LISTENING
the key to receiving & creating
naomi rose, book developer & creative midwife
WRITING A BOOK YOU LOVE
DEPENDS ON LISTENING —
the key to receiving and creating
When we can listen deeply and receive what is here for us,
we can bring it into expression through attuned writing.
Listening is the sacred skill, the opener of the way, the key to a true writing voice.
“The mystery, the essence of all life is not separate from the silent openness of simple listening." — Toni Packer
“It is a wonderful thing to listen to yourself. When you listen to yourself, you write your own book.” — Sherif Baba
“When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.”―Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
The Connection Between Listening and Creating
listening is the secret ingredient of creating attuned writing
All that has been translated into a communicable form out of the ethers of potential has been listened into being. Whether the creator is aware of this or not, those pure, epiphany moments — those lightning flashes momentarily cracking open the dark night sky, or subtle whispers waking you in the night from sleep — are moments of deep listening.
Whether you want to write, or to paint, or to play an instrument, or to simply have a sweet and friendly access to the depths of yourself to live more fully and truly, listening is the master key that opens all the doors. When you can find your way through the inner noise, you can hear what's really there. And once you do, you are no longer enclosed in a little box of loneliness, hoping to write your way out. You are the whole listening field, sensing the music that bows to it.
To encourage your flowering, I share with you here some discoveries about and through listening: what listening really is, how one might go about it, where it most easily lives, ways in which it responds to your willing attention, and how its nature can show you your own.
THE SONORITY RATHER THAN THE MESSAGE
"What secret is at stake when one truly listens, that is, when one tries to capture or surprise the sonority rather than the message?" — Jean-Luc Nancy, Listening
When I was a little girl, little enough to lie in bed with my eyes closed and listen to my favorite records, I loved to hear the story of Muffin, a blind dog who made his way through the neighborhood by recognizing sounds. The vrooom! of a car driving past, then trailing off into the distance. Traffic lights, birds chattering, boys playing — each adventure became the all-and-everything through empathized sound. What Muffin heard gave him a place in his world.
And I, listening with closed eyes, saw a display of images and color through the opening of the story and the sounds themselves that became part of how I knew myself — this natural ability to listen deeply into sounds for the music and images and knowledge they gave.
What is that sound I hear? It is the trumpet of the morning. / It is the slowness of the dawn. / It is the power of the cricket, / Breaking night open with its song.
What is that sound I hear?
It is the river's rush on patient stones,
It is the heartbeat's thrum,
It is the calling of the soul
Bidding "Come, come, come.”
The ability to listen is ours from birth. Even in the womb, we are attuned to our mother's heartbeat, the tonality of her voice, sounds without verbal-meaning content from the world outside. As infants, we listen to the sounds of grownups talking, hearing cadences and tones without yet understanding words or meanings. What "spoke" to us was the music: the rise and fall of speech, the pitch and volume, the length or brevity of breath and the pauses in between.
Now we are adept at words and meanings. We have thoughts about thoughts about thoughts. But we may have forgotten how it was when we were simply listening. This is something we might benefit from getting back. How can we hear the spaces between the words, find the sounds and rhythms that open us to receiving what is being given from within?
"You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. . . . You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. It has a strange, beautiful texture." — Chaim Potok, The Chosen
REGAINING OUR BIRTHRIGHT THROUGH LISTENING
Children initially hear all the sounds within the sounds, all the music and discordances, all the spaces between the words. They're born with the capacity to speak any language on earth. Who we are now, what we have become — so much of this is the product of conditioning, including hearing-conditioning.
That's not bad in itself. But there's another level of our being that we gradually lose touch with, and that loss matters crucially. When it's forgotten altogether — recalled only dimly, like a snapshot from childhood when we gazed into the camera with infinite hope and trust — then our lives weigh on us. No amount of goals accomplished can make up for the loss of that eternal state of Belonging to Life.
Yet learning to hear consciously — to listen — can open a door into that set-aside inner world and unlock writing inspiration naturally and effortlessly. The ability to hear between the spaces, to receive the pitch and tonalities of each note, to hear music in virtually anything can unpack the conditioned life instantaneously, once we are tuned to it. It's a way of being that our deeper Self knows — that we knew before meanings were ascribed to things.
"Listening is its own reward; there are no prizes to be won, no contest of creative listening. But I hold that person fortunate who has the gift, for there are few pleasures in art greater than the secure sense that one can recognize beauty when one comes upon it." — Aaron Copland, Composer, Music and Imagination
A SHOWER OF INSPIRATION:
listening brings you to receiving
To regain the joy of listening, which will lead you straight to Being, drop a plumb line into the ocean of stillness by letting your ears take you there. There is always something to listen to — whether it's the sounds outside you or the sounds within you. Bringing your conscious attention to them will open up something fresh and clean inside you.
"The eyes grab, but the ears receive." — A naturopathic doctor of my acquaintance
When you get into the shower, your mind may be full of thoughts and plans. But what if you actually hear the music of the water droplets as they plink against the bathtub floor? Then music would instantly make its way back into your life. Now, you are right here. Your skin, head-to-toe, is available to receive the warm cascade. Your body opens its throat and accepts the song. From this place of listening, you can move into your day more confident that life will meet you well, because you are now able to receive it.
You can do this by listening to the pitch of a toilet flushing, the tonality of your car's ignition starting up. Really, almost any ordinary activity, when listened to, will open your receptivity. And this receptivity is essential for the kind of creating that feels natural and gift-bearing — the foundation of the intuitive writing process.
When you place your attention on sounds around you and really take them in — as if hearing them for the very first time — you bring yourself into the present moment with the same openness you had as a child. This connection to your early openness is not just a distant memory; it's a living experience, because that receptivity is your true nature.
Such listening may make you more musical. More importantly, it will bring you into relationship with the world in an inherently interested, joyful way. This is a glorious, and simple, place to write from.
"I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony." — Gustave Flaubert
LISTENING PRACTICES
YOU CAN PLAY WITH
WHEN WRITING
You don't have to go out of your way to find something to listen to. Once you are open to it, there's always something. You might try listening to the sounds of:
Your feet sliding along the carpet or floor
Shaking a container of salt
Your neck as you make a slow circle with your head
Dishes being placed in the cupboard
The garbage cans being picked up by the sanitation truck
The breeze moving through tree branches
Cows lowing, dogs barking, horses whinnying, grass growing, creek-water spilling over rocks (if you're in the country)
Your own breath
Your speaking voice: tonality, inflection, volume, pauses and silences between words
But what if you need support in that listening?
Sometimes this kind of deep listening is easier to access when we're not alone with it. When someone else is present to witness and support your listening — to help you hear what wants to emerge — the process can become even more spacious and clear.
This is much of what happens when writers and I work together: we listen together to what's seeking to come through you.
If you'd like to explore what wants to be written through your own deep listening, I'd love to have that conversation with you in a complimentary Gift Session — a full session with no strings attached. Many people find such clarity in our time together that they choose to continue, but there's no obligation. You can learn more about what's involved on my Gift Sessions page.
You can also learn more about how this listening-based approach works in my book, Starting Your Book, and on my Is This You? page.
Your deepest wisdom is already speaking.
It's simply waiting for you to listen.
the underlying message?
You can write the book of your heart if you can listen to what wants to be known through you. This is a practice that yields infinite benefits, including but also going well beyond writing a book.
To return to the main Deep Writing Resources page, click here.
