Archive for December, 2008

I have a website that pertains to the value of the individual–not as a potential convert or client for religions or cults–but as the source of something sacred, creative, and NEW, for the person as well as her community.

Ed’s unique method of conscious conversation allows for this “seed within the other” to be nourished by the effective listener.  the website is about the interiority of the person, as personified in the mystical traditions of the Western religions as Sophia, the divine feminine:

www.sophiaandthedragon.com Kathleen Damiani

During a long car ride, I was listening to a conversation between two friends. The speaker, a person who is almost always quiet and laid back, starting screaming and ranting about her sister.  It was the loudest, most uncensored voice I’d ever heard her use.  She was furious.  I thought to myself, Wow, great opportunity to listen and find out what all the anger was about and maybe clear up an issue that I knew has been bothering her for quite awhile.

Before I could start listening, the speaker’s friend began responding with many of the 14 reactions.  In my opinion, her goal was to get her friend quiet and rational, to move her toward problem solving.  That is always what this speaker’s friends do with her, and always, as evidenced here, the problem does not go away long-term.  The friends’ non-listening  “works,” temporarily as it did here — she calmed down almost immediately and then headed in the direction her friend was taking her, agreeing to have a direct conversation with her sister.

The point of this blog comment:  When they were done, I suggested that listening would have been a better option during the tirade than the logic that was used.  Both defended the process they used:  “We’re friends and we have a special rapport for our communication,” “You don’t always have to listen.” etc.  Those kinds of comments imply that the the non-listening friend consciously chose not to listen in the conversation, and that the speaker was aware that she was not being listened to.  My observation was that neither was true.  The non-listening friend did not say to herself, Well, I could listen here but I don’t think that would work very well in this case. That would have been fine.  There are many reasons to choose not to listen.  That is not the issue.  The issue is that we need to acknowledge our unconsiousness in order to begin being more conscious.  That’s the first step.

Ed

Had some ideas about listening over the weekend:  the necessity of it, as we enter a time in history when conventional religions and institutional frameworks may not be able to provide either security or coherence about human life, death and how we are to live.  We’re in a time where things-as-we-knew-them are disappearing.  Our world is being undermined due to economic, environmental and ethical collapse.  Atrocities, war, genocide have metastasized over the planet.

Exoteric, fundamentalist and dogmatic religions offer people a sense of security through belief systems and community.  But what happens when religions become corrupted by hatred, literalism, exclusion, or scandal?  Then we realize that they are MAN-made.  The bible and all the holy books are written by men, then interpreted for the next thousand years by a host of other men, each with their own agenda and choice of meanings in translations.  Religious leaders–those priests & preachers who mediate between the person and their god–presume to know what, by definition, is impossible and fruitless to know; i.e., the term “god” if it means creator or supreme being, is beyond our descriptions and concepts.

Here’s my question:  Can we turn to each other and see the “god” within the other instead of somewhere out there?  As things collapse, so will the religions and their institutional clones.  What does that leave us with?  Only each other.  But, how can we benefit from, and connect with, each other so that ALL OF US thrive, and not just a few dominant ones?  I think the only way is through listening, the kind Ed teaches:  a listening that is NOT just paying attention so I can feed it back, but a “you” (other) focus that censors my own reaction.  The kind of listening that Ed stresses delves into deeper & deeper levels of the speaker, to help her discover her inner vision, or that “longing of the heart” for something nobler, more compassionate and creative.  This deeper dimension of the speaker, when expressed, is a gift that benefits not only her, but the listener and the community.

Kathleen