Time to Listen

Image by Anchalee Yates

Right now is a time to listen. Another period in our history where it is critical that we pause and really notice what is going on. A time to listen to the wind and what she has to say. What she has been trying to tell us for a while.

This is the time to hear the song of the trees. Of those stark and bare, alongside those filled with greenery, flowers and birds. To be overcome by the harmony of bark and leaves. To hear the whisper of sap dancing deep within the trees as it rises to the surface. To listen to the hum of the clouds as a constant musical note in our day. To discover the messages in the rain.

Much has changed for us and around us. For the birds, they look like they are getting on with their day and nothing much has changed. But they have more freedom. Who would have thought a winged animal could find more freedom. For them, there is less interruption. They have a larger claim on their territory on the ground, where they come to rest from flight. There is new meaning in their birdsongs and calls.

For plants, they continue to grow. As they always have. And we hope, as they always will. But the purity a bloom suddenly discovers this day when pushing through the soil to greet the sun, is refreshingly new. The air has shifted. Changed. The lungs of the earth are no longer tired and as heavy as they once were. She can breath a little deeper. A little fuller. And all things in nature breath a collective sigh of relief.

With less planes in the air, less cars and trucks on the roads, the smog has lifted. Nature can once again celebrate the presence of the Himalayan Mountains. Their existence once again part of the visual language of the world from near and far. Their white peaks celebrated against the brilliant blue of the sky. A landscape reclaimed. Weaved back into her story. No longer hidden or obscured. The fog has lifted. It is like the earth herself is meditating.

We haven’t been listening for a long time. We have been moving too fast. Our focus too forward. Too linear. Too selfish. But are we listening now?

Animals have come out to play. Wandering on streets where the strange habits of humans once dominated. They are exploring our structures of concrete and stone, where before us foliage grew. A jungle in a time past which is far from our memory but held in the cellular memory of all living things. And in the absence of our dominance and presence, the endangered Olive Ridley Sea Turtles have returned to their nesting ground in mass numbers on the coast of India at a site in Odisha, at the Rushikulya River. Large numbers arriving for daytime nesting, undisturbed.

What is the price we have to pay for our disturbance? Our discord. The state of disharmony we create. Distortion of the earth and all she holds, which includes us. Our children’s children. Their grandchildren. What kind of ancestor tales will we whisper in their ears? What gifts of learning will our myths share?

This is the time to listen. To listen to the footstep of our ancestors and their hearts beating in time with ours. To listen to their whispers. To listen to our collective knowing. To pause and reflect in order to rediscover our place in the world. To find hope and a new way forward.