Ya gotta stop.
Ya gotta listen.
Ya gotta learn.
And ya gotta be ready and willing to act on what you hear and learn.
That’s where I am, right now, at age 45 (going on 46).
By listening, I don’t just mean to what people say, though that’s part of it. I mean to the messages we get from the world around us, and to the little voices, inklings and notions that go through our heads all the time.
This may make me sound crazy, but think about it – of all the thoughts that run through your mind every day, how many do you really grasp, do you really pay attention to? And how many get dropped, like you’re someone who’s trying to carry too many things in from the car?
Now for the biggie: how many do you wish you had paid attention to?
The answer for me is, a lot.
Last summer, I was out jogging one day and there was a wounded crow on the track. He couldn’t fly, he just stood there as I ran by. Anyone who’s been around crows at all knows they don’t just stand there – if you get near them, they fly. When I stopped and walked over to the crow to see if I could tell what was wrong, I was divebombed by several others. I backed off.
I felt there were two things going on here. One was that this was a physically injured bird. The other was that maybe there was a message in it for me. I’d had instances before where huge flocks of loudly cawing crows presaged large events in my life. But this time, I didn’t stop to think about what the message might be. “It was just an injured bird,” part of me said, and I dismissed it.
Four days later, I tweaked my knee swinging a weighted softball bat and it didn’t get better over the winter. It required surgery in March, which seemed to correct the problem – so much so that I went out and overdid it too soon and made it sore again. The thought that made me go for that long, ill-advised walk was a concocted, preconceived idea that I could do it, rather than a knowing that comes from listening to the inklings that pop up.
The question I’m now asking myself is, where is each of these little things that run through my head coming from? Conditioning? Desires? Ego? Intuition? Guidance? Learning? Experience? Does it make sense in light of what I know?
The key seems to be getting into the habit of stopping once in awhile, of going slower. The faster you’re moving, the harder it is to read the signs.
Here at the office, we are being visited by what appears to be an injured young seagull. He has been standing and sitting in our courtyard, not flying when approached but rather scurrying away. A few days after his first appearance, an older dog being cared for by a friend and former co-worker of ours passed away. The next day, the seagull was back.
It could just be an injured bird. It could be that it means nothing. But if there’s something more there, only if we’re willing to stop and consider that possibility can we know what it might be.
Bill Sheets is editor of the Edmonds edition of The Enterprise.
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