An article on listening came my way (and google sent me here for the original source)
“listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force… the friends that listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultra-violet rays…When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life… it makes people happy and free when they are listened to.. when we listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. we are constantly being recreated. Now, there are brilliant people who cannot listen much. They have no ingoing wires on their apparatus. They are entertaining, but exhausting, too.
… when someone has listened to you, you go home rested and lighthearted.
When people listen, creative waters flow.
Now this little creative fountain is in us all. It is the spirit, or the intelligence, or the imagination – whatever you want to call it. If you are very tired, strained, have no solitude, run too many errands, talk to too many people, drink too many cocktails, this little fountain is muddied over and covered with a lot of debris. The result is you stop living from the center, the creative fountain, and you live from the periphery, from externals. That is, you go along on mere willpower without imagination.
It is when people really listen to us, with quiet, fascinated attention, that the little fountain begins to work again, to accelerate in the most surprising way.”
when i read this article (that was given to me to share with parents) i was moved by thoughts of all of the angels in my own life who listen to me. i am an individual that heavily depends upon the gift of listening from others. i know that i create, grow, and evolve because of the loving, listening space that is held for me by those that i love and that in some way love me. i was excited to share this article with you… as a way of honoring the exchange of communication that involves expressing and receiving. listening and sharing. and then, when i googled brenda ueland and found the link to the art of listening , i was thrilled to see these words
“It is through this creative process
that we at once love and are loved”
more words from a journal of mine, first written in march of 1999 and evolving into may of 2001
i want to love and be loved.
i want to appreciate and be appreciated.
i want to know the strength of inner-happiness and to live by it Always.
next…
i LOVE and am LOVED
i INSPIRE and am INSPIRED
i KNOW the STRENGTH of TRUTH and Live from it ALWAYS.
and in different forms..
i love and am loved
i appreciate and am appreciated
i always am.
we love
we appreciate
we share
we inspire
we are
thanks to each of you for being a part of the we… for playing in this alternating current, and for keeping my little fountain working!