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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in listening

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

 "The world's full of people who have stopped listening to themselves," wrote mythologist Joseph Campbell. It's imperative that you NOT be one of those folks. 2019 should be the Year of Listening Deeply to Yourself. That means being on high alert for your inner inklings, your unconscious longings, and the still, small voice at the heart of your destiny. If you do that, you'll discover I'm right when I say that you're smarter than you realize.

       --Rob Brezsny

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Meredith Everwhite
    Meredith Everwhite says #
    Beautiful, and so synchronicitous & relevant for this time. I just wrote and posted a "water oracle" message on my personal blog o
  • Molly
    Molly says #
    I missed seeing your comment before today, but thanks so much for being here, listening, and sharing this experience!

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
I Have It from On High That...

I can't even remember what the meeting was about, or what we finally decided.

But the lesson that I learned that night, I'll never forget.

It was pagan politics as usual. Some wanted A, some B.

Then someone stood up and announced that she had "had it from On High" that we were supposed to go with A.

Well, those were arrogant times. These days, I like to think that anyone making such a claim would get laughed out of the room.

I'm not saying that the gods don't speak to us. Of course they do, if we care enough to listen. Still, what a god may or may not tell me is one thing; expecting what he says to be binding on others is something else entirely.

In the pagan world, some people do get to speak for the gods. But you don't get that privilege (and burden) by mere assertion. I myself know some—admittedly, only a handful—whose word I would trust in such a manner.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_793px-Johann_Heinrich_Wilhelm_Tischbein_-_Dance_of_the_Fauns_and_the_Meneads_-_WGA22716.jpgListening is more than you being silent when other people talk. It is about giving what is in front of you your complete attention. That might be a person, or it might be a fur friend. It might be a tree, or a plant, or a river. Listening allows the voice of the other to sink into us and become part of who we are.

And that can change who we are.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_Hyphae1.jpgWe all know people who talk so much that they don’t seem to take any time to draw a breath. I seem to know a lot of people like that, but perhaps it is cultural. I live outside the New York metropolitan area. People here are - by my standards – high strung. If I want to be part of any conversation, I have to do something that was considered rude when I was growing up: I have to interrupt and talk louder than the person next to me. Not everyone I know is like that, but at least half of my friends are “talkers.” I don’t know the correlation between word count and extroversion, but I suspect its on the positive scale. Certainly the sheer noisiness of all that talking can be exhausting for a confirmed introvert like myself.

In stark contrast stands the laconic silence and one word answers of some of my mother’s childhood friends. Any attempt at conversation on my part - including asking questions - is likely to leave me feeling like I’m babbling. In neither case do I feel like I’m communicating. Talking and communicating aren’t the same thing. Communication requires some sort of mutual exchange. But sometimes I feel like there is more communication in the brief email messages my boss and I send each other, than with the people I speak with face to face.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

We sat in a small circle on a slab of rock, looking down into the dramatic valley and across to the sunset. There was a cold wind but the view and the place were worth it. Usually we begin by checking in, listening as one by one we speak, telling of what’s happening in our lives or strong for us at the moment. After it was suggested we start the check in we fell silent, waiting for someone to speak. 

We fell silent but the world around us wasn’t silent. I heard birds chittering and calling out as they gathered in bushes, getting ready for the night. We heard insects, buzzing and humming. The winds in the valley swept up the sides of the cliff and we heard them as a whole soundscape. The longer we stayed quiet, the more and more we heard. It stretched out. Still no-one spoke and still we heard more and more. There were a dozen or more different birds calling and singing, choruses of them; themes that continued with commentaries that circled round and returned, notes that were sustained and sounds that interrupted, before fading back to be part of the whole.

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  • Susan B. Chandler
    Susan B. Chandler says #
    There are many times, especially when I am hiking alone in the forest, that the place will, upon rounding a bend in the trail, cal

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Labor Day Reverie, plus apples

Labor

We’ve just wrapped up our celebration of Labor Day weekend which is apparently another excuse for a sale in Retail-Land and a well-deserved day-off for American workers. At least the ones who get a day of for federal holidays, which isn’t everyone, of course.

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  • Byron Ballard
    Byron Ballard says #
    Thanks for reading it, Ivo.
  • Ivo Dominguez Jr
    Ivo Dominguez Jr says #
    Thank you Byron!

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