“A Very Special Song Sounds For You When You Visit Nature”
The therapeutic bioacoustics expert Eva Julián invites you to listen to how nature sings to us with its healing sounds when we visit her with an open heart.
He collects and disseminates his work in his Sound and Life project, where he argues that those sounds that he has collected help living beings to develop states of consciousness more in harmony with the earth and the cosmos.
All her natural sounds are recorded in places sacred to her, in a state of meditation and gratitude. They have no cuts, no additions or, as she herself claims, “subliminal messages.”
Nature’s healing music
We spoke with Eva Julián about her career and about the power of nature to recognize us and respond to our presence.
–What led you to be interested in the therapeutic power of natural sounds?
– I was born in the plains of Lleida, but at the age of 7 they admitted me to a religious boarding school located in the mountains of Andorra, and in this boarding school I remained as the only inmate, alone, for 7 years! In those forests I did not live great feats, I just curled up next to the oaks or among the stones and feeling at peace I listened to what for me was the most beautiful of voices, the wind playing with the leaves of the trees. In that reverie, I could connect with a life purpose beyond the coldness of boarding school.
When I was 14 years old, when I went out into the world, and upon discovering “normal” life, I immediately understood that I could not share my experiences, because our world is governed by another look, a look of separation, where the forest is a beautiful space, but without a soul, without a voice, and without the ability to intelligently interact with each one of us. I tried to silence my world, but when I stood in front of a mountain, I could feel and hear it alive inside my heart. That marked my path.
–You propose that we communicate more with nature. Why?
–Every time you visit a natural space and open your heart there is a very special song that sounds for you. A song that has to do with your personal history, with your process and with your purpose. A song that, if you stop to listen to it, to feel it, with the eyes and the heart of a child, without judging, without analyzing, only surrendering yourself, will allow you to connect with a highly coherent internal wisdom connected to the whole.
“The music of nature allows you to connect with an internal wisdom highly coherent and connected with the whole”
–How can we people communicate with nature?
–There are many ways of relating to nature, possibly as many as people, but there are some that allow you to connect with the ancestral gaze from which our ancestors were able to communicate with the beings of nature and recognize the existence of a great mind that order the natural world.
This look allowed them to be in contact with a great universe of possibilities where knowledge, intuition and internal vision could flow easily.
– What people can show us that look?
“You may think I am referring to antiquity, but I am not. Our native culture in Europe remained alive until the end of the 30s. But, from that time limit, hundreds of old people could no longer transmit the knowledge received from their ancestors to the new generations who left the rural area to settle in the cities. and not return.
–You were able to meet people who came to transmit part of that knowledge to you…
–Yes, in 1989 I directed an ethnomusicology research project in the Andorran Pyrenees that allowed me to live with elderly people who lived practically isolated in the mountains.
My research lasted 7 years, and throughout that time these wise men and women opened the doors of their homes and their hearts to me, and helped me discover that their wisdom did not only come from observing the natural laws of their environment, but a large part of his worldview was the result of his conscious relationship with the beings of nature and with the great spirit that inhabits it.
“The wisdom of those elders was largely the result of their conscious relationship with the beings of nature and with the great spirit that inhabits it”
– How do you remember that experience?
–It was precious to accompany them in their tasks and discover how they recognized the soul of each one of the trees in a forest, how they deciphered the messages that the wind brought them and how they accompanied and blessed the water. For me, watching them perform was like being among magicians.
On winter nights they sang their magic songs to me, their secret healing prayers, they taught me the virtues of some of their favorite plants and the rituals to deal with them. They spoke to me about the very special behavior of water on appointed dates, and above all they spoke to me with great devotion about the power of the great spirit of the forest, and about the rules and norms of conduct that man has to respect in order not to create disorder and be able to receive the gifts of the great spirit.
– What are those gifts?
–From modulating the weather, influencing the crops and fertility of the animals, the women and men of the village, healing illnesses that are difficult to cure and something extremely important: knowing how to receive the appropriate advice when needed.
I have to confess that at first I thought they were precious tales and superstitions derived from ancestral animistic customs ancestrally deposited in the collective memory, and with the greatest respect and love I collected and kept their legacy without being truly aware of the importance that was hidden behind the forms. …
– What changed? At what point did you understand that there was something else there?
