What
I need April 2015 LC
Please can I have:
A cup and a half of belly-laugh
And half a kilo of tears
To
see me through
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Cut the words and just watch and listen:
This beguiling wise man who keeps catching
my attention did not use a lot of words, and it seems by all accounts that he
spoke only after deep consideration. Hence he wrote nothing down, left no
essential statement or message (that ‘mission statement’ of such paramount
importance these days to institutions... only to become a burden to carry); his
presence and being left enough to remember and it was over to his friends and
followers to recall things he had said – a rough draft flow of gist, I imagine.
He did however indulge in telling stories,
and these treasures are beautifully laid down, mostly preluding with the
statement: ‘if you have ears, listen!’ or ‘if you have eyes, look!’. That alone is enough to keep one going an
entire lifetime, learning to look and listen!
I sense that he refers not only listening
to words, but beyond that, also listening and looking with our bodies, and
inside our own bodies and what they tell us in any situation. That is ‘deep listening’from inside out. When people tell you to really listen, what do they
mean? How does the word – really- change
the quality of any action? Could it be that we listen or look through our body, flesh, blood, bones, all parts of ourselves?
In the aftermath of some great trauma
involving loss, my experience of profound dreams always multiplied: for me, helpful agents in healing. One such
dream I’ll relate as it introduced me to this aspect of my secret love affair:
A
dear, gentle, tall, slow-moving and greatly respected uncle of mine said to me:
‘There are 13 different ways to hear, you know’. Then an old woman, the
archetypal hag, wise and forthright, commented in her aged, matter-of-fact,
no-nonsense voice: ‘But no matter, if you don’t want to hear I can just give
you a stroke’.
This exchange was just the end tip of a
larger dream story.
Both characters had something to say: the
gentle slow uncle pointing out that there are many ways to hear, not just with
our ears. Our gut talks to us. My knees talk when I pound them on a treadmill.
Our breath catches. Our neck spasms just at that moment. We are walking
conversations within our selves if we give it some attention!
The crone in the dream was quite right. Not
long after this dream I quit my stressful full-time job. Had I not stepped off
that treadmill I would have been increasingly beset by physical ailments that
were already setting in. Our bodies look after us by finding ways to make us
stop. We develop tremors, or facial twitches, chronic neck pains, twisted
spasms in our gut or lower back, and these eventually stop us in our tracks to
claim our attention.
Watching and listening are dangerous practices as they tell us
things that can’t be ignored.
There is a way of inclining ourselves to
listen and look with our entire body. Our body works hard to give us
information and guidance but is easily over-ridden by our busy bustling ego
with its stories and constructs, plans and cover ups, fixes and finger pointings. Subtle or pretty
blatant signs from within ourselves can give us all we need for the moment: a range of body-based signals firing
off in the energy transfers constantly happening within our cells – nothing
short of miraculous!
When something is watched, it behaves
differently. Try it. Watch children play, and once they know you’re watching
they change their behaviour slightly. Apparently even atomic particles
change their behaviour when observed (quantum physics).
No great magic, nor doctrine, nor cure, nor mission statement. Just an urging to wake up in all situations, to WATCH and LISTEN.
Liz Campbell is the sole writer and composer of all the published material on this blogsite, unless otherwise stated.
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