questions on questions

Hello magical being,

I give you my love today. I am an eternal student of questions (tip: keep a Note on your phone, keeping your favorite ones safe…) and their ability to connect us on that deep, soulful level that we all crave but are not socialized to unearth.

The magic of connection lies deep below the surface. But how do we get there?

There is a quote from bell hooks’ wonderful book, Communion, that says: “There is an eros present at every meeting, and this is also sacred”.

Thoughtful questions, then, stoke the flames of eros between us. There are igniting questions, and extinguishing ones — and it’s all relative and contextual of course. As Krista Tippett has said (full delicious quote below): “Questions elicit answers in their likeness; answers rise or fall to the questions they meet.”

How do we ask more expansive, generous questions that invite people to feel truly seen, fascinating, attended to? What a gift to feel the genuine curiosity, presence, and attention of another. It’s a gift worth offering each other again and again, even as what the dopamine cartel tries to distract us from the sacred beauty of embodied connection.

So today I would love to ask you:

What question do you wish you were asked more? What’s a question you’d gladly INVITE over for tea today? And if you feel called, Why is this such a satisfying question for you?

I came up with several alternatives to this question (What’s the best way to ask this question? Why?)

• What's your favorite question you've ever been asked?

• What's your favorite question to ask other people?

• What's a question you would love to be asked by a stranger specifically? I am on the hunt for more non-intrusive but also thoughtful questions to ask strangers…

Sending love.

with love and gratitude,
Ayanda

P.S. I love and highly recommend this (short!) podcast episode by Krista Tippet on Living the Questions. She encourages us to ask more “How” and “Why” questions, instead of capitalism’s obsession with “What” and “How Much” questions. Here I am, asking a “What” question — but I feel it’s worth asking. Here is my favorite quote from the episode, wow just wow:

”My love for this teaching and the seriousness with which I take it rests in part on my deep reverence for the gravity and the power of questions in human life. I think that this is undervalued in a culture that is in love with the form of words that is an answer, and the way with words that is an argument. That I also find a question to be a mighty form of words. And I have learned a few things about questions. I have learned that questions elicit answers in their likeness; that answers rise or fall to the questions they meet. And we’ve all seen this; we’ve all experienced it. It’s very hard to respond to a combative question with anything but a combative answer. It’s almost impossible to transcend a simplistic question with anything but a simplistic answer. But the opposite is also true: it’s hard to resist a generous question.”

P.P.S.: I am hosting a Free MasterClass on Creative Kinship this Sunday, June 30 at 10-11:30am EST / 2-3:30pm UTC. Learn more and get the link to register here.