The Tenor and Emotions of Our Words Reflects Truth

Carolyn shares: The tenor and intention of words impacts how we feel and how we understand what is shared in the spoken word.

Last night I (unfortunately) watched an accusatory, aggressive, look-good-at-all-costs, shade the truth, debate between two men discussing the political scene of the United States. My reaction is palpable in my body. If I could crawl out of my skin, I would. The residue of the feeling hangs out with me. Attempting to shift my feelings, I sit and reflect on a recent time I sat in a circle of 20 women sharing parenting imperfections, talking about the importance of transparency with one another and our children, and honoring the differences between us.  What a contrast! Okay-maybe the future of the country was not on the line during the women's gathering, as it seemed to be last night 'debate'. But... maybe one of us at this gathering has birthed a future leader and that would mean good things for our country, given the transparency and forthrightness of the group.

I listen to an angry debate and go to bed exhausted and discouraged. How this experience contrasted with hearing Jennifer Grant speak her truth on imperfect parenting: inspiring and hopeful. Jennifer is an author, speaker and a member of our Episcopal Community.  Check out her book: Momumental

Self Reflection:  I will notice the tenor and intention of the words I speak.  I will be  aware of their impact.

The Quest for Assessing the Truth of 'Me'

During the waxing moon of Speak Truth we assess the truth of who we are, how we feel, what we are up to, where we have been, where we think we are going, who we love, who we resent, emulate,who we who we are jealous of, who we respect, what we want, long for and desire, what we have lost, what we have gained, learned, seen and heard.  We reflect on the truth of ALL our experiences, actions and emotions. This is how we come to know the truth of our Self.  We gather, reflect and integrate our 'stories' in order to bring the greatest healing to ourselves and to the world.  


Self Reflection:  During this waxing phase of this moon cycle, I reflect on my 'stories'. With patience and attention, I can trust the will come together and show me the way to healing and growing my life. 

To Choose Oneself is to Speak Truth

“Telling a true story about personal experience
is not just a matter of being oneself, or even of
finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing
oneself..”
-- Harriet Goldhor Lerner (author of The Dance of Anger)

Tempering or modifying the words we speak so they are acceptable to others is second nature to most of us. Is this a form of 'self ' denial? And what is the impact of modifying how we feel, what we think, who we are, just to be more acceptable, less visible, less threatening?  Certainly it impacts our self-esteem. It is, in some way, a form of lying because we hide the truth of our being under what we deem to be acceptable or safe. It also prevents others from knowing the the real us.

After years of speaking this way it is easy to mistake one's low self-esteem as the 'real thing'. How can we come to know wonder of who we each are?  We are unique, have purpose and are necessary to the flow of creation. We do matter, who we REALLY are matters. It can take some time to re-learn choosing ourselves. It can take time to discover who it is that we must choose, to know the difference between the image we carry of our self and who we really are. But it IS worth it.  It is always worth it. Trust.  Speak Truth.

Self Reflection:  It takes time to learn to choose myself, to matter to myself. Do I matter to myself?

Speaking Truth Ultimately Unites Us

“When the Storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us
that human beings are more alike than unalike....A
story is what it’s like to be a human being—to be
knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of
us has arisen, awakened.
We do rise.”
--Maya Angelou (1928-2014)


Our willingness to share, to speak out loud, about who we are as best as we currently understand ourselves is a gift.  It is a gift to ourselves as this is how we come to more truly who we are.  It is a gift to others in showing the way for other to be brave and share their story as well.
Maya Angelou's quote hints at the nature of our human stories: we are..."knocked down and we miraculously arise." In telling our stories, we re-member ourselves.  And in re-membering we become both healed and whole.  Every human being shares this theme.

We are able to know and share in our common path only in the telling of the Truth.  Truth-telling, although it may feel risky or dangerous is what unites us and supports unity.  To speak what is not truthful is divisive and destructive. In the waxing phase of the moon, we will listen to ourselves tell our stories to our Self and we and listen for where we are in truth and where we are lying to ourselves. When we have cleared our stories of falsehood and embellishment, we are sharing a story of common experience.

Self Reflection: There is no need to deny or falsify my story, it is perfect as it is. My story has the power to unfold my life and build my community; if what I share is Truth.

