Redwood Reader

The Los Angeles Times ran these two articles last month. I almost missed them and then it took a while to get this down. But it goes to the core of our being, the very reason the Thought Preserve earned its title, on a good day. We do not agree only a few folks enjoy the benefits of quiet, since it is often high on the list for hunters, fishermen, hikers, campers and wildlife watchers as a reason for spending time outdoors.
All too often we are unaware of how we pollute our own environment, and chatter is one way, especially other peoples. I can’t possibly say how many times I’ve wished people would just be quiet. Usually it is an intrusion into their little world with all those unguessed consequences and often blown far out of proportion.
When you live close to the outdoors you learn to walk in silence because you are aware of things reacting to voices. You listen for voices in the distance. It is amazing how big a valley one chainsaw can fill, or one ORV or one gun, or how often a few working families drive the road each day for school, work and so forth. If you are fairly remote you may figure out the schedule of the jet liners high in the sky, but smaller planes are completely random. We had many visitors from the cities who could not handle the lack of background noise and couldn’t wait to leave, and kept up the noise for self reassurance throughout their waking hours.
Silence is a key element in meditation and solemn rituals. It shows our reverence but is not regarded as a health quality, only a quality of life issue. Yet the benefits of meditation and other practices of clear thinking give demonstrably healthy results. Many people live under constant barrages of background noise that make true relaxation difficult.
Yet it is a pre-requisite if our hearing is to operate in its natural role as our always-on defensive system. We trade it off for the advantages of communication, and have further traded acuity degradation in favor of labor savings and growth of the economy and population. Attenuation to Nature is a better term than silence, as both articles show. The opportunity for these experiences is seriously being degraded. Humboldt County has some good resources here, but I am sure one square inch probably won’t work here in the daytime in the summer. Winter is another story. Snow bound silence or the constant sound of water both may give you fifteen minutes of quiet in many places here. I think this may be a better measurement than viewscape and both should be considered in natural resource planning for wildlands.
It may be helpful for some groups to offer this kind of hike. But we can experience this by a estaglishing a few rules, and getting together with like minded others to experience some of Humboldts finest landscapes with a group respecting silence as the reason to be there.
I had a foreman when I was in construction who used to say,” I can hear you point better than I can see you yell.”
Selected quotes from the articles follow.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-quiet15nov15,1,2284895.story?coll=la-news-environment

A voice for silence
 One man, writes John Balzar, thinks quiet may be Earth's most endangered natural resource.
By John Balzar, Times Staff Writer
Hempton chose this place to make a stand.
If he can stir up a ruckus, maybe the right people will listen and the National Park Service will officially designate just one square inch of this park as a place of absolute quiet. One square inch of quiet, of course, means miles and miles of buffer — essentially securing the natural soundscape of the entire park.
A simple idea. Turn off the generators in those RVs, reroute the airline traffic going into Seattle, forbid private planes overhead, and plaster the visitor center with posters reaffirming the mission of our national parks: to preserve nature as it was, quiet included.
Inside the glass candy jar are messages. Visitors to One Square Inch are invited to write a short meditation regarding quiet. Only those willing to make the walk will read them.
Hempton will sit on his one square inch for an hour.
The serenity he restores in himself will last for days afterward.
"Quiet is like a vitamin. Vitamin quiet."
Hempton defines quiet this way: "Quiet places are where you can go and listen and not be distracted by human-caused noise."
By that definition, standing near a waterfall can be quiet, even though it is also loud.
===========================================================
So how does one teach listening, or learn it?
It would be glib to say that a first step might be to stop talking. Accomplish that and there will likely be an awakening — at the least, a recognition of how many other people on the trail have lost the capacity to be quiet, let alone enjoy it and restore themselves.
Hempton's advice is practical: Put in foam earplugs for half an hour. Take them out and you'll immediately detect enriched sound.
Or walk with a young child as a guide. Before children are sent to school and made to "pay attention" — that is, filter out every sound except the teacher's voice — they are naturally attuned to their surroundings.
Statutory and regulatory law generally describes harmful noise as that which results in hearing loss. A more down-to-earth definition might define it as the aggregated clamor that deprives us of peace of mind.
Last night's rain drips slowly out of the moss. A raindrop falls many times in this forest: from the clouds to a treetop, from there to the moss of a branch, then down to another branch; finally, 10 hours later, it is released the last 100 feet to the crown of your hat, where the splat is so vivid as to give you a start.
More quiet. Here and there the flat splatter sound of weeping trees. A crackle of something moving. A long interval of soundlessness — so long that the faraway hiss of the Hoh finally enters your consciousness. The mighty woodpecker breaks the spell with another drumroll from the heavens.
A practiced listener, Hempton hears a symphony in this glen. As a novice, what you hear is not yet decipherable as music. But it is consuming, and unexpectedly suspenseful. In the silence, the whisper voice of nature speaks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-os-quiethike15nov15,1,886939,print.story?coll=la-news-environment

Want quiet? Then zip lips
On many remote trails, the most persistent noise pollution is the sound of hikers' own voices.
By Veronique de Turenne
Special to The Times
November 15, 2005
The staff at Franklin Canyon Park in Beverly Hills — a 605-acre swath considered the geographic center of Los Angeles — have a solution: silent night hikes. Starting at dusk on the first Saturday of every month, hikers eager to experience the sounds of silence gather at the park.
"It's a great way to relax in the safety and camaraderie of a group and yet have a solitary experience," says Michelle McAfee, one of the naturalists who lead the silent hikes.
The quiet hikes at Franklin Canyon begin with some communal deep breathing ("I tell them to breathe in the twilight and exhale the day," McAfee says) to help unify the group. Then, with daylight fading, hikers set out along a flat and wooded fire road.
The two-hour hike flies by. When the group reassembles, even though they haven't uttered more than a few words, they seem united by the experience.
"To be a part of the night and a part of nature, as opposed to just walking through it, for some people is deeply moving," McAfee says.
All you need for a quiet hike is a friend or two and a pact: No talking. Plan your route ahead of time. For safety, agree not to move out of each other's visual range. If you want to catch your companion's attention, you can clap your hands. Want to share the amazing thing you just saw? Point.
Hiking in quiet reveals a lot about even the noisiest outdoor spaces