#180: On Listening
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
Dear reader,
How are you? We lost the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh two days ago. Every time I read his words, it jolts a sense of hope and purpose in me. Not only did he spark a curiosity and search for mindfulness and simplicity in my life, but he made it so easy to understand his world, and worldview. Thank you for the eternal wisdom.
I’ve been returning to his words on deep listening and peace:
“Listening is a very deep practice. You have to empty yourself. You have to leave space in order to listen especially to people we think are our enemies - the ones we believe are making our situation worse. When you have shown your capacity for listening and understanding, the other person will begin to listen to you, and you have a change to tell him or her of your pain, and it's your turn to be healed. This is the practice of peace.”
Speaking of listening, I’ve been actively trying be a better listener. To shed pre-conceived notions, and hold safe space. To allow pieces of music to take me places.
I’ve even been open to new sounds and genres. For years now, I’ve been wanting to be more proactive in documenting the songs that got me through certain phases. That became the soundtrack of my life for a few hours, days, weeks. Decided to start making monthly playlists on Spotify to get this going. Here’s a journey for January:
Poetry Corner
Six handpicked poems on listening, sounds, voices, and silence:
1. What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
2. Things Haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
California is a desert and I am a woman inside it.
The road ahead bends sideways and I lurch within myself.
I’m full of ugly feelings, awful thoughts, bad dreams
of doom, and so much love left unspoken.
Is mercury in retrograde? someone asks.
Someone answers, No, it’s something else
like that though. Something else like that.
That should be my name.
When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,
a coherent identity, I’ll say No, I’m something else
like that though.
A true citizen of planet earth closes their eyes
and says what they are before the mirror.
A good person gives and asks for nothing in return.
I give and I ask for only one thing—
Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me.
Hear me. Bear the weight of my voice and don’t forget —
things haunt. Things exist long after they are killed.
3. Poem by Rumi
But listen to me. For one moment
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you.
4. Insomnia by Dana Gioia
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.
But now you must listen to the things you own,
all that you’ve worked for these past years,
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,
the moving parts about to come undone,
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.
How many voices have escaped you until now,
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.
The terrible clarity this moment brings,
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.
5. The Hundred Names of Love by Annie Lighthart
The children have gone to bed.
We are so tired we could fold ourselves neatly
behind our eyes and sleep mid-word, sleep standing
warm among the creatures in the barn, lean together
and sleep, forgetting each other completely in the velvet,
the forgiveness of that sleep.
Then the one small cry:
one strike of the match-head of sound:
one child’s voice:
and the hundred names of love are lit
as we rise and walk down the hall.
One hundred nights we wake like this,
wake out of our nowhere
to kneel by small beds in darkness.
One hundred flowers open in our hands,
a name for love written in each one.
6. Epithalamium by Adam Zagajewski
Without silence there would be no music.
Life paired is doubtless more difficult
than solitary existence –
just as a boat on the open sea
with outstretched sails is trickier to steer
than the same boat drowsing at a dock, but schooners
after all are meant for wind and motion,
not idleness and impassive quiet.
A conversation continued through the years includes
hours of anxiety, anger, even hatred,
but also compassion, deep feeling.
Only in marriage do love and time,
eternal enemies, join forces.
Only love and time, when reconciled,
permit us to see other beings
in their enigmatic, complex essence,
unfolding slowly and certainly, like a new settlement
in a valley, or among green hills.
In begins from one day only, from joy
and pledges, from the holy day of meeting,
which is like a moist grain;
then come the years of trial and labor,
sometimes despair, fierce revelation,
happiness and finally a great tree
with rich greenery grows over us,
casting its vast shadow. Cares vanish in it.
+ Recommended Listening
Island No. 1 - Arooj Aftab (Strong Grouper vibes. I love it)
How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last - Big Red Machine (a collaboration between Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and The National's Aaron Dessner)
Planetary Unfolding - Michael Stearns (This took me elsewhere)
+ Links of the Week
Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh
Wordle’s Creator Thinks He Knows Why the Game Has Gone So Viral (I finally played the game everybody's talking about and I totally get the appeal.)
The Psychological Reason Journaling Makes You Better: Ryan Holiday and Shane Parrish
“Don’t mistake a time problem with what’s actually a priority problem”
100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying (I love this list so much)
When can I reuse this calendar? (The internet is full of such clever ideas)
+ Essential Reading
Leaving you with this lovely reflection by Lora Mathis on working on the most important relationship: with yourself: (via)
“I take myself out to dinner and do not look at my phone once. I do not call a friend up and ask them to join me. I listen attentively to the conversation in my head. I walk with myself to the library. Read novels, magazines, dusty collections of poetry. Browse zines online and buy a stack of ones that catch my interest. I close my eyes in bed and put my hands in-between my thighs. Know when to go faster, when to slow down, when to speed it up. I moan without shame. I make myself coffee, sip it languorously on my balcony, let my bare shoulders be warmed by the sun and ignore my neighbor’s sideways looks. I put on lipstick on the days I am not leaving the house. Walk around confidently, wearing only underwear and carelessness. Shake my limbs to the busting beat of a song and do not worry about my arms going one way and my legs another. I bite down hard on “monogamy.” Swish it around in my mouth, run my tongue over its bumps and curves, and then spit it out. I bleed on scraps of paper. Let my thoughts out. Listen to them more intently than any person could. I see all parts of me and do not blush. I do not look away. I do not try to run. I stare deeper. Force myself to keep eye contact. Accept all that is inside of me. Make my apologies. I bend my hands in forgiveness. I rise, dripping in the blood of past and future guilt and say, it is okay. All of you. All of me. It is okay.”
-In A Committed Relationship With Myself | Lora Mathis
Wishing you gentleness in your week. 🌻
Let your thoughts out,
Rohini
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