real wellness
Snatches of true silence can be found in far-flung places – areas devoid of human sound: the glacial wilds of Patagonia; the Peruvian Amazon and the foothills of the Himalayas. I have also found complete silence while camping alone in the Kentish woodland and, most locally, while meditating. I’ve found echoes of that search in countless books and films –€Erling Kagge’s brilliant
Silence: In The Age Of Noise (Penguin, £9.99); the documentary In Pursuit Of Silence; Sara Maitland’s Gossip From The Forest and her seminal 2008 work, A Book Of Silence (both Granta Books, £9.99). Silence, of course, is not silent. It is where subtler, slower, more expansive resonances are found; the ‘rhythm’ of grass, or the ‘pulse’ of mountains and the earth. But, while our ancestors lived with minimal stimulation, our modern minds are often mercilessly entertained by bleats and blether from our tech, and hectic soundscapes which a.ect us physiologically and behaviourally. We raise our voices, as urban songbirds have lifted their pitch, in order to compete.