Fall Invites Quiet Listening

The Clearing

By Martha Postlethwaite

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.

Dear Friends,

Today, a patient shared with me that, after a comment made by one of her doctors, she decided to stop watching the news for a month. She is a woman who is deeply connected and passionate about human rights and justice and about democracy. So, to turn off the news in the month leading up to midterm elections is a big deal. We discussed that taking the time to listen, really listen, to how life wants to express through us, sometimes means turning off the outside chatter, and trusting that our song will be exactly what is needed in the moment. She shared that she is going to write welcome letters to immigrants entering New York. She wants them to know they are welcome here.

There is so much to this interaction that is potent.

What happens when we welcome our own internal voice, remember the song that is our life, listen profoundly, greet it, trust, and give ourselves to this world? Each step of this is vital. Listening requires presence and quiet. When we can hear our song we remember what we value most. Our song shines light on the places within us that need our attention, and shines light on the ways in which we are invited to be in community. As we trust this resonance, we step in to our lives more fully engaged, of service, present, active and interdependent with all of life.

As I pondered this conversation, I then read the poem above, shared by Arielle Schwartz, one of my teachers at the Embody Lab where I am studying Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy. I am once again in awe of the ways in which life brings multiple reminders of the truth of things, through various words, actions, and connections; just in case we need to hear the invitation again. Life is like that with beauty and truth: immensely generous!

A couple of weekends ago, I went to Idyllwild; Buck and I settled in to a small cabin surrounded by pine trees, and I turned off my phone, setting it by the door, committed to not turning it on again until we were on our way home. I had not brought my computer. This wasn’t my first silent retreat, but it had been awhile, and the invitation arose to sit with the discomfort of disconnecting; to explore what connection means to me and how I want to engage; to sit in silence, listening to my own rhythms without distraction. This was a big pause. 30 days without the news is a big pause. But, remembering to listen does not necessarily require a big pause. Listening asks for us to get quiet, long enough to hear, an then to repeat. Listening is an ongoing process. 

Life feels heavy for many of us. There is a lot to process, to learn, to grieve, to re-imagine, to create. There is pain and chaos and destruction all readily within our gaze. And, so many of us feel the weight and the overwhelm. It is so easy to get activated, to feel our nervous system contract, to move in to fight mode or to flee, to dissociate, or to shut down, to feel despair, to simply want to pull the blankets over our heads, to seek out the comforts that numb and distract. Every one of these responses is physiologic, natural, a protective mechanism in the face of stress and danger.

And, there is beauty, there is connection, there is joy, there is laughter. The young family who lives next door to me have been laughing and playing, and each time the young one shrieks or chuckles, or runs across the house, a smile creeps up from my heart to my lips. He is a pure expression of life. As are the birds who sit on the fountain today, shaking the solar enough to stop the water, shifting their position and jumping when the bubbling begins again, cocking their heads, investigating the stop and start of the fickle flow.

This attention to beauty is not a way to bypass the pain or hide from the heaviness. It simply is. It is a way to practice listening. Beauty exists within, without and in the inbetween spaces, for every one of us. And, it too calls for our attention. It calls with less urgency than our news feeds and pinging phones. But, it calls. And, while subtle, listening to the call and creating a clearing for the deep listening to our own song is deeply powerful. It is from this space we can heal. It is from this space we can connect. It is from this space we can serve, answering the invitation for what inspires and calls us forth, expressing our unique song, into active living.

Would a day, a weekend, a week, a month without the news, or without social media, serve you? What would help you clear a safe and nourishing space in order to listen. Maybe it is five minutes a day to listen to, see, touch, smell, taste the beauty around you.

I know that in the quiet, what often first arises can be intensely painful, too much even for our nervous systems to ease-fully sit with. There is often turbulence inside of us asking for our attention, and our minds and stories have been using distraction to protect us. We can be gentle with this too. This is an invitation to go slowly. Let the softening energy of Fall, as the plants turn within, dropping their leaves and settling in to their roots, invite you to a moment of stillness; to practice listening, and to lean in to the beauty life is generously supplying to support you, breath by breath. 

I would also be delighted to support you as you listen to your song, listen to the needs that arise, the places within you that are calling for attention, the places within your life that are asking for your song. This is the song my soul sings and the connection I treasure. It is healing within and without, for ourselves and our world; all so worthy of love.