1.3 The Role of the Senses and Intuition in Listening

Given that humans can sense more than sound, it seems reasonable to expand the Communication definition of listening as conscious awareness of sound (hearing and listening to other humans) to a conscious awareness that uses the other human senses (touch, taste, smell, and sight). For instance, we can “listen” with our hands, beyond the ability of sign language, as in the sense of touch. We can also feel the subtle pulsation in our palms when we hold hands. We can feel the softness of cat fur, and the smoothness of a flower’s petal. In a similar manner, listening to the SONG of life includes the listening capacities of all five senses.

Listening to the SONG of life also includes an “intuitive” sense described by various writers as:

. . . a way of knowing . . . based on four levels of awareness: physical (bodily sensations), emotional (feelings), mental (images) and spiritual (mystical, beyond rational),^[1] . . . an inner experience and awareness . . . your sense of being you . . . your sense of experiencing life,^[2]. . . an elaborate internal intelligence operation . . .that continually monitors our internal and external environments, processes the information, and makes it available to us in subtle ways [such as intuitive hunches]^[3] . . . a decision-making method that is used unconsciously . . . It is rapid, subtle, contextual, and does not follow simple, cause-and-effect logic,^[4] [and] Implicit knowledge or implicit learning . . . knowledge from the past that was forgotten, energetic sensitivity . . . [the] ability of the nervous system to detect and respond to the environment . . . and nonlocal intuition . . . knowledge that cannot be explained.^[5]

From these five definitions, a picture of the intuitive faculties of listening emerges as a knowing that is physical (the five bodily senses), intellectual (the mind as thoughts and feelings), and aspects that are energetic, subtle, spiritual, and beyond the rationale.