Sitting in a street garden, letting the silky breeze brush over me. Days are relaxed and stretching out. Sunlight fills up my journal pages. I close my eyes and listen to a summer story, the one that my journal had been waiting for, yet I can’t fix it on paper. Fleeting, like a firefly, it there and here, lit up and turned off, gesturing to its mates.
How many stacks of journals have become quiet neighborhoods? I’ve waited all winter and prepared all spring, for I know the delicacy of a summer song. Yet I can’t ask my words to work. It’s time for them to enjoy the summer sum without fading.
Without words, can I demand I go somewhere? Without words, can I remember? Without words, can I hold summer precious till September? Can I wake up from this long day dream, twinkling like children’s eyes, pulsing like a heartbeat, playing till another sunrise?
I stretch as the morning reaches through windows, grabbing something else within me, whispering of a sunlit day. Or maybe it’s the birdsong waking me into fullness. Waking a longing within me to slip between their notes, belonging to the chorus. What calls these birds to song? Spring’s eggs have been laid, mating dances played, yet they sing still. Summer songs seem to sing to us all, to the worms in the ground, to the flowers around, to the ants in our kitchen, and to windowstruck cats and dogs. In listening to the world alive together, space emerges, and silence spreads. Not the scientific attempts at absolute silence, but the subtle silence of a stilled mind and warm heart. I live for my morning breaths in this bath.
Yet how summer sits here, near, without fear, it is clear, is not present in this whole living sphere. Summer sunlight can be kind and cruel. As I meditate on the gentle harmony of June in New York City, I hear too lost love — children’s songs unsung, with little yellow raincoats unhung. I hear minds molded, so as to not see the seeds they sow. I hear violent speech and to silenced song. I pray for a return to each other, unsmothered by the fever of revenge masquerading as self-defense. For to see evil in a heart is to rip ourselves apart.
And I breathe in my return to myself, even to those parts within me segregated on a shelf. I see that which is unkind in my own mind and release it to my heart. Summer sunlight streams in, stretching time, birds singing away in nature’s rhyme, and again, I’m gratitude for the mundane divine. Thank you for reading.
With love + resonance,
Adrian + Yiming
Our Brooklyn Events
June 20th and July 18th — our next two bi-monthly acoustic sound meditation at Yogis and Yoginis in Park Slope. Typically we’d have a sound meditation on the first Thursday of every month, but in July that lands on July 4th, so we’ve cancelled that meditation.
Our regular meditations at Brooklyn Flow have been paused for the summer months.
Our next signature acoustic mediation will be held on July 13th. If this sounds interesting to you, let us know!
Oracular Practice
The helpful elements of the universe wait for us to ask for help. A passive or deluded posture will also repel these helpful elements waiting in the wings. Life is about interactive transformation, not atomized waiting – no matter how heroic or patient the self-image of waiting is. Waiting now, because of thoughts like, “What will I do then?”, obscure the reality of the helpful nature of the cosmos. Actively participate in life, humble and engaged.
Some Links
🐦⬛ The Nightingale’s Song episode one of a new documentary series produced by Emergence Magazine. I watched the preview last year at their Shifting Landscapes retreat. A beautiful sketch of folk singer Sam Lee who sings with nightingales. Grab his book if you want to go on a deeper journey with this little bird.
🌌 The Sounds of Space: A sonic adventure to other worlds As the name implies, a short film takes you on a journey back in time and to the edge of our solar system and beyond, to discover what other worlds of sound are lurking beyond Earth's atmosphere.
🎵 Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report Scientific study for nerds :)
Some Listenings
🪘A Brazilian samba song adapted from a slave hymn, a prayer to a deified ancestor goddess who comes in the form of Nana, a wise, elderly woman.
🌊 A song from Molly Lewis, a professional whistler. I always find whistling nostalgic, light, and perfect for summer.
🤯 A fantastic and rich song I’ve been listening to for over fifteen years, that’s changed with my understanding of the subject matter. This music video is also quite the feat of animation, which, in combination with the music, does an amazing job of rendering the unrenderable. Its a treat, watch it full screen and in one go!
Some Words
Deep sea fishing
for a smile
All the while
whiling away
looking for something to pray
Birdsong and children playing
through a half open window
smelling of sunlight
An ocean of feeling
sensation at sea
a plea
My heart an altar
for when I falter
These words a shadow
of meaning
reading harmony
The caress of a lakeborn undulation
contemplation no more
What sweet temple
And we're deep sea fishing again
for a smile
All the while
loving you