The Cherokee have a saying; “Listen! Or your tongue will make you deaf.”
Listening is a ceremony, only when we listen with our whole attention. It is a time for gathering seeds of wisdom. We can go out in nature where the wilderness is pristine, to the quietest place we can find. We can sit there and listen to the quiet until it becomes filled with the secret sounds of Creation. Listen until the business in our head becomes less busy. Listen to the tiny sounds of the earth. A bird in the distance or tiny creatures moving through the woodlands can capture our senses if we become quiet enough. If we listen deeply we can hear our own breathing and feel the beat of our own heart. This is meditation. There may be water nearby or a breeze in the leaves or pine needles or the sound of footfalls on bark as a squirrel scampers towards the treetop.
Few people listen to the earth any more. We can leave the cell phone at home and search for the things heard by our ancestors. We can feel the sun or the coldness of winter or the kiss of a gentle breeze. The magic of this physical life is not in the technology we enjoy. It lives in the heart of Creation itself. That is where rest and renewal enters the human soul. The market for the biggest selling pharmaceuticals depends on the stress level of humanity and it is a profoundly successful industry because so few people listen to the earth any more. Not many people understand the power of the natural environment as our greatest healer, lover and friend. We need to listen to nature.
Quiet time reflecting on Creation helps us to find the questions within our own souls that need to be answered. When we find the answers we become free of stress and anxiety. The questions within us are much the same from one individual to the next and we are the only ones who can answer these questions for ourselves. The answers must come from within. One of the California Tribes prepares their youth to enter adulthood by sending them up on the mountain to spend time in silence. There they become closer to the Creator and come to better understand themselves as well. On the mountain alone for a number of days and nights, we are confronted by our fears and our conscious need for prayer and self-reflection. Before the “vision quest” as it is called, the young person is asked the following ten questions. Upon returning from the mountain they are again asked the same questions. Often the time on the mountain causes the answers to change as we develop a clearer picture of our own soul and purpose.
- Who or what is my Creator?
- What is my relationship with the Creator?
- Why was I born?
- With what skills and/or gifts am I blessed?
- Am I using my skills and gifts?
- Who are my people?
- Who are my teachers?
- What are the great monsters in my life?
- What must I do to face them?
- Why must I die?
These questions are simple yet very profound. If we take the silent time out in nature to answer them we find an authentic purpose for ourselves and a sense of clarity. Listening to the murmurings of Creation is the “old way” of dealing with our troubled thoughts and wounded-ness. Perhaps the answer for some of us, to “Who are my teachers” is: “Our enemies and the problems in our lives that demand lifestyle changes are our greatest teachers.” Alcoholism, shame and the unfair manifestations of a cruel reality became my greatest teachers and paradoxically my greatest asset. These seemingly horrible facts of life forced me to choose between death from alcoholism or spiritual recovery. My feelings of an oppressive prejudiced world led me to seek the knowledge of the healers and elders in my Tribe. First I was led by my own need to heal and then later by the understanding that so many others suffer the same difficulties. Today when I listen from the heart to those who share in meetings, I find my greatest potential and path. My primary purpose has become staying sober and trying to help others achieve sobriety.
