Perhaps we will see that listening is not a course you must register for, a new gimmick that will magically transform your social and professional life. It happens when you take time to look around you, to be still in the evenings, startled by mornings. To listen means to be aware, to watch, to wait patiently for the next communication clue. And, as anyone with a speech or hearing disability can tell you, listening is not always auditory communication...When earth's auditory energy is received as a whisper, or perhaps not at all, other senses become sharpened, grasping communicative clues we have forgotten, in the rush of life...Listening becomes visual, tactile, intuitive. Listening ... perhaps ... is just a mind aware.
~ from LISTENING: WAYS OF HEARING IN A SILENT WORLD by Hannah Merker
Tonight's rain is a tenderness. I can guess from walking in it, touching it; but now I think I know its other dimension, can almost "hear" its sound, tonight close to silence.
~ from LISTENING: Ways of Hearing in a Silent World by Hannah Merker
