What is your sound?
What is the one sound which above all others, causes you to slowly unravel like a tightly wound film reel spooling out onto the floor?
If you could record just one sound for a child that you love, what would it be?
If you could choose a single sound to rock you to sleep, what would you choose?
Sounds are free. They wind their way through the corridors of our stone fortresses and float out of barred windows. They echo through locked spaces and come and go, nonchalantly circumventing all our defences.
I’ve always loved to be high up in the city and hear the street sounds rising into the room, making fun of my carefully constructed little secure space. Shaking me out of my complacency and celebrating the messiness and glory of life all around.
Now that I live at the three lighthouses, my open window lets the constant, massive sound of the sea rush in on the damp salt breeze.
And right now, as I write, the foghorn is sounding its woody, resonant note across miles of sea. It’s a huge sound and enormously comforting.
We can’t ever cut ourselves off. Even when we think that we are completely separate, sounds can come in to us. And remind us, painfully and joyfully, that we are not alone.
Creative relaxation online
four – making sounds
Global Soundscapes is making a map of how the earth sounds.
You can click on the map to hear both natural and made sounds recorded around the world.
You can filter sounds to just listen to “sounds that make me happy” or – should you wish – “sounds that stress me out”.
You can download an app and record the sounds of your own environment to contribute to the project, which aims to use the sounds to learn about the health of the planet.
Links –
All the info is at
https://www.globalsoundscapes.org
or search for global soundscapes /soundscape ecology
more info
You’ve got to like a site with four buttons on the homepage labelled watch explore record and fun.
It’s worth a thought – the sounds of the place where you live are something other people value and want to hear. Maybe we should take out the headphones for a moment and listen to where we are…
Grace and peace to you.