Welcome to Emergence Magazine Summer of Practice, a special series of guided audio practices.

I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, host of this podcast,

an executive editor of Emergence Magazine,

located on the unseated ancestral lands

of the Coast Mewalk people in present-day Marin County.

Thank you. host Miwalk people in present-day Marin County. You might be familiar with our virtual reality experience, sanctuaries of silence, which follows acoustic ecologist Gordon

Hempton deep into the Ho rainforest to immerse you in the sounds of silence, which Gordon

describes as the absence of human-generated noise.

The Ho is located in western Washington State and is one of the largest temperate rainforests

in the United States.

Thanks to protections that prevent logging and the enduring silent presence of old-growth

Sitka spruce, western hemlock, Coast Douglas fir, Big Leaf Maples, and Black Cottonwoods.

It remains one of the quietest places in North America. Listening through a microphone taught Gordon to take things in with equal value, without judgment.

We were struck by the simplicity of his practice, and as we

joined him in the whole rainforest, we found that we were completely present in the landscape.

And so this week, we invite you to participate in a practice of listening that is inspired

by Gordon's deep attention to silence.

If you are going to listen, Gordon says, you have to be willing to change.

And so we encourage you to try to listen from the deepest part of yourself, without judgment. Simply be present, open, and curious. Our hope with

this listening exercise is that you come away with a new perspective towards sound and the

power of silence to root us in a presence that we otherwise take for granted.

Feel free to engage with this practice over a longer period of time.

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