Images that speak to me of listening
What is the musicality of your thought structure?
Since I started the Deep Listening workshop by Pauline Oliveros, I felt that this process had begun some time ago. It is a creative process that does not distinguish between work and life. It has been a beautiful invitation to be consistent in the daily practice of listening. The sessions remind me of the importance of repetition as a method for integrating practices.
In my pedagogical practices on improvisation, I tend to want to overlap attention guidelines, and I always use the same example: first a ball, and then you add more. I believe that having several points of focus is magical, and starting simple is key to processing and being surprised.
I am very inspired by the sound materials from my colleagues and the surprise they provoke in me when these sounds are not yet processed or edited. It is very revealing because it informs me about their perceptions and brings us closer together when we work together.
The pieces of Deep Listening are exactly that: each proposal offers something simple and returns abundance in sharing.
I am drawn to the concept of abundance more closely tied to the image of a seed, which, after some time and depending on the conditions it has been in, multiplies. In permaculture, there is a saying: "What is, is enough." Throughout this time, I have felt a sense of calm because I knew that the practices were already acting on their own; at no point is the process pushed.
THE SOUNDS AND THEIR AFFECTS
The walks with Django (my dog) through my neighborhood in Seville will be my first listening research, where I try to perceive all possible sounds at once. I record with my recorder with the desire to keep the memory of my neighborhood alive before my imminent trip and stay in NYC.
Now, from Brooklyn, remembering the soundscape of my Seville neighborhood creates a shift in the recording because my nostalgia tunes it to sound like a quieter place. I remember remembering the sound of my neighborhood, and it sounds different.
SOUND WALK AND IMPROVISATION
In an improvisation, the possibility of moving closer to or away from the sound is a resource for creating music with your whole body. Being present with an open listening to the decisions of the different elements that compose it, including the unpredictable, makes us more present.
In the sound walk or improvisation with Django (my dog), two attentions coexist: Django smells the path, and I listen to the path. When my body stops on the path, the sensation is that I am a sphere-center where the sounds converge. When my body moves, I experience how I approach and move away from a composition that is always happening, even if I do not hear it.
I rescue important moments recorded in my memory from this walk-improvisation:
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Getting rid of the sound of a drill that stuck to my body and deciding to move away from it.
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Chasing the sound of a girl speaking like a drum solo.
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Taking a different path from the sound that attracts me due to Django’s decision—it’s a deviation from the sound.
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Finding the girl again due to the particular arrangement of the streets in Seville, it’s a surprise.
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Returning to the starting point of the walk where a sound was present, but it is no longer there. It is a way of composing with silence/sound.
How was the walk-improvisation for Django? We could play with imagining it.
In one of my favorite listening practices, the arm is the sensor that captures rhythms through the gaze, resulting in a graphic record and rhythmic memories in the body.
In this phenomenon, I perceive it as being in relation, as being in contact. By joining the cadence of what I see, I partly erase myself to become the environment.
The group sessions and the guidance of the facilitators of Deep Listening are helping me connect from the heart with creation. I recognize this because there is no effort, just desire and excitement.
Imaginary Bodies
This list of imaginary bodies is inspired by a practice from the Deep Listening Moving module, understood as a process of creating scores that allow us to imagine different possibilities of being in the body. A resource I have shared with others in order to expand ourselves.
Jingle bells on your elbows
Your sternum is connected to the moon
The soles of your feet are full of cheese
A group of ants are building a house in your armpits
Your hip is a sponge
Humming a beautiful melody with your sacrum
SILENCE SILENCE SILENCE SILENCE
Your body is full of zippers make them sound
SILENCE
Fold your body as if it were a piece of paper in 5 parts
SILENCE
The lobe of your left ear is a very heavy stoneLift it with your hands, as you lift it, it becomes more ethereal
SILENCE SILENCE
Find the sway of a swing in your pelvis
with your arm / The fall of a leaf
With your whole body / The fall of a leaf
fWith your whole body/fall like a glass would fall
The sound of the glass falling
SILENCE
A football stadium full in your legs and the Aria of Goldberg Variations on the tips of your fingers
SILENCE SILENCE
Finish with the last note that the universe will hear
I shared some of these scores with Sandra, and it has been a beautiful experience. Immediately, it made us connect with imagination and play. We couldn’t stop inventing new scores, and it became an exchange where one fed the other. Together, we created a pleasant, fun, strange, and uncomfortable sequence. Entering the logic or imagination of the other allows us to explore with more freedom, especially when we step into a world we hadn’t imagined.
