The sounds of being

A reflection on sound, presence, and how the world outside us restores what society distorts.

The world is always speaking, but not in words. It moves through sound, through breath, through everything willing to respond. This is a reflection on sound, presence, and how the world outside us restores what society distorts…

The Sounds of Being
Palm leaves rustling,
hollow wood hooting,
Wind strums every object on Earth like an instrument.
It speaks to what?
No, it does not speak.
It gives voice to everything else.
It is the breath of all matter,
pulling sound out of what would otherwise remain still.

It breathes,
and in that breath, it animates the world.
Swishing,
creaking,
wavering.

The wind reminds us
not only to breathe,
but to create something from it.
Because sound is proof of life.
Without it, we would dissolve into something airless,
a black hole where nothing touches, nothing responds.

It is so windy here.
The breezes build, build, and crash
waves of air,
drowning you in your own hair,
and brushing it backward.
Everything is swaying,
resisting, responding.
Everything is alive!

It reminds me how to be present.
In a room, the walls put me in a black hole,
blocking out sound and cutting off movement.
The present holds its breath in suspension.
I listen to music to carry me somewhere alive.

But outside, I don’t need to block out black
because it’s colorful,
elemental, warm, constant, but never the same.
The birds patter in playful fashion,
The palm trees clap, cheering them on.
And the water, which envelops it all
in an infinite drone,
lulls you to sleep and splashes you awake.

We must attune ourselves to the environment.
It is, after all, the most truthful, most factual, most evident thing among us.
Everything outside of it is a sea of deception,
which can drown our very being into non-being.

To be here is to realize
we are not separate from any of it.

At least we know it starts here:
with awareness.
with presence.
with breath and sound.

Just because we are alive doesn’t mean we are living.
Society makes sure of that.
It builds walls and bends meaning, distorting truth.

But society hasn’t faced the wind in all directions,
with all elements,
with no walls,
and no filters.

Nothing about life was ever missing. Only our attention to it. And when that returns, so do we.

With love,

Keila Shaheen