“Many of us have the aspiration to listen deeper—to the forces of nature, to the intimacy all around us.” - Josh Schrei, The Emerald Podcast

Listening is a practice of attunement, of reciprocity, and of restoring our kinship with the living Earth. Josh Schrei, host of The Emerald Podcast, offers both mythic stories and somatic practices to help us remember what deep listening really means.

Across myth and tradition, listening has always been understood as a sacred act that connects us with the larger intelligence of life and the cosmos. The Sufi mystic Henry Corbin once described an ecstatic experience by the edge of a lake, immersed in a reality far deeper than ordinary perception. This is the kind of listening the old stories speak of: attunement with the unseen, intimacy with the animate, a way of being in direct relationship with life itself.

In modern culture, listening is often reduced to a mechanical function of the ears but listening is something much larger. It involves the whole body: the breath, the skin, the bones, the nervous system. It is a way of opening ourselves to the cycles of intimacy and reciprocity that flow through the natural world.

True listening is about sensing the vibrations beneath words and sounds, and remembering that the world is alive and always in conversation.

Listening as Reciprocity and Sacred Responsibility

“Listening is how we awaken our sense faculties,” Josh says. “It is how we step back into reciprocity with the animate world.”

Deep listening is an act of relationship and of reciprocity. To listen with our whole being is to offer our attention back to the living world. It is a way of saying: I am here, I am paying attention to you. You matter. 

In the poem "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver, she says:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Listening, in this way, becomes a form of participation and a way of living our one wild and precious life. We step back into a great conversation with the swan and the black bear, the grasshoppers and the grass, the human and more-than-human kin.

When we cultivate this kind of listening, we align ourselves with what life itself wants. We take action that is informed by the evolutionary wisdom embedded throughout the web of life. We move from human-centered agendas toward earth-aligned action—and wise action is needed now more than ever!

Listening Practice Suggestions

Deep listening is something we can cultivate through simple, embodied practices. Here are a few that Josh offers for us to experiment with:

Whole-body listening:  Relax the eyes, open the breath, and allow sound to be felt through the entire body—not only through the ears. Notice how vibration resonates through the skin, the bones, and the belly.

Listening to silence:  Spend time by a tree, river, or open sky. Allow yourself to perceive not only the audible sounds but also the quiet beneath them—the subtle hum of life.

Reciprocal listening: Speak aloud to the land, to a river, or to a non-human being. Then pause. Notice the silence that follows, and sense whether a response arises—not in words, but in felt presence.

Listening in relationship: In conversation, focus on how another person’s words land in your own body. Reflect back not only their words, but also what resonated with you, creating a deeper field of connection.

Listening through different physical postures, each opening a unique orientation toward the world:

• Arms folded, head bowed: A posture of humility and inward listening, tuning into the quiet and internal layers of experience.
• Ear to the ground: A gesture as old as humanity, inviting us to listen to the deep vibrations of Earth herself.
• Hands lifted, head tilted back: An opening to the sky, a way of listening to what comes from above such as the wind or the song of birds. 

These practices help us to come back into a dynamic, embodied way of relating to the world. Try them on and see what works for you! 

The Global Day of Listening on Sept 21st offers us an opportunity to listen deeply, to listen together, and to let our listening guide us back into right relationship with Earth and each other.

Tell us, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?