"What might the world be like if we were to listen more?"

 

Thin Place is an experiment in wondering what the world might be like if we were to live as people who listen…listen to the deepest, truest parts of ourselves, listen to the Divine, which is always in our midst, listen to the natural world, who is an old and wise teacher, and listen to others, who are companions on this journey.

 

Deep listening and engagement with nature are the two key components to this work.  Deep listening is generous listening.  Such listening transforms you and connects you.  It is listening where “the cup overflows” and you know you are loved.  Through such listening you feel both seen and heard.  When you listen deeply, you discover first and foremost a pathway to your own soul.  It becomes possible to hear your own inner teacher, reach the divine spark, connect with the call of the genuine. In the process of opening to your truest and deepest self, you discover the truth of that same place in others. As Howard Thurman says, “when I go down in me, I come up in you.”  As you become aware of yourself, you become compassionate towards the understanding of both your own brokenness and your own goodness.  Realizing such in yourself, you are invited to realize the same in others.  Such holds the possibility for building a bridge of relationship that opens true and generous connection.

 

When you connect with the natural world, you are invited into an understanding about what it means to be alive.  You are held within the realm of living things.  You are taught natural rhythms and shown cycles of movement and rest, growth and harvest, life and death.  You bear witness to principles of impermanence and beauty, of change and imperfection.  You are invited into an ancient truth that your body knows, but your mind often forgets…that nature is more than metaphor, that you are part of her realm.

 

The movement of this work is to offer you an opportunity for transformational practice that invites both personal and relational grounding. On the personal level, you are invited to hear your own soul, to look inward for discernment, to trust in your deepest, truest goodness which is found in the place where your spirit and the Divine spirit are conjoined (i.e., the ultimate “THIN PLACE”). On the relational level, you are invited to become aware of that same goodness in all that lives (other people and the natural world), and to realize that you are part of something greater than yourself, that you are a member of the great web of belonging, and that within this web you are both essential and supported.