The Transformational Listening Playground Stories
Welcome to the Stories that have emerged from Listening Together when we gather on the Transformational Listening Playground! Watch for the new stories as we post them here!
October 2026: A Story for the World That is Waiting for Us
Once upon a time, in a world that had grown very noisy, ten people found their way to New Mexico’s high desert. They came from different places, carrying different histories, different gifts, and questions so large they could scarcely fit into their suitcases.
The world they loved was in trouble. People had become afraid of one another. They were competing to be better than their neighbors, forgetting that no one could truly flourish while others suffered. Even the beautiful planet that gave them life was being treated as something to be used rather than loved.
And yet, something in each of these travelers refused to give up on the possibility of another way.
They wondered what might happen if people stopped being afraid of one another. If kindness became contagious. If the wisdom of elders and the wonder of children could find each other again. If they could become good ancestors in a world that rewarded winning.
One traveler carried a particularly curious question: Dear world, if I could offer you love, where can I find you in prayer and in dance? And another asked the question that seemed to contain all the others: What is humanity being called to remember about itself?
They had come to listen. Not for answers they already knew, but for something they could not yet imagine. And because this was a very unusual ranch, where the ordinary world and the Land of WOO were known to meet, they were advised to expect the unexpected.
Which, of course, is quite different from knowing what to expect.
On the third morning, something remarkable happened. It began, as many great transformations do, with complete foolishness.
Before breakfast, the travelers gathered to laugh for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps they were so joyful because they had once again drummed up the sun and invited it into their energy fields. Then they sang songs from their childhoods, and before long they had composed a tribute to the beyond cool visionary of the ranch:
Wise Chip Conley saw a ranch and called it MEA!
With a WOO WOO here and a WOO WOO there…
It was not the sort of song that generally appears in serious discussions about the future of humanity. Which may have been precisely why it worked.
Something had shifted. The travelers had stopped trying to become wise and had begun enjoying being alive.
Now, the horses at this ranch had been watching humans for a very long time. They knew that humans often approached life with a plan, a purpose, and a peculiar belief that everything important could be figured out in their heads.
Horses, having rather large heads themselves, found this amusing. They knew something the humans had forgotten: connection cannot be commanded. It must be invited.
And on this particular morning, the humans arrived without their usual armor. They came curious, playful, a little uncertain, and very much alive.
So the horses came toward them. Not because anyone had performed correctly. Not because the humans had earned their attention. But because something in the space between them had become welcoming.
The horses offered their enormous presence, their warmth, their curiosity, their willingness to meet another species without requiring it to become like them.
And the humans felt their hearts grow larger.
They had come wondering how humanity might learn to live in harmony with all life, and here was another form of life showing them what harmony could feel like.
No speeches. No instructions. Just presence meeting presence.
Perhaps the new world they longed for didn’t require them to become entirely different people. Perhaps it required them to remember who they were when they weren’t afraid.
They were so full of this discovery that they stayed together to listen.
They formed a circle, and someone asked: “Recognizing that the new world already lives within us, how do we want to be?”
At first the answers came like small birds landing on a branch. Openhearted. Curious. Playful. Courageous. Loving. Then more arrived.
Joyful. Discerning. Compassionate. Intuitive. Grateful. Luscious!
Luscious? Yes, luscious.
Apparently the new world was not going to be a place where everyone behaved with impeccable seriousness. There would be singing and dancing, tears when tears were needed, and laughter when laughter came looking for someone to play with.
People who would speak clearly and listen well. People who honored their word. People who could say, “I don’t know,” without feeling diminished.
There would be enoughness.
Imagine a world where people no longer had to prove they deserved to belong. Where each person’s thread of aliveness was a gift to the whole, and no two threads were meant to be identical.
Someone said, “The web has no weaver.”
Then came the realization: We are all the weavers. Each person was creating the pattern through the way they lived, the choices they made, the love they offered, and the stories they told. Even the smallest gesture sent a thread into the whole.
Just then, an elder remembered her grandmother who once told her she was lucky to be tall because she could reach the high cupboards. But what if the universe had high cupboards, too? Cupboards filled with possibilities humanity had not yet imagined. Wisdom that could not be reached through striving. Mysteries that opened only when someone was willing to stretch beyond what they already knew.
Perhaps one held the secret of how to disagree without making enemies. Another contained the knowledge of how to take only what we need from the Earth and give something beautiful in return. And somewhere, very high up, might be a cupboard containing all the dreams that had been abandoned because someone had declared them impossible.
