Beloveds,
I am writing to you at the end of January, in the middle of a Colorado winter. I have been captivated by stillness, communing with Nature Herself in mid-January, embodied through the deep freeze. River frozen, lake frozen, landscape frozen. Trees quiet. Animals quiet. Birds still sing when the sun shines!
To follow Nature’s cycles is to be humbled. She will expose human hubris every damn time. And boy, do we humans, in our excessive self-confidence, act as if our actions are beyond Nature and that we are in control. Anyone in the flood zone or the path of the wildfire will assure you, we are not.
Deep breath. Let us invoke together a deep listening. Because underneath these words, underneath the headlines, or the news reels delivered through our social media channels, don’t we yearn, really yearn, for peace, clarity, and understanding cultivated in connection?These are deeply human needs.
You might wonder, “What does she mean by ‘deep listening’?”
Deep listening is listening with our other senses, not simply with the ears. As I tell you a story, you listen with your ears. But as I invoke images you ‘see.’ As I invoke emotions you ‘feel.’ Through your five organs of perception, without actually seeing, tasting, smelling, touching, only through hearing, you have the ability to perceive. This is deep listening.
And it may come as a shock, but you have other, additional, super-sensory organs of perception – some physiological, and others spiritual and energetic. In this way, certain wisdom traditions hold that we have as many as 12 senses. For example, in addition to our “five senses,” Rudolf Steiner taught that we have:
- The sense of warmth. The easiest way I can explain this, is beyond touch (hot/cold), we describe other humans as, say, “she is cold as ice,” or, “he exudes warmth of heart.” We can ‘feel’ a person’s warmth or cool demeanor from a distance. Their internal body temperature is the same as ours, on average 98.6 degrees. This sense of warmth is deeper and goes beyond the sense of touch, of hot and cold. We can cultivate inner-warmth, emotional warmth, through clothing ourselves in warm, natural layers, and choosing warm, cooked foods. When we ourselves are nourished and warm, we are more inclined to be caring and curious about others’ needs. The sense of warmth cultivates connection and is a bridge to higher states of perception.
- The sense of thought. In 2019, researchers in Australia published an article in Nature, revealing that our brains hold visual patterns which influence and predict our conscious decisions up to 11 seconds before we are conscious of making choices. The ‘sense’ of thought allows you to trace and understand original pattern processing, the thoughts that live beyond thought. A deep contemplation of the ‘sense of thought’ may help break patterns of rumination, inflexible thinking, and perseveration. Trace a thought to its roots, reorganize it, and process it, to be free of its debilitating control. This is the goal of somatic therapy, to follow where in the body your thoughts and emotions live, to bring them to the surface and process them, liberating you from acting out of painful, stuck, or buried emotions. In this way, the sense of thought also helps us to understand one another, to conceptualize together, from a place of self-awareness and self-knowledge. Not only does it influence our internal thought landscape, but it also allows us to more deeply connect with others.
- The sense of the Word. Do you sense that what you say becomes your reality? This is sacred magic, the sense of the Word. Motivational speakers like Tony Robbins use the sense of the Word. Anyone who makes meaning from the sounds of the words spoken to them is using their sense of the word, the sense of speech. The sense of the Word is a sense beyond mere hearing. It is meaning-making. It is magic-making. It is spell-casting. It is the Word becoming.
- The senses of movement and balance. Consider walking. Do you think through putting one foot in front of the other? Do you manage your sense of balance by feeling your way through the sense of touch? No – these senses are formed long before we mastered walking. The senses of movement and balance live in our body, in the vestibular system of the inner ear, and in the coordination of muscle, bone, ligament, tendon and joint, each covered by the intelligence of the fascia.
- The sense of the I in the Other. When I was about 4 or 5 years old, watching my little brother play, I was keenly struck by my own sense of I, that I was Heather and he was John, and that he was his own being, outside of my perception of him. He had his own inner I (and yes, I thought these things as a child!). The sense of the I in the Other is an understanding of our own ego, and that of others. When well-developed it gives us the power of empathy and can be cultivated for the good – or repressed and suppressed for selfish pursuit.