June Waxing Moon: Speaking Truth, Telling Our Story

To start off the cycle of Speak Truth, Carolyn Shares three quotes from three women who have influenced her love of story as a guiding force in life--and given her courage to keep speaking, even when she didn't think she could.

“Telling a true story about personal experience
is not just a matter of being oneself, or even of
finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing
oneself..”
-- Harriet Goldhor Lerner (author of The Dance of Anger)

“When the Storyteller tells the truth, she reminds us
that human beings are more alike than unalike....A
story is what it’s like to be a human being—to be
knocked down and to miraculously arise. Each one of
us has arisen, awakened.
We do rise.”
--Maya Angelou (remembering her with immense gratefulness for how she shared so abundantly her gifts with all humankind)

"Storyteller, Clan Mother of the Sixth Moon Cycle, reminds us that if we are willing to expand, growing beyond our former zone of comfort in a healthy way, we must pay attention to all of the events in our lives.  There is a story connected to every living thing and every person in our world. How that story influences out personal Earthwalks is determined by our willingness to see another's experience as a way to learn about ourselves...Storyteller asks us to see the similarities in ourselves and others, finding ways to learn from the stories we all share in common."

--Jamie Sams (Author and inspirer of our circle)

Self Reflection: Whoa are the women in my life who Speak the Truth? 

Speaking a Common Truth

"Storyteller, Clan Mother of the Sixth Moon Cycle, reminds us that if we are willing to expand, growing beyond our former zone of comfort in a healthy way, we must pay attention to all of the events in our lives.  There is a story connected to every living thing and every person in our world. How that story influences our personal Earthwalk is determined by our willingness to see another's experience as a way to learn about ourselves...Storyteller asks us to see the similarities in ourselves and others, finding ways to learn from the stories we all share in common."

--Jamie Sams (Author of Thirteen Original Clan Mothers and inspirer of our moon cycle circle)

...see the similarities in ourselves and others, finding ways to learn from the stories we all share in common. 

All creation is a teaching story. To benefit from and share Creation's story we first must find a place of commonality. This is often not an easy task. But, it is necessary for building up the bravery necessary to speak our own truth out into the world. Seeing where the common places are also builds safety.  It brings mutual respect, or at least, understanding. Feeling afraid or out of place challenges our ability to speak our thoughts or feelings, to speak of the truth of who we are.  We tend to shade our words to be accepted or secure.  Seeing how we are like those with whom we are called to communicate, looking for any small familiarity, similarity, common ground, creates the possibility for speaking in such a way that we may be understood, and that we might begin to understand what it is that is spoken by the other.  

Self Reflection: May I remember that even a very small common thread is enough to begin weaving a truth-full story.  

New Moon for June Brings Gifts Teaching us to Speak Truth

In the gift of June's  moon cycle is an invitation to be willing to  of speaking the truth we become aware of how our words (the quality of our voice, the energy with which we speak-or write)  impact the lives of others, the world around us, and our own growth and prosperity.

One way of thinking of how to Speak Truth is in the embodiment of the archetype of the Storyteller. Thinking of Speaking Truth in this way gives a certain spin on the teaching for the month.  Whether or not we see ourselves as a 'storyteller', the very act of living our lives and having contact with others, makes us a sharer of stories-either through others observation of us as we live our lives, or through our intentional sharing of our thoughts in words or actions.  

There are also other archetypal images connected with Speaking Truth-which you might resonate with more than storyteller: the archetypes of teacher, orator, preacher, writer, singer, Any archetype which uses voice or words to assert herself in the world (or to participate in the world) can claim an identification with the gift/skill of speaking truth. 

This cycle is an invitation to identify our own 'voice', and connecting with an archetypal image is a good way to do that. Explore how we are speaking the truth to ourselves—or not.  We can become open to sharing truth, as we understand it, with others.  

Self Reflection: NEW MOON EXERCISE FOR Speak the Truth.  As a new moon exercise for this cycle: go out in the darkness of the new moon night—and continue this practice as the waxing moon shows her color and light—speak out to the moon.  Hear yourself speak.  Better yet, center yourself, clear your being so that you become a hollow reed open to the song of Great Mystery, Great Spirit, and hear what words come through you, from you.  Words coming from the depth of your heart, from the depth of your soul, from the depth of your longings.  Words, too, that come in the silence with a willingness to hear what is offered as well.  Always with gratefulness.

