[intro music] Welcome to World Ocean Radio… I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory. It would appear that one of the most difficult things to do these days is to listen. There is just so much noise. The cacophonies are constant: shrill politics, pandemic alarum, the intensity of work and family, the psychology of complaint and argument, urban confrontation and conflict, the constant background noise as if there is an agreed, self-imposed, imposition of sound to mask the angst, to silence the relentless questions and fears, and to wrap our bodies and minds in a volume of meaningless decibel – a conspiracy of avoidance and protection from a more and more incomprehensible world. If we cannot listen, then we cannot hear, and in that stasis we are paralyzed and lost. I don’t think this is hyperbole. Anecdotal reports and social science studies point to new levels of anxiety and dislocation worldwide. On the surface, we fear the invisible, the virus, not just as life-threatening disease, but also as psychological erosion of dignity, optimism, and meaning. If ever we are to live in a disabling existential crisis, it would seem to be now. The traditional instruments of solace and renewal seem broken: the confessional, the town meeting, the trust we have found in family and friends. How can we restore ourselves? How can we mend the barriers and disconnection? The other day, depressed by such thoughts, I went down to the shore, found a place, and just sat down, apart and alone by the sea. The physical circumstance provided a context almost immediately of silence and solitude. I realize how privileged this must be, but, if you think about it, access to water, whether by the edge of the ocean, a lake, a pond, a river, a park, a fountain, if you put your mind to it, the soothing quality of water is more available than you might think. All the great religions have water as an essential element of ritual and redemption, and the assurance of water, as nurture, from a stream, or a well, is in itself a moment of quietude and renewal – the touch, the taste, the sound, all the instruments of perception condensed into, focused on a sip, a moment of feeling and hope. I sat down, and listened. At first there was the natural sounds of that place: the rasp of waves on the sandy rocky beach, the cry of the gulls, the distant mowing of an autumnal field. But those things slowly dissipated into what I heard to be universal ocean music – announcing a threshold between my daily world and Nature, a liminal space, a context for transition. Meditation, anywhere, is a similar practice, the placement of self in a state of openness, untrammeled by the exigencies of the world, a mindfulness which, in silence, allows one to be acutely aware, to listen for, and perhaps to hear things unheard and helpful. This space can be evoked in many ways. In the arrangement of definition and rhythm in poetry or prose. In the simple passage of a melody. In the rendering of light across a seascape, landscape, or through a window. The openness of the ocean to all our senses is made palpable through metaphoric connection, through an opening from chaos to harmony, from irrational to rational, from body to mind, as a place for consideration, imagination, and resolve into resilience, understanding, determination, and access to the future. All the surrounding noise of our world is a tyranny of distraction from the real things that matter: our personal well-being, the value of family and friendship, the satisfaction of work, and the security of community. No one is immune from this opportunity, only the myriad combinations of circumstance, some inconceivably hard, some overwhelmingly desperate, prevent us from this discovery. Poverty, war, tyranny, virulent disease, ideological conflict, hopelessness – all the terrible things that besiege us – conspire to keep us from this freedom. The healing power of water, in all its forms and places, is real. If we protect anything, in the name of protecting all the rest, we must understand that loss of water, by drought, pollution, and in-access is terminal action against all of us, no matter the status of our being. I sat down, and I listened, and I heard the ocean music. We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio. [outro music]
