The Art of Listening Deeply

Last weekend I booked plane tickets to New Orleans. Palo and I participated in Bhaktimmersion last spring. I attended the year of my fortieth birthday knowing I would return someday with my musical child. There are many styles of yoga. Bhakti is yoga of the heart. Devotion. Poetry, art, singing, music, chanting. One of my favorite styles of yoga. Their yoga for sure. 

Architecture is one of this life's songs. A rhythm I can feel, create and see. A silent song stirred by the imagination to shelter a body, nurture the soul. Painting has served to express at various intervals in my life. Writing is the glue binding all experiences into one ongoing story. Until I began teaching yoga, my art was silent. I was comfortable in that space of creativity and expression. 

Creating audible sound through chanting and attempting to play the harmonion felt jarring at first. Too much sound in a room coming from where I sat. A shock to the senses. 

Where do we learn to be quiet and keep our thoughts to ourselves? 

When is silence the best course of action? 

When is speaking up a necessity?

What if what you have to say has already been said?

Say it anyway. In your own unique way.

Teaching yoga has taught me how to speak and share with a group of people. One reason Bhaktimmersion calls me back: practice in honing my voice. Practice in clearing space so I can say what I need say. Moment to moment, day by day. Clearly and with as much compassion as possible. Inclusion. Hopefully with connection and duration.

Last summer I was sitting on the back porch with my morning coffee, listening to the sounds around me when I wrote this poem:

I know I am here

When I can feel the rise and fall of life flowing through me,
When I can hear my own breathing
In concert with the sounds around me
Birds, the multitude
Of songs, wings flapping
A cow in the distance
The soft rustle of leaves
In the trees
Sheltering doves
Cooing
Cows mooing
When I can see
Light sparkling
Through branches
Onto stone and brick,
A chosen place for
The cat to lay on
His side and curl one paw
As he too listens to
The sound of birds
Singing, flapping wings
A dog barking in the distance
Purple flowers moving,
Bobbing in the breeze
Clouds in light gray
Hovering over bright
Morning sunlight peeking
Through palm fronds
Reminding me
The warmth of day
Motivated me to get out
Of bed to enjoy this
Cool window and when
The sun shines down
It will be time
To move
Knowing, appreciating
This time
Gifted for the dust
Of my mind to settle
Waking with vivid dreams
And mundane things
Concerns and wonderings
The murk, the inner
Gray clouds
And light to shine
On sparkling gems
Found
Along sandy pathways
Of a beloved mind lived with
Breathed with
Everywhere I go
Knowing, remembering:
I am here.

June 2, 2019

Listen to your heart. Be who you are. 

Speak and live your truth. 

Authenticity is sustainable.

Be kind to your self and others. 

Peace begets peace.

We all walk on the same earth and breathe the same air. One person’s way of life is no more or less than another’s. Just diversity. Our backgrounds may differ, belief systems, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, insides and outsides on the physical level as well as the mental, emotional, spiritual - all levels. We are all human and sharing this crazy adventure of being alive on the same earth, near and far. Open mind. Open heart. Equality. Unity. 

Everything I write to you is really the writing to do for myself. Rumi said it well, "I was you and never knew it". These questions I ask myself. These reminders I integrate within. In writing, I share a conversation within my own mind. A conversation that may offer a meeting of the minds. A meeting at the heart of our shared humanity.