Environmental Wellness:
to be safe and feel safe in a clean, peaceful, empowering home and community
that encourage individual and collaborative growth.
My neighbor is a Harley guy with biker friends. I met these guys seven years ago during Bike Week 2016, the week I moved into my home. They and their wives invited me over for an amazing potluck meal. I owned a yellow scooter at the time and by the end of the evening I wondered, and stupidly asked, if I could ride my scooter with them. They unanimously said, “No.”
Before Bike Week 2017 I purchased a retro orange button-down shirt from a thrift store that sported a Harley-Davidson patch. I approached them again.
“I have a Harley shirt this year guys. Can I ride my scooter with you if I wear it?”
Again, a resounding “No.”
Admittedly, as much as I would like to leather up and roar around on a bad-ass bike, I have no personal experience with Bike Week, other than tolerating its noise. I bring this up because I just managed through Daytona’s 83rd Bike Week, March 1-10. And although I live 20 miles south of Daytona Beach, I still absorb the rumbling of various makes and models of motorcycles as they migrate to and explore Florida’s central east coast. I generally like bikers, as I can’t help but cross paths with them where I live.
But…they are LOUD.
Loud and Clear
This time every year reminds me of how noise pollution affects our health. I wonder what it’s like for people who live in war zones or in high crime areas with sirens, or those who endure angry shouting in their homes? Continuously. This year, the first morning after Bike Week was over, I soaked in the sounds of backyard birds and appreciated their chirping even more.
With spring officially beginning this week, environmental wellness is on my mind. And although all senses absorb our home environment—what we see, smell, hear, feel, and taste, I’d like to focus solely on sounds for now.
I said that I absorbed the rumbling of Bike Week this year. I heard the rumbling of course, but I also felt it. Sound is literally energy moving through something. That energy can be soothing and healing or disturbing and disruptive.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), “Loud noise can create physical and psychological stress…” I think we can assume this applies not just to our work environments, but also to our home environments. There’s literally something to be said about peace and quiet.
Sound Living
My friend Heather enjoys sound baths, so out of curiosity and in the name of expanding my intelligence, I attended one last week. I wanted to know what it felt like to be bathed in healing sounds, as opposed to sounds like motorcycles, nearby trains, revving engines, and rocket launches (all sounds in my neighborhood). Would I feel instant calmness if I intentionally exposed myself to different sound energy like tuning forks, gongs, singing bowls, and soothing voices?
My short answer is “yes.” The experience was interesting, and extremely relaxing as I listened with eyes closed to sound frequencies while laying on a yoga mat in the “warm ambiance” of The Mermaid & Her Fisherman venue. And although I can’t say that I transported anywhere too deeply during my sound bath, like a few participants claimed, to have remained floating on the surface in an acclaimed “mermaid” space, just wouldn’t have been possible. I felt completely calm, emptied of mind clutter, free to breathe a bit deeper. When the mind and body relax, blood pressure lowers, heart rate slows, tension dissipates. A sound bath proved to be peaceful and healing following Bike Week.
If you’re interested in learning more, the instructor, Jill Jordan, provides a good explanation of her sound living philosophy here.
Peaceful Empowering Home
I don’t want to portray that I know anything more than what I just blogged regarding the healing effects of sound. But more generally speaking, and perhaps more importantly, I simply want to emphasize that environmental wellness begins in our homes, including the sounds that we hear and absorb. As I continue to highlight the nine dimensions of wellness this year, I hope to bathe myself in more healing energy, and maybe even more sounds of silence. Perhaps that’s something you’d like to explore as well.
And by the way, in case you’re wondering about my yellow scooter, I sadly sold it. But not before one of my biker friends gave me the brilliant idea of placing an “Easy Writer” sticker on it. (For all you nonbiker people: reference 1969 Easy Rider dark drama with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper). Even though I never got to ride with any Harley dudes on my yellow scooter, I found pure joy in riding “Easy Writer” to the library.
And that my friends, I hope brings music to your ears like it did for mine while it lasted.
Be Momentous! 🌎
Think about the sounds in and around your home. Can you replace any disturbing ones (television, yelling) with more peaceful and healing ones (music, nature, conversations)?