The Ecstasies of Unfolding Conversations: Allowing Fresh Meaning to Arise

Letting the Gods Speak, Letting the Spirits speak, Listening as the Speaker, Listening as Feeling Space

This framework is for those who are interested in a particular sort of conversation, conversations in which they don’t know where things are going, where hearing what they themselves say is as surprising and revelatory as hearing what the other says, and where there is a pleasurable union of interbeing between speaker and the listener.

These might be called “unfolding” conversations, as in opening an infinite map for the first time, a magical map that draws itself spontaneously, using ink formed from the energy of the converser’s hearts, revealing endlessly fascinating new territory both familiar and strange to be explored¹.

The Inchoate Realm of the Space of Interaction is a Complementary Orientation

This framework is complementary to other frameworks for being a better speaker and a better listener; it differs from most by focusing on the space of interaction and inchoate pattern in speaking and listening. It is particularly a complement in that it excludes considerations of the speaker-as-independent-node, the listener-as-independent-node, and structure in both these dimensions. These are important aspects, and it often does not serve the circumstance to neglect these to focus solely on the space of interaction and inchoate pattern.

The Space of Interaction as Complement to Independent Nodes

The epitome of speaker-as-independent-node is the concern of political oratory, pre-recorded and then replayed, unidirectional transmission to an audience without any audience feedback to the speaker. To the degree the speaker is in the orientation of transmitting what they have to the other, we find ourselves as speaker-as-independent-node.

The epitome of listener-as-independent-node is the concern of the business manager, asking sharp questions in order to discern alignment with a particular set of pre-given goals. “Why were sales down in the Western region?”. To the degree the listener is in the orientation of determining the implications of the speaker’s communication within a fixed and pre-given framework, we find ourselves as listener-as-independent-node.

Being an independent node in a system of communication can be appropriate. Here, though we are looking to cultivate the capability to let the space of interaction speak and listen, instead of being one of two independent nodes (perhaps in alternating sequence).

Inchoate Realms as Complement to Structured Realms

Declamation, or traditional scripted speech, is voice that begins with the conceptuality fully condensed; energy is added to it in the form of prosody (stress, rhythm, accent, pause, intonation, tone) for most effective interface with the world. The corollary form of listening is to listen against a rubric, the listening measuring all speech against pre-defined structure.

Speaking using pre-formed initiations that are then continued impromptu (such as pre-scripted topic headers that are filled in on-the-fly) is a voice that condenses a little bit of conceptuality and then releases it into energy. The corollary form of listening is to listen with an overarching purpose, such as analyzing how what you are hearing fits with a pre-determined agenda. This can be useful; it creates a dance of speaking and questions-from-listening that continuously bend the directionality of the conversation in particular directions.

The concern in this article is the voice that enters from the inchoate realm in the space of interaction, where conceptuality is a trailing condensate, forming after voice arises, as opposed to conceptuality being a germinative seed of voice condensing. It is speaking and listening from a space without fixed pattern, a space where the structure is purely revelatory and emergent.

Orders of Pattern in Speaking

Diving down from highly patterned speaking to the liminal edge where inchoate pattern generates a wellspring of continual freshness:

The most patterned speech is scripted speech. It can be memorized and recited word-for-word.

Less patterned is use of methods such as guideposts and prompts: pre-scripted portals of entry that establish a location from which to roam using impromptu speech. In a lecture, guideposts are macro scale. They might be as simple as topic names and a note that “First I will speak on our city’s problem with road signage. Then I will speak of my proposed solution”. “Consideration portals” can also be at a micro scale: “The most important thing is…”, leaving the continuation to be filled in with impromptu speech.

In this article, we are exploring the potential of conversations without instrumental purpose: the conversation as continual revelation. We can allow speech to arise from the energy of the circumstances, or even from space itself. Such speech is a companionable roaming along an endlessly newly discovered terrain. It is a place for emergent fresh meaning and agendaless flow between conversers.

