Joy in what we do is not an added feature; it is a sign of deep health.

Who's to say the effort to be real isn't the beginning of wings?

The many ways to listen have been reaching into me for years. To enter deep listening, I've had to learn how to keep emptying and opening, how to keep beginning. I've had to lean into all I don't understand, accepting that I am changed by what I hear.

If I dare to hear you I will feel you like the sun And grow in your direction.

Intuitive listening requires us to still our minds until the beauty of things older than our minds can find us.

The paradox is that we have this amazing capacity in our minds and hearts to learn and gain insights and then to build a kind of personal storehouse of knowledge. The underside is that those insights harden and fill the spaces in our hearts and minds. They become assumptions, conclusions and judgments.

Before we can count we are taught to be grateful for what others do. As we are broken open by our experience, we begin to be grateful for what is, and if we live long enough and deep enough and authentically enough, gratitude becomes a way of life.