When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness.

Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person.

That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and by others.

That which is hidden.

In this culture, the soul and the heart too often go homeless.

Listening creates a holy silence.

When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.

And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone.

Eventually, you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.

Rachel Naomi Remen

Could YOU use a good listening to?

Twice each month, I host a Virtual Changes gathering (by phone), that offers simply this – an opportunity to both listen and be listened to.  There’s never a fee.

You can get more information and a list of scheduled gatherings here.

I look forward to having you join us AND to listening!

Jennifer Louden recently addressed the idea of becoming “Skillfully Empathetic” – an especially challenging dilemma for those of us who are caregivers.    We have huge hearts, and often expect that somehow we must be able to care for everyone else in the world.

In the piece, Jen offered some really insightful perspectives related to boundary-setting, discernment and self-care–as part of her year-long experiment in “Savoring and Serving.” 

In addition, she shared a wonderful  exercise in creating “energy boundaries” from Hiroboga‘s How to Rule Your World. 

As I read through and experienced this luscious exercise (thanks to both of you – Jen and Hiroboga for making this available!), I was intrigued by how beautifully it might nurture the concept of “Self-In-Presence” that I teach as part of  Inner Relationship Focusing.   That is, perhaps becoming more skillful at sensing our boundaries at an energy-based level of  body-mind-spirit-oriented knowing would also help us better respond to whatever challenges life brings our way. 

For example, I often teach that we need only become “one breath larger” than our biggest fear to become “Self-in Presence.”  Now, with this lovely exercise,  once we can  become clearer about sensing, recognizing and even shifting ALL of our boundaries – whether it’s our “skin envelope”, our energy body or our energy field – it should be easier for us to become that one breath larger than our most anxious or fearful part.

I invite you to check out both Jen’s article and Hiroboga’s exercise at the end of the article.  Then, stop back here and let me know what you think, ok?

Perhaps what I meant to say, was how I love being able to pause, and be reminded of how my life is living itself forward – sometimes quite unknowingly – from a place of inner rightness that only reveals tiny portions of itself at any given moment.

For example, several months ago, I shared a drawing and a poem through which I had begun to explore the concept of 

I’m not alone – and it’s not all up to me.

as a means of discovering

a me that’s separate from my work.

Then, as the new year approached, I found myself choosing two themes to carry my living forward through the next 12 months – each of which I now realize flow seamlessly from that earlier piece.

In choosing the first – “exquisite sufficiency” – I’ve borrowed a bit from Buckminster Fuller as a means of more fully experiencing that elusive quality of “enough”.  [hmmm - re-reading that sentence, I realize how oxymoronic it is - to more fully experience enough.  Ah well, the hour is late, and the year is still young!]

And, as if that 1st theme didn’t promise me enough opportunity for growth, I discovered that a 2nd theme was also choosing ME – that of “community”.   Interestingly enough, I had created a mandala drawing (see below) on January 1 – and only a week or so ago realized that in that drawing,  I had already created a visual community.

 As the year progresses, you’ll be hearing lots more about the various levels of community-building here at ASK ME House.   For example, our Virtual Changes group continues to flourish and expand in scope, I’ve recently created a “Kitchen-Table-Circle of Allies“, started hosting a new Meetup group,  am developing a formal internship program and will be incorporating an online community component to stresswell™.

And, this morning, as I joined my roomful of spiritual journey companions in song, it all felt so wonderfully (and sufficiently) right!

We Would Be One [1] 

We would be one, as now we join in singing,
a song of love to pledge ourselves anew
to that high cause of greater understanding
of who we are, and what for us is true.
We would be one in searching for that meaning
which binds our hearts and guides us on our way.

A time of waiting — preparing a space
for gentle unfolding of new steps forward.

Not so easily shared in words – this new way ahead -
yet somewhere on awareness’ edge
an emerging knowing awakens to my presence.

Quietly hoping you’ll serve as witness
joining together with me
to meet and greet whatever comes alive.

© 2010 Mary Elaine Kiener

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An ASK ME poem for the ASK ME House.  I came across this poem in a book and thought you might like to see it since your house shares its title.  I hope you enjoy it and/or find it meaningful.

Ask Me by William Stafford

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

To:  ASK ME House (1027 Seymour)
Fr:  Anonymous (at least for now)
On this 27^th of October, 2006

Several years later, I still have not learned the identity of the person who left me this precious gift–the first in a series of annual “love notes” to the house that have been arriving every October 27.   [It took me a couple of years to actually note the connection between October 27 and the house's street address of "1027".   And, it wasn't until 2009 that there was any personal reference to me by name--where previously the sender had also noted that s/he "didn't even know who lived in the house."]

Each annual packet of goodies has included some reference to “ASK ME” – and yet I remain most intrigued by how accurate a glimpse the poem offers into the overall philosophy and foundations of what “ASK ME House” is truly all about……

I am filled daily with peace through this gentle reminder of the process by which I choose to live, with gratitude for having discovered the work of William Stafford, and with awe for the enigma of how the introduction took place.

Now–if I could just solve the mystery of who “Anonymous” is….!