The Power of Listening

It was ten thirty on a very hot, full moon night. The sky was completely clear except for a milky mist around the moon itself. All the stars were visible and the rich yet delicate scent of jasmine flowers permeated the warm air surrounding my mother's childhood home. I was perched on the edge of a workbench, tentatively watching my maternal grandmother prepare her potions. I observed as she opened small glass vials and bottles of various shapes and sizes, some a dark amber colour and others a frosted glass of pink, green or blue. She then opened up several jars containing numerous herbs macerated in vinegar or infused in oils. Carefully, without spilling, she poured the liquid contents of the jars into the smaller bottles. I quietly admired her ability to pour directly into the small vials without the need for a funnel. While she poured, she even closed her eyes and meditated; she was blessing the potions with healing energy and visualizing the potent magical powers amplifying. I knew this because she had explained this to me every single time I asked her about it when I was younger.

“You don’t just do things willy-nilly without focusing your intention,” she would say, exemplifying the concept in one way or another (normally, it would be with the aid of a natural tool such as a flower, herb, candle flame, chalice of water or crystal). “Belief and intention are crucial to actualizing your desires and reaping the benefits of your own power. All you are doing is harnessing your own power and directing it. Your own power is all you need.”

“…But, Grandma… what is my own power?” I would ask.

“Love,” she would reply with a little smile on her face. “Only love is real, it is a driving force, it is foundational, it is everything… anything else is simply an illusion of some kind. Only Love is real.”

On this particular night, just as the clock struck eleven, an unusually strong gust of wind blew the kitchen window wide open, producing a very loud bang! Instantaneously, a round white object flew in and I genuinely freaked out. It all happened so fast and in my peripheral vision, it looked as though the moon had flown into the kitchen and was about to attack us. I’d fallen backwards off the workbench, knocking over several bottles, candles, plant matter and what have you. Grandma seemed peacefully unfazed by it all, smiling with her eyes slightly closed.

“Grandma…what the hell was that?!” I managed to exclaim. I was still somewhat in shock about the moon entering the home. However, when I got up off the ground, dusted myself off and looked ahead of me, I saw not a moon but a bird. An owl of some kind. He was staring straight at me, big cartoonish black eyes and the top of his beak looked like a long, elegantly human nose. As I stared back into those eyes, I felt a strange, ethereal gush of energy flow through me and around me. It felt like a calming, soft blanket being wrapped around me. I could practically feel the words of the owl being telepathically communicated to me. He was advising me to stay calm and peaceful. To not worry at all. His energy felt old, wise, distinguished and serene. What confused me was that this all happened within a few seconds. The owl never opened his mouth and spoke yet I felt like he had transferred so much information over to me. I unwittingly absorbed the information and immediately felt a calm all over. Without thinking, I inhaled and exhaled deeply, three times. The owl was still staring right at me.

“You know, darling,” my grandmother piped up, “these barn owls are a good omen. This one in particular has come to give you good energy. See how he looks at you? I’d say he will come back many times to see you.”

“He scared the shit out of me, grandma,” I declared. “You know, he calmed me down straight away. I don’t doubt he is sharing a special energy with me because I can feel it.”

After I said that, the owl promptly lifted its wings and flew out the kitchen window. The moonbeams were so bright that I could see light reflecting off the owl’s white, silver and tawny-coloured feathers.

“It’s a good thing the moon is so bright tonight,” I pointed out, “otherwise the poor thing would get lost or fly into something in the dark.”

“Ah!” exclaimed my grandmother, “not many people realize the pure genius of that bird. The sheer willpower and determination. The abundant productivity. These barn owls are no ordinary birds, my darling…”

I languidly shuffled my way to the chaise lounge in the corner of the kitchen and cuddled up with a blanket, ignoring all the oil stains on my nightgown from when I fell backwards with the potions. The strangely beautiful aromas of borage, cedar wood, sandalwood, patchouli, frankincense and myrrh were all lingering off my body. I took advantage of the situation and breathed it all in, letting the aromatherapy do its work. The peaceful serenity the owl had bestowed upon me had not left my field. I felt so tranquil, yet hardly sleepy.

“Tell me, Grandma, about the barn owl.”

“Unlike any other animal on Earth, including other owls, these barn owls are gifted with an immense power of listening. Using his excellent hearing, he is able to hunt alone in total darkness. He listens deeply and intently, to everything. He encourages us to do that, too. He shows us that we all have the power within ourselves to discover resources even when it is fully dark. To find something where most people would see nothing. The barn owl is a master of detail and accuracy and he is able to produce a kind of neural map of auditory space,” my grandmother began to brew us chamomile tea as she somewhat excitedly told me about the owl. “They have asymmetrical ears – one ear being higher than the other – this is showing us humans the ability to listen at all levels. Not only are they divine masters of listening and sound, they are also perfectly productive and get a lot of work done in a small amount of time! Speaking of getting work done… I must continue with my work here, Lena. Why don’t you go for a walk? It’s a nice night for it.”

Midnight walks were common in this household. When my mother was a young girl, she and my grandmother would go nightly, often returning after three in the morning, clutching various potion ingredients they harvested on the way. Now for me, this was unusual and even potentially dangerous. When I wasn’t visiting my grandmother once a month, I was living with my father in a city apartment. I went to a city school, worked a city job and did city-girl things. Nature intrigued me but scared me at the same time. It wasn’t that I was easily scared or anything, but fear of the unknown was a real thing for me. The thought of bugs crawling up my legs or potentially running into a creepy stranger in the forest would send chills up my spine. My mother would walk barefoot and I couldn’t understand how she could do that without the fear of accidentally stepping on something gross.

