listen

"You don't want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun"
-Mary Oliver

Slowly, I am learning that I do not have to give an answer just because one is expected, and certainly not because one is demanded. To hold silence in my hand, like the precious jewel it is, and to refuse to give it up to those louder than I, is a skill much like learning to sit with the wind and the sun. The earth has words for us, or rather stories if we would listen. Holding silence is often an act of defiance against the cacophony that tries to deafen our souls.