The images help us connect with emotions and discover the dreamlike world of each one. This practice has allowed us to get to know ourselves on a deeper level by recognizing how the images we create stimulate us and what effect they have when we transfer them to the body-sound.
The shift to the body is very interesting. When saying, 'The lobe of your left ear is a very heavy stone,' an immediate modification of the face occurs, and the body’s gesture will seek the sensation of the lobe. A process of transformation begins, a process of estrangement, and the rest of the body collaborates to create that sensation.
What particularly caught my attention was Sandra’s astonishment and the time they took to approach the image. I could see their gesture in an expedition to meet the phrase, "Your sternum is connected to the moon," or an opposite reaction when hearing, "The soles of your feet are filled with cheese."
The imagination of the other offers a new context to presence, to what we understand by being in the body, allowing us to temporarily change the laws of the universe.
In Deep Listening practices, each proposal offers something simple and returns abundance in sharing.
I'm drawn to the concept of abundance, more closely tied to the image of a seed that, after some time and depending on the conditions it's been in, multiplies.
Throughout this time, I’ve had a sense of calm because I knew the practices were already working on their own; at no point is the process forced.
The modalities act interdependently, and entering through the sound practice leads me to the listening of movement, and from movement to dreaming—experiencing in all modalities different states of consciousness and ways of being in the world.
Revelations for Life
I am a center-sphere where sounds converge, and when my body moves, I experience myself as elastic: as I get closer or farther from a place, I compose with the present.
Moving away means saying goodbye, while meeting new sounds at the same time.
I am a sphere—my body’s form as I understand it disappears, and yet the sounds remain… overlapping, sometimes happening all at once. I can recognize what calms me.
In my experience, when the body slows down to a pace below the everyday, a process unfolds in which I perceive different rhythms overlapping inside and outside the body, and a gradual slowing-down begins. Some parts take longer to accept this new state of being—this slowness.
This perception makes me reflect on the concept of oscillation within, between, and beyond the body.
Score / Imaginary Bodies
I invite you to bring these two images into your body and let them oscillate within you:
The image of a baby spiraling, moved by curiosity, and a dog spinning around
repeatedly in search of the exact spot to lie down.
What does Seville sound like? What does NYC sound like? What does Bilbao sound like? What does Jaén sound like?
What does Seville sound like in NYC? What does NYC sound like in Bilbao? What does Bilbao sound like while in Seville? What does Jaén sound like in all these places?
During our Deep Listening journey, I lived in four different places, each with unique soundscapes and perceptions—not only because the places sounded different, but because I experienced how my nervous system, my cells, and my listening were different.
Dreaming became a space-time for self-regulation in this transition.
The dreaming listening modality created the fascia that allowed me to move across all those places…
In my dreams, it's common to find abandoned, ruined spaces where grass grows through.
Nature is always there—and it brings presence.
In nature, there will always be space for living beings and for the ancestors.
Scribbles and Abandoned Spaces
You have the potential to be many things.
They carry present, past, and future.
Time is wider.
A message comes through them:
The scribble, in its tangled form, could contain a spider. It could be a spool of thread for weaving a shirt, a cloud, the sea, a cable system, a sphere… It could be all at once—a system that is circular and circulates.
An infinite circuit where many realities and states of consciousness can dwell…
Deep Listening is an atmosphere with particles in the air—an opportunity to feel that the sky also offers support.
Deep Listening has been a compass.
Deep Listening moving has plunged into the deep waters of emotion.
Deep Listening dreaming has shown me the path of the continuum.