Sound Is a Medium for Mindfulness // Pt. 3
“Tell me where you go in these silences and I will say if I have been there.”
-Naomi Shihab Nye
Where do you see our interconnection? In the trees, bare feet on the earth, in the gaze of a stranger? Who do you meet with in the silences? Where do you go when uncertain, or needing to celebrate? Who do you listen to, showing you are indeed there with them? Who can you tell, I am here with you now, even if I have not been on your journey? What reminds you that all is moving, dying, and being reborn? What reminds you that you are vibrating and intertwined in a large force of life? Where do you go to remember your belonging?
Biologist and conservationist David George Haskel says that sound carries imprints of deep time. Sound is a great connector as it regenerates stories in ways that viscerally land within us. We are, though, in such a moment of profound noise where attention spans are spread past resilience into distortion; polluting ecosystems, both in our feeds and in our minds. Exploring ways to make room for quiet has become a necessary exercise for sanity and attention preservation. Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton observes, “There is absolutely no place on Earth that is completely free from human sound all of the time.”
And just as there is no real silence in this modern existence, there is also no real aloneness.
I once had a mentor that said, “You enter the world on your own and you leave the world on your own—I am often by myself yet I am never alone.” The feeling of loneliness is much like the feeling of despair; it asks for acknowledgement and to be pulled into the light. They are both feelings rather than states of being. Our interconnection is a reality we can tune into—not only in our hard feelings, but in our creativity and solutions—regarding ourselves as many parts intertwined with many parts. How rich. How whole. How possible.
This moment is asking us to truly listen and confront the possibility of a world where our interconnection is a known and motivating force. Perhaps the love we all crave springs from the truth of our intersections.
There is now evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces implicit age and race bias, and burgeoning evidence from neurobiological and behavioral research that mindfulness practices help reduce reactivity to emotions and enhance psychological well-being. Rhonda Magee, author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice, says it’s people with a deep mindfulness practice who can “sit in the fire of the painful recognition that, oh, my mind actually does orient me to people who look like me.” She continues, “Mindfulness can help us with a lot of the really subtle difficulties of doing the work that must be done to dismantle these patterns and habits that draw us to reinvest in segregation.”
In this light, mindfulness is not merely a stress-reduction approach for only an individual’s well-being. Rather, in many ways, mindfulness is a communal mobilizer, creating space for wiser action—a vehicle for moving from inner nourishment to applying a touch of care from the most authentic place within.
It is not about walking around as completely calm, saint-like beings. It is about being in our nature as humans and getting real with how we orient ourselves to both our own being as well as others. It is not some achieved state of spirituality or morality, but rather nurturing the best parts of what we hear, see, and create: sitting with the messiness of our lives and holding it all with compassion. Being connected through our humanness, not transcending it. Cultivating a loving relationship to how we connect, disconnect, and how we arrive to our bodies, our homes, and our communities.
Pulse + Pause
Sometimes remembering is all it takes to return to the knowledge that you are interconnected to all that lives. It certainly helps to remember this in our bodies: to touch what is living or to ground into the earth holding you, to drink water and greet its nurturing with gratitude.
What alive thing (a feeling, person, practice, plant) reminds you that you are not alone? How can you listen?
A blessing:
Whether you have been there or not
Whether your silences are long and dark
or small, painful sprints
Whether you may join another in their silence
or you must ask to be met
We are actively devoted to the return of
Tipping the scale toward love
