Allowing the quiet

and what we learn from listening

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A song I’m loving:

A favorite road, 35mm film

I don’t have much to say lately, to be honest; life is full, swirling, sweet and wild. My daughter starts her pre-k class tomorrow and I don’t understand how she’ll be four in October. Sitting with my clients is feeling like such a gift. My book is moving into the copyedits phase and I’m realizing I will have to start talking more about it sooner than later, which feels like the most tender growing edge. Summer is at its peak, the sun is going to be setting earlier and earlier, tomato season will come to a close, things are changing all around. My normal cadence of writing has slowed, probably because I’m practicing more listening, more here-ness, and the listening has been teaching me something I need to know right now.

I want to share a clip from recording I made while walking in the forest with my family last weekend. I started recording on the Merlin app to identify what kind of hawk I was hearing from afar. After a few seconds, the Cooper’s Hawk suddenly flew over my head and through the trees, eliciting a very typical response from me when I encounter beauty of any kind:

mist and water, 35mm film

I guess I’m sharing this recording because it feels like a captured moment of awe in a way I can’t always play back and literally hear myself experience, in a way I don’t always know how to put to words. It feels like such a clear reminder of the awe I can access when I’m present to the world around me — the kind of wonder that exists when we open our eyes and ears and let it move us — the kind of beauty all around, even still, that never ceases to amaze and expand my heart.

I at times feel like I need to shut my heart and eyes and ears off when the world feels like it’s crumbling, when it’s hurting, when it pains me to look out at. Letting beauty in can feel like some sort of bypassing, like it isn’t as real as the hurt. Yet I remember in countless moments every single day that if I look away from what astonishes me, I miss the beauty; and if I miss the beauty, I forget all there is to love, protect, care for, share, stand in awe of. My daughter watched me gasp as that hawk flew over me; she watched my eyes well up with tears in the aftermath of that special encounter; I want her to see me be moved by the beauty we get to experience. I want her to grow up and watch her mother not just ache over the hard, but also expand in the good.

Even amid the devastation and wild unknowns, what I want for all of us is this ever-present access to the gifts, the kinship, the wisps of aliveness trying to show themselves. What I want is an attunement to the sacredness of witnessing not just cruelty, but connection. What I want is a devotion to letting my body continue to learn how to not only register but fully feel the gift of being alive, the beauty of this world, knowing that is what urges us to take care of and protect it. What I want is to keep teaching my heart how okay it is to expand more and more, to listen for hawks and let them widen my eyes, to lean into the mystery of the unknown and let it surprise instead of scare me. What I want is to feel the devastation, yes, but only because I also know how to feel the magnificence of what it means to be alive, here, now.

the wide expanse, 35mm film

Thank you, beauty everywhere, for bolstering my heart.
Thank you, wide world, for your endless gifts and unexpected encounters.
Thank you, hawk, for sharing your song with us.
Thank you, redwood forest, for the limitless lessons you offer.
Thank you, rolling fog, for the reprieve from harsh heat.
Thank you, wildflowers, for growing when I thought you were done.
Thank you, aliveness, for practicing letting it all shape me.
Thank you, gifts, for reminding me nothing but loving in this mysterious and miraculous world makes much sense, and of course we’re all confused when faced with everything that feels like love’s opposite.

May you find endless things to thank, and let the thanking tether you to them, and let them continue lifting the weight from your heart so you can let it all in even more, and then just a little more.

And thank you, as always, for being here.

I’ve been slowing my brain & body waaaay down the last few weeks — savoring spaciousness away from my manuscript, tending to the absolute gift of witnessing my clients, engaging with the world in quiet ways, building my capacity to stay with it all. I’ve been off my phone and screen for larger parts of the day, reading more from books than from the internet. All of this helps me tune in more deeply to what matters, and to what I have to offer from my small corner of the world. It’s at times hard to lessen what I consume, yet this lessening of intake actually increases my capacity to attune to it all. I don’t want to be so full that I can’t breathe easily — I want to truly experience what I take in, and let it change me. That’s what I want to share most this week, rather than more to ingest: a reminder that you can take the time to digest all you’ve already consumed, let it feed you and those around you, let it move you in the ways you long for. I’m (imperfectly) practicing alongside you.

one small source of my attention lately.

With care,
Lisa