The greatest freshness comes when the speaker, as a physical instrument of larynx, tongue, and teeth, is not the agent of speaking. Let the gods speak through your physical instrument. Let the spirits speak through your physical instrument. Ecstatic participation in an unfolding conversation may be found.

Orders of Pattern in Listening

As in speaking, there are orders of pattern in listening.

There is instrumental listening, where listening has a particular purpose, and is intended to remain concentrated. An example of this is what is often called “active listening”, where the listener paraphrases back to the speaker their understanding. This is useful for establishing solidity.

More spontaneous is the deployment of listening portals, drawing from a large stable of possibilities, such as “what might be a different perspective…?”. These point the speaker in a different direction.

In this article, we are exploring the potential of listening without instrumental purpose: the conversation as continual revelation. We can allow listening to arise from the energy of the circumstances, or even from space itself. Such listening, as with the speaking above, is a companionable roaming along an endlessly newly discovered terrain. It is a place for emergent fresh meaning and agendaless flow between conversers.

The greatest freshness comes when the listener, as a physical instrument of outer ear, eardrum, and cochlea, is not the agent of listening. What is it to allow the other participant in the conversation to listen through your physical instrument? To let feeling-space itself listen through your physical instrument? Ecstatic participation in an unfolding conversation may be found.

The Four Ecstasies of Unfolding Conversation

The following are four methods of entering in ecstasies in conversation. These methods are scaffolding for phenomenological configurations and so can only gesture for what must be filled in with discovering the view. Give them time to bloom into actual capabilities.

Letting the Gods Speak

Wait in silence, fully present, until words arise from you spontaneously. Relax. Relax. Relax. You will know you are fully engaged with this method when you are hearing the words your body speaks for the first time, just as if someone else said them. The words you speak are entirely fresh. It is not “you” speaking, something greater than you is speaking through you.

Letting the Spirits Speak

Find the energy within some aspect of the circumstance: it could be the felt-sense of something in your body or the felt sense of an object or aspect of the environment. Let the energy coalesce there until it forms into speech. Gaze with the heart into that energy until words come.

Gaze with the heart into the air until words come. Gaze with the heart into itself until words come. Gaze with the heart into the felt-sense of the gut until words come. Gaze with the heart into the green of the grass until words come. Gaze with the heart into the wall behind the computer monitor until words come. With an audience, spontaneously choose a single person and gaze with the heart into the felt-sense of that individual until words come.

See how words coalesce into form, arising from that absorption in an aspect of the body or the environment. The spirits that inhabit every particular aspect of the body and world are speaking.

Listening as the Speaker

When listening, identify as the speaker in your sensory experience. Fully let their bodily form take you over, be fully absorbed in their countenance, their energy, until you have the sense that you are them. This is the highest bandwidth of listening, an ecstasy where you receive the subtlest aspects of their communication.

The energies of such responsive listening occur in a unified flow with the speaking…silence becomes a pleasurable absorption in their speech, and responsive speech arises purely as compassionate service.

Listening as Feeling-Space

Feel the heart.

Feel the space of all pervasive feeling-tone.

Feel the heart expand and become one with the all-pervasive space of feeling tone without boundary or limit, with equal presence throughout the entire space, and no particular concentration in the body as opposed to environment.

Listening from this feeling space. Appreciate the shifting feeling-tones playing across this space in response to the speaker.

The Paean of Unfolding Conversation

In these ecstasies, the conversation with another is a song of exuberant appreciation of the continual surprise and revelation that blooms from interaction.

1. Reader Nick Gall suggested an alternative emphasizing the aspects of creativity and endless new directions: “These might be called unfolding conversations — like opening a magical map for the first time, one that draws itself in ink formed from the shared energy between the speakers, its lines ramifying with each exchange as new worlds emerge into being — at once revealed and created through the act of dialogue.”