by Nimue Brown, reposted from her Druid Life Blog
As I type this, all I can hear is bird song, and the small noises of everyday life. If I moved to the bedroom, I would hear the nearby stream in addition to the birds. These are good sounds that soothe my body and mind alike.
I struggle a lot with human noise, especially when it’s loud. The environments that humans create for human existence aren’t terribly good for us. Some of us struggle more obviously with that. I gather that harm is caused whether you’re conscious of it or not, and noise pollution is stressful and unhealthy for everyone, even if it doesn’t consciously register as a problem.
Seeking peaceful environments is good for us. We can also think about the noise pollution we cause, and how to better handle that. With signs of summer here in the UK a lot of people seem to have the urge to open their windows and play music very loudly. I was at a local beauty spot recently and one car there was blasting out music, obliging everyone else to listen to that, and not to the songbirds and other more natural sounds.
I have no doubt that I’m preaching to the converted here, and that regular readers are unlikely to be the sort of people who would want to inflict a lot of noise on an otherwise peaceful and wild space. But, we all make noise one way or another, and that’s going to impact on the environments we are part of.
Quietness is a gift we can give to each other. It’s a gift we may easily overlook because the blessing is in the absence. It is worth thinking about the quietness that deserves our gratitude, and the quietness that we can participate in, for our own good and everyone else’s.
