I've always loved the sound of seagulls. When I was a kid, their high-pitched undulating cry was an ever-present note in the sound track of my summer vacations on the West Coast. Thinking back, that sound evoked so much for me: it located me by the ocean, where I always felt most at home. It represented freedom from everyday life (this was summer vacation!). And in its own mysterious way, it also echoed a kind melancholia, resonating with deeper parts of my being that often remained hidden.
Place. Transcendence. Human experience. All in one sound.
Recently my partner, Greg , and I were bicycling around Stanley Park in Vancouver. As we rounded the farthest end, there was a rocky oasis with a flock of seagulls clustered there. We stopped and witnessed how they landed, lingered, flitted and flew away, all accompanied by their plaintive seagull song. We noticed their soft taupe and white feathers, and their yellow and bright orangey-red beaks.
Then it occurred to me.
Several months ago Lynette and I realized that we needed to create a digital "home" for Sound, Belonging & Wholeness. I went to work learning the ins and outs of Wix, and pored through hundreds of images for one that might capture the spirit and intention of Sound, Belonging & Wholeness. The image of the two embracing seagulls calling toward the heavens emerged and found its way to the Home Page.
Nature freely offers an endless symphony of sounds, and we delight in each contributor to this creaturely orchestra. But from time to time, a particular sound resonates in our being as an inexplicable recognition of who (and what) we really are. Why is that? Is it just a memory? Is it the sound’s sheer beauty? Does it evoke something ancient and primordial? Or does it simply and subtly remind us that we belong here?
The journey of Sound, Belonging & Wholeness invites this kind of gentle embodied inquiry--to engage our beautiful more-than-human world, and the ever-present portal that its endless array of sounds offers to us.