Speech is audible energy.

Conversation is an exchange of energy.

Listening is a form of reverence for the energy shared in conversation. Listening is not only how we learn from another person’s energy but also how we show gratitude for it.

To make someone feel he or she has been heard is to acknowledge the activation and cultivation of the energy within. It tells the other person: this is real, this is important, and this is compelling.

I hear you is also I feel you. Please listen is also please feel this.

Speaking is reaching. Speaking is invisible touching. Listening is receiving. Listening is invisible feeling.

To put something into words is to enliven it. We energize it and make it come alive.

I just needed to say it means I just needed to feel it with more of me.  I just needed to tell someone means I just needed to see how it would feel to deliver it.

This is why spells and prayers and song feel so powerful. And why we feel them as much as we hear them. This is the original magic.

— Mercy