Hi y’all.
I started this little essay on March 22. Since then, the number 2 has been playing a big role in the numbers I’ve been seeing in the past week or so, and I was told to get back to it.
Told by whom, you may ask? Ah, well:
A still small voice.
It’s in a bible verse. It’s right there. Let’s see. 1 Kings 19:12. (Please note the ubiquitous number 2. LOL.) I don’t know the whole story, and I’m sure modern bibles get it wrong anyway, but I believe the basic idea is that Spirit doesn’t speak to us in natural disasters. It’s in a still small voice.
Anyway…
This voice inside – we all have it. Some humans seek it out, some hear it but ignore it, some profess to hear it but really don’t, some aren’t aware of it at all, or don’t recognize it. I know among neurodiverse populations that the way this voice presents itself can vary. For me it’s often voices that I can feel, or perceive, rather than actually hear. I do ‘hear’ them, though, in a way, because a lot of the time they ‘sound’ like people I know.
But it’s all the same.
If we listen for that voice - our conscience, God, Source, the Universe, the Divine, angels, ancestors, whatever it is you believe in, it is speaking to us. Mine talks to me through music, through trees, through other people both beloved and strangers, through weed and baths and art and tears and even sleep sometimes.
It’s not always still and small. At times it’s very direct, extremely clear. Annoyingly so.
The question becomes – am I listening? And how do I discern what is a message from the Divine versus just something I want to hear? We are all barraged with messages both audible and not - what exactly I am to listen to? “You have to watch this movie/listen to this podcast/go to this place” say the voices of the actual people around me. “Look at THIS! Just look! It’s scary! Be worried! Be prepared!” say the voices of the media, social and otherwise. “Look at the beauty! Beauty! Beauty! Beauty!” is pretty much all that nature says a lot of the time, and she’s not wrong. Of course on a larger scale she is screaming “HELP!” but that is a universal message for all of us. I’m talking about personal messages, not mass mailings. A sweet card that someone puts in an envelope with a stamp and takes the time to send. An emphatic sticky note placed where I can’t miss it. An urgent text I cannot ignore. What I am beginning to learn is that it is all about listening. And, more importantly, hearing.
I’ll be honest with you: listening is not something I’m great at. For one thing, there are the simple mechanics of it. I spent my teens and twenties going to concerts without ear protection. What was an entertaining anomaly when leaving the venue: “WOW that was loud, my ears are ringing! I can’t hear ANYTHING!” (Shout out to Journey, Van Halen, and Foreigner for the initial injuries) later became that annoying high-pitched whine that makes you sure that the VCR or some other electronic thing is still on somewhere. Over the years the whine became louder, a hiss was added, then voices started being harder and harder to hear as vocal registers got lost. At this point I have constant summer cicadas in my head, and while most of the time I can ignore it or drown it out, sometimes it sends me into panic mode - feeling trapped, knowing I will never hear silence again. It will never go away, this sound. So listening is something that, mechanically, I have to really work at.
That excuse aside, I am guilty of the very human action of thinking about my response while listening. For the past few years, I’ve made a conscious effort to still my own thoughts when people are talking and really concentrate and pay attention to what they are saying. Being a medical assistant has actually helped me with that, because it is my job – to listen, to ask questions, to help people clarify. That’s not to say I don’t contribute my own experiences: for example when patients smoke and they are embarrassed and look down and mumble “I’m trying to quit/cut down…” I say, “I know, hon. I’ve been there. It’s very hard, especially when there are other stressors going on.” It seems to put them at ease, knowing that even I, a medical professional, have struggled with the demon nicotine.
A little side PSA about this: people who smoke are always braced for judgment. They expect it. (Especially in the Pacific Northwest – where if you admit you smoke you might as well admit you wear slippers made of puppies. Rescue puppies.). When people who smoke cigarettes are ill with a cold, they are immediately pounced upon – “well, if you didn’t smoke you might not be sick” – which is a fucking ridiculous and mean thing to say. First of all, if that were true, only smokers would get bad coughs, right? Secondly, smokers know the difference between their normal smoker’s cough and an illness - and there is a difference. Thirdly, anyone who is ill does not need the “well-meaning” two cent’s worth of medical advice which says they are clearly doing something wrong with their health. THEY KNOW.
Whew, okay, sorry, didn’t mean to go off on that little tangent, but seriously, people. I don’t even have an addictive physiology: I can (and have) given up vices cold turkey with very little effort, but I am one of the lucky ones. Quitting smoking is nearly impossible. Even when you know giving something up is going to improve your life – whether it be cigarettes, sugar, alcohol, sex, abusive relationships – whatever it is – there is the dual challenge of the body wanting/needing the hit it provides (for better or worse) and the fear of facing life without that thing (for better or worse). It may be killing you, but it is comfortable, familiar. The devil you know. I myself have been battling to quit a very addictive situationship which has thrown me into a tailspin on a monthly basis for 7 months now, but I think I’m in the home stretch of shaking it. It has felt impossible at times, still does. Also, I’m not looking forward to what the loss of it will mean – even though I know overall my life will improve drastically.
