Celebrated Minnesota naturalist, Sigurd Olson wrote in his book, Listening Point, “I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard.”
I believe that Olson is talking about listening to inaudible vibrations. Just because we can’t hear a sound, doesn’t mean that there is no sound. All living things have a vibratory rate or wavelength. This wavelength is similar to an audible sound, but it can not be heard. When an eagle flew past me in silence this morning, I saw it, but it had a powerful vibration that touched my spirit. Also, later in the morning, there was a pileated woodpecker at my feeder, and it too had a unique vibration that impacted my body. The eagle and woodpecker are extreme cases, but all living things carry their own unique vibration or wavelength that we can connect with. When people talk about “picking up on the vibes of someone or some place, they are really talking about tuning into the unique vibratory rate or wavelength of that person, place or thing.
For example, the boundary waters in Northern Minnesota, is a place where I have felt an overwhelming vibration of silence. I remember being in a canoe on a wilderness lake and hearing a throng of sound within the silence. The vibrations filled every pore of my body and I “surrendered” to the silence.
There is nothing more magical than hiking or paddling in a wilderness area. What about listening to the everyday silence that we experience, as we go through the day?
I walk my dog every morning in a bur oak forest near my home. If I spend the time and walk with intention, listening to the silence of the oaks, or find beauty in the shapes of the glacial hills, then I will probably walk out of the park feeling more balanced and ready for the day. However, if I pull my dog along on a leash, hurrying past each twisted oak, and not connecting to the splendor that is present in the silence, then I probably should have skipped the walk and hurried off in my car.
Help me explain this better. Tell me what you have experienced in the silence of nature.
The kind of listening that you write about here is the hardest of all. I am unable to do it if I have expectations or preconceptions of what I think the experience should be. For example I used to think that I would experience it auditorily when in fact I feel it more like a touch (like when a sound wave vibrates through my body). There are other times when I’m just too addicted to my own thoughts to listen. For me this is the most rewarding type of meditation. More than just quieting my mind this is opening my self up to be touched by Creation in whatever ways it chooses to touch.