Recently I took down from my bookshelf and reread some books written by Byrd Baylor and illustrated by Peter Parnall. I originally came across these books in the children’s section of my local library many years ago. I liked them then and they certainly had some influence on my thinking and manner of looking at things; I like them now and the influence is still with me.

The books talk about slowing down, about stopping and listening. They talk about the space the characters are in, in their case the desert, and hearing the sound of nature, not just seeing the beauty that surrounds us, but hearing it. “Sometimes EVERYTHING BEING RIGHT makes a kind of sound”.  This reminds me of beauty and harmony that exists when all is right.

So I took a drive into the hills, through a park and back along the coast. I didn’t just drive like I usually do, and I enjoy just driving, but I stopped several times. I tried to stop at random and different places. I stopped and absorbed what was around me and I tried to listen. I tried to listen beyond the sound of the wind rustling leaves or the water lapping onto the beach. I wanted to hear more than the birds chirping and the seagulls ‘arking’ as they poached crusts of food on the shore. These are beautiful sounds in themselves but I wanted to hear more, I wanted to hear deeper.

I became almost obsessed by this listening, and certainly it affected my days. A few days later I decided to look through my photographs taken over quite a number of years, of which I have many from various moments in time. Some are of people, many of my family of course, but also many landscapes and close ups like one of a raindrop ready to fall from a greening spring branch.

I only looked at a few and tried not only to see them, but to recall in my memory the time the photo was taken and the feeling it evoked in me to take it. And I went a step further; I tried to listen to the memory, to hear what the image said or even what it is saying now, the sound it makes.  To do this I had to slow down and stop, allow myself to be there (and here) and listen.

To be honest I am not sure that I heard the rock talk or the tree grow. I am not sure that I heard the ocean sing. “Most people never hear those things at all. They just don’t take the time for something that important.  We have to respect that which we are with”. 

But at least I took the time.

This ‘other way to listen’ has affected me and I don’t mind. It has made me really listen, to myself, and to you. Not just the words I am hearing but more, much more. I just have to be quiet, not formulate an answer before you finish talking. I don’t have to hear the sound of the bush out front just because I think it should be saying something to me, but rather open myself and listen. Maybe one day I will truly hear what the universe is saying. And perhaps if I only hear what YOU are truly saying, that in itself may be enough.

I know that I will continue to do this, take the time to slow down and listen…