Tell About It!
Wow! Did you see that! The recent solar eclipse became a collective, communal experience in which even reporters covering the event seemed to be fully caught up in awe and wonder and were at a loss for words to adequately describe what they were seeing and feeling. Yet they and we (whether we were standing in the umbra or seeing it remotely) found it something we were almost compelled to share and speak about with one another, as best we could. Astonishment begs to be told!
If you watched the eclipse in any fashion, what is the story of your experience? What feelings, senses, shifts in perspectives, or thoughts came to you, and how might you have shared it?
As humans we are naturally story tellers. Much of conversation is composed of telling someone else what we saw, experienced, discovered, or came to understand. When something unique, novel, or significant happens to us, we naturally want to share it with someone else. The experience is enlivened, expands, and deepens in the telling. Even rather ordinary experiences are enhanced in the telling and have the capacity to evoke resonances in others and strengthen our connection with those with whom we are sharing.
So, when Mary Oliver [fn] urges us in her poem to “tell about it” — “it” being that which has astonished us as we have paid attention — she is leading us toward the outcomes of this contemplative practice: we deepen the experience, take a more humble stance, and find community all at the same time!
What have you noticed opening up when you have shared something “astonishing” with someone else, whether this eclipse or some other experience?
Yet I must confess that of the three movements Oliver encourages, I find “tell about it” to be the hardest. I tend to process inwardly, to incorporate as I can what I discover, and move on without the “telling.” To “tell about it” is also to be vulnerable to how my listeners will respond; being vulnerable is — well, vulnerable! — and depending on the story I sometimes find it easier to avoid this. Story telling takes some courage; but it is a gift to one’s hearers, who may find themselves stirred to life by what your story evokes in them. That’s what happened to me as a hearer of the stories of the eclipse I listened to on the news in real time. I wonder how story telling is for you?
But whether you are more a “teller” or a “listener” — both of which are important — it is as we share that what is deeper most often happens. We find points of commonality; we learn to be appropriately vulnerable (as tellers) and to step outside of ourselves (as listeners); we learn about and come to respect differences of perspective; we find our eyes opened and our sight broadened; we sense our connection to others becoming more alive and even extending beyond those immediately present.
I might expand Oliver’s invitation to tell about what astonishes to a wider range of human experience. Maybe it is what agonizes, or what interests, or simply some very ordinary thing that happened during the day. The value of “telling about it” remains; there is no arena of life experience that cannot be fruitfully shared with a trusted companion.
As you ponder Oliver’s encouragements, may you find ways of letting your attentiveness lead you into an openness to being astonished and, having been astonished, to tell about it. “Pay attention, Be astonished, Tell about it!”
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fn “Tell about it” is the third phrase in a three-phrase stanza (#4) of the poem, “Sometimes,” by Mary Oliver. My previous blogs were on the themes of the first two phrases, “Pay attention,” and “Be astonished.”Copyright Hearken Books.
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