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How does the soundscape around you express what is happening on this planet?

Quote of the Day: In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, she makes the most remarkable comparison about the kinds of music in our world, “It was reassuring to know that far away, whales swim [and sing] in Baltic waters, and monks in arcane times zones chanted ceaselessly for the salvation of the world.”

Commentary:  My late great friend, Richard Nelson of Alaska, called this Earth we lived nestled within the Singing Planet. Whenever I wake up and go outside, I hear the tenors and sopranos of the bords within my ‘hood singing their hearts out, with such joy for being in this world. I usually hear the baritones and basses of trucks grinding through their gears on the highway a half mile from me, but lately, as the coronavirus has disrupted truck traffic coming up from Mexico, their voices have been temporarily muted. How does the soundscape around you express what is happening on this planet?

Suggested Action #29: Take your walking meditation today without giving attention to some inner mantra, but keep your attention focused on the sounds around you. Which sounds are growing in frequency in your life, and which are being progressively muted? How do the sounds around you reflect what is going on in the world at large? Was St. Francis simply preaching to the birds, or was he deeply listening to what they expressed?

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Gary Paul Nabhan aka Brother Coyote is a professed member of the Ecumenical Order of Franciscans, a graduate of the Living School, a conservation biologist, orchard-keeper and story-teller.

 

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