We can grow by simply listening./ the way the tree on that ridge/ listens its branches to the sky,/ the way blood/ listens its flow/ to the site of a wound,/ the way you listen when/ my head so full of grief/ can’t look you in the eyes./ We can listen our way/ Out of howling, the way a heart/ can soften the wolf/ we keep inside, we can last/ by listening deeply, the way roots/ listen for the next inch of earth,/ the way an old turtle listens all/ he hears into the pattern of his shell.

Mark Nepo – On The Ridge

As 2020 comes to a close, I reflected on the my journey through Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening. For most of 2019, I wrote a daily post based upon the text. It was an exercise in learning what a daily writing habit achieves for the body and mind. It allowed me to strengthen my writer’s muscles. It pushed me to write through whatever noise was happening in my mind. It asked me to learn a rhythm to my writing that I never known.

I found a few highlights from those posts this week. I wrote about dumping our pockets, horses running at random, settling into the wait, living outloud, and living as a flute. Reflecting on each post now, after 2020’s mountain range of emotions, I am reminded of the central role listening – like the tree, blood, the wolf, or the turtle – plays in making sense of an often chaotic and cruel world. I also think about the way in which our song – our at random fluteness – must play into our days. Every last one of them.

Read Weekly Wide-Awake: The Ridge here.

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