How Hard Is It To Listen?

[Tweet “What does it mean to really listen? To just shut up? #affirmation”]

#affirmation Some days you just have to shut up. I’m a talker, you see. I tend to fill conversational spaces with anything. I’m learning to stop that. It’s a bad habit. How much have I missed in this world by doing that? I shudder to think!

Here is the Two of Air. A woman listens. It’s just that simple. She closes her eyes, tilts her head then listens. Those are cedar waxwings in the branches. I’ve seen them but couldn’t identify their song. I can identify some birdsong though easily.

Sometimes I think I would like to go back to the land as they say. Go off the grid. Get back to nature. Return to my roots.

Then I laugh. My roots? My roots are in Monroe, Louisiana in the middle of urban living. Well, it wasn’t a big city but it certainly wasn’t a small town either. We had four public high schools plus two private. Monroe is a great town but it’s not a “back to nature” situation.

I love to read books about people who have done that though. Do you? My friend, Joanna Powell Colbert, mentioned a book that I wanted to share with you as well. It is called Becoming Wild: Living the Primitive Life on a West Coast Island: Nikki van Schyndel. I’m going to get it for myself then it may also end up under the Christmas tree for someone else.

Here is a video interview of Nikki. It’s fascinating.

It’s not available on the Kindle (darn it), but it comes highly recommended.

Today’s card is the Two of Air from the Gaian Tarot which is by Joanna Powell Colbert. I’m using that image for today’s affirmation.

Today I shut up. Today I get quiet. Today I listen. I listen for and I listen to. For the messages in silence, I listen. To the song of nature, I listen. By embracing the quiet, I grow and I learn. Loved and loving, I love each of you.

Seek joy, y’all. Pass it on.