. And the experience of being in or being a body actually connects us to all living beings and all life here. I define it in a few ways: some of it is the awareness of being in a body and becoming awake to the textures of our experience. Some of it is becoming aware of what we have learned and habits that we no longer recognize—the things that we practice that have gone under our cognition but which we have embodied. The third part of it is this opportunity to be intentional about what it is that we do, act, and risk—how we connect. It’s the awareness of the real subtleties of how we feel. It’s the awareness of what we’ve stored and learned and then the promise of what we can be when we really centre the body.
~ Prentis Hemphill