Standing at the bottom of a rocky canyon, the man yells out. But all he hears is his own voice, ricocheting, reverberating, distorting, multiplying, returning – again and again and again and again again again again…
All he hears?
All?
We neglect the echo. We dismiss her importance. Narcissus spurned her. Left her to rot in her own misery. Left her bones to transmute into the living rocks of the canyon. He could only hear his own self; he scorned his Echo.
Pan did not. Pan adulated her song. In jealousy he maddened the shepherds so like wild beasts they hunted her down, ripped her body apart, and strewed her sundered corpse over the land. Still singing. Still resounding. Even in death she sang.
She still exists – an echo…
Listen. The earth still resonates with her song. Listen to the canyon. Listen to the drums, pounding in the cave. Listen to your heartbeat, reflecting the beat of others’.
See this group, this tribe; feel them, their hearts adjusting to align their rhythms. One beat, one rhythm. We are echoes of each other.
Listen to the heart, pounding in the womb. As the embryo divides and forms, eight extraordinary vessels unfurl and reflect the beat of all that has gone before. Fish, amphibian, lizard, mammal, human… all of life on Earth, from before the dawn.
We are all echoes.
Echoes of our ancestors, beating our drums. Yelling.
Echoes of each other. Reflections seen through a kaleidoscope lens. Distorting, multiplying, returning. Hello! hello hello hello hello hello…
In the crucible of meditation, we sit and breathe and focus the mind within. Down into the depths of the body it plunges, down into the autonomic heart of the self. Breath, mind, and body, in perfect resonance. Then…
We are still. We let go. In silence we sit and listen to the echoes.
We let the echoes do their work. Our bodies harmonise with her song.
Our body.
We dance. We move. We nourish, regulate, purge and cleanse, stretching the body, clearing and giving flow to its channels, finding a new harmony. A new song.
Then we are still. We let go. In silence we stand and listen to the echoes.
Stillness. But not nothingness.
There are the echoes. The echoes of movement. Growing fainter. Fainter. Fainter.
Can you still hear her?
Listen.
Grow quieter. Empty out yourself. Quieter, still.
Can you still hear her?
Her song, a web of delicate filaments that hold the entire fragmented world together in harmony. Pluck one strand and the whole instrument reverberates, distorts, multiplies, returns…
Beneath the breath.
Beneath the heartbeat.
Beneath the mind.
Beneath Pan’s maddening flutes.
There, in the flickering cave, the drums cease. The shadows stop dancing. All our ancestors stop and listen. They hold their breath. All the life that ever was pauses to listen to Echo’s silent song.
Standing at the bottom of a rocky canyon, the man yells out. But all he hears is his own voice.
The Azure Dragon 