Cultivating the skill for long term conversations
After a Thanksgiving week of incredible conversations, I’m thinking again about “conversations more illuminating than light” (Goethe) and what might be the foundational skills and interests that allow such to take place.
For years now, Daniel and I have understood marriage as the best opportunity to have a very long and nourishing conversation with another person. And yet, when I write that, I feel like the word “conversation” does not do justice to what this experience can be.
True conversation can be life-changing.
In order to have these deep conversations, a group needs to cultivate a shared language. By this I do not mean English or German or Russian—I mean a shared set of terminology and agreed upon definitions. Two people can both speak English and have completely different frameworks for the semantic range of even mildly abstract words.
As so many of my friends are interested in anthroposophy, it is a frequent conversational topic. It comes with its own deep and complex language and terminology. Newbies often spend a year or two studying the material before feeling like they have a grasp of the essential terms (astral, etheric, spirit, physical, etc).
This is true of any spiritual tradition, where the intangible spiritual realities must be defined and worked through together before conversation can proceed smoothly.
So, here’s my recipe for nourishing conversation:
3-4 hours available
shared terminology (takes a few years)
topics with enough depth (anthropos sophia, or the like)
preparation to listen
ability to be truly interested in what other people say
candlelight
no recording devices, no phones, no screens
stamina
This has been the year for me to start sharing some of these incredible conversations in a more public format. And it’s also the one year anniversary for Ronda’s Practical Steiner podcast, where we discuss what it means to have conversations.
As I noted above, I think it is well-nigh a challenge to have the best conversations while aware of a recording device, but because I believe these study groups and deep conversations are literally life-changing, it’s worth trying to express what the potential can be.
