Something To Think About

There is a vast universe of sound beyond the range of our limited capacities to hear. Animals such as dolphins and bats inhabit unimaginably rich sonic environments, filled with their own high-frequency sound emissions used to navigate. The air around us ripples with the unheard sounds of electricity, microwaves, radar, television signals, and radio broadcasts, some ranging as high as one billion Hz.

Another interesting characteristic of sound waves is that they are, theoretically, eternal. The decay rate of sound waves is one of those paradoxical equations that approaches zero, but never arrives. Image that a bell is struck - ringing, resounding, and now fading. If we are very quiet, we can still hear the last tones hanging in the silence. Now it has stopped. Or has it?

If we use a microphone, the bell will be audible after our unassisted ear can no longer hear it. And after that tone fades, we can turn up the input gain and once again, the sound seems to reappear. And after it fades beyond the range of our amplification system, beyond the threshold of our hearing, still the tone continues. Sound waves grow weaker and weaker, but on some level, never entirely disappear.

Consider the thousands of words you speak each day. All the words you have uttered in this lifetime - their echoes are reverberating still. Makes us want to pause before we speak! When we chant, we are consciously sending our positive tones of peace and healing into a world all too often resounding with the echoes of fear, pain, and violence.

Source: Discovering Spirit in Sound