Listening with the Eyes

Each morning, I make a sort of pilgrimage to the seashore. It began because I was thinking I must learn to begin the day without words. Just show up. Listen. True to my intention, I've walked myself down to the beach each morning for the last ten days, mug of coffee in hand, ready to greet the day and listen, "just" listen.

To my surprise, the beach I visit in the morning is different each day: radically different. The patterns here are like exquisite sand paintings, and they are sculpted by tide, wind, kelp, and the delicate footprints of deer and raccoon. One day, the waves are crashing and on the next day there is a lake-like calm. On a third day all the tide pools are exposed and I am walking through an underground garden that is normally hidden. On yet another day, a raven struts on the shore and croaks out a message I can almost understand in my half-awake state.

I had thought I would find "my spot" on the beach and return to it each day, and sit there in a sort of open-eyed meditation. Instead, I find myself exploring, drinking it all in with my eyes, recognizing that there are new stories to listen to from moment to moment, if I am just willing to listen. What amazes me is that all of world is talking this way, telling the most fascinating, magical and impossible stories, but I have listened with blinders on if I have listened at all.

I think there is a universe of life that we can be in constant dialogue with, if we are willing to let go of the need to shape our reality into a particular form, and simply listen with our eyes. This sort of listening doesn't interpret or add its likes or dislikes to what it sees. It "just listens." It receives the colors, the feel of sand and pebbles beneath the feet, the melodies of wind and wave, and it doesn't have any need to add to them or delete from them. It is an act of love to listen this way. It says "You are perfect just the way you are."

This practice is simple: open your eyes and receive what is there, exactly as it is. You do not need a beach. You can start in your own backyard. The world is inviting us onto the dance floor. How could we refuse?