Listen

(Written October 20, 2022)

There are times in life where we are called to sit up and listen. It could be for anything in any situation. As a musician, I am trained to listen, to put listening ahead of everything else.

Listening means that the sense of hearing should predominate before the other senses.

Listening becomes the most important thing. If we ignore this calling, all kinds of things go awry.

When we ignore what we hear, we then only have a sense of the self, in that the brain is superseding the hearing and demanding attention elsewhere.

I think true listening must mean stopping to take in what is beyond the self.

I think that true listening must mean there is something much bigger at work. True listening is to be still and absorb a message from somewhere or something else.

This message is clear in so many spaces (like yoga and meditation for example).

 Personally, I have been guilty of ignoring the act of listening outside of music, the outer activity.

My brains tells me that I am in control and that I don’t need to listen.

Why, in musical situations, is it easy and intuitive for me to give myself over to my sense of hearing?

Everything is in balance and in tune, there is a deep literal resonance as well as an internal one, in responding to listening.

I can react instead of control.

I don’t sit in my ‘self-ness’ oblivious to all that is around me.

I don’t bury my head in the tunnel vision of what I want to do or think I need to do. 

Sense of time can stop when I am playing music. I become a part of the collective. I just am. The last thing on my mind is my “self”.  

It seems so easy.

In other parts of my life I have been a master of ignoring.

I have refused to acknowledge the outer activity. Sometimes I have refused to acknowledge the inner activity.

Both can be dangerous.

To disregard my surroundings can lead to all kinds of problems, just like in music. Ignoring the tempo or standard of intonation around me is as egregious as ignoring a traffic light or speed limit, or going outside in a harsh winter climate without the appropriate outerwear.

Ignoring inner activity is perhaps even more dangerous.

For a long time, my life (read career, family, marriage, other responsibilities…age, body, heart, soul) has been screaming at me. My life sent a subtle whisper to me about 10 years ago.

I ignored my body, my heart, and my soul for a long time until they all bellowed at me in unison.

I successfully avoided listening until the one voice that could force the ultimate roadblock, my body, played the ace card.

When your body slaps you across the face and screams “LISTEN!” and you don’t pay attention, your body will take more drastic measures.

All within the span of 6 months my body brought me to my knees and eventually to a screeching halt. I finally sat up and listened.

The body will always win.

As I sit in this space of health problem after health problem, getting screened for the scariest of things and receiving multiple treatments for other unrelated issues, I am still on my knees, but life has my undivided attention now.

I can’t ignore this lesson. Life has something important to tell me.

 Life is telling me to listen.

Life is telling me to pay closer attention to those whispers. Life is insisting that I choose my body, heart and soul over the external noises.

This is a day of reckoning.

Hearing but ignoring instead of true listening is no longer optional. Maybe you need to hear this too.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Maya Angelou