I was expected to LISTEN – as a child, that is, to behave, to obey. To obey not just my parents, but other adults.

LISTENING meant fulfilling expectations of grown-ups in terms of chores and homework, doing what I was told to do and respecting the persons who told me to do it. I was to obey rules. Actually, obeying grown-ups’ rules wasn’t so hard to do, because I wasn’t the only one being ruled. My siblings and friends were similar serfs. We all knew we were to LISTEN. Childhood meant obedience to persons older and bigger than we children were.

But childhood also meant play. And in play was freedom from LISTENING to adults. Through play came hearing the voices of other children and intentionally taking them into account … listening to them. Through play out of doors and out of the sight of grown-ups came hearing the chorus of nature – hearing earth, air, water, and, even, fire (while burning paper in the trash bin), as well as hearing spaces and silences … listening to all.

Play enlarged my ears as it incorporated my imagination. In turn, imagination expanded my ability to pay attention, to hear some of the inaudible as well as the audible. Play revealed a difference between a LISTENING of obedience to grown-ups and a listening of orientation, that of being aware and responding continuously.

Play added “ing” to the word “be.” Play taught me that be-ing is listening, and that listening is being. But it wasn’t until midway through life that I realized that listening, as well, IS being obedient, albeit, is being obedient to something other than grown-ups’ rules (I’ll write more about that topic later).