Did you know that November 26 is the National Day of Listening according to NPR’s Story Corps? Well, what better day to "practice" listening thanwith your seldom-seen family members, long-time-no-see-friends and your uncle’s 3rd cousin on your grand-father’s side?
When you listen unconditionally you may be able to hear the silences and the spaces between the words.

How about celebrating Thanksgiving Day by listening as described by Diane Ackerman, in her book
A Slender Thread (which deals with the developmentally challenged), which eloquently describes what "empowered listening" is:

"…it [listening] requires an athletic commitment with one’s whole attention. Listening is like auditory Braille that works like echolocation, a small
reconnoitering sound is sent out, a question perhaps-and one waits to hear what shape and form where it echoes back…Listening is not passive
the way one does during a lecture…Listening is not being distracted by personal thoughts, as one is in "normal" conversations, listening while
thinking about what to say next, to relate perhaps one’s own experiences.

Listening authentically, with one’s whole attention, one hears the words, the signs, the sniffling, the loud exhalations,
the one-beat-longer-than-normal pause before a difficult taboo subject or word, the distant recess of loneliness…as well as the many inanimate
things-ice tinkling in a glass, the television on in a nearby room, the traffic outside the window.

Perhaps it seems odd to be touching the lives of others and understanding their condition/story through sound…listening in this way
is what animals do; communicating over distances: whales, frogs, wolves, birds. Just as doctors auscultate by pressing their ear
to the patient’s chest…we press an ear…and listen for the heartbeat beneath the words.

The words are the surface of an ocean…they may sound like a squall, a doldrums, a typhoon…listen for the hidden currents below."

…And… maybe you’ll learn something! Happy ThanksListening!

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