Listen With… (A Listening Walk)

– first exercised with the Study Group for Listening.

– here as an archive with Listen With… instructions

Basic outline:

As a group, walk for a little while, to a place chosen by the facilitator.

Upon arriving at the chosen place, the facilitator hands out Listen With instructions (preferable hand written on little pieces of paper).

People are welcome to ask for another instruction later on if wanted.

The group will spend time exercising the Listen With instruction (minimum for 20 minutes), before the facilitator give signal to return to the starting location/or disperse the group on-site.

(Additional ending phase, the group convene and discuss their experiences (maybe there was given out two of each instruction). The group can also create new Listen With instructions to be shared and used by others in later exercises).

Listen With instructions (pre-made for the first exercise):

Listen with the heart of another.
Listen with resting bodies.
Listen with a becoming friend.
Listen with hidden pain.
Listen with surprise.
Listen with solidarity.
Listen with a slow transformation.
Listen with an unknown observer.
Listen with an unbearable silence.
Listen with movement.

Listen With instructions by participants after walk 1:

Listen with an inner sorrow.
Listen with the movement of a river.
Listen with the stillness of a stone.
Listen with all your forbidden thoughts.
Listen with/through your back/bones.
Stop Listening.
Listen with your nose/eyes/tongue/fingers.
Listen with another pair of ears.
Listen with last week.
Listen with the water within you.
Listen with all your fingernails growing.
Listen with the ears of your (grand-) father.
Listen with secrets.
Listen with a hopeful body.

Extracted from a listening session at Art Hub Copenhagen, where participants were asked to call out questions or instructions into the room without being able to see each other:

Listen with the thoughts and emotions of the people passing by.
Listen with the unexpected pauses.
Listen with the breathing of another.
Listen with touch.
Listen with the listened.
Listen with the falling and rising pressure over the Atlantic ocean.
Listen with the too loud silence.
Listen with courage.
Listen with a domesticated form of listening.
Listen with achlpphhh and with argghtyffulocus sempbbtytiporinos.
Listen with unconditional trust.
Listen without the need for validation.
Listen with the automatic generated thoughts in your head – and in the head of others.

Extracted from written notes taken during a conversation:

Listen with the rotation of the earth.
Listen with the divine Gods within you while praying.
Listen with the thousands, no millions, of silenced voices.
Listen with the sympathy of an old man observing you as you walk by without noticing.
Listen with the secret sounds of tomorrow.
Listen with a dancing and celebrating body.
Listen with the difference between your current self and the (lost) self of your childhood.
Listen with a stealthy body..
Listen with the soil several meters below your feets.
Listen with a fluid body traversing blurred borders.
Listen with the here and now as if it was delayed.
Listen with the tenderness of holding another’s hands.
Listen with this moment as a political act.
Listen with bodily hesitation.
Listen with the sensation of offering healing to another.
Listen with the body as a fleshy archive for multiple generations, places and living beings.
Listen without the need to name what you are listening to.
Listen with a collective body.
Listen with the body as being a question to the world.
Listen with painful silence.
Listen with both fear and comfort of surrendering to an unknown world.
Listen with your capitalistic body/mind.
Listen with the ‘right’ running this situation calls for.
Listen with what is always already here.
Listen with your left hand placed naked upon the ground.
Listen with your left cheek pressed lightly against the skin of a tree.
Listen with ear as if they were being turned on for the first time ever.