Integrating my own Song of Life on the Close of May's Moon

I

Listen!

Remember!

Feel!

Honoring my inner voice,

I am preparing to Speak My Truth.

I listen and I remember I am connected.

I trust guidance comes.

I honor my unique calling to be, to do.

I take my place in Creation’s flow.

I am ready, able and willing to add my voice to the Song of Life.

Self Reflection: Commit to writing what this Wisdom Teacher of Hear Truth has guided me to Hear that is becoming part of my personal 'Song of Life'.

Preparing for the Closing Moon, Listen to the Song of Life

On this closing moon, we are invited to sit in the darkness and gift our selves the time to listen back to all we have listened for over these past weeks, reflection on what we have heard in our hearts, guts and minds.  What has our practice (not perfection) of listening gifted to us?  This song may help us focus our receiving of Hear Truth's offering.

Libera's 'Song of Life

There's a whisper in the dark

As a new life comes to be

Then a song begins to form

As it finds the harmony

With a chorus of sound

Of the world all around

Now it blends in the tune

Joining the endless song of life

We shall never be alone

As we link our hearts in one

Joining voices from above

All in the miracle of life

Through the ages we will grow

Only time will ever know

As our voices magnify

All in the miracle of life

Love plays along

In our lives yet to come

As we join in the song of life

Now the music starts to build

As the words begin to rhyme

Then another lends a tune

As their voices now combine

With the chorus of sound

Of the world all around

Now they blend in their tune

Sharing the endless song of life

We shall never be alone

As we link our hearts in one

Joining voices from above

All in the miracle of life

Through the ages we will grow

Only time will ever know

As our voices magnify

All in the miracle of life

Love plays along

In our lives yet to come

As we join in the song of life

As we join in the song of life.

Self Reflection: Song of Life (Listen to this song by Libera)

Learning to Hear Truth by Listening to the Stone People

Having surrendered to the sound of love emanating from and through all of the universe,

We are finally able to hear the vibration of our life force beating her resonance with Creator.

When still enough we sit with it and rustle up the courage to act upon the messages felt/heard on the breezes of the earth mother, in the songs of her creatures, in the pulse of the heart of every being…especially the heart of the stone person, a gift of the Mother, broken loose from the soil of her being and landing, seemingly hap-hazard in our hands.  We all have them.  These little stones that caught our eye, our fancy and we picked them up and brought them home with us.   For many of us this fascination with little stones (or not so little stones) begins when we are children, bringing home a pocketful of stones from the park or a trip to the beach. Perhaps the young ones know something we have forgotten.

Jamie Sams' book Thirteen Original Clan Mothers  the May Moon Cycle offered up the story of Listening Woman and her relationship with Hagehjih-Old Man, the Stone Person (pg. 113-116). The story tells of how Listening Woman learned to listen and hear the ancient, non-verbal language ‘spoken’ by Hagehjih-Old Man. How she came to honor the resonance of guidance coming to her through this humble, tiny stone.  How her discerning and listening pointed her always in the right direction and right timing.  Have we opened our awareness and released disbelief to hear in this way?

Self Reflection: Have I taken time to listen to the stone people hanging out in my own house?  If I were willing to take enough time to sit in stillness and silence and listen until I heard my Rock Person speak, what do I hear? 

Re-membering How to Hear

As we move through the last few days of the waning moon phase, the offering of this Truth Cycle becomes clearer--if we are able to tune in.  This month the truth cycle offers up Hearing Truth and we have been offered, instructed and had daily experiences with listening, hearing and being heard. We are learning to listen with the ear of our heart. For us, who read these daily inspirations and live with the Cycles of Truth as a guiding force, listening, hearing and being heard may have taken on a different meaning than when we started out the month,

Perhaps we have come to experience the deep, still, dark space within us that is void of all our preconceived beliefs, ideas and fears, as a source for deeper knowing and intuition.  If so, we are having the experience of returning to the original way of hearing--the ancient ones' way of non-verbal communication-this is the ultimate gift of Hear Truth.  As beings of Creation we inherit this divine gift: the ability to hear without a spoken word.  We have merely forgotten how to hear in this nonverbal, vibrational way.  We can learn to remember (re-member/to come together again).  It is our birthright.

