Maya

My experience with listening is deep and layered. Growing up in an age of media, I am often overwhelmed with stimulation and the pressures of the lives that I am not living. Because of this, our society has lost the ancient art of listening. The most impactful tool for creativity, connection, and comfort is the ability to listen truly and authentically. With our phones and social media, even getting through a normal, even enjoyable, conversation is much more difficult. Presence is a gift that is rare and hard to come by.

Pauline is an inventor of sound and how it can be transformed. From a young age, she was focused on the different forms of sound and how they change our realities. Throughout her life, she was dedicated to pushing the bounds of sound and how it carried connections. As she turned to environmental and improvisational sounds, she decided to begin sound meditations that connected the body, mind, and soul through sound. Pauline places emphasis on the factor of how much we overlook listening and it’s immense power. Her works with deaf people show how listening transcends the ears, but it must include the entire body in order to truly be heard. She describes sound as a universal experience, felt deeply through all cultures and societies.

Her connection with sound within the body really resonated with me. For about 3 years now, I have been participating in meditation and yoga to center myself into my body. Meditation in particular allows my mind to quiet, and my body to take the driver’s seat. The heartbeat always gives a constant, comforting rhythm, while the feeling of your lungs expanding against your ribcage and the slow ticing of your biology becomes louder and louder. Meditation pulls my mind from the external, and allows it to bring into the internal. Because of this, I relate to Pauline on different levels through our love of sound and listening internally.