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What Engages Our Ears
I recently found myself listening to an afternoon’s program of speakers. Each one of them had interesting things to talk about, but I found myself deeply engaged by certain presentations and struggling to remain present to others.
Part of this has to do with which topics happened to interest me, but I also think something else is involved: the connection a person makes between their own lived experience and the words that come out of their mouth.
When that connection is there, we can hardly help paying attention. And when it’s not, we can hardly keep our mind from wandering.
When a person has not only thought but felt the meanings of what they’re saying–with their senses, in their bodies, with their hearts and minds in harmony–we come to feel those meanings too.
Opening To Openness
This is one of the things we can learn from the great poets, from children, and from anyone open to all of their experience and willing to let it appear in their words.
Still, such openness doesn’t always come easily. I remember giving a talk a number of years ago at a gathering outside the city of Bangalore, in South India. I’d been asked to speak about the work of Wendell Berry, who I’m honored to know. To prepare I’d gone through my favorite essays and pulled out a selection of quotes that I hoped would be meaningful. But after reading a few of those quotes, I could see the attention of the audience begin drifting away.
It would have been tempting to blame the timing of the talk–we’d just had lunch and people were feeling drowsy–but that would have sidestepped the real issue. The people gathered there weren’t interested in hearing quote after quote after quote. They wanted something they could actually connect to.
Somehow I found it within me to let go of my notes and tell a few stories about meeting Wendell and what knowing him meant to me personally. Suddenly the slumbering audience came awake again, and I learned a lesson in not hiding behind a barrage of quotes.
How Do We Give And Receive A Treasure?
Much more recently I met someone whose work I find deeply inspiring, a young Tamil-Canadian researcher, cultural practitioner, and content creator named Kasthuree Thiyakalingam. Through her platform What You Missed In Tamil Class, she has been helping diaspora Tamils discover, engage with, and cultivate their own connections to the riches of Tamil heritage.
Join me November 15 for a webinar in which we’ll explore how we discover, honor, embody, and share wisdom from all of the traditions that nourish us.
I hope you’ll join me for what I’m certain will be a very meaningful conversation.
And if you know anyone who may also be interested, I’d be honored if you shared this post with them.