Hold the Sound

Listening through the noise and connecting to the senses

It’s a noisy world out there. Yet another news headline roaring in clickbait horror and impossibilities. Another flashy ad echoing unknown wants. Another notification throbbing. Five more open tasks shouting at me on my to do list. Eerily filling my cup with improbabilities and overwhelm.

At times all of this is so loud it makes me want to hide out in a blanket fort indefinitely. To stop reading the news, to get away from it all, to find the noise cancelling headphones that will turn down the volume of a global nervous system in overdrive.

But life keeps disrupting, interfering and violently crashing our empires. It is change unfolding infinitely. Constantly evolving and transforming the world around us. This simple fact can make us feel out of control. But it may also be an invitation to ponder the qualities of noise.

by Ben Rayner

Noise is essentially a multitude of sounds, combined with a personal judgment that we make about them. Usually it is bad or uncomfortable. In its entirety, noise confuses us and our sense of direction. It surprises and overrides our signals. It disrupts our ability to navigate and engage with the world around us.

We are pattern seeking animals. Hard wired in our systems is a need for sense-making, for meaning. Infused with a longing to understand the symmetries and aesthetics of a life in constant disruption.

We fear what we don’t recognize, the noisy disorder in the pattern. At the same time, we celebrate novelty as a form of genius. The only difference between noise and novelty being that the latter’s surprise can be integrated into our perception. Seemingly pushing a way forward.

Novelty is the puzzle piece that ultimately fits in and enlarges the picture. In contrast, what we fear manifests itself as the overpowering cacophony of confusion and dizziness. But energy moves where our concentration leads. So what we resist—the noise—usually persists, as our attention feeds it with more energy.

by Frank Mullens

So what if noise was not really the problem? What if noise is, at its core, about the emotions and judgments we attach to the pattern disruption, to change unfolding? But noise broken down into its single sounds–contrasting and finding perspective–vibrates with potential and possibility. Tickling our instincts to return to the delicate urge of witnessing beauty.

Or as John Hull (Touching the Rock, 1992) put it in his memoir about going blind:

“Rain has a way of bringing out the contours of everything; it throws a coloured blanket over previously invisible things; instead of an intermittent and thus fragmented world, the steadily falling rain creates continuity of acoustic experience…”

Magic Swamp too can be a noisy place.

The deafening chorus of frogs awaking to spring.

The percussion of clicking amphibians lurking in the undergrowth.

The criss-cross of birds calling out for danger and mating.

The loud breathing roots towering out of soil and water.

The seasonal winds rustling through infant branches, singaling new beginnings.

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What if I let myself experience the soundscape of a wild place?

Its tapestry of hoots, cries and rhythms.

Some frequencies may come as a surprise.

And some swing in familiar harmonies.

What if I allow myself to hold the sound? To feel the space, depth and intensity of it? To let my awareness rest upon it.

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When I hear the tree collapse, I can smell the musty dampness that blows through the still air to gather on my naked shoulders.

I connect to the senses, including my intuition. To stop and see, taste, smell, hear and touch what is essential right in front of me. To become still before I become-with the vibrations of change. Deeply rooted in being.

Will I sense the tune of the humming sounds through the noise?

Will I realise that change is not something to be feared?

But instead it may meet me as a movement to be observed, a novel pattern that can be encountered.

As the world keeps disrupting and changing, so am I. Always becoming-with. In constant transmission with the ecologies we are a part of. Inviting us to accept that our identities are in constant flux. We are nomads in the tapestry of our own meaning-making.

Explore by aan chen

It lets us remember that even if the waters seem stagnant and they stink, there is a slow trickle below the surface. Since swamps act as a natural water treatment plant. They filter pollutants and hold back sediments, thereby purifying and recharging groundwater supply. The source below that reconnects to the water veins and rushing rivers, only visible to us above the surface.

Here I meet resistance with heightened senses, including intuition. In this stillness, I may feel what is unfolding in the deep belly of the world. What goes hungry? What rasps with thirst? Being present with the gravity of our times. Digesting, filtering and focussing on what matters. Reconnecting to the wondrous. Finding the work that is mine to do.

Or as Eden Phillpotts (A Shadow Passes, 1918) put it while exploring the marshes of Dartmoor in the UK at the height of the First World War:

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits
[and senses] to grow sharper.”

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