Marc Antonini

In any case, what this practice has in common with Deep Listening is that observing birds requires you quite literally to do nothing. It’s sort of the opposite of looking something up online. You can’t really look for birds. You can’t make a bird come out and identify itself to you. All you can do is walk and wait until you hear something, and then stand motionless under a tree trying to use your animal senses to figure out where and what it is. In my experience, time kind of stops. (You can ask anyone who knows me — doing this regularly makes me late to things.)

If any of that gets out of whack, I start to feel the pull of the abyss. When it all locks into place, I feel like a modern day warrior. Achieving a healthier balance is what training is all about and no matter how far I go, I’ve finally accepted that I can’t outrun my depression, and I can’t live passively with them. So, I’m making it my training partner. It keeps me motivated to avoid the lows and grounded when I get too high. It will be with me for the rest of my life. All I can do is keep moving.

If any of that gets out of whack, I start to feel the pull of the abyss. When it all locks into place, I feel like a modern day warrior. Achieving a healthier balance is what training is all about and no matter how far I go, I’ve finall…