Self Reflection: What am I re-membering? As I listen with the ear of my heart, I come together again as is my birthright.

Releasing Old Patterns-Waning Moon

As the Waning Moon moves to the space where only a sliver of her full self is visible, I recognize that I am also revealing only a sliver of my full self. In my case, rather than being comfortably in the rhythm and flow of life, it may be my hiding and shielding of parts of myself that result in 'my sliver'.  

I ask my question where and how I am in shadow? Listening to Guidance that comes, I hear these three simple words in answer: "Dis-ease, In-jury, Dis-order"

Dis-ease:  Where am I not at ease in my life?In-jury:  Where am I judging, making rulings, giving directives, awarding damages or handing out punishments?Dis-order:  What has gotten out of order in my life?

Self Reflection: What is my 'dis-ease', 'in-jury', 'dis-order'?

Slow Down and Listen

When we listen with the whole of our being, the patience that comes with this practice brings with it balance and right-timing.

We learn to live in balance with the whole of our self: the physical, emotional, spiritual and mental aspects of our being. We come to know how to listen to all these aspects of our being. We become able to respond to our needs in wholly and healthily.

This brings wisdom and harmony within ourselves, which allows us to bring wisdom and harmony to the world. We Listen with the whole of our being to others as well.

Slow down and listen.
Slow down and hear.
Slow down and live more in balance, more in harmony, more in wisdom.
Slow down; Hear Truth.

Self Reflection: I will slow down and listen to hear the Truth for my life.

Prayer of Gratitude for Being Listened To and Heard

I first heard this prayer from Lee Nitsch, the daughter-in -law of Twylah Nitsch the Seneca Elder who brought the wisdom of the Truth Cycles out into the world. This is the way I pray it as part of my morning prayer and contemplation practice.  I have attached a recording of the prayer as well: Morning Gratitude Prayer

  

I say good morning Creator; thank you for being. Thank you listening. Thank you for hearing me.  A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning Mother Earth; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning to the East; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful

.

I say good morning to the South; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning to the West; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning to the North; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning to all my relations, (the standing people, the two legged and four legged relatives, the winged and finned ones, the creeping crawling creatures, the rock and mineral people and all the elementals, and the celestial beings) thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.

I say good morning to my own being; thank you for being. Thank You for listening.  Thank you for hearing me. A million, million times thank you.  Your being allows my being and I am grateful.**

**A colleague of mine uses this prayer and adding gratitude to the ancestors for hearing and listening as well.  Thank You, Vicki for sharing your wisdom.

Self Reflection:  Praying the Morning Gratitude Prayer

The Gifts of Hear Truth

When we practice listening with the whole of our being, after a time, these are the gifts we receive:
Patience,
Intuition,
Tolerance,
Guidance,
Wisdom,
Humble knowing.
An awareness of being wholly loved.
The awareness we can can wholly love as well.
An ability to offer comfort
An ability to be with the sorrow and suffering of the other
An ability to share another's joy and triumph with humility and grace
Awareness of our path forward
and directions for our path.

Self Reflection: What directions for my path forward am I hearing?

Listening for the Truth of Wisdom

In the Waning Moon to Hear Truth, what is it we are listening for?

We are listening for the voice of the Mother, Earth;

the voice of Source, Creator, Divine One.

We are listening for wisdom, guidance, knowing.

We are listening for the way in which our inner knowing (which seems to come from our heart) hears and meets the wisdom and knowing of the universe.

Once you have experienced this coming together of knowing you will recognize this kind of listening when it happens.  You begin to long for it, and the practicing becomes easier.

You feel, finally, as if you are home--because you are.

Self Reflection: How does my inner knowing hear and meet Wisdom?

Practice Listening With the Whole of Your Being

How do we listen with the whole of our being?

