Page 182 - Dark Matter Women Witnessing

Andrea Mathieson

Listening for the Long Song

For all things
sing you

at times we just hear them more clearly.

-Rilke

“To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by

what we hear.”

Mark Nepo

I want to share some of my experiences of kinship with Life as I’ve listened for what Clarissa

Pinkola Estes calls ‘the river beneath the river’ — the pulsing sounds within silence and the

whispered secrets longing to surface. I call this “yin-listening,” an ability we are all born with

but are rarely encouraged how to develop. While our culture values mental accomplishments,

material success and power, yin- listening is rooted in the vulnerability of an open-hearted,

reciprocal intimacy. Ever since a series of personal disasters unraveled my life in 1990, my

intuitive listening has drawn me steadily deeper into this deeper river through many

conversations with plants, stones, trees, and animal spirits.

Before energy manifests as form it lives as a frequency, a vibrating song within a womb of

silence. We all have an innate capacity to perceive a far wider range of frequencies than we

generally engage but most of us have lost our ability to hear the subtle sounds of the Earth and

the voices of all her creatures. This collective deafness reinforces the belief that the Earth is

mute. It also compromises our ability to gracefully coordinate with Life on this planet. It is my

belief that this quality of intimate listening is essential for wisely navigating the tremendous

environmental challenges we are now facing.