8.10 Chapter Summary

The future of listening to the SONG of Life addresses research, learning activities, and creativity. <footnote>Note that the print edition of this book does not cover most of the information presented here due to constraints on the page limitations of on-demand printing. For the complete edition of the book, view the online version on the Pressbook’s website at, http://pressbooks.pub/songoflife, or download the complete version of the digital book (PDF or EPUB) from Old Dominion University’s Digital Commons, http://digitalcommons.odu.edu/communication_books/31/.</footnote> For academic research, suggestions for testing the validity and reliability of L-SONG are recommended. Also, I propose ideas for testing the veracity of autoethnographies, including collaborative writing with students.

Several experiential learning activities are suggested for each of the four listening to the SONG of life contexts. Listening to self includes developing open focus, monitoring energy levels, and developing meditation skills. Various types of empathic activities are described for listening to others, including developing heartfelt connections in mediation and creating thinking environments. Listening to nature activities introduces a unique method for reading nature stories. The experiential nature activities found in the Cornell and Cohen books are recommended. Listening to the Divine develops the idea of holy listening, and introduces additional resources covered in the listening class related to dance, chant, and sacred listening.

The section on creativity and listening to the SONG of life outlines some possibilities and challenges of multi- and interdisciplinary collaborative listening research. I briefly discuss the theory of broadening and building ideas related to listening to the SONG of life. Finally, I provide a musical invitation to engage in mindful meditation. Mindful meditation is another way to develop our attentional capacities to better listen to the entire SONG of life.

I hope that listening course instructors, the students they teach, and others interested in listening will find something enticing to experiment with in this final chapter on the future of listening to the SONG of life. May your efforts to listen to the SONG of life bring health of mind, body, and spirit, happiness in your relationships with yourself, others, nature, and the Divine, and hope for a better world where everyone can listen, sing, and dance to the SONG of life in “love, peace, and harmony.”^[1]