Feed Your Senses

“Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.”

~ Bernard M. Baruch, 1870 – 1965, American Financier and Statesman

Listening can be a window to a new world and one of my favorite listening experiences is listening to “A Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison Keillor.  Years ago we listened, religiously, on Sunday nights throughout dinner.  I now listen when ever I get a chance and luckily stumble upon the show on NPR.  The soft, soothing voice of Garrison Keillor combined with his wonderful stories of life in a simpler place transport me and provide a relaxation similar to meditation or yoga.  I feel relaxed and happy.  One can’t help smiling as stories about the infamous Lake Wobegon are told, country music, or blues are played and corny radio sketches performed.  It takes me back to a simpler time, when families sat around the radio and had an evening of entertainment.  Now everyone is connected to their technology of choice, sometimes it is seemingly permanently connected to the hand, as eyes focus on small screens and fingers fly across the keypad.

Isn’t it nicer to just sit and relax and listen to a soft voice, letting your imagination draw the pictures and allowing your hand to cup a warm cup of tea?  Sometimes isolating your senses, forces relaxation.  In yoga, it can be breath, at the gym it can be the rhythm of the feet pumping up and down on the elliptical trainer, when cooking it can be the sense of smell, taking pictures it can be the narrowing of the eye as it focuses on the subject of the photo and at night it can be the soft, warm touch under the covers as we dream together.