listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door

Day 5 of everyday inspiration. [Highlights below; crossposted from Crossroads Dispatches.]

...listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go
- e. e. cummings

I really do inhabit an entirely different universe when I listen. When I am not wrapped up in sheer willpower and brute force, solutions naturally arise, problems naturally dissolve.

Here's an easy one. I don't have a card to accompany a present for a friend's birthday yesterday. My mind's eye blooms open and leaps to the handmade Italian paper scraps I bought at the quaint stationary store Piacere Mio. Somehow I manage to fish out the perfect gift card (and the only folded gift card tucked away among the sheath of flat papers).

"If you owned a mountain cabin and wanted to make it fresh and habitable after a long winter, would you have to induce the air to enter the doors or plead with the light to stream through the windows? No, the moment you opened the doors and windows, the wind and sunshine would surge in of their own accord." - Eric Butterworth, Discover the Power Within You

According to the Lenten tradition, Sundays are not part of the 40-day countdown to Easter. No matter, I fully intended to blog yesterday on listening.

Seems the wireless router had its own agenda, however.

Watching my housemate grapple in frustration with the wireless network, and being confident (well, cocky, as you'll see) in the ways of inspiration I guess he's going to be struggling with the thing as long as it appears to be a struggle. (I know She ain't into wrestling.)

Determined, I calculate whether I have time to pump out a post before the neighborhood cafe with WiFi closes at 2. I reckon yes, and scurry out the door with my laptop in tow and race down the street. Facing the sentinel of towering redwoods, now all the way down the block and rounding the bend, it dawns on me that I left without my wallet.

"Listening to the desires of our hearts means becoming quiet within, taking a step back, allowing things to surface, and listening to the ‘inner voice'. It is like a pool where the water, when it is agitated and churned up, makes it impossible to see into it. Whereas when the water becomes calm and unruffled, it is possible to see into the depths." - Sacred Space Lenten Retreat, from a 2007 Lent page maintained by Irish Jesuits

I've catch wind of my ruse as I turn back home. Slowly this time.

I spend the rest of the day listening rather than writing about listening. A part of me knew I was running away from Her as I ran towards the cafe.

It's a day to confront this inner knock. I'd only a few hours sleep that night because I glued to the computer screen surfing the Internet until daybreak started filtering in the windows at 6:30 a.m.

What started out as a search for a local cafe near the charming old-world shotgun I'm going to be renting in New Orleans to hold a Conversation Cafe for Conversation Week (March 25-31) began unravelling a yarn of crime, violence, bitterness, flame wars online and off, spiralling judgment and fury. In a search for another Hanh quote, I remember reading and re-reading just the day before:

"We think that if the powerful countries would reduce their weapons arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds - our prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of the bombs are still here, in our bodies and minds." - Thich Nhat Hanh, Be Still and Know

I sit on the living room carpet to meditate, a warm navy throw around me (a rare occurence, I usually don't sit to meditate, preferring to live my meditation). When the eyes close, I witness the swirling resignation and sense the daggers in my gut.

I am in that utter despair of giving up all hope for world peace.

The final straw appears to be that a discussion/support group whose purpose is awakening which I co-founded was at that very time having its own crisis in peace. ("We want to be enlightened and still get to judge our neighbor", I can hear one of my teachers say.)

Clarity and muddy waters have that annoying habit of being mutually exclusive. Usually we think we ought to stir things up to further progress, but it's actually counterproductive. With practice, even a 10-second deep listening exercise (and remember to breathe) interrupts us out of any pattern of fixation: whether the outer manifestion is frustrating, stewing, worrying, figuring, wrestling, upsetting, forcing, calculating, grappling, struggling. 

Less than five minutes into meditation, my eyes stir open. Sometimes it's like that. I like it better to observe softly whatever my eyes light upon in the room anyhow. I notice the stack of newspapers beside me. A magazine cover barely peeking under the stack. My hand goes to the magazine, the pages flip this story about John Francis, the author of Planetwalker:How to Change the World One Step at a Time, who spent nearly two decades abstaining from motorized travel and abstaining from speaking after witnessing the aftermath of an 800,000 gallon oil spill into the San Franscisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge:

By [John] Francis's own account, as a young man he was an opinionated big mouth who cocked his ear toward others just long enough to determine he was wasting his time. "I had stopped listening, which is the end of communication," he says. "When I stopped speaking, I had time to reflect. The silence created a space for me to learn how to listen--not only to another person but to the environment around me and the voice within." - "The Walking Man", Sierra, March/April 2007

I'm transfixed by the whole article (highly recommend). This is no ordinary activist; this is a man of peace. The puzzle pieces start falling into place, and internally I recall why peace is possible. I glimpse how peace fits into the scope of my upcoming Nola voyage.

Sometimes along the labyrinth we get sidetracked by the intrigue of a passageway, and our hand drops hold of the clew. It's fine to explore.  Inquisiteness is never wrong.  If we end up at a dead-end, it's okay to turn around. The clew is always there on your return.

Sometimes inspiration wraps birthday gifts, and other times She tackles world peace. It's not any easier or harder to listen either way.

If you're not put off by Irish Jesuits, my thread of inspiration led me the other day to this daily prayer site, and I really like their listening exercise. Simple enough to try out for a minute anytime you feel muddy:

(adapted from Praying in Lent by Donal Neary SJ)

Sit in your chair, upright but comfortable, with your back supported.

Now just notice the sounds that you can hear, sounds far away.  Just hear them, don't even try to name them.....

Notice fainter sounds, then sounds which are nearer.  Just listen, become aware of them.....

And the sound of your own heartbeat, faint, but your own rhythm of life....

And the sound of silence in your place of prayer, the silence within yourself....

Listen like this for a few minutes.

images Jia Lu's Armillary Sphere; red doily mandala (have no idea why mandalas and peace go together in my mind) and hundreds more gorgeous mandalas at MysticalMandalas.com; John William Waterhouse's Destiny