In a thread on Ex-Witch, the conversation turned to sitting outside and listening to the divine. The thread started out as my venting my frustrations in a vein similar to my article below.

I was asked what I hear. I was surprised, I think, because I never had been asked that and never tried to put it all in to words.

I hear a lot of things, I think. “Feel” is a better word, but I have had actual conversations with spirits, also. Part of me cringes at saying that — the “rational and logical” part. But even it cannot deny the evidence presented to me that it was more than just “in my head.” It just rebels at something that sounds so “crazy.”

I spent 20 years as a Zen Buddhist. I always sat indoors for meditation, facing a wall. As a druid, now, I try to meditate outside as much as possible. Outside, the skills I developed through Zen come in to play, but take on a whole new dynamic. Zen teaches to listen, but the walls of the temple block the sound. The real sound is outside, under the sky.

It is a symbiotic thing. A give and take. It’s a symphony, and I am floating with the music. It’s almost as if I am co-operating with nature in meditation. It’s feeling the relationship, what we share with nature, which can only be felt when the mind is quiet, still, and listening.