- The sense of Life. This is what we can refer to in any vague feeling or fear that we need more vitality – life force. When we are injured or ill we contact our sense of life directly, and if we listen closely, we are guided to what needs correcting in order to heal. We seek medical, holistic, emotional and, ideally, spiritual support to regain our strength and health. This can also be referred to as our “6th sense” or “gut feeling.” You may know someone in your family or community who presciently knew they were going to die before they did. This is the sense of Life.
With this foundational primer on the 12 senses, let’s listen deeper at this quiet time of the year together.
It is deep winter, imagine yourself by the fire. Let me tell you a story.
Not long ago, I attended tea ceremony with a dear colleague and friend of mine, Heather Marie, who has made the Way of Tea, Cha Dao, a ceremonial offering in our community. Her tea ceremony invites me into deep stillness and quiet listening.
The floor of her cozy tearoom is covered by a woolen rug. Warm wood accents and a simple low table are the only furnishings. Her pottery is simple, earthy, and striking. Her heavy kettles are matte cast iron, heavy, substantial. She boils the water over an open flame. Every motion, each act of serving tea, is a quiet dance, filled with meaning and metaphor.
We sit quietly, after she pulls the kettle from the flame. We wait. There is a sense of timing, aligned with right temperature. The sense of warmth from the kettle, for the water to be poured over tea leaves, and to steep the tea for that “just right” amount of time.
There is no rush, no keeping of time. Rather, that room becomes timeless. We merge with time.
In the stillness, the silence is broken only by the swish of the fabric of her simple robe, by the gentle sound of water filling the drinking bowls, creating spirals of steam rising. Each bowl, a chawan, feels earthy and round in my hand. Each sip of tea brings to mind nourishment, the strength of the mountain where the sacred tea grows, as small shrubs or large trees, or where flowers bloom, harvested in reverence on the mountain of medicine and sun dried for this cup of tea. Tea leaves bloom and settle to the bottom of the chawan, and I read signs and symbols. Kelp beds, deep ocean, deep earth, snake medicine.
We mark the turning of the wheel of time, the year of the wood snake, in Tibetan and Chinese new year celebrations.
Across the wood table is a beautiful raw edged traditional cloth, indigo and white, and in this stillness, its images imprint their subtle messages. Sunbursts remind me of the wheel of time and the wheel of the sun honored by my ancient ancestors, pulled in carts or by horse drawn chariot through the sky, through the forest, the meadows and through villages. There, the symbol of wellbeing. Another, the cannabis leaf, panacea of medicine, favorite of Shiva, known in Sanskrit as Bhanga or Vijayā – victorious.
Tomorrow, January 29th, is also the new moon. This new moon is particularly potent and powerful for cultivating the higher senses beyond the first five (sight, hearing, smelling, taste, touch). This new moon occurs in the lunar house or nakshatra of Shravana, also called the star of listening. In order to listen, we must silence ourselves. Tomorrow is a powerful day to cultivate silence, both inner and outer silence, that we may hear what is beyond words.
And we approach the ancient festival time of Imbolc, the first stirrings from deep earth, of life’s return. Can you feel Her, in expectant waiting? For the lifeforce that explodes to the surface in spring? Today she is quiet, sleeping, gathering her strength and renewing vitality. On Imbolc, she stirs and we sing, quietly, coaxing and encouraging our life force to renew alongside hers.
Set some time aside over the next few days, to retreat into silence and to slow down. Don’t overthink it. Even five minutes can change the course of your life. That’s all it took, for me, and that’s another story for another time. Drop me a note, if you want to hear it.
In closing, I’ll ask: are you in need of DEEP personal and intimate retreat, time to just be and breathe, in silence or bathed in sacred sound, a long, long, pause, and the deep listening required to reset your nervous system? Can you feel that you’ve pushed yourself for too long, too hard? Are you ready to face the hard truths of who you are and why you’re where you are, why you are here, at this time on the planet — all while being held, cradled really, in loving embrace and with deep, sacred medicine? Reach out. I offer in-person retreats with two practitioners in an intimate setting in Boulder, CO. We have only a couple of weeks available in the healing suite, to conduct deep and emergent magic with and for you, in March and May. I am happy to help you find the perfect place to stay for your retreat.
Until our paths cross again, I am sending much love and many blessings,
Heather