A Concise Typology of Listening to the SONG of Life

The most concise description of listening to the SONG of life is a simple typology. Listening to the SONG of life is an acronym that stands for listening to “S” as Self, “O” as Others, “N” as Nature, and “G” as Goddess-God-the Divine.

Listening to the SONG of Life as Metaphor

Rippling Waves in a Pond

More than a simple typology, listening to the SONG of life can be described metaphorically as a series of concentric waves rippling from a fountain in the middle of a pond. From the central fountain of self-awareness in the pond, waves ripple outward in circular rings. Each ring is a different context in the SONG of life. The first circular ring around the fountain represents listening to others, the next ring, moving outward toward the edge of the pond, represents listening to the natural world. The last ring of rippling waves that touch the edge of the pond represents listening to the Divine.

Sonic Vibration

Moving from the visual metaphor of rippling water to a sonic metaphor of musical strings adds further depth to an understanding of the listening to the SONG of life. Consider the four listening contexts as different strings on a ukulele.^[1] Each string produces a unique tone when plucked. So too, listening to a particular context in the SONG of life produces a unique tone. When the musician uses their fingers to push two or more strings against the fretboard of the ukulele and strums across the strings, a blended tone or chord is produced. So too, when we listen to two or more tones in the SONG of life, we can hear a blended, and often richer, chord of life. As we cultivate listening to multiple tones in the SONG of life, we hear an arrangement or sequence of chords known as a song. There are many such songs in the greater SONG of life that can be experienced as we consciously develop our listening capacities.

Rings on a Target

Imagine the listening contexts as four circles arranged like rings on a dart board. The smallest circle occupies the center or bull’s eye, the next largest circle surrounds this center, the third circle surrounds the second, and the largest circle surrounds all the others (the outer rim of the dartboard). The inner most circle represents listening to self, and involves being centered, open and aware of one’s thoughts, emotions, and needs. This self-awareness can expand to include a receptive awareness of other human beings in the circle called “other” that surrounds the center of self.

Listening to others includes listening to their verbal and nonverbal messages, and listening to their emotions and needs via compassionate empathy. The circle of others can expand to include non-human others in the natural world of the third circle such as micro-organisms, insects, animals, plants, trees, rocks and minerals, and celestial bodies.

Human beings exist in the context of the natural world, and our relationship with nature includes listening to nature. Finally, our consciousness of the natural world can expand to include an awareness of the supernatural or supraempirical world.

This fourth circle, subsuming all the others, I call the Divine circle represented as “G” for Goddess-God in the SONG acronym. I encourage readers to adopt their own naming for the Divine circle depending on their religious-spiritual-philosophical orientation.

System’s Perspective of Listening to the SONG of Life

A system^[2] is a goal-oriented artificial human creation of interconnected inputs, throughputs, and outputs that models dynamic processes in the world. Inputs include raw materials, intelligence, and resources. Throughputs are activities that act on and coordinate the inputs. Outputs are the transformed inputs returning to the environment outside the system. The system is goal oriented and uses feedback loops to maintain specified parameters over time. The system is bounded by a semi-permeable membrane with the functionalities of producer, measurer, comparator, standard, goal setter, error signal, manager, and feedback. There are also levels within a system called subsystems (or micro systems) and higher levels that subsume the system called suprasystems (or macro systems). It is beyond the scope of the present work to present a complete system of listening to the SONG of life. For exploratory purposes and heuristic value, I sketch the relationships of two listening to the SONG of life systems.

The first system of listening to the SONG of life describes the relationship between the four parts of the SONG as couplets. I use the abbreviations of “S” for self, “O” for other, “N” for Nature, and “G” for Goddess-God-the Divine to explicate fourteen unique system couplets. The couplets are S to O, O to S, S to N, N to S, S to G, G to S, O to N, N to O, N to G, G to N, G to O, O to G, G to S, and S to G.  I create three hypothetical examples to provide a sense of how these system couplets are related. By exploring SONG as couplets, we introduce a wider perspective and deeper understanding of listening relationships compared to the individual SONG contexts.

The first system relationship (couplet S to O) posits that listening to self influences listening to others. Listening to self through reflection, meditation, and journaling can uncover personal needs. With this knowledge, the self seeks relationships with others to meet those needs. Conversely, listening to the needs of others (couplet O to S) can uncover additional personal needs. For example, if the other (O) describes how Tai Chi helps them deal with work stress, the self (S) may be reminded of its own need for de-stressing from work related pressures.

A second example illustrates how listening to others influences listening to nature (couplet O to N), and how listening to nature influences listening to others (couplet N to O). Listening to a friend describe a delightful and destressing walk in a local park can motivate one to spend time at a park listening to the flora and fauna of nature (O to N). Our experience listening to nature at the park might enliven the desire to share the experience with our friend (N to O). Ideally, the two friends might plan a weekend campout to hone their listening skills with each other and with nature.

A third example describes how listening to nature can influence listening to the Divine (couplet N to G), and how listening to the Divine can influence listening to nature (couplet G to N). Feeling the need to start the day on a positive note, we open the window to hear the song of birds and our spirit is lifted (N to G). Later, during morning meditation, the words of the meditation morph into a kind of bird song (G to N). Inspired, we continue to listen for signs of the Divine during the day.

These examples are meant to illustrate possibilities for exploring (in our personal lives, teaching, and research) the rich and complex interrelationships between the four listening to the SONG subsystems in the greater SONG of life system. In modeling systems, Meadows suggests that we can listen to the system:

We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone. We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!^[3]

May we all learn to dance with the systems represented by the SONG of life listening contexts.