For this week Jake and i did our sonic meditation together. After discussing several collaborative project ideas for the spring festival, we sat in the dining hall and listened to clamor of commons for an hour. It was inherently difficult as our friends kept attempting to engage us in conversation but we managed to hold off long enough to pick up on some interesting sounds. While having my eyes close i found that with each wave of people entering the dining hall-- i got a sense of anxiety. When i opened my eyes however i was more easily able to piece together sonic collages of voices and movement. I think this transition was similar to going from complete lack of control (eyes shut) to a voyeuristic state (eyes open) of control where i felt almost a ghostly awareness of my surroundings.
I worked on two of Pauline's exercises the first being her "sonic rarshack" meditation, and "the greeting". What i enjoyed about these two practices were their employment of single tones. For the Rarshack i used white noise generated from a small television and my room light. For the greeting i thought about the tone of water spilling, and preceded to greet all who entered my room singing that sound aloud (lead to some pretty funny responses).
-Harlan
Ha! I would love to hear your greeting and catch the faces of unsuspecting visitors. So interesting what you say about eyes open and closed - I have almost the opposite feeling. I tend to listen more easily, more deeply, when I close my eyes. Much easier to get into a kind of trance-like listening state where sounds wash over me and I don't "think" too much about them. There is also a nice eye state in between open and shut - soft eyes - where things are visible but held at a distance, slightly blurry. A kind open, but unfocused, looking that seems to go along well with listening.
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