Words - deep listening & the climate crisis
How often do we sit and listen? Entering an environment, focusing the mind to concentrate on the soundscape or a particular sound. This is an act of meditation, a building and nurturing of a state of awareness and concentration. It takes practice to focusing your mind away from your thoughts, nurturing an awareness of the soundscape.
I recently took part in a Climate Crisis Lab Recidency at 101 Outdoor Arts in Newbury. Around thirty artists gathered in the space to listen to lectures by practitioners. We discussed topics involving integrating the climate crisis into our artistic practice. I had many afterthoughts as I processed the residency, I have been contemplating the idea of deep listening and awareness.
How can we use sound (particularly field recording) to communicate the climate crisis? How can we raise an awareness within groups of people who may not engage with the climate problem or practice field recording? How can we use sound to raise an awareness of wisdom and traditional knowledge within an environmental context?
That last question appeared to me when thinking further about awareness and concentration. It seems to me that traditional aboriginal cultures had a deeper understanding of ecology, compared to your average modern western human. This is due to the fact they had a direct relationship with the land. As we know, through historical evidence, they relied on the land for food, medicines and understanding. This was a mutualistic relationship.
An example of this could be observing signs and signals within an ecosystem. Instead of harvesting the entire amount of a certain plant, the aboriginal people may have noticed that there needed to be a certain amount of plants to provide enough seeds for the plant to continue providing. Or perhaps they noticed that these plants were also feeding deer, another possible resource. This requires an increased awareness, a deep observation of an environment. It is often labeled as wisdom. Do we still look as closely in these modern times?
I was drawn to think about the possibility of allowing people to partake and experience periods of awareness. Could doing this give a glimpse of how our ancestors would have listened and interacted with their environment? Could we begin or rekindle a deeper awareness to landscape and ecology though listening?
By taking the time to listen closely we build concentration, with regular practice, we develop skills which cross over into the other senses. We start to learn to watch rather than react, we learn things about our own mind and our environment. By teaching the methodology of deep listening, the principles may cross over into other aspects of peoples lives. People may start paying attention to birdsong, they may notice increases, decreases at different times of the year. They may then ask the question why is this happening? The seed is then sown.
This heightened awareness is proven to be beneficial for our mental health but could also benefit the planets health. We need to encourage awareness to attempt to repair our relationship with the land and Earth. One way we can start to make this step is through deep listening.
