Sound and Silence
The threshold of space and time
I recently picked up a drum or maybe it picked me up ;). I’ve been playing it some each day and as I’ve been working with it, what I’ve been paying attention to is the threshold between sound and silence. That threshold is one of the many openings into the potentiality behind reality.
In the above picture, you might notice a bell on top of the drum. I’ve had that bell and another one for a long time and I’ve used them in rituals, both solo and with other people as a tool for catching the attention and focusing it on the moment the sound ends and the silence begins, or the moment when the silence ends and the sound begins. There’s something liminal in that experience of sound and silence.
I also use my voice as a tuned instrument. I can chant the vowels and vibrate words and sounds and what I keep coming back to is that the sound is just one part of the equation, one part of the experience. I listen to the sound and then I lean into the silence and allow both to have their space and their time, creating the threshold between both and opening the way to new realities.
The power of sound is rooted in vibration. I beat the drum, play my harmonica, ring my bell, or vibrate a sound and through that activity, I access the sound and also receive it. What I think people forget is that making noise of any type is also a receiving of that noise.
This is why the words we say are so important. We aren’t just saying them to the world. We are saying them to ourselves and that self is receiving those words and the vibration and sound contained within those words. This is really potent because we are telling it to ourselves. We are simultaneously sending and receiving those words.
However, this principle also applies to the sounds we make that aren’t words. Whether I’m making this sound with my voice or body or through an instrument I am simultaneously sending and receiving sound and vibration. That can generate a tremendous momentum that fuels the experience of our being or it can drag us down into the inertia of the status quo.
What and who you listen to also matters, because of the receptivity that you’re engaged in, when you listen. Knowing this and discovering it are different realities, because we all too easily dismiss what we know into the background. Get curious and discover what you are listening to.
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The power of silence is the offering of stillness, and within that stillness is the potential of movement, ready to express itself provided you can attenuate yourself to the silence. Of course, we’re never truly in a soundless environment.
There are sounds around you, right now, whether that’s the hum of the refrigerator, or the sounds your computer makes because of the programs or all the other sounds around you that are very easily blocked, yet nonetheless are part of the background.
Take those sounds in and settle into silence with yourself. Let go of the need to fill the environment with sounds that aren’t already part of the environment around you. Let the quiet in and receive it. You might be tempted to fill it with your thoughts. As best as possible, let the thoughts go.
Then make a sound and let the sound fade. Welcome the silence in. Breathe it in, listen it in, receive it in. It’s part of the experience that dances with sound and with you. Get curious and discover what awaits you in silence.
Sound and silence in sacred union
There can be a tendency to think of sound and silence as exclusionary from each other. The reality is they are inclusive of each other. One happens in relation of the other, and we appreciate each because of the other.
When applying sound and silence to each other, it’s ideal if you pay close attention to the experience of sound fading and the silence deepening. Then when you make a noise, pay attention to how it fills up the silence.
I integrate sound and silence into my rituals. Recently I drummed in the directions and spirits and then the moon. What was important for me was the balance between sound silence. I didn’t want to beat the drum to drown out the silence and I wanted to have the right amount of silence before I began making noise again. I felt into that balance and the mixture of sound and silence created a powerfully charged ritual space.
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