Silence, Listening: Good morning John Cage and Nancy; Bon matin

There is something about the sound of the/this morning that has waken me up. In the ‘silence’ I better hear the sounds of the house. Et les murmures dans ma tête. Silence helps to better hear inside and to listen out with more awareness. Today I am open to the world. This is not always possible. I am thinking that this is art.

To art, then, is to live fully. To be fully alive. This morning I am awake. I want to be awake. It is not that I cannnot sleep. Like that desire to make art that fills us not always but at the best of times.

It will be a good day, a full glass, a sunrise. All those things that we find comfort in, those expected things that make the rituals of life not only livable but pleasurable.

It is still dark out. But that does not matter. I feel the colour. I want colour like art in life.

In an interview (listen http://art113.blogspot.com/2008/03/john-cage-on-listening.html ) the belated sound artist John Cage spoke about the sounds of the city, how silence, if we stop to listen, is the noise always enveloping us. But I think that it’s inside us too. That silence (like sound) fills us. And this reminds me of my reading of the book À l’écoute (2002) by Jean-Luc Nancy (read http://www.amazon.fr/l%C3%A9coute-Jean-Luc-Nancy/dp/2718605979). He reminds us that listening isn’t just a communicative and linguistic act but that it’s something that we feel with-in the body. So outside (Cage) and inside (Nancy). Following this logic, it’s easy, I think, to understand how the hills could be alive with the sound of music but too that music grooves in the heart.

As a person who speaks I am enjoying this pause.

Because I feel it.

Inside.

Outside.

Listening. Just. Now.

Good morning Ottawa.