Listening in the Fall

Weekly wisdom to bring you home in 3 minutes or less.

A SHORT STORY

Last weekend, I set out on one of my long runs. At first, my body was heavy and my mind cluttered, but step by step, something began to shift. Running has always been more than physical for me—it feels like a way of clearing space.

The Tibetans have a word for enlightenment: sangye. It means both a clearing away and a bringing forth. That’s exactly what running does for me. With each mile, the noise falls back, and what rises to the surface are stories—sometimes the ones I hear in podcasts, sometimes the ones I tell myself.

This week, as the miles stretched on, a question surfaced: What stories am I still carrying that no longer serve me? In many ways, it felt like the season itself was asking, since fall is a time of letting go.

And then, a small voice appeared. Quiet, but steady. It told me that amidst the turmoil, everything was going to be okay.

The older I get, the more I find myself needing to tune in to that voice—in my own particular ways: on a run, on a walk, in meditation, or even here, writing to you.

Maybe that’s the real work of this season: to clear enough space so that the right voice, the right story, can finally come through.

What might come forth for you if you let something go?

A POEM

“Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Grateful,

Michael