Sometimes it feels as if Life’s answer to our pressing questions is a silence so vast the whole universe gets lost in it.
Sometimes Its answer feels more like a fire hose turned on, and we do our best to take in the lessons and data that come at us with more force than could ever be gracefully or instantly integrated.
And then there are other times. Times when answers come as slow unfoldings, and the process of unfolding becomes every bit as much of the answer as the information contained therein. Every bit as much to be noticed and listened to.
Such was the case last month when the weight of responsibility for my life felt heavy and I wondered out loud how to accept that weight…how to stand, let alone move or dance or anything at all besides try to distract myself, beneath this heavy vulnerability I feel about being grown up human. Do you feel this way, too?
Simultaneous to this question was interaction with Eric Klein about an interview we knew we wanted to do. Since both of us sketch, we decided to try something unconventional – to conduct the whole thing via illustration, passing back and forth an initial drawing, each time adding more to it.
So I led off with the question I’d already been living.
Eric is a wise and seasoned soul and one whose life and work I respect deeply. So while the drawing of my question was a quiet sort of scene, internally it felt much more like a frantic grasp and shake of his…or really of Life’s…lapels. “Tell me what to do about this feeling!! Please!!!”
But you know what happened in response? A microcosm of what I believe to the tips of my toes is Life’s best answer to that kind of question and tone.
There was silence for a few days.
And because this wasn’t a verbal conversation, what came in reply was light on words, and rich in depth and meaning.
Back and forth, back and forth we went like this. Each time the urgency of my initial question softening. Each time my trust deepening that, exactly like this conversation, Life is engaging me. Dispatches come in good time. They don’t always have quick content to upload to my heart or brain or limbic system, nor do they tie up every loose end. But they have the nourishment I need.
And they keep coming.
I invite you to read the “interview” below far more slowly than you might otherwise do. Let yourself react, inside, to each image on its own. How does each one make you feel? What questions does it raise for you?
And more importantly than that, try to get conscious of the question most pressing for YOU right now – the first panel of what could be YOUR drawn…or, rather, lived…conversation.
Just see if, sooner than you might think, Life sends along a reply.

Eric Klein is one of the few people on the planet to be both a best-selling leadership author and a lineage holder in a 5,000 year old yoga tradition. With his wife, Devi, he teaches the Wisdom Heart Way through www.wisdomheart.org. He is the author of four books – most recently 50 Ways to Leave Your Karma - which is available for free download at www.wisdomheart.org/50ways (<-----I highly, highly recommend!).
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P.S. If you want to see/hear Eric take this conversation even further, check out chapter 29 of 50 Ways to Leave Your Karma, or this recent article at his site (particularly the section titled “You don’t have to design the upgrade”).
For more on what *I* say to the topic, check out the “magic of noticing” in my free ebook, Trust Tending and the Internet.










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Just found you through my friend Eric Klein… really beautiful teachings & art, Kristin. Thank you!
Comment by Michele Lisenbury Christensen — February 15, 2012 @ 12:58 pmSo glad you stopped by, Michele!
Comment by Kristin — February 15, 2012 @ 2:09 pmLoving every part of this. Feeling it. Believing it. Loving it. ((HUGS))
Comment by Lori — February 15, 2012 @ 3:53 pmSo, so glad, Lori! (and me too! :)
Comment by Kristin — February 15, 2012 @ 4:48 pmHi Kristin so true a conversation with a dear friend can be just what we need I have found this way so helpful just to be heard just to share just to be listened to just to be attended to with heart diane
Comment by diane nova — February 16, 2012 @ 8:08 pmDiane, your words remind me that I haven’t given an update on Deep Listening. It’s coming! Very soon!
Comment by Kristin — February 16, 2012 @ 11:17 pmWhat perfect timing for me in finding this post and these beautiful sketches this morning. Even as I read this and pondered it, slowly as you suggested, I realized that Life is engaging me, asking me questions, and answering them is timely, powerful, and oh-so-necessary ways. Plus, this post reminded me of the truth that sometimes silence is the answer. That simply asking the question is enough. At least for now.
Thank you for this, Kristin. And thanks for introducing me to your sketching friend. I downloaded his book. I”m looking forward to reading it and also to reading his newsletters when they arrive.
Comment by GailNHB — February 18, 2012 @ 6:16 amSo glad for the resonance, Gail! And I think you’re going to love the book and newsletters. They’re wonderful.
Comment by Kristin Noelle — February 18, 2012 @ 9:34 am