Have you ever considered the idea of taking time to listen as being a gift? If I could give you one gift this month it would be 'Time to Listen'. To your family. Your friends. The things around you. Nature. God. Yourself. As I have been thinking about 'Time to Listen', the theme I have chosen for this month's 'Gift of Time', several experiences have come to mind. I had a friend in high school who had a sibling who was born deaf. Sometime when she was in junior high she had a procedure done that allowed her some hearing ability. She had to learn what it was like to hear. She happened to be in one of my younger brother's classes one day when it was raining outside and the teachers made a point to help this girl go outside to listen to the rain-the first time she had ever heard such a sound. I remembered my brother telling me about it and thinking, wow. What would that be like to hear the rain when you have never heard it before? Do I appreciate small experiences like that? It seems like such a simple thing, it is such a simple thing, but do I take time to notice small events like this? Do I take time to listen to birds on a walk? The snow crunch in the winter? How wind blows through trees in the fall? How do these experiences of listening help to inspire us? Another story that comes to mind is a two part story. When I first traveled to Europe one of the countries I went to was Switzerland. There was a morning that I had some free time and I wanted to go take pictures. It started raining but I decided I didn't care so I put on my raincoat and put a plastic bag around my camera and left. I wandered the streets of the village we were staying in and just watched, listened, and took pictures of the rain. It was such a peaceful, calming experience. I remember wandering into a graveyard and looking over the mist in the mountains and everything seemed to speak to me of the culture, the people, the feeling of this little Switzerland town. As I thought about this experience, there were lots of other things I remembered about this trip that had to do with listening. I started this trip backpacking in the Alps and there were several times along the trails that we heard distant cowbells ringing through the silence of the mountains. The ways that the wind blew through the grasses in the high mountains also seemed to have a different sound to it as opposed to when the wind was blowing through the rocky ridges that we hiked through. The rushing of water was always a sound we looked forward to as we knew it meant a place to cool off on the journey. There were wildflowers everywhere and my friend and I kept singing the song 'Edelweiss' off and on as we hiked. I later found a music box that played that song which I purchased and brought home. I recently showed this music box to my girls and told them the story behind it and so many memories came back to me as the music box played its little tune. My point in telling these three stories is this. Listening to life is inspiring! The problem is that we live in such a loud world, a world where we think we constantly need headphones in our ears to distract us or to 'fill the void' and what might we be missing when we do that? There are times and places for good music or a podcast, yes, but when was the last time you experienced the sound of nature or just sat quietly to listen to the sounds around you?
We usually think that inspiration comes from what we see because it seems to be so obvious. But listening has brought me so much inspiration time and time again that pausing to remember that gift has allowed me even more inspiration. It is a 'Gift to Listen'.
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Oh Hey! it's me, AmyThese are stories about my art, experiences I've had in my career, and some other fun things. I will probably overshare, sometimes I can't help it. Enjoy! Archives
January 2025
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