I might have started this newsletter complaining about the relentless drizzle but, luckily for everyone reading, the sun gloriously came out and spring vibes were felt in my bones for an hour and what a surprising impact that had on my mood!
Last week I was attending a writer’s group hosted by one of my dear friends and we were doing an exercise around different ways to see places afresh. I was drawn to the prompt around searching for silence and as I wrote about my personal journey toward it, I realised that for me it is a retraction from human-made noise such as bin lorries, car alarms, slamming doors, shouting, namely the bustle of our everyday lives, rather than seeking no sound at all. What I realised is I always follow the birdsong. I walk the leafy backroads to work as the huge trees are brimming with a chorus of feathered song, the full range of soulful wood pigeon to tweety Wren. Not silence but a joyful clearing of my head none the less.
I recently read how the sound-healing qualities of birdsong are a real thing, not just a happy coincidence but an evolutionary response ingrained in our very being. Birds, like us, are keenly attuned to their surroundings, singing only when the environment is safe and free from danger. As such, the melodic tunes of songbirds serve as a sign of peace and safety, signalling to our own nervous system that we can relax and allow a sense of calm and balance to wash over us.
In fact, this bodily response is the same as the power of silence, regulating the nervous system and providing a kind of reset, a pause that is hugely nourishing to our being, essential in a current paradigm so full of distraction and chaos and busyness. So instinctively I have sought out my silence through resonance rather than absence, my nervous system attuning to the natural world through the signalled safety of the birds.
We all need safe and rhythmic moments to process the vagaries of life and in the past, our way of life would have naturally built in these spaces. We would have walked everywhere, sat in the darkness with only firelight to centre us, foraged the land with our hands in the soil. We would have naturally had more head space (and probably a lot less comfort!) as our daily lives settled within a container of profound moments of silence or at least silence from human-made noise.
Building rituals into my everyday life is how I have found a way to have momentary space- the tree-lined walk to work, the barefoot grounding during my lunchtime but most importantly, my Breathe and Brew practice as I wake. For let us not forget that we have Tea too. The high quantity of L-Theanine in these hand harvested teas impacts my nervous system in the exact same way as the power of silence and thus, the power of birdsong.
Drinking my first cup with the window open and the dawn light and the birdsong welcoming in the day is the very best tonic for my nervous system. A double whammy. A compounding of the good stuff. As I interface with the new day, this practice allows me a moment to know at soul level what life is all about. It is literally my favourite moment of each day.
So enjoy the snowdrops and the crocuses and I invite you to explore your personal journey towards silence.
Wishing you a wonderful March and we look forward to speaking to you again in April.
Anne and Ric x