How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.
~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Do you listen with your heart or with your head? If we could have felt what Horton was feeling in "Horton Hears a Who" - we would surely have experienced doubt - our reality threatened by the preposterous notion that a voice lower than a whisper was speaking to us from outside of our physical bodies. But Horton, being a brilliant imaginary character from the world of Dr. Seuss...listened with his heart and not his head.
We are not imaginary creatures (or at least I hope we aren't), we are human beings doing what humans do more often than not...for most of us that's listening with our heads. For listening with our hearts to the voices that speak from not only outside of our physical beings but to the voices that speak from deep within us requires us to utilize a very underestimated but extremely valuable skill of quieting our own incessant roaring minds. In the quiet stillness of our hearts is a reservoir of light and love that once tapped will spring forth an abundance of compassion that will envelope us with a radiance so bright that we can never forget it and we will call for it in those moments of humanness...those inevitable moments of darkness.
Listening with our hearts may very well be an act of Grace! For to do so we must forgo our own agendas and stop hearing only the words of another. Simply this means we don't have an answer ready after a person says three words to us. Listening with your heart is about listening to the whole person - what the other is saying - MIND, BODY and SOUL. Listening to the voices that tug and pull from within require the same diligence. Meditation is about listening ...for when you still your body long enough your mind will surely follow. Are you listening...really?
