MOCKINGBIRDS by Mary Oliver

Contributor: Shashank Kalra

Recently at our first Acumen seminar,  we together brought ourselves to listen with our whole bodies, listen with curiosity and keep judgement aside. We tried, made mistakes, judgement did come in, but we stood up again. We listened. Somebody wise has said Listening is an act of love and attention is the purest form of generosity. We loved and we were loved. It was healing. 

All the time, we are living in an interplay of relationships in the family, at work, in society, in our communities, through media etc. And we are called to continuously do something, be someone. Sometimes help a friend, sometimes give an impeccable presentation of our innovative idea, sometimes manage people to meet certain objectives, sometimes express how attached we are to our family member and so on. 

In our little experience at Youth Alliance and as people, we have come to understand that sometimes there's nothing to be done, but listen. It is healing when we don't enter into a conversation to give advice or speak our mind; but quieten our mind and just be and listen with our whole consciousness. One of our mentors says, when we give advice we reduce the vast complexity of that individual's life into just a statement s/he shared. 

In the whole development landscape, a lot of us (who are privileged in a sense) are aroused with sympathy to help those in need. With a noble intention, we go to solve their problems. We do end up doing something about it, but whether it was needed by that community? From our perspective, yes. But if you look at it from another perspective, may be not. Then how do we do anything to create a better world? I feel listening shows the way. 

• Can we just offer ourselves to listen to the voices, to the stories of the marginalized?
• Can we pay attention to the richness of human life, that they represent? 
• Can we be on the same side and together do something about the challenges, if at all something is to be done?

I feel there's empathy in that, there is love. 

Jacqueline shared this beautiful poem on listening with us at Acumen seminar. It resonated with me deeply.  

MOCKINGBIRDS 
by Mary Oliver

This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons of their songs into the air.
I had nothing
better to do than listen. I mean this seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago, an old couple opened their door
to two strangers who were,
it soon appeared, not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story-- how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness to be attentive--
but for this alone the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding, bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished, clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be this morning-- whatever it was I said
I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field-- I was hurrying
through my own soul, opening its dark doors-- I was leaning out;
I was listening.