Today is World Listening Day

Organized in 2010 by the World Listening Project (www.worldlisteningproject.org), it is designated as a day to listen to our world, to celebrate the practice of listening as it relates to the world around us, to environmental awareness and to acoustic ecology.  Today, the One Square Inch of Silence Foundation reminds us that there are still places, quiet places where we can listen to and hear our Earth in her truest form.  Where we can listen to the pure sounds of nature, with no interruption by machinery, air traffic, highways, or other man-made sound pollutants.

Listen with intention today – go for a soundwalk, or consider the qualities of your soundscape.  What sounds would be characteristic of your workplace, your home, or your neighborhood?  Notice the sounds that we have become deaf to, those sounds that may be incessant, that we use energy to ignore and are always pressing on our psyche.

And then, listen for the quiet.  Realize that the quiet, the stillness is always there, always in the background.  It is in the spaces and the pauses.  It is truly the original sound.  And remember that some of the our most profound experiences in life are not seen; they are heard.