First of all, I can't believe I haven't posted anything since November 22. That's crazy! There is so much in my head all the time about sound- thinking, listening, hearing, experiencing... and intending to write about it.
I am exhausted so I will share just one amazing thing that I learned today. I was just listening to a program on NPR (the Radio Lab- here is the link /) and they were talking about how fast information travels- for example, when they used telegraphs it took a message about 1/4 of a second to travel from New York to Chicago. In the body, information travels at different rates of speed. Pretty much a lot slower than the speed of a telegram although I don't remember the details. The delivery system from the reward center was definitely slower than for pain.
But here is where it got really exciting. They began talking about what it takes to be totally present and in the NOW. They spoke with Seth Horowitz, a neuroscientist who studies, among other things, the biology of hearing. What he said was that the body responds more quickly to sound than anything else- it takes only 50 milliseconds to respond to a loud noise. What this means to me is that sound is the premier tool for mindfulness and meditation. It affords us the possibility to BE PRESENT with little or no effort.
The truth is, I have known this for a long time. This is clearly one of the aspects of sound that makes it so very powerful as a tool for both healing and for personal transformation- because it allows us to drop in to the PRESENT, a rare event unless we have cultivated a dedicated and steady practice over many years. With sound however, we surrender to the vibrations and are taken there immediately with virtually no effort on our part. What was exciting to me was to hear the science behind what I know from experience- from my own practice of working with sound and from the private sessions that I give where I observe the responses of others on a daily basis.
Okay, that's my big excitement for today. Getting up early to drive up to Eliot, Maine to do a Sound Journey.