Quantum Deep Listening by Pauline Oliveros is a book that (without wanting to sound too dramatic) changed my life. The book outlines the deep listening practice and shows how one can involve this practice in their life. In essence, deep listening is the act of listening to everything in your field of hearing from the minute to the massive, externally and internally.
The concept of deep listening reminded me of Quakerism, a religion that many generations of my family have participated in. Within the Quaker religion, meetings are held instead of services (typical in other branches of Christianity), in the meetings all ‘friends’ sit together in silence, reflecting, praying, and getting in touch with their inward light. The similarity between deep listening and Quakerism is the idea of listening to absolutely everything, including yourself.
Pauline Oliveros is famously known for her philosophy that “Listening is close to what we call consciousness”, the more that I contemplated the meaning of this the more it resonated with me, to deep listening is to make yourself so aware of your surroundings there is no way to not feel present and grounded. I have been using Oliveros’ deep listening theory when interacting with sacred spaces to better understand these spaces and myself within sacred spaces. The quote has resonated with me so much since I heard it that I began using a recording of her saying it as a sample which has now become part of the final piece for this project.
In Quantum Deep Listening Oliveros linked her work and theories with Matthew Fox, a priest and theologian, who said, “spirituality by definition means plummeting to the depths, getting down to the realm of experience. Spirituality is about living deeply. It puts experience before everything else. It’s about responding with passion, awe, reverence and gratitude to everything in life – including the grief pain, the suffering, the injustice”. I found this extract inspiring to both daily life as well as my creative practice, responding with awe even to things you do not wish to experience in life is a motivating perspective. Although this quote does not come from Oliveros herself, there is also a benefit in understanding the influences of those who inspire you.
Weird Takes podcast – Episode 42: On Pauline Oliveros, with Kerry O’Brien.
When listening to this podcast episode, I stumbled upon an interesting take (audio clip below).
Although not directly related to the topic of Pauline Oliveros, it was an opinion that has sat with me since hearing it. It sort of feels like the speaker encapsulated exactly how I have been feeling about the subject of my project. The podcast host describes Slaughterdykes’ philosophy on religion being a redundant modern invention, “you can subsume the functions of religion into the functions of practice”, is this where I stand in terms of my own relationship with religion and practice?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4OZzsf2EoGpSbuqfbTqjDl?si=40799a1d1a0a472e