Listening Point and You

When Sigurd Olson wrote about Listening Point in his second book (Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), he wrote of how he had searched for many years for a place of his own that would "epitomize all the places in the north that I had known and loved," a place where he could sense what he had known on many exploring expeditions of the past, a place where "I would explore the entire north and all life, including my own." He wrote of how he had finally found such a place on a "bare, glaciated spit of rock" on Burntside Lake near his home in Ely, of his joy in the discovery, and of how "I would come to listen and feel and to recapture for a little while the old joys I had known."

But he went on to say that "Everyone has a Listening Point somewhere ... some place of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe."

This was the real meaning of Listening Point. It is so central to Sig Olson's philosophy and outlook, that the Listening Point Foundation has adopted as one of its main purposes inspiring others to find their own Listening Points. The View from Listening Point will publish reader's own stories from time to time. (See this issue, The Listening Point Story.)