The Sacred Art of Listening: Beneath and Between Our Words

In a world increasingly filled with noise, true listening has become both rare and revolutionary. Not the passive hearing that happens while we formulate our response, but the active, whole-body engagement that creates space for something new to emerge between people.

Throughout my poetry collection, I explore the profound intimacy that occurs when we fully attend to another and the lonely disconnection that happens when we speak past each other, each trapped in our own narrative. One poem describes this contrast: "We were having two different conversations. / I was building a case; / you were revealing your heart. / I was focused on being right; / you just wanted to be seen."

The quality of our listening determines the quality of our relationships. When we listen with an agenda to fix, advise, correct, or respond - we miss the deeper currents flowing beneath the words. But when we listen with our full presence, patient, curious, and open, we create a field where truth can surface and connection can deepen.

I've noticed that my most meaningful conversations aren't necessarily those with the most brilliant insights or eloquent expressions. Rather, they're exchanges where I felt truly received - where my words landed in fertile soil rather than on defended ground. One person truly listening can create more healing than hours of well-intentioned advice.

This deeper listening extends beyond human conversation. In my creative process, my best writing emerges not when I'm striving to produce something impressive, but when I'm listening attentively to what wants to be expressed through me. As one poem puts it: "The words were always there, / waiting not to be invented / but to be heard."

Similarly, our bodies speak to us constantly through sensation, emotion, and intuition. Our dreams offer wisdom in their strange and symbolic language. The natural world communicates through patterns and rhythms if we attune ourselves to its voice. Yet so often, we override these subtle messages with the louder voices of productivity, social expectations, and internalized criticism.

In our relationships, listening well requires temporarily suspending our own perspective to make room for another's reality. It means being willing to be changed by what we hear. It demands the courage to bear witness to difficulty without immediately trying to fix or minimize it. As I write in one poem: "Sometimes the greatest gift / is empty hands — / no solutions, no strategies, / just your steady presence / beside my pain."

What I'm discovering is that listening is not a passive act but a creative one. It's not about disappearing ourselves but about bringing our full attention to what's emerging in the space between. It's a practice that requires continual renewal as we catch ourselves slipping into old patterns of selective hearing and habitual response.

If you find yourself longing for deeper connection with others, with yourself, with the world around you - I invite you to experiment with the quality of your listening. What might you discover if you approached each conversation as a potential revelation? What truth might emerge if you listened to your own life with the same attentive care you would offer a beloved friend?

In the words that guide my own practice of presence: "Listen until listening / becomes its own / form of speech."