Wow, Divine, this message is all OVER the place. Sheesh. Where, in the name of all that is holy, including my own, were we?
Oh yes. Listening.
So… I’m learning to listen. Not only to what people are saying, but to my own inner voices, my own intuition. I’m learning to listen to the Divine – listen for the Divine – in everything, all the time. It’s been like tuning in a radio station – the closer I get to the source, the easier it is to find the frequency and hear it more clearly. And for you young’uns out there who do not understand that reference… wow, I don’t even know the modern equivalent of tuning in a radio station. I’ll mull that over.
Why is it important, though, listening? I’ve argued – with only a modicum of success – that all the (very serious) hoopla about ALWAYS allowing someone to speak, NEVER talking over anyone, and NEVER, EVER interrupting someone - is overrated. I think it is entirely situational. For one, if you are in a large family/group and you have something to say, sometimes you need to interrupt someone. Secondly, I know for my own job that it is sometimes necessary to interrupt a long-winded human, or they will not get the time they scheduled with the provider. And thirdly, I myself appreciate being interrupted on occasion. When I am talking to someone, and we are really getting into the conversation, and we are both jazzed, I WANT them to talk over me – because that’s how I know we are connecting. They are engaging with me, and they are so enthusiastic to do so that it seems we are speaking as one. I love that give-and-take, that banter that tells me we are making a connection. Point is, I don’t always need to be listened to in order to be heard. (Notice me making “I” statements like a good little student of “How To Communicate the Way We Want You To” school).
And now, the Divine would like me to tell you that we have landed on the whole point. The point that is ALWAYS and FOREVER the point.
Just because you are listening doesn’t automatically mean you are learning, or doing any good whatsoever. Listening is also reading the room, the situation, the sounds, the body language of the speaker and those around them. Using all your senses. Using your feelings. You can ‘reflect back’ something someone is saying until the cows come home, but without awareness, without at least attempting to empathize or connect, the meaning may be lost. Or not found at all.
Here’s the point: while listening is a fine way to pay attention, I invite you to open yourself to other forms of listening - to expand your view of what that means. Because the point, the whole point of listening, is making people feel heard. Empathy. A human connection. I feel you. I see you. You are safe with me. I. HEAR. YOU.
How does this translate into listening to the Divine? That’s a good question. Let’s explore. The rest of this essay doesn’t even scratch the surface of what it’s like for me to listen to my guides, but I’ll get started here.
Like a conscience, the Divine often says things that I don’t want to hear. Hard truths. It calls me out, points to my denial/fantasy and says, ‘sweetie, you KNOW that’s not correct thinking’. It can suck, honestly. I will usually listen to those things because nine times out of ten it’s something I need to hear/act on, but I ain’t always happy about it. Sometimes I flat out ignore it, and like a child being brought to face consequences, I am dragged over to it and forced to look at it. Sometimes, and I’m not even exaggerating, I will literally throw a temper tantrum, pacing around and yelling. The Divine doesn’t seem to mind, as long as they get their point across. Very patient with me, they are.
When I hear something that seems too good to be true, I tend to get very suspicious. The words ‘Oh yeah? Prove it!’ will pass through my brain. Sometimes I’m right, it IS too good to be true – it’s that wolf in sheep’s clothing, our friend Wishful Thinking. There have been countless times that Wishful has taken on the voice of a trusted guide and sweet-talked me into believing: Of course you can have that thing. It was made just for you. Otherwise why would it be so perfect? “If not for sits, why is made of warm?” (that’s from a meme of a cat sitting on a laptop keyboard, but it applies here). More and more lately I’m getting wise to sweet-talking Wishful, but it’s like a good phishing scam – sometimes, before I can even really think it through, I click that link and into the abyss of delusion I go. It is so hard to get out of delusion once I’ve fallen in. It’s a false light luring me to a dark place. It’s the pretty bouncing glow of an anglerfish antenna (ooh I just looked it up and it’s actually called an ‘illicium’, which in Latin means “that which intices” – awesome). So just avoid the illicium, kids. That’s what I try to do.