The travelers began reaching. Not to possess what they found, but to bring it into the world. And the universe, which had been waiting a very long time for someone to ask better questions, began opening its doors.
Out came hummingbirds and stardust. Glimmers of possibility. Energetic caresses, luminous tears, and an abundance of things for which no one yet had names.
Some laughed. Some cried. Some did both, which turned out to be a particularly effective way of making room for more life. And all began to understand that mystery was not something to be solved.
It was something to be lived with.
But there was another cupboard. It was neither bright nor dark, and its door was marked with two words: Death and Destiny.
The travelers approached it carefully. They had come to create a new world, after all. Why would death be part of the invitation?
An elder reminded them that every life walks with Death on one shoulder and Destiny on the other. Together, they ask a question that cannot be answered once and put away: Because I will die, what deserves my life?
The travelers thought of those who had gone before them, and those who would come after. Of elders whose capacities were changing, whose wisdom had not diminished. Of younger people learning to walk beside them, offering their strength and attention without taking away their dignity.
They realized that becoming good ancestors was not something to postpone until old age. It was something they were doing now.
Every time they chose kindness over fear. Every time they listened instead of assuming. Every time they honored a life different from their own.
They began to understand what it might mean to live well and die well.
Not to do either perfectly. But to remain in relationship with life, and with one another, through every season of the great mystery.
By now, something extraordinary had happened. The travelers had stopped asking who would create the new world for them. They were beginning to recognize it in one another. It was there when they sang like children. When the horses came close. In their tears, their laughter, their fierce love for the planet, and their willingness to be surprised. They didn’t need to become someone else to be of service. They needed to become more fully themselves.
The world did not need ten identical threads.
It needed the tapestry only these ten could weave. No one had to carry the whole. No one had to know how it would all turn out. They could listen for what was trying to be born, trust the thread of aliveness that had brought them this far, and take the next step. Together.
As the sun moved across the high desert, the travelers remembered something about ordinary worlds. They are not nearly as ordinary as they appear. The Land of WOO was not somewhere they had to travel to find. Its doorways were everywhere: in the kindness of strangers, the wisdom of horses, the laughter of children, and the mystery of a life that keeps speaking to us if we are willing to listen.
They could move back and forth between the visible and invisible worlds, carrying their discoveries into the gardens they planted, the bridges they built, the promises they kept, and the dreams they gave a place to grow. And whenever they forgot, as humans sometimes do, they could remind one another.
They could sing a ridiculous song. They could reach for the high cupboards of the universe. They could remember the horses. They could place a hand on their hearts and ask:
Recognizing that the new world already lives within us, how do we want to be?
And then they could live the answer. Not someday. Not when everyone else was ready. Now.
For the new world was not waiting somewhere beyond the horizon.
It was waiting in the space between them, ready to become visible through the way they chose to live.
So they went forth, each carrying a thread of aliveness, each a weaver in the great unfinished tapestry of life. They lived with wonder. They loved with courage. They listened for the mystery. And they lived well, and they died well.
And somewhere, across the desert, a horse lifted its head.
WOO WOO here.
WOO WOO there.
And so it is. Abracadabra…
Bippity boppity woo!
The Listeners: Gail, Sandy, T’ai, Kim, Pam, Elizabeth, Laura, Charlotte, Colleen, Patrick
Twelve Discoveries Born of our Listening
- The new world is already within us.
We don’t have to wait for the world to change before we do. We begin by asking, “Recognizing that the new world already lives within us, how do we want to be?” And then we live the answer. Now.
- Connection cannot be commanded. It must be invited.
The horses taught us that presence speaks louder than performance. When we lay down our armor, stop trying to get it right, and meet life with curiosity and openness, something extraordinary becomes possible.
- Joy is not a distraction from serious work. It is part of the work.
Laughter, singing, dancing, and foolishness open doors that striving cannot. We don’t have to become more serious to become wiser. Sometimes we simply need to remember how to play.
- We are all the weavers.
The web has no single weaver. Every choice, every act of kindness, every story we tell sends a thread into the whole. We are creating the world through the ways we live, whether we realize it or not.
- Our differences are essential to the tapestry.
No two threads of aliveness are meant to be identical. We don’t need to become someone else to be of service. The world needs the gifts that only we can bring, woven together with the gifts of others.
- Enoughness is our birthright.
