A Quest For Silence 
For me, one of the most difficult challenges of living in the city (if not the most difficult) is noise. These days I find quiet hard to come by and when I do find it, I cherish it more than I would ever have imagined. I don’t know if it is that the city is getting noisier or I am more sensitive to it as I age, or it is just my present living conditions – or maybe all of the above – but noise bothers me a lot more than it used to. Family and friends, my landlords, and even my students, have all heard me complain about noisy neighbours, and I was beginning to think that maybe I have developed an extreme sensitivity to noise. I even wondered if I was just becoming less tolerant in my middle age.
As it turns out, I have some good reasons for being so picky. Noise, even if we aren’t aware of it, can have a negative effect on us. It depends on the nature of the noise, of course, and its intensity, as well as its duration. Noise, to some degree is subjective – one’s person’s music can be torture to another who is forced to hear it. Age is another factor.
But noise can effect our sleep, stress levels, immune systems, hearts, and mental health to varying degrees and the effects of noise on our well being is today being studied worldwide. In the Netherlands, there are now designated quiet areas that are at least a certain number of square kilometers and are protected from human activity that would disturb the quiet.1
Lily Dawn Robertson lists indoor and outdoor sources of silence and tranquility:
Outdoor
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snowshoe, cross-country ski, ice fish…
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visit a Japanese garden…
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walk through a Chinese garden – Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Vancouver
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visit parks and estuaries – look for some local to you
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go to the seashore…
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get outdoors during or after a snowfall – snow muffles noise and adds soul quenching serenity
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spend time in your own backyard (nighttime stargazing adds an extra dimension to silence)
Indoor
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art galleries…
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museums…
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places of worship, churches, and mosques…
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monasteries and abbeys
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libraries – Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, BC
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spas
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infrared or steam saunas
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yoga or tai chi classes
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resorts focused on tranquility…
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silent retreats
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virtual retreat – without leaving home or taking time off work you can learn breathing techniques, mindfulness…
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silent area of your workplace or home – even bathrooms will do
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biofeedback
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hypnosis – learn to de-stress from noise
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homeopathic remedies – use remedies that help with noise stress
Some urban contemplatives have developed their own regular practices. Here are some examples:
Therapist and meditation instructor, Denise Coles (See Mindfulness page) calls herself the Mobile Meditator. On a hectic day she stops at a park or one of many “cubby holes of quiet and beauty – in meditation gardens, churches, and in hospital ‘sacred spaces’” to decompress.
Like Denise, Marian Smith is a therapist and mindfulness instructor. She reserves a weekend a month for some kind of meditation retreat.
Retired university professor, Don Grayston, has a message on his email ‘signature’ that he reserves Mondays as a ‘hermitage day’ and that non-urgent emails will be returned on Tuesday.
It seems creativity is key to distressing in the city. We welcome your suggestions for finding quiet and tranquility.
yourthoughts@urbancontemplative.ca
1 Lily Dawn Robertson, Alive Magazine, February 2010, pps. 120 – 126.
Photo by Ruth and Dave, Flickr
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Photo of Maple Community Gardens, Vancouver by Donkeycart on Flickr
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Here are some sites you might find interesting and inspiring:
Christopher Alexander, architect
And a site that is related to Christopher Alexander’s work:
Also, closer to home (in Nanaimo) there is an “intentional cohousing community” called Pacific Gardens.