It’s another organised way to relax, like yoga but without the stretching
With some trepidation at the weekend, I agreed to a mystery group outing arranged by an eccentric friend who would give no hints what it involved.
The sounds were mostly soft bell-ringing, on a wide range of notes. Instruments included “Tibetan singing bowls”: inverted metal bells that can be played by striking or by rotating something around the rim. She may have had distraction issues generally. But the result was that her head was just behind mine. And when, with the class at peak-meditation, I opened my eyes briefly to take a look around at what was happening, a small screen loomed in the peripheral vision above my head.Life in Dublin is a constant sound bath, of course. From the clanging of ancient empty beer kegs on footpaths early in the morning to the squawking of seagulls late at night, there is never a moment’s silence.
The irrelevant background noise – including that eejit in the corner with the machine-gun laugh – gets louder every year. It’s the foreground noise, like the friend beside you telling a long, important story about his or her relationship crisis – on which you may be asked questions later – that grows ever less audible.“Where the places have no name” someone commented on social media the other day over a link to RTÉ's report on Ireland’s latest Michelin Star awards.
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