Sound & Noise
What is the difference between a sound and a noise?
It is interesting that noise is a modern concept. In nature, where is there "noise"? It is the sound of the tree falling - not its noise. It is the sound of children playing, not the noise of their playing.
If we go a little deeper, all the sounds of nature carry information, loads of it. The chirping of the birds tell us that the rain has ended. The barking of the dogs tells us that someone is around. Sounds we listen to and for.
Noise on the other hand penetrates our space, and speaks of something that is out-of-bounds, often violent. The noise of a crashing vase, the noise of the neighbour's car starting, the noise of two people arguing. Noises hit our adrenals, putting us in a flight or fight mode.
The background of nature is often silence, although I have been in forests that are filled with cacophonies of sound. It is generally a healthy forest that manifests that array of sound - unless it the cry of a forest and its inhabitants being stressed by some invasion.
It is a background upon which you learn to hear and listen. To receive the sounds and place them in the natural narrative. It is like a conversation with the living beings that surround us.
However, in the urban - could I say human, and thus non-natural - environments, the background consists of lots of noise. So much so that we become so habituated to it that we crave it. We frequent places like bars and restaurants in which we can be surrounded by the familiar background hubbub of voices, in quiet places like malls and stores, there will be no silence, but will often have piped music that allows that part - let us call it the "audio" part - of our minds no rest.
Thus most of what we are hearing in the cities are sounds that we are irrelevant to us, and we ignore. There are other's that we might even reject - or walk away from. But the default response is "throw-away". In other words, there is more noise on the line(s) in the city, than useful or nourishing sounds.
It is like a post-office that receives mostly junk mail, or like the junk email that constitutes that majority of our email - you just don't see most of it. In other words, most of what is being received has to be rejected! Just like the sounds of the city.
In nature, however, we can sit and open our ears, both our outer and inner, and listen. It requires a certain silence and inner peace, and slowly she will awaken and you will become more and more aware of the sounds and movements all around.
So we invite you to spend some time in nature and just listen, to yourself, to your thoughts and begin to feel all the living beings and energies that exist in this space, and how they speak to you and for you. It is as if you are surrounded in love - soft, gentle, quiet love, where the lullabies and love-songs are sung in soft and hesitant melodies.