Environmental Dialogue

Environmental Dialogue creates an expansive resonance of the environment in which participants merge with its sounds or silences, producing a resonant state of awareness.

Each person finds a place to be, either near to or distant from others. The meditation begins by each person observing his or her own breathing. 

As each person becomes aware of the field of sounds from the environment, each person individually and gradually begins to reinforce the pitch or timbre of any one of the sound sources that has attracted their attention.

The sound source is reinforced either vocally or mentally. Reinforce means to strengthen or to sustain by merging one's own pitch/timbre with the sound source. This means becoming a part of what is perceived. 

Some sounds may be too fleeting to merge with. Let them go.

It is fine to wait and listen.

Notes by Pauline Oliveros adapted from Anthology of Text Scores, Deep Listening Publications, 2013. 

Courtesy of The Pauline Oliveros Trust and The Ministry of Maat (ASCAP).