We moved home because we missed the terrain and feel of corn fields that surrounded white farm houses and red barns. We missed apple orchards, pumkin patches, four seasons, and the memory of getting bored with our family. Our spirits were dry and what we thought was success, felt like nefarious burning sun. We looked to go back to those places that weren’t spiritual strip malls and a life of convenience that offered volume but little substance. What we found was that going back is never what we expect. Friends, family, our ideas of the world, others and of ourselves were not enough. God too often seemed to be more about our own tribal stories and fear then about something great enough to yield to and follow.

We both died in mid-life. . .it felt like multiple times. You never know that you can die so many times that your idea of yourself, protected seemingly at all costs, perishes. . .leaving us with only memories and diminished elasticity. What we were left with was right now. . .this moment. . .choice. . .consciousness. . .and what we know of things, people and the new found terrain of life and love. I think what caused us to move back originally was the desire to take hold of what we once were. Our souls took hold of us and shook us to greater pliability, to an openness to learn how to be unconditionally present with what is today.

We are not sure that we are liking everything in this place and time. We want to hold onto the view of others as we have them neatly placed in our mind. We still want certain looks, smells, flavors, places that once took care of us to last and be there for us. Impermanence seems cruel and void of offering us satisfaction. But we are growing more open to the idea that something larger than our own ideals exists. And we listen, we love, and we grow.

Today I was reminded that listening for something may never help someone ever hear more, or potentially any better. The question of “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise?” must be understood in part about having someone there to begin with, but also about whether that someone has the ability to hear the sounds that can occur from trees that fall. Hearing is not necessarily about willfulness to hear, but a developed competency to receive specific messages that occur in a particular situation, or relationship.

Each of us hear the sound of things sometimes long after the event, or for the first time even though it has occurred many times. In our relationships of love, we have received the petition for us to hear a need or a want that can seem for the other that things largely go “unheard.” Sometimes things aren’t heard even when the cry is loud. Therefore, I believe that listening ALONE is not enough to hear those things that are most important to hear. We need others to find the patience and skill to not speak louder or more often necessarily, but to teach us a new vocabulary, or use symbols that open our ideas and beliefs to the new . . . or sometimes the old that has never been heard. We need a quality of presence that isn’t screaming at us, but loves us as we need to be loved, so that we expand ourselves to attending and responding to what is before us.

The price for greater consciousness and personal responsibility is never cheap and never a solitary act. Meeting ourselves, a deeper truth, or another has less to do with intent and values clarification as it has to do with what we do with our power, and how we manage our pain. Listening, understanding, meeting, leading, sustainable impact is about letting go of a lesser form to allow a greater one to emerge. It is about shared grace that offers peace, charity and service in replace of want, certainty, and the illusion of safety.

“When lost in the woods what do you do? When lost in the woods what do you do? Listen to the trees, they know the way.”