Listen with Your Heart

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

—Kahil Gibran

Moe Ross drew me to the light in her heart like a moth to a flame. I did not know at that time how bright her inner light was, because as I now know,  she adjusts the flame accordingly, so as not to blind people with her glow.

Moe knows a thing or two about being blind, because she is sight-impaired. And when I say that, I'm speaking of the kind of seeing you do with your eyes.  Listen with your heart to the most amazing story of perspective and framing of turning life's challenges into gifts.

 Given my interest in storytelling, several friends at dinner suggested that I meet a most unusual woman named Moe Ross. Moe had been a university administrator, a psychotherapist and a renowned writer of  personal life stories for many years. But more than all of these titles, Moe was a lifelong seeker "in search of the more".  

I couldn't quite put my finger on what I was experiencing at our initial meeting...I only knew that I kept coming back for more "Moe" time. It was as if time was suspended and "being present" took on a new meaning in her presence. We became friends and saw each other occasionally. 

Moe was deep into her life's work as a writer and therapist and very passionate about a book entitled, "And There Was Light", the autobiography of the early life of Jacques Lusseyran, an inspiring young man who overcame the limitations of physical blindness by attending to the light within his own mind. Through faith in the connection between vivid inner sight and outer events, he became a leader in the French Resistance and survived the horrors at Buchenwald.

A friend of Moe's wondered why she was so intrigued by such a depressing book, to which Moe responded, "I would be willing to go blind to carry that much light."   

I guess the moral of the story is "be careful what you wish for". Thirty days later, Moe had an unusual medical complication from a double retinal detachment that occurred a few days apart from each other.. She consulted with the best doctors in the country who were experts in retinal reattachment. They told her the surgery would be a slam dunk. It was not. After the surgery, the blood coagulated in her vitreous, rending her blind.  

Nonetheless, Moe carried on, undeterred by this new reality. When people expressed concern or worry for her, she didn't want pity; she wanted people "to be ambitious for her". She never complained or felt sorry for herself; she viewed this experience as a great adventure and because she had read Jacques Lusseyran's book, she focused on attending to the light within her heart.

She continued writing books and seeing clients; many of them had no idea of this added dimension of Moe's reality. I remember her telling me a story of her gay hair stylist calling to say he had heard about her situation and 'what a nuisance it must be'. From that point on, Moe viewed the experience as a nuisance, not a tragedy and learned to listen and see with her heart.

Throughout this time, she had many procedures to try and correct the condition. She won the happy patient award from her hospital's team and adopted the motto, "Happy with sight; happy without". But in fact, Moe never lost her sight...she just perceived people and her surroundings through a different organ- the human heart. 

Five years later in a moment of unexpected grace, the coagulated blood cleared from one of her eyes and Moe partially regained her sight in one eye.      

During Moe's period of blindness, I joined her team to help design and create the books she wrote using her extraordinary gift of  deep listening as  a story whisperer. I'm proud to say we are working together to this day.

I have learned so many things from this spiritual woman. Her mission in life is "to add a little more love in the world." When I walk beside Moe in work and in life, I too, see the world through a different lens. To quote, Pierre Tielhard de Chardin, I know "we are not human beings on a spiritual journey; we are spiritual beings on a human journey."

Moe has taught me how to reflect that perspective to our clients through the telling of their life's stories from a higher dimension of consciousness. And that makes all the difference in the world.

A question to sit with:

Is there a person in your life that inspired you to transform a significant life challenge into a gift?