Whole being listening is an intentional practice.
First be still in a posture of attention, all senses alert, yet relaxed.
Steady in our stillness, aware in our body, true listening begins to make itself known to us.
A likely first reaction is impatience, our body becoming restless; the quiet is uncomfortable.
Some will hear a pulsing in their ears; some will be distracted by the sound of their breathe.
Some will doze off, impatience overcome by fatigue (or distracted boredom).
Begin again, stay the course, the payoff is worth it.
Overtime, your presence with this way of listening will become comfortable and sustainable.
The ability to hear in this 'remembered' way may take a few days or nights of practice, or it may take weeks, maybe longer. The timing for receiving the gift of whole being listening is not up to us.
It is worth the wait, worth the practice.

Self Reflection:  What is my awareness of how I listen with the whole of my being?

Hearing the Vibration of Truth

Carolyn Shares: I have a deaf friend who hears better than anyone I know. He explained it to me in the only way I, as a 'hearing' person, could understand:  he 'hears' through his acute awareness of very subtle vibrations. He is feeling the sound waves with his whole being. He tells me he is rarely wrong in assessing the nuance of what he 'hears'. In nature, this very subtle and powerful ability to interpret the subtle vibrations and respond is naturally present--even those parts of nature that don't have 'ears' (check out Can plants hear?).  Perhaps us human beings who have the gift of hearing with our ears could learn to 'hear' this way as well.  If we did, would our words be in more alignment with our truth? Would we hear without so much mental interpretation?

Self-reflection: I let down the barriers of my preconceived beliefs to 'hear' the vibrations of Creator's creation washing over me--I see, I hear, I smell, I taste, I feel; my body tells me truth.

More on Becoming Receptive to Hearing Truth

How to become present enough to Hear Truth in the world:
Show-up,
Listen to what is being asked of you,
Ask for more input, more wisdom, more guidance.
Truth is always available to those who are willing to listen-long enough.

Humble asking along the way of the path of intentional listening reveals more truth in everything else. Oddly enough (or maybe not odd at all) especially to what is seen.

Self Reflection:  I listen to what is being asked of me.

On Becoming Receptive to Hearing the Truth of the Universe (as spoken through a million different voices)

What does it take to become receptive to hearing the truth of Universe spoken through a million different voices?

The waning phase of the May moon cycle enlists us to really listen. This listening is not only to the voice of others human beings, but to other sounds that come to us from our expansive universe. The sounds of animals, insects and birds; their songs, and cries effect us, perhaps awakening a memory, bringing us joy, stirring compassion, instilling fear.  The sound of the world humming, whizzing, crashing, grinding, ringing--an infinite number of words for the kinds of sounds that come to us from our world-all inviting us to respond in certain, usually preconceived, ways.  The natural world,too brings her own sounds for us to hear: the rushing of water over rocks in a river, the rhythm of waves on the shore, the wind rustling the leaves of trees or whistling through the screen of my open window, the thunder of a summer storm.

All these different voices in our universe enter into our consciousness, mixing with our experiences, memories, beliefs, and dreams. How can we be assured we interpret them accurately? How can we know what is the Truth of each?

Receptive hearing (really listening) requires the use of all of our senses. Perhaps that is why in the Truth Cycles, the first five cycles of each  year, teach us consciousness of each of our five body senses-touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. Through our growing awareness of each, we become more conscious of our universe and our place and role in it.  Awareness is a first, necessary step.


Self Reflection:  Practice listening with all your senses.  Notice how different the information you receive is with this practice of 'receptive hearing'.

Fine Tuning Our Listening and Not Multitasking

Patience, commitment and discipline are what is needed to fine tune our auditory skills.
Listen in stillness, listen in silence, listen in vulnerability, in open-heartedness.

Real listening takes time. We can not listen while multitasking. When I was a girl I would work in the kitchen with my mother.  I would often help her prepare the family dinner. It was a good time to talk. One thing I remember is that when I was talking she would often stop peeling potatoes or chopping onions and turn toward me to listen. At those times, I knew I was  heard; one of the gifts my mother passed to me, how to listen.

Self Reflection: I will practice patience, commitment, and discipline in my listening.