We don’t have to prove we deserve to belong. Imagine a world where we no longer compete for worthiness, where we can flourish together rather than at one another’s expense.
- Ask questions large enough to open the high cupboards of the universe.
The possibilities we most need may lie beyond what we already know. We must be willing to stretch, to ask better questions, and to imagine what others have declared impossible.
- Mystery is not something to solve. It is something to live with.
We can say “I don’t know” without feeling diminished. We can remain curious, discerning, and willing to be surprised. We don’t need to know how the story ends to participate in its unfolding.
- Listening is an act of love and a way of knowing.
Listen beyond words, beyond assumptions, beyond species. Listen to the Earth, to one another, to what is visible and invisible, and to what is trying to be born. Life is always speaking.
- Death and Destiny belong in the same conversation.
Because I will die, what deserves my life? Our changing capacities do not diminish our wisdom or our medicine. Mortality invites us to become more intentional about how we spend the life we have.
- We become good ancestors through the way we live today.
Being a good ancestor is not a future assignment. Every time we choose kindness over fear, listen instead of assuming, or honor a life different from our own, we are shaping what we leave behind.
- Bring the WOO into the world.
Wonder is not separate from ordinary life. Carry what you’ve discovered into the gardens you plant, the bridges you build, the promises you keep, and the dreams you give a place to grow. The visible and invisible worlds belong together.
The discovery beneath all the others
We don’t have to create the new world alone. We have to become the people through whom it can emerge.
No one has to carry the whole. No one has to know how it will all turn out. Each of us can trust our thread of aliveness, listen for what is trying to be born, and take the next step. Together.
The world we long for is not a destination. It is a relationship we create through the way we choose to be with life and one another.
These discoveries arose from lived experience—not simply talking about a different world, but experiencing one together.
October 2025: A Story for a World That Honors All of Life
They gathered in a circle and asked a question that mattered:
How do we play together to awaken a world that honors all of life?
They closed their eyes and listened — not with their minds, but to the greater intelligence that had been waiting to play with them and needed to be asked.
The breath became wind. The wind became prayer.
And soon, the story began to rise like mist from the land itself.
The Remembering
Once, there were people who woke up and realized that “life” was not just human life — it was the living Earth itself: the trees and rivers, the mountains and microbes, the breath of the ocean, the pulse of the soil.
They remembered that the Earth is not a backdrop to our story — it is the story.
And in that remembering, they felt a profound truth:
that play, wonder, and reverence are how the Earth speaks through us.
So all of life gathered to listen.
The wind brought whispers from the ancestors.
The soil hummed with old songs.
And the horses, with their vast, patient hearts, showed the rhythm of belonging.
The Council of All Beings
In a clearing of shared breath and intention, the Council of All Beings convened.
Humans sat beside animals, beside trees, beside rivers.
Mushrooms joined the party. Birds kept the minutes in song.
Each being spoke, not in words but in resonance.
Together they said:
“There is no hierarchy in the web of life.
There is only relationship.
When we play, we restore flow.
When we listen, we remember how to belong.”
The Children and the Ancestors
The children — who still remembered where they came from — said:
“Go outside. Feel the wind. Let the land teach you again.
Ask the stones what they remember. Ask the water how it forgives with flow.”
The ancestors nodded.
They had been waiting for this conversation —
for the moment when the living remembered the presence of those who went before and would dream with them, the new world into being.
The Practice of Play
From that council, a practice emerged.
Play became prayer.
Laughter became medicine.
Listening became activism.
And honoring became the only form of progress worth striving for.
People began to live by the rhythm of coherence —
breathing in through the heart, breathing out to the world —
tuning themselves to the frequency of forests and tides.
They learned that to awaken means to feel everything.
To play means to trust life again.
And to honor means to act in service to the whole — not as saviors, but as participants in a living Earth that is always teaching us how to live.
The Living Story
Their story spread like pollen — carried by wind, water, and conversation.
Communities began to gather, not to strategize but to listen.
They listened to rivers before building, to soil before planting, to their own bodies before deciding.
They began to ask, again and again:
“Does this choice honor all of life?”
And the body — that wise piece of the Earth — would answer, clearly.
The Invitation
This is the story that began that day:
a remembering of relationship,
a practice of play,
an awakening that includes not just us, but everything that breathes, grows, decays, and transforms.
The question remains alive in the field:
How do we play together to awaken a world that honors all of life — the living Earth, and every being within it?
The answer is still unfolding,
written not in words,
but in how we live, listen, and love —
together.
