Listening Skills

They don't listen
when he says he travels with ghosts
his head down, alone with his tracks.

They don't listen to his needs.
He rejects an engineer's view
since sunset's glare blinds him.



Learning listening skills requires patience and silence. Avoid using your voice to fill empty spaces in conversation.

Sit in a friendly chair. Focus on your breath as it moves in and out. Listen to sounds with full awareness.

At first, you will classify sounds as an airplane, car passing, or bird's chirp. Listen beyond the harshness of garbage trucks and jack hammers. Defining the sound removes you from it. If you concentrate long enough eventually you will let the labels go and notice only the energy.

Imagine listening to another person in this way without judgment or the need to push your views before the other finishes speaking. Try it!
 
Creative Write:  Spend fifteen minutes listening to one side of a conversation you usually interrupt to clarify your view. What happens when the other speaks without your comments?  Write about the experience.

It's Time for Fall Spinners

I admire spiders. If you have an aversion to them, please do not continue reading.


Once a babysitter tried to make me fear them. Pointing to a creature that ambled in front of us, she wriggled her nose, made frightening fingers and yelled, “Icky. Icky” at my face.

At that impressionable age (hers), I felt determined no one would tell me what to like or dislike. I had to show, not tell, so I picked up the spider and put it on my tongue. I thrust both at her. She ran and never had to care for me again. Her shrieks still reverberate.

Ever since that bonding episode, I have enjoyed a communication with spiders. I marvel at their creativity and have spent hours watching web spinning.

Each fall, orange spiders the size of nickels weave their food nets on the corners of my house and attach to branches along front and side paths. When we had to eliminate termites from the house, I felt concerned for the spiders’ safety and called the zoo to see if they would take them overnight. A chuckle erupted on the phone.

Maybe they could rest in a fish bowl? I could transport them to the motel we had to live in during the process. How would they eat?

Finally, one morning I awakened to a notion that if I asked them to leave for a week or so, they might understand. Why not give it a try? I explained to each spider the situation. Stay and you take your chances with the termite ”evacuation” or leave and return when it’s safe. As I spoke to them, I also advised the termites they had options but one did not include return. They needed to find other places to spin.
I talked to twelve spiders in residence. In response, several days before the tenting only empty webs remained. Within two weeks they returned, their bodies plump and webs more glorious than before. I do have witnesses to attest to my efforts.

When new spiders arrive each autumn, I make requests. “Please move your webs higher by the front door, or to the sides of the paths. Then humans will not damage them and ruin your dinner.” I only have to ask once and they comply.

Creative Write: Write about an amazement you have encountered in nature.

Autumn's Signals

Reversing my ancestors' process,   I've spent a lot of time climbing and thinking in trees. During my Pasadena childhood, oaks, maples, magnolias, and sycamores offered clues to the seasonal shifts. While residents from eastern states termed California a "mono" climate, I learned to sense the beginnings of each season.

Within a kaleidoscope of subtlety, I have always felt sensations when one season scooted into the next.

In San Diego I have discovered autumn's early arrival. This visual guidepost accompanies my sense of seasonal change. Before the summer heat relents to crisp mornings, the ivy moves into oranges, yellows and scarlets. 

Today, with the humidity of early morning, I had a hunch my indicator would reveal autumn tugging at summer's toes for cooling temperatures.  Lower on the wall, leaves have started to gather in twos and threes. By early October their palette will overwhelm the green. Sounds will turn to crisp and crackle.  With a hint of cedar, smoke will coil from chimneys.

Autumn signals change regardless of its intensity. Like the leaves that exchange green for color, we have defunct habits or life circumstances to release also.  One cycle ends, another begins.  A fresh page for writers appears where we can provide color with all our senses.







Creative Write:  Write your observations of seasonal shifts.