Two Years of The Sound Meadow
The end of September marked the second birthday of establishing The Sound Meadow. Looking back over these past couple of years, it’s amazing how my own intention of holding space for sound has shifted.
I have always loved music and sound - be it through the act of performance or the act of listening. And across a multitude of styles and genres too. I find sound to be as necessary as breathing. It opens both my mind and heart, and even after nearly 40 years of playing music, I frequently stumble across pieces that leave me both breathless and ecstatic. Those spine-tingling moments during a Mahler symphony are quite addictive!
So it was this love of sound and music that started my journey into sound baths (which I wrote about in my first blog post). The focus two years ago was quite simple: I wanted to run sound baths. I was captivated by the beauty of the instruments, the interplay between frequencies, and the craft of creating atmospheric soundscapes.
All of this still excites me and brings me back month after month. Yet, after dozens of fortnightly gatherings, I have begun to realise that there is something deeper that sound baths offer, and I now use the term living culture to express this.
In a culture that demands constant momentum, rest is often treated as a luxury or a temporary escape; perhaps an annual retreat when we’re on the edge of burnout.
But it is my belief that that deep listening and sanctuary are not occasional luxuries. They are practices meant to be woven into the fabric of everyday life - just as meditation, prayer or other spiritual practices have always been. I truly believe that any practice that can open one’s heart, should be worthy of a great deal of our attention - and sound can certainly do this.
It is also helpful I find, to look at Indigenous and traditional cultures around the world, where stillness, rest and being present, are never presented as crisis management, but as integral parts of the daily cycle of human existence.
We have built a world that has stripped away those daily hours and replaced them with relentless digital noise and constant performance - and the pace seems to quicken with each year.
Gathering every fortnight is our small way of weaving that fabric back together.
And so, I suppose the learning of these past two years can be summarised in three key aspects:
People arrive with all sorts of emotions, anxieties, exhaustions, and even joy. It is not my place to ‘fix’ anything, but rather to hold a space that is strong enough, yet quiet enough to contain it. Simply come as you are.
A yearly retreat cannot undo eleven months of chronic depletion. Therefore gathering every fortnight creates a steady pulse - a regular place to meet before you reach breaking point.
Lying in stillness with a dozen other people is a radical, living act of counter-culture. The collective presence deepens the sanctuary for an individual in a way that listening on headphones at home never can.
As we move into our third year, my primary focus is on deepening this work. The Sound Meadow will surely remain a place of acoustic beauty, but more than that, it is a shared sanctuary of deep listening and living culture.
Thank you to everyone who has trusted this space over the last two years.
Here is to the next turn of the wheel.