Received by The Listeners, October 2025, Transformational Listening at MEAWisdom
April 2026: A Story for a World That Dances with the Mystery
They gathered in a circle— playful beings on a playground,
as if the bell had rung for recess and something more important than seriousness was finally allowed.
They had stepped out of their minds and into the field where the Mystery plays.
And there, they remembered: When we play with the Mystery, the Mystery plays with us.
They had tasted it— a higher intelligence moving among them,
not as an idea, but as a living presence , guiding, weaving, opening.
And they wondered: How do we bring this into the world?
Not as a moment but as a way of living?
How do we create a world that works for all of life—
where we are part of the solution instead of circling the problem?
So they paused. Feet on the ground. Hearts open.
They felt what they had created, not by effort, but by listening.
Listening to each other. Listening to something greater.
Listening with love. And as they listened, they felt it:
A coherence. A collective heart.
A field where something far beyond the individual could come alive.
They saw how easily the mind spins— a merry-go-round of trying to figure it out.
And they laughed— because they loved merry-go-rounds, but not that kind of spinning.
So they dropped lower. Deeper. Into the intelligence of the heart.
And from there, they expanded to the intelligence of the universe.
Light moved through them— like sunlight filling every cell,
every corner of their mystical, magical beings.
They remembered: You are the light of the world.
And the light did not stop with them.
It moved outward— to the one beside them, to the circle, to the whole.
Together, they were stronger.
Together, they could see more.
Together, they could become more.
And then the question came— not from the mind, but from the field itself:
How do we dance with the Mystery
to create a world where what we have lived here
comes alive everywhere?
And they listened. And the answers came, wild, extravagant, delicious:
Be real. Be playful. Take inspired action.
Trust the unseen. Say the things you fear. Act on intuition.
Ask for help—human and divine. Lead with love. Release judgment.
Live in reciprocity—with the Earth, with each other.
Break the harmful patterns that cause you to abandon who you really are.
Be truth tellers. Be fierce. Call what is false.
Embody joy— and hold levity, brevity, and gravity.
Plant seeds everywhere. Allow yourself to be held.
Collude with what’s possible— even when it interrupts what is familiar.
Live with uncertainty. Hold your certainty within.
Remember:
you are not holding it all together— you are being held.
Celebrate the messy magnificence of being human in yourself and others.
Trust the trickster. Laugh. Snort. Fart. Be ridiculous.
Listen— to the grandmothers, to the ancestors, to the whisper of the ancients.
Know you are guided.
Surf the unknown. Let go of taking yourself so seriously.
Live your thread. Weave your life into the tapestry— color, texture, brilliance.
Have each other’s backs. Seek intimacy.
Use your voice. Sing your song.
Believe in the unseen. Hold space.
Raise children who know who they are— and who they are not.
Give. Receive. Let it move.
Say what is so, when it is so.
Trust your capacity.
Do not push. Do not hold back.
Hold your plans lightly— they will be interrupted by something greater.
Remember you chose to be here.
Listen before the whispers have to shout.
Live with ease. With elegance. With trust.
Eat. Laugh. Let the butter drip. Be alive in your body. Dance.
And still the field asked: What else?
And they answered: You do not have to be fully healed to contribute.
Call on the ancestors to break the harmful patterns for this generation and the ones to come.
Give grace. Give thanks.
Reach out. Nurture yourself.
Integrate your life experience so you may walk in wholeness.
And then, as if it had been waiting all along, the final knowing arrived:
We are the ones.
We are the holy fools, the ones who believe, the ones who create new maps from our dreams,
the ones who act.
We are here at this time on this planet for a reason.
To partner with the Mystery. To play. To love. To create.
To become the world we long to belong to.
And then someone said it— simple, true, undeniable:
Not just move with the Mystery, Dance with it!
And the whole field shifted.
Because they knew: This is how the future enters— not someday, but now.
Through them. Through their listening. Through their play. Through their courage to believe.
And so they rose— not as individuals, but as a living tapestry.
Ready to carry it into the world.
Received by The Mystery Dancers, April 2026, Transformational Listening at MEA Wisdom
Back to The Transformational Listening Playground
or Your Next Step
Are you curious?
Do you find yourself singing or sighing in relief?
You’re listening!
Join us to listen your way back to your own knowing.
Email gail@realspeaking.com to let me know you’re ready to play. You can email to book a time to talk or request the enrollment link.
Join our Mailing List in Box Below
