I’ve had the opportunity, since we’ve had a lovely sunny spell over the last ten days, to really relax in the garden. Feeling the warm tingling sensation on my skin, an experience almost forgotten, with my eyes closed just taking it all in was a real treat – just listening to life busying itself around me.
Every so often, I’d hear a rustle in the laurel tree, or a chirp I didn’t recognize and had to sit up to look for whatever bird was making the noise. This happened quite frequently as my birdcall identification is something I’m trying hard to work on. So when I say I was relaxing in the garden, it probably looked more like I was doing infrequent and very lazy sit-ups in the grass!
Given that sit-ups aren’t my forte, I soon gave up on that and tried hard to tune into that one sense: listening. It’s remarkable how hard it is to identify things without sight when one is so used to it. Certainly small garden birds. After a while though, I could hear the difference between the sound of birds eating the nuts, ones eating the seeds, the fat balls and the pecking of niger seeds. I was lying there for such a length of time that they forgot my presence and carried on regardless. It was a lovely sensation of just listening and learning.
We all have it in us to re-hone the skills of our individual senses in a much more refined way than this. I remember my son enjoying a program where a now blind man had taught himself echolocation. It was simply amazing! He could navigate his way not only through his own home and familiar visiting places without bumping into anything, but also streets, cafes and restaurants by simply making a clicking noise from his mouth and sensing the echoes from surrounding objects. To test his ability further he was put into a room full of obstacles and was asked to get to the other side without so much as touching any of the objects, which were both hanging and free-standing. He did it of course, but during the journey through the room was commenting on what the material of particular objects was: dense foam, sheet plastic, wall or curtain. It was utterly incredible to watch!
Even if you don’t fancy lying in your garden or local park, I invite you to try sitting somewhere - anywhere, it doesn’t matter. Get comfy, close your eyes and see how many different sounds you can identify. Repeat the challenge in different environments: urban, rural, home, beach, mountains and so on and see how your listening skills are. I wonder how many layers of noise there are in our lives that we block out and how many we welcome?