Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other person's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own.
I have long imagined that at some point in the process of creation there must have come a point of stillness and silence after all the chaotic churning and gurgling of lava and rain. In my visioning eye I see this first moment of silence, almost as if I had been there, and the spirit of the mist is there, hovering.