–Over the years, and when I began to study the complexity of the tonality of some of the songs that had been sung to me, and the surprising similarity that these had with the natural frequencies that were produced in each of the valleys of the territory studied, I began to wonder if there was something else, something that my rational mind was not allowing me to understand.
“Some of the songs they sang to me had a striking similarity to the natural frequencies that occur in the valleys around them.”
So the material that resulted from the research managed to be a documentation of high value for the inhabitants of the Pyrenees, but inside I realized that there were many topics that I had not been allowed to include in the study, due to the pressure of the environment. academic and for fear of not respecting the beliefs of the time.
Fortunately, that small group of free men and women managed to sow the seeds of their gaze in my heart despite the limitations of my mind.
– What were the results of that investigation? How far did it take you?
–Well, years of intense work and research followed, where it was possible to measure and verify in an analytical and empirical way that a response from the natural world actually occurs in front of our presence, and that this response is manifested and can be observed in the modulation of the frequencies emanating from the ecosystem and obviously in our emotional and biological response when we expose ourselves to them.
“I was able to verify analytically and empirically that the natural world responds to our presence.”
– Would nature be like a great mind that orders everything?
“We could put it that way.” After spending several years of attentive listening in the ecosystems of many places on this planet, I feel able to speak openly of a great mind. A great mind with the ability to orchestrate species and elements so that they produce a surprising amalgam of frequencies that together act as a biological stabilizer of the life cycles of all species, in turn providing emotional balance and harmonizing their states of mind. awareness.
– Are we talking about a nature that sings to us to heal us?
– We talk about the forest baths, the meditative walk, the properties of the phyto-scents emitted by the ancient forests, but we continue to forget once again the soul of the local beings and the great song that the great spirit of the forest weaves under our footsteps.
– How has this research work continued? How can this healing potential of nature’s “music” be harnessed?
–For more than 22 years I made many recordings, and thanks to what I experienced during my childhood, what I learned from the elderly and my experiences in nature I have specialized in making field recordings in a state of consciousness that allows me to recognize and resonate with the soul and the identity of the beings of the habitat. Those recordings are so special that they have become my medicine, my medicine of the soul and my medicine of the body.
“I make field recordings in a state of consciousness that allows me to recognize and resonate with the soul and identity of the beings in the habitat.”
– Can you tell us about any of those recordings? Give us an example so that we can understand it?
–During the first 5 years I worked in silence, I only made recordings for myself, I only recorded for the love of the water and the wind… But one of my first recordings, following the technique of resonance with the environment, was a soundtrack that I have called La water cave , in which the vibratory response of the sea is collected in the face of a need for shelter.
That recording has brought comfort and comfort to many beings since then. Some people even use it as music for meditation.
–It is difficult not to wonder if this is real. How do we go about having such an experience in nature?
–Maybe you expect a complex answer, full of mystery, or accompanied by a ritual manual full of conditions…, and yet nothing is further from the truth.
The ability to communicate with nature is inherent to your human condition. You are born with it and it remains with you throughout your life. The only thing it needs to develop is that you dare to look at yourself sincerely, to analyze what your borderline beliefs are.
Where is your limit of the real and the unreal? To what extent will your conscience or your education allow you to accept an event or an experience as real? What does your heart ask of you? When you are in nature, do you flow and let yourself be guided by your natural feeling, or are you more concerned with reaching a destination or acting according to group norms?
“The ability to communicate with nature is inherent in your human condition.”
“And where do I start?”
–You can start with something easy and natural: when you enter a forest, a park in your city, or approach the sea or a stream, stop for a few moments, breathe and look in detail at everything around you and from a look of respect manages an internal act of recognition towards the living beings around you: “I recognize you, thank you for being there, thank you for your work.”
Do it out of respect. Even just once, give it a try, and then listen to what is going on inside you, how your body responds, how your heart responds.
-That easy?
– Possibly the first times you have many doubts, or you find yourself struggling with resistance such as Am I talking to a tree? … But put your trust and observe, because when you feel recognized by a being of nature you discover part of the whole , and something in your life changes. It is a big thing. It is the destiny of all human beings: to feel one with nature again.
