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To Speak Is To Listen and Be Heard
Feb. 28th, 2011 10:25 pmFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
On the way to Chimayo, a woman saw to Spanish farmers repositioning stones in a riverbed to redirect the flow: she felt compelled to help. She had the feeling that this had been done for centuries-their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, each in their own time and way, picking up the same stones pushed about by storm or drought and putting them back so the water can continue.
It seems this is the never-ending work of relationship, each of us in our own time and way moving the stones between us, repositioning the heavy things that get in the way, so the life of feeling can continue.
The weather of simply living jams things up, and we, like every generation before us, must roll up our pants and sleeves, step into the rier, and unclog the flow. If course, we need to ask, What are the stones pushed about between us? What are the heavy things that keep getting in the way?
For me the biggest stone is that I don't consider self - so I don't speak, so I shut myself off. The number of times that I've been told doesn't seem to make a difference. It's not that I don't want to speak, it's just that I don't do it.
Take today... in talking to people, loved ones, what could I say about my day? Nothing happened... nothing memorable anyway. I think the problem is I consider that anything I would say is boring to others when in fact it is the little things that make it real, that make it like a true sharing. Intellectually I know that. I need to act on it, right?
The moving of stones, the freeing of the river of life, of love and feeling, that truly is to me a sacred act, because it keeps alive a relationship, a channel of love, between two people - between many people.
I can't help wondering sometimes if this isn't why so many relationships fail... because the participants don't bother wading into the water and moving the stones. Yes, it's painful, yes it's scary and it hurts sometimes, when the little stones at the bottom come along and whack you on your shins, but the 'reward' (though I hate to use that word), is immesurable.
So... I'm taking a deep breath, and I'm vowing to speak... and through speaking listen (because I'll feel that I'm being listened too, so will feel more able to listen to others). It may not be much, just a little word or two here and there, but from the little drops of water, may a great deluge flow.
SMIB
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
- E.E. Cummings
On the way to Chimayo, a woman saw to Spanish farmers repositioning stones in a riverbed to redirect the flow: she felt compelled to help. She had the feeling that this had been done for centuries-their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, each in their own time and way, picking up the same stones pushed about by storm or drought and putting them back so the water can continue.
It seems this is the never-ending work of relationship, each of us in our own time and way moving the stones between us, repositioning the heavy things that get in the way, so the life of feeling can continue.
The weather of simply living jams things up, and we, like every generation before us, must roll up our pants and sleeves, step into the rier, and unclog the flow. If course, we need to ask, What are the stones pushed about between us? What are the heavy things that keep getting in the way?
For me the biggest stone is that I don't consider self - so I don't speak, so I shut myself off. The number of times that I've been told doesn't seem to make a difference. It's not that I don't want to speak, it's just that I don't do it.
Take today... in talking to people, loved ones, what could I say about my day? Nothing happened... nothing memorable anyway. I think the problem is I consider that anything I would say is boring to others when in fact it is the little things that make it real, that make it like a true sharing. Intellectually I know that. I need to act on it, right?
The moving of stones, the freeing of the river of life, of love and feeling, that truly is to me a sacred act, because it keeps alive a relationship, a channel of love, between two people - between many people.
I can't help wondering sometimes if this isn't why so many relationships fail... because the participants don't bother wading into the water and moving the stones. Yes, it's painful, yes it's scary and it hurts sometimes, when the little stones at the bottom come along and whack you on your shins, but the 'reward' (though I hate to use that word), is immesurable.
So... I'm taking a deep breath, and I'm vowing to speak... and through speaking listen (because I'll feel that I'm being listened too, so will feel more able to listen to others). It may not be much, just a little word or two here and there, but from the little drops of water, may a great deluge flow.
SMIB
