Contemplative Corner | December 2024

Watch This Space! Julia Zay offers practices under the “contemplative” umbrella that invite us to connect with our senses and each other.


In the spirit of the coming quiet of winter and of gathering with others to deepen our practices of listening, I offer a Sonic Meditation by Pauline Oliveros, “The Greeting” (No. 9), from her collection of Sonic Meditations, published March-November 1971. 

Though Oliveros was a groundbreaking 20th century musical composer whose work centered on what she called “deep listening,” she designed her Sonic Meditations as scores that structure a collective activity using the body, the voice, the breath. “Music” she wrote, “is [only] a welcome by-product of this activity.”

–IX–

The Greeting

Informed persons should begin the greeting at least half-an-hour or more before a scheduled meeting or program.

After you are seated and comfortable, allow a tone to come into mind. Keep returning your attention to this same tone. Every time a person or persons enters this space, green them by singing the tone, as you were greeted when you entered this space. Continue this medication until all are present.

Pauline Oliveros

Think of Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations as simple instructions for activities to do with a group of people who gather regularly. Oliveros writes in her introduction to the Sonic Meditations:

“With continuous work some of the following becomes possible with Sonic Meditations: heightened states of awareness or expanded consciousness, changes in physiology and psychology from known and unknown tensions to relaxations which gradually become permanent. These changes may represent a tuning of mind and body…Members of the group may achieve greater awareness and sensitivity to each other.”

How might you integrate deep listening practices into your work with others? You could form a Sonic Meditation group, or introduce it to an already established regular meeting. If you are teaching or working with students, a Sonic Meditation can be a wonderful warmup for class sessions or other regular group meetings. and If you are working with staff and/or faculty peers in a regular meeting context and find that it could use a little more humanity–some warmth or playfulness–this may be just what you need. Finally, consider the home breakfast or dinner table another place where a ritual of embodied settling and connecting can be subtly transformative.

I have used listening warmups and extended listening assignments in my teaching for years, both in arts-focused and interdisciplinary programs and courses. Though the focus is on using the hearing sense, listening activities are accessible to d/Deaf people, as sound is experienced as waves that impact the entire body, not only the ear. We all listen with our whole bodies. When giving instructions for any listening exercise, it’s ideal to include this information, both to be inclusive of d/Deaf people and to bring awareness to non-d/Deaf people. 


Christine Sun Kim is an extraordinary artist whose work explores sound and hearing culture through drawing and installation, and who is Deaf. As a non-deaf person, especially one teaching in the media arts, my approach to inclusive teaching has been profoundly changed by her work and words.

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