As if she could read my mind (she most probably could), my grandmother chuckled and said, “Fear of the unknown is an illusion that all humans go through – friends like the owl are here to remind us that within each of us, we all actually have the innate ability to map out the unknown and face it fearlessly. It’s all in the art of surrendering.”

As she said this, I hesitantly slipped into my shoes and shoved a cardigan and water bottle into my bag. “I’m not really into walking around at nighttime, but yeah, I’ll give it a go,” I said as I kissed her on the cheek. “If I don’t come back in an hour, call the police.”

Grandma chuckled again, waving her hand in a way to suggest that she thought I was being nonsensical.

As I ventured off into the surrounding woodland, I could feel the cool change immediately. The warm summer air had transformed into an eerie cool breeze that compelled my arm hairs to stand up. I remained positive, inhaling deeply. I could smell all the trees emitting their natural aromas, the pinecones nestled on the ground amongst all the various mushrooms growing. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the owl giving me special energy, but I could supposedly feel the mycelium network operating, communicating just below my feet. I could feel everything occurring around me. I was still feeling so weirdly calm and serene. I wonder if this owl energy is a permanent effect, I thought to myself as I continued walking. If so, I’m really liking my new vibe. So peaceful.

It felt as though I had been walking for hours by the time I realised I was lost. I was deep in a forest I had never walked alone in, let alone in the dark. The full moon was still ardently bright. However, the forest trees were thick and looming over me, forbidding most of the moonlight access to the forest floor. I was starting to feel the frustration and impatience kick in, the agony of not knowing where I was and what to do. I had just started kicking myself for deciding to go on this nighttime walk when I felt a shudder. It was simply a flow of energy going through me again, like an electrical current. I stopped in my tracks and felt things I had never felt before – more importantly, I heard things I had never heard before. I heard words in my own head, in no particular voice or anything, speaking to me. Guiding me.

Take your shoes off!

Sit down!

Breathe!

Listen!

These instructions came to me as if they were quiet, angelic whispers from the inside of my own being. I removed my shoes, sat down, closed my eyes, inhaled, exhaled and listened. At first, there was just silence. Curiously, it was as if from inside the silence that more information came to me. With my eyes closed, I suddenly saw a kind of map. It wasn’t necessarily a visual map, it was more like a bunch of waveforms mapped out in bird’s eye view. I could feel what I was seeing as if it was all happening around me, despite it being portrayed to me via a mental image in my mind’s eye. The waveforms were different colours, and I felt as though they were brighter and exceedingly more visible when I put the palms of my hands over my eyes to shut out any excess moonlight. From there, my sound perception sharpened and increased. I could hear the mycelium network contracting and expanding, the insects in the grass vibrating, the rustling in the trees sounded like further communication from various sources.

Relax.

Breathe.

Follow the sound of the highest vibration.

Follow the purple tone.

Follow the violet rays.

Purple is home.

Two lefts.

Two rights.

Straight ahead.

One right.

Straight ahead.

Breathe.

Relax.

Calm.

Straight ahead.

Purple is home.

It didn’t necessarily make sense, but it still somehow made enough sense for me to understand what was going on. I stood up, put my shoes in my bag and keeping my eyes closed, I followed the sound of a barely audible, high-pitched tone along with the purple light that kept appearing in my mind’s eye. Two lefts, two rights, straight ahead. One more right. Straight ahead, again. All the time, my eyes closed. The purple light getting slightly brighter, the high-pitched vibrating sound getting slightly louder. I could feel the mushroom’s energetic network also pushing me in the same direction, practically egging me on.

I only just started to pay attention to what I was feeling within me, the awareness that was rising, the emotions and feelings of gratitude expanding with deep resonance, when bam! I had walked into the front doorway of my grandmother’s home. I flung my eyes open, immediately overwhelmed by the fact that I was seeing through my human eyes again. My heart was beating fast but I wasn’t scared. I was, for lack of a better way of expressing it – in awe. I was astonished by the superpower that I had just experienced from within. Simply by listening. I realised what my grandmother had meant when she mentioned the barn owl’s message of the power of listening at all levels. I had awakened a deep-seated power that I felt was genuinely inherent in all humans, just seemingly inactivated and dormant within a lot of individuals.

Grandma opened the door, just in time. I’m sure she heard me bang into it a few seconds earlier. She had a grin on her face and she didn’t ask me how my walk was. She just laughed and let me inside, handing me a cup of chamomile tea. It was lukewarm but I drank it anyway.

“You were right about that owl, Grandma,” I yawned. “The power of listening is a superpower, a gift to anyone on Earth. I was so unaware of the interconnectedness of us and trees…. And mushrooms… and sound, light…”

“Birds, trees, mushrooms, sound, light… they are all vibrations,” replied Grandma. “All vibrations. Everything. And us. We are vibrating. Everything is one, in that way. Sound and light are the same thing in different forms. We are all, simply put, the same darn thing in different forms. If you can’t see it in one way, you can see it in another way – perhaps even just hear it.”

“I saw home as purple light and heard it as a subtle high-pitched vibration thingy,” I said as I placed the empty tea cup in the dishwasher. “I don’t get it… but it made so much sense. The light and the sound really did look, feel and sound like home.”

“You will never get lost again,” laughed Grandma. She affectionately cupped my face with her hands and looked into my eyes. “Only because you realised you were never lost to begin with!”