winter, stillness

When the Word is heard, you know that you were silent.

"Everything was opening its secrets to me in silence, without a word. Everything shone in my heart now instead of my head. The more I appreciated, the more I could see. It was a whole new way of learning, by listening to silence."

Listen to the silence as it echoes around you.
Ancient spirits dance to it.

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only those who listen can speak authentically.

A listening heart is always open, sensitive to the joy and pain of others, offering a space within itself for the other to enter. It gives each person what is so badly needed – an affirmation of their place in this world.

If we think we hear,
we no longer listen.
If we think we see,
we no longer look.
If we think we know,
we no longer search.

Twenty-five years of listening to stories of pain in individuals' lives have taught me many important lessons. Perhaps the most important is the art of listening. If I reduce the pain I hear to a static moment or try to freeze it with my understanding, then I interrupt a process which always has a deeper meaning embedded within it. Pain is a messenger, a strange winged visitor that asks us to pay attention and listen beyond our usual preoccupations and concerns.
 

Listen to old stones for information about survival. What a seashell has to say will surprise you. So, too, will words written on the wind. Listening to silence is hardest of all. You want to fill it up with conversation ... distractions ... noise. Resist the impulse. In silence, you can dream great dreams. You can discover your own music. Listening means hearing the voice within you. It never fails to tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it.

Listening is a lost art that can be gracefully recovered
in silence and solitude.

With a quiet mind, a heart still and silent,
You will see the infinity of God
And the finity of self.
Humility will embrace you,
and you will fade into
that which is all that is.
Your words will be few; the silence great.
There is room then for
listening.

Ecclesiastes 5:12