Stand Still and Listen

As I pause to take in the surroundings, the crunch of my spikes on the icy trail gives way to the sound of my breath, then an awareness of my heartbeat. And then, a thrum from the frozen lake, as though someone has gently plucked a single string on a bass. When the ice is free of snow, the lake burps and groans and hums. But I couldn’t hear it until I stopped walking.

I have been listening and re-listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s All the Way to the River, the account of the trip she and her partner took with love, codependence, addiction, and recovery, and Gilbert’s ongoing efforts to maintain emotional sobriety. The aspect of the story that keeps pulling me back is Gilbert’s capacity to hear words spoken to her by God. I have no way of knowing if these communications come from the cosmic consciousness, Gilbert’s own deepest discerning intelligence (buddhi in yoga-speak), or her imagination, but it doesn’t matter, because when she gets quiet and listens interiorly, she gets good advice.

I have experienced what Quakerism calls “leadings” or “way opening,” when a path forward laid itself at my feet and made a decision easy to make. Yoga would describe this as being in tune with rtam, the flow of the universe, and you know it when you feel it, like drifting downstream on an easy current rather than struggling against it. If this is to be the closest I come to hearing the voice of God, it is enough. However, I am curious what it would be like to hear actual words or instructions whispered in my ear by the great I AM.

The only thing I know for sure is that I can’t force it, but it’s a good guess that I’ll increase my chances by quieting the babbling of my mind. When I meditate, I mentally repeat a mantra, so even though my mind is focused, it is not silent. The moment by the lake, when I stood still and the already-present murmurings of the ice broke through my awareness, gave me an idea of what it might feel like to suddenly perceive the still small voice of the Great Mystery. That sensation keeps on echoing.

“Perhaps/ The Truth depends on a walk around a lake” - Wallace Stevens, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”