When I listen from inside the ‘circle of me’, what dominates that listening?

Let’s erase the circle. What happens to listening when the circle is erased? … We are still distinct, different, yet what is left that can separate you and me? Is listening different from here?

For me there was connection with, a realisation of listening through the body. When people spoke, what was felt through the body? What are these visceral responses teaching me, showing me, gifting me? What resonated?
This context of ‘listening through the body’ will be referred to visceral listening.

WORKSHOP
Big Sky Writers Festival 2024, QPT Foyer, Saturday, 12th October 2024.
As people entered the space, what was the feeling as we all (especially me) did what we were unconsciously compelled to do in this moment?
Ahh…. Compulsion was felt…of nervousness, wanting something, anxiousness, curiosity, suspicion, doubt, insecurity facing the unknown …. And I sat with all those feelings…because they were there, and through that, balance and ease were felt.
Theona/Nyirdi welcomed us all in language, with English translation.
Yaanaa. Ngutha inni Nyirdi. Welcome. My name is Nyirdi
Ngutha Naaguja muni I am a Naaguja woman
Ngatha ngaanung barnanggu. I am from this country.
And the visceral listening to language?……. The physical vibrations of this human voice in a way so unfamiliar, and yet very familiar. A resonance was felt. Language heard viscerally is very different from language heard from mind trying desperately to turn it into something meaningful ‘for me’. Can I gently put aside my conditioned thinking mind listening that wants to know and evaluate everything, to experience visceral listening? Just for a moment?

Oh….thinking mind listening is very noisy, (we are all way to familiar with that! LOL!!)…..
And visceral listening????
Oh……it’s very quiet…restful….there is ease….
Nyirdi (Theona) Spoke mainly to the thinking mind listening with her story of ‘Who I am and my journey’. Was the mind satisfied with this? Visceral listening recognised the needs of the thinking mind to do what it good at and balance returned.

Then, Nyirdi generously, invited us all into opportunity to experience language, as spoken by her people, her ancestors and this Country. Were we brave enough to enter, to step into a whole new unknown world?
With gentle humour Nyirdi led us through our thinking mind listening…..
What did she say? How do you say that again? Did I get it right?? Am I embarrassing myself? What are others saying? I’m so bad at this…
And underneath all that noise, what was the voice that visceral listening connecting to? ….
Oh…. There is linage, there are ancestors, there is continuity, there is place, there are and have been events, there are stories, all that have led to this existence now. And deep humility and gratitude is felt deep in the body.

Oh… And there are the human emotions of discomfort, hurt, resistance, defensiveness, being right, fear of being wrong, so much…And these are felt and go through the body.

Oh… and there is playfulness, light-hearted playfulness. Glorious!! Where the serious and not serious, the real and not real, the closed and the open touch each other and be each other… The exquisite beauty of balance is felt.

And to bring the introduction to a conclusion…. Yaanaa nyundu (you are welcome) … to be welcomed as I am.

We have learned to do introductions in our culture very differently. In our introductions we tend to speak about what we do, what we have, what we believe/don’t believe, our opinions, our goals, our achievements, our importance, our wealth, our occupation, and all that we have as something we possess. We use this current model of ‘success’ as a value system of worth and esteem and ‘respect’. And somehow it resonates with hollowness, pretence, and futile silliness. We seem to have lost the ability to speak honestly and openly to and from who we are. How did that come about? Was that always the case?

All this through paying close attention to the way I introduce who I am. The words I use to speak from and that I am speaking to what I am, nothing to hide behind, is honest, and now I am free to be with you freely, for we can now truly meet ….

And in that time, at WORKSHOP for Big Sky Writers Festival 2024, QPT Foyer, Saturday, 12th October 2024, we uncovered that together, and only together, we can freely sing, dance, celebrate (and laugh) in a new (for me) understanding of wholeness and circularity that has always existed.
…and yet some still stayed deeply tethered and defensive to their solo dance they have always done, convinced it is the right and only one. And that’s ok.

Ngaalija warranma bidurdu
We sing for the west-wind
Ngaalija kaanilgi barna
We dance for country
Ngaalija yaanaa thunbijee
We come to celebrate
Are we curious to rediscover our visceral listening? It is already here, it has always been here, waiting… Are we willing to give it our attention…Just for a moment…..?

Footnote 1:
helpful hint?

• not what ‘I feel’,
  but what feelings are here now, being felt and going through the body. What’s that? A question to be held with open curiosity.

Footnote 2:
For me this is constantly continuing and stronger connections and resonance to ancestors/continuance freely expanding and contracting; expanding contracting, expanding contracting. The body feels it then lets it pass through, feels it then lets it pass through, and it is done, complete and astonishingly nourishing.……and what I am is conscious of all that brings.