Ecouter c’est la capacité d’exister sans faire.
Listening is the capacity to exist without doing. Still, the slightest breath of air will create ripples on the surface of water. Ripples that, if one listens to carefully, reveal much about the depth, breadth and ease of one’s breathing. Since it is impossible to live without breathing, it is also impossible not to be affected by but also not to affect, what is surrounding us.
Breathe in water and you shall see yourself.
The fact that we are constantly affecting what is surrounding us happens in and out of water of course, but, water serves as a medium for amplified observation, verification, and realisation of our symbiotic existence.Water gives substance to the energies that usually exist as thin air on land.
When the whole body is submerged in water the energetic body is also submerged making subtle energy fields more tangible and distinguishable than before. Apart from the obvious advantages this contains for therapeutic purposes an important consideration emerges when listening to water in such a way.
It becomes impossible to ‘cheat’ in water.
It becomes impossible to cheat in water because there is no longer any doubt. I cannot hide from myself or my fear. I cannot misinterpret it, avoid it or talk it out of the way. It is simply there on the surface of the water creating resistance, turbulence, ripples that talk of that which created them.
When part of an exchange in water this becomes as true for the giver as it does for the receiver.
Water communicates all that is being said even if it is not spoken. I cannot hide my morning’s stress, my yesterday’s anger, my tomorrow’s anxiety when in water. At deep levels of silent communication when my breath has become one with the water a single thought a single wave length of energy will create ripples in the water around me.
Becoming invisibly present takes on a whole new meaning in water.
This language simply surfaces and is evident to those who wish to see and feel. It is evident, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Interpreting, however, what is being communicated through water is seldom necessary. Most mental functions have usually shut down by this stage anyway. It is the act of witnessing that becomes a precious gift in this aqueous environment. Witnessing allows for simply being without interpreting, without judging, without fixing, without changing.
Listening then becomes an act of being without doing.
It allows another to exist in their entirety without fear, without hiding, without containing. I don’t believe it a coincidence that ears and water have a delicate relationship. That often ear related problems arise when practicing in water. I am more and more inclined to see it as a healing process, a passage that takes us into our deeper listening capacities.
Listening can become a state of receiving that goes as deep as the recesses of the feminine wisdom within us all.
The more I listen the less I remains.