Many early cultures viewed the ears as the seat of wisdom but I prefer to follow W. H. Mathieu and regard my ears as an altar. Through these remarkable organs with the three tiniest bones in the body, I take in the sacred in the world around me. I rejoice in the sounds of bells, trains in the distance, bird song, Beethoven's symphonies, a cat's meow, and the whispered affirmations of love. Hearing is the first sense to appear and the last sense to go when we are dying.

Each day, sounds roll in like waves vying for our attention, and we can pick and choose what to ignore or what to embrace. As a boy I loved that moment in a movie when the hero put his ear to the ground to hear what was approaching from a distance. As a young man, I thrilled to the loud noises in sports stadiums, concert halls, and theatres. One could hear the rumble and tumble of emotions sweeping through these places of high energy and unfolding excitement.

But the older I get, the more I appreciate silence. We live in the noisy city of New York which is constantly being rebuilt; its birth pangs are the sounds of demolition trucks grinding away all day. In my birth family, my two sisters and I have ear problems: I have an abundance of ear wax which needs to be extracted every four months; one sister lost her hearing in her left ear as an infant, and my other sister is plagued by repeated infections in her ears.

The emerging field of sound therapy is demonstrating the role of various tones and rhythms in healing. When I was hospitalized years ago for a major operation, I came to rely heavily on the music of Robert Gass as a healing medicine for my body and soul. My ears became an altar as my spirits were lifted by the melodic chants of his singers, On Wings of Song.

Many wisdom traditions emphasize music and singing as a form of prayer and an opening of the heart. I have made an altar in my ears for the Sufi practice of song as "food for the soul" and for kirtan, a call-and-response chanting that quiets the mind and heals the heart. These forms of devotional music have helped me forget myself and learn to be more expressive of my love of God.

Sound is within us and all around us but we have to become more focused to hear these marvels. When Merton, one of our cats, perks up his ears at the slightest sound, I realize how important it is to listen with total attention to what others are saying to me. The Greek sage Epictetus had it right a very long time ago when he observed: "God gave man two ears, but only one mouth, that he might hear twice as much as he speaks."



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