Excerpt #2

Chapter Three:
Silent Messages and Souls Touching

God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as we speak. -Mark Twain

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. -Anonymous

It's summer and I am sitting on a wicker chair on my porch with a cup of creamy hot cocoa and a peanut butter cookie. A storm is brewing and I'm watching dark clouds roll in and feeling the temperature drop. I smell the rain crossing the field in a sheet of power. Lightning flickers so quickly I cannot see the bolt– it momentarily surrounds me with its static energy. I hear the crack of thunder that shakes the very world around me. I love the sensuality of this moment. Every sense is provided with such stimulation as the rhythm of nature takes full force. I am alive when I am sensually aware. Our senses so accurately serve us with connection to our world.

My perception of listening is a bit unique. My mother went blind when I was nine. I learned to appreciate a connection through shared aural experience, whether it was her classical piano music, my favorite Eric Carmen album, or a performance of Handel's The Messiah. In turn, I learned to be her vision and to be aware of the beauty in nature. I tried to capture for her the eloquent lavender and peach beauty of an Austrian iris, or the blue of the green grass in Kentucky, or the azure sky moving into the crimson of a sunset. The verdant images and fragrances of nature nudged me and I listened and noticed to create images and loveliness for her.

My mother was an admirable woman who 'saw' with her other senses and was able to be quite independent. Miraculously, she developed the skill to play piano by listening, though she'd been taught to play by sight. She died twenty-five years ago, but I still play her piano in my own home with the music still connecting us. I don't need to see her to be with her. I need only to listen and notice and recognize her remaining essence.

She listened and found hope and goodness. I believe in listening as she did, without judgement, as children and students in my world paint canvases of ideas with their unique words, ideas and passions. I listen and guide their power of independent thought and vision. One student is healing from her service in Iraq. Another student dreams of flying an airplane after a degree in aviation– and she wants to change history, like Amelia Earhart. Another student is embracing college experience after a tragic car accident and long duration of therapy– celebrating arrival to this next place in life. I listen to the colors and strokes they paint in their experience.  Truly, a blind person taught me to listen to others and to 'see' through the lens of each reality. We can open ourselves up to the beauty of the moment and the other by paying attention and listening.