The Mockingbird's Song: A Full Moon Parable About Listening to Your Soul

                Just before dawn, I heard cardinal song outside my window.  The clear trill was coming from the trees surrounding the pool.  I pictured the red bird in the rain-wet trees, on this unusually cool Texas May morning.  But the bird appearing in my mind’s eye was not a cardinal.  It was my familiar friend, the mockingbird.

                My scientist’s brain went into testing and verification mode:  Indeed, we have many more mockingbirds than cardinals in the poolside landscape.  There is one particularly vocal fellow who frequents the tree outside my bedroom window.  And as I listened, I heard other types of bird songs coming from the same apparent spot.   I concluded: Indeed, it must have been a mockingbird.

                I couldn’t help but wonder how I knew, before thinking it out, that the song I heard was an imitation of the real cardinal’s song.  I bet if I heard a recording of the two, I could not discern a difference.  Even real birds are sometimes fooled by the mockingbird’s song.  Yet, intuition gave me a clear knowing.  The same knowing took my mind a while to reach.

                The voice that directs my actions and decisions is a lot like this morning’s bird songs. 

                My ego, my small self, is a mockingbird.  It sings songs that help me to establish and defend my “territory” (who I think I am).  But in Reality, those songs are only reflections, projections and imitations.  They serve a temporary purpose, but do not reveal who I am at my core, nor help me fulfill my real mission in life.   When I listen to the voice of my small self, at best, I am listening to an echo of the Truth.  That voice may even direct me toward actions that are helpful and generous.  But in the end, such actions frequently leave me feeling empty, exhausted or used.

                Through the Grace of intuition, or through the conscious humility of setting aside my own small-self-will, I can hear the voice of my larger Self.  This Self lives in communion with all of creation, and maintains a connection to the eternal force I often think of as God.  Actions taken at the urging of this voice have a different energy than those directed by the small self.  This is true even when the actions are externally indistinguishable from those fueled by the ego.  Coming from a place of infinite connection and love, I am energized, not depleted.  Even when I inevitably fail to perform perfectly, these actions create good.

                The mockingbird sang to me an important message today.  My mind, my knowledge, can lead me down some false roads.  By opening to intuition and by practicing listening to my soul, I will be directed in the Right direction.  I will move toward wholeness.

Self Reflection:  On this full moon I take time to listen to my soul.

Prayer to Hear Truth.

Creator of All That Is; let me hear the vastness of your truth that I may step out of my own small self-sheltering world and into my true life.  Let me hear the truth of Divine Guidance rather than the voices fear and ego have contrived as my reality.  Help me become a listener for wisdom and guidance and the much bigger life that awaits when I embrace Truth in all her forms.

Self Relfection: What is my prayer to hear truth?

Contemplation Tunes our Ears to Truth

Sometimes we must listen for a long time to hear the Truth, as if we are listening to the din of a crowd, straining to hear one pure voice.  Through the practice of contemplation, we train our ears to hear the perfect pitch that is Truth. Like a piano tuner, a choir master or orchestra conductor we listen for the sound of resonance and to what is out of tune with Truth. We come to hear the difference.

Self Relfection: Contemplation helps me hear through the din when my own mind is cluttered, static, out of tune.

Listening is Love

"Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable." David Augsberger

Listening is a gift that is always available to be given.
Listen beyond your small self, deeper than your impressions and judgments.
Suspend yourself and listen wholly.
Listen to the soul-speak of the other.
Listen with your body, your whole perception.
Indeed, make love with your awareness.

Just being heard in this way is healing, and is often the only help someone wants from us. In listening deeply we are also gifted. For when we listen fully to another, we are also most able to hear the voice of our deepest wisdom from within ourselves.

Self Reflection: What is my experience when I consciously listen to others?

Coming to Trust One's Soul and Inner Voice

Carolyn shares:  My soul and my inner voice are in conversation.

I listen, as if an outsider, trying to pick up on the gist of the conversation, 

without them knowing I am eavesdropping.

I can tell they are talking about me and I don't want them to stop.

I sense that if I listen carefully there is something I might come to know,

Something vital or critical that would help me on my path.

I do learn something:

Soul doesn't quite trust inner voice--too many years of outside influence make it difficult to know what's truth and what's distortion.