I’m making this sound so easy, aren’t I? Truth is there is no one way to recognize what I am hearing as the real thing. That’s where ‘reading the room’ comes in. I ask myself: did I ask for this message, or did it come out of nowhere? What headspace am I in right now? What physical place am I in - how does my body feel, hearing this? I guess for me if the message implies work of any kind – spiritual, emotional, physical – it’s most likely the real deal. Or if it makes me uncomfortable - either because it’s so lovely and kind that it can’t possibly be for me (I’m working on that) or if it’s harsh or hard to hear. For some reason the Divine often sends me messages that require effort to decipher or fulfill. Little puzzles. Like those little twisted metal bits that you have to separate. Little wooden boxes that come apart easily but are hard to put back together. That sort of thing.
I once got handed a message that felt like a gift but I wasn’t sure… and it reminded me of the quote from Illusions: “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands,” which at that moment, on my walk, got reversed to “There is no such thing as a gift without a problem for you in its hands”, which made me belly laugh right then and there, because it is also true. (The rest of the quote is “We seek problems because we need their gifts.” Not sure I need to seek them out, but sure. Whatever you say, Richard.)
What’s fun is when the Divine sends me a message that it thinks I can’t easily handle, just to see what I will do with it: a hopelessly tangled mass of yarn. What the Divine seems to forget (and yes, Spirit, I’m talkin to you) is that I have been untangling messes of yarn since I was a child. They were frustrating at first, of course, and there were plenty of times I gave up and threw the whole thing out. Then as I got older and started using better quality yarn, I was not about to toss it out because it was too damn costly to get in the first place. That’s when I would sit down with some music or a show and plop the whole mess in my lap and just start to dig in with my fingers. I am gentle. I am patient. I shake it, turn it, shake it again, loosen it all up. Then I look for the end (or the beginning, I guess) of the strand. Once I find it, that’s game over, baby. I will carefully loosen and un-twist and un-knot, looking at it from every angle, figuring out where the strand leads, wondering how it got there, tracing it back to its origin, pulling it from there. I wind carefully into a center-pull ball (which for non-crafters means a ball of yarn that you pull from the center out, which ideally – usually – prevents it from tangling.) Time-consuming, yes, but very satisfying.
Again, it depends on the yarn. Is it cheap yarn, made of stuff that probably shouldn’t have been turned into yarn in the first place? Yarn that looks nice in the skein, still in its paper waistband, full of promise? You find the center yarn start – yes! The first few yards are smooth, then all hell breaks loose as you find it just won’t release any more. You pull, at first gently, then you realized that you bought yourself a Skein From Hell, and you ask yourself then and there – is it worth it? Because you know if you keep pulling, the entire inner core, the tangled guts, are gonna come forth like a placenta being birthed. It’s up to you whether or not you’re gonna take the time to sort it all out. Once in a while I will cut the whole mess off and set it aside to deal with later, and used the rest of the non-tangled skein. I’ll go back to it if and when I need it.
Wow, okay, LOL. Wild tangent there, and don’t let that metaphor bite you, but my point stands: go ahead, Divine. Give me a tangled mess. I enjoy the challenge. I really do. Because I know that *I am* that tangled mess – and depending on the value I put on myself, I will take the time to gently untangle it, or I will realize the error of my ways and chuck the whole damn thing. Either way, I’ve learned something.
As I write this, the song “That’s My Shit” by Rainbow Kitten Surprise has popped up on my player, and somehow it seems to fit in right here. :-)
So, messages from the Divine. The good, the bad, and the ugly. For the past year I’ve been working so hard to stay tuned in that it really doesn’t matter how I feel about the message – every single one is a gift (or a problem, but it doesn’t matter – they go hand-in-hand as we know). Every single one deserves to be heard, tasted, pondered, untangled and – hopefully – heeded.
The title of this wild ride of an essay is “Why Am I Doing This?” – which is referring to my upending and uprooting my life here in my hometown, where I came two years ago after my marriage ended. Back to ground zero - literally. But now, I’m letting go and leaving behind my wonderful job and my cozy perfect home and my beautiful park and incredible sky, (and that damn situationship!), to put only what I need into a tiny little box on wheels that will be my home and hit the road. I was told to. I have no map, no instructions but this: Go. Listen. Hear. Bring all your love and all your light and even your grouchy cat. You’re needed out there. Go.
And I heard it. Loud and clear. No untangling necessary.
See you next time.
Image note: I often take photos of this wavy tree, because she is the only one like her and she just stands there curvy and does not care. Today I took my first walk to the park after my staph ordeal (I didn’t go any further than this spot, the path, I’m really truly resting, honest). This man was slowly walking his little dog and noticed me smiling up at the trees. He smiled and said “I haven’t been here for a week! It’s so nice to be back!” which led to a conversation in which he told me how last Friday (same day my ordeal began) he had gone to the ER for unbearable ankle pain which turned out to be gout. This was the first day both of us had stepped foot on our beloved path. I’m so happy he is in this picture, to remind me… we are never alone. Not in our pain or darkness, nor in our joy or wonder.