Inner voice thinks soul speaks in code and feels frustrated--she might fail to make the 'right' interpretation.

Soul doesn't feel safe in making her needs known--she speaks in guarded, yet imploring whispers-"let me grow! Let me grow!"

Inner Voice, ever more claiming her own essence can hear soul's call.  

Over time she has sorted out her truth from fears 

and the external directives of what she should think and say. 

She answers as best as she is currently able.

She asks her soul for clarification, more information, deeper connection.

Self Reflection: Over time I will come to know I can trust  my soul and my inner voice.

Listening to Self First

May moon cycle invites us to listen to ourselves first-our inner voice. Is our inner voice whiny, seductive, open-hearted or compassionate? Does it change depending on who we are speaking to? 

Learn to listen from the metaphor of a ‘blank slate’. The color of the may moon is obsidian or deep black, in this blackness, there is no influence to what we hear-other than ourselves. 

The Celtic medicine wheel for the season of Spring invites us to have compassion for ourselves during this third cycle of spring.  Only with compassion can we know how to really hear ourselves above all the din and distraction of ruminating thoughts, worries, unfounded fears, etc.  All this takes practice, and having enough compassion for ourselves to keep recommitting to the practice of listening. 

Self Reflection: I take time to listen to myself first, listening until I enter the space of an open 'blank slate'. Only then am I in a wise place to listen  to others. 

The Art of Listening

I listen to myself:  What is
it that I am REALLY saying? ...to myself? ...to others? 

I listen to what is really being said. 

I listen to my intuition. 

I listen to my conscience, to the voice of the Divine. 

I listen for the real NEED underneath the WANT from myself, 

and from those with who I am in relationship. 

Am I willing to listen?



Am I willing to hear, and am I willing to take action on what I
hear? 

What are others are saying? There are so many levels of
communication. 




Self Reflection: Can I discern the differences in the voices of my ego, my
spiritual essence and Divine voice? What would I need to change in my life to develop the skill of

discernment and use it in my abilities to listen?  

Stay Present; Hear Truth

What do I hear when I listen?

Whose voices call to me in the stillness?

I will hear the voices inside my head.

I will learn to discern the source:  

My own wisdom, hard earned, speaks to me.

She reminds me of the lessons of my past, the vision for my future.

She nudges me to stay in the present moment, which is the only way my human ears can hear Truth.

And, I might also hear the  voice of my fears and worries. 

There is distinct quality to these words. 

Fear has a distinct sound.  

It seems to pull at me, a warning bell that does not ring true.

Self Reflection: Staying in the present moment, I hear and discern Truth.

Listening for the Wisdom of the Ancestors

I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
"Listen, listen!" they say, "Listen, listen! Listen! Listen!
May the rivers all run clear.
May the mountains be unspoiled.
May the air be clean.
May the trees grow tall.
May the earth be loved by all."

I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
"Listen, listen!" they say, "Listen, listen! Listen! Listen!
May the rivers all run clear.tening
May the mountains be unspoiled.
May the air be clean.
May the trees grow tall.
May the earth be shared by all."

I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
"Listen, listen!" they say, "Listen, listen! Listen! Listen!
May the rivers all run clear.
May the mountains be unspoiled.
May the air be clean.
May the trees grow tall.
May the earth be loved by all."

I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
I hear the voices of my ancestors calling me.
"Listen, listen!" they say, "Listen, listen! Listen! Listen!
May the rivers all run clear.
May the mountains be unspoiled.
May the air be clean.
May the trees grow tall.
May the earth be shared by all."*

* Carolyn heard this song shared in ceremony following a vision quest.

Ancestor's Song

Self Reflection:  Take time to hear the voice of the ancestors-simply by listening to the Ancestor's Song

The Audible Voice of Creator

I learn to love the stillness Stillness becomes a caress from Creator. I feel Creator's presence surrounding me in the stillness, Carressing all of me, body and soul. The voice of the Divine enters through my ears and heart. I hear Her speak in decibels not heard in the ordinary range. Creator's range of Truth is infinite. Far beyond what my human ears could ever comprehend. AND YET, this is the miracle: that still,small voice of Wisdom becomes audible when I listen.

Self Reflection: The still small voice is loud and clear!