Silence is an integral part of life in the forest. It's not an absolute silence obviously. Everyone, even without keen senses, is able to hear without needless effort the sounds of life permeating the forest. The rhythm of the sum of breaths of plants and animals, pulsation that fills the air. A pulse of networks of organisms, the tension in the swaying treetops, and the wind that breaks tall grass - all those noises add up by composing them into a melody, but gentle enough, friendly to the human ear and neutral that it does not interfere with our thoughts. Contrary to music written for instruments, where harmonious sounds are compiled and composed evoking certain moods that stimulate a given experience, the melody of nature is the ideal space to hear your inner voice without imposing a particular narrative. It happens because it's a pure melody of life, a record of its various manifestations. It is the movement that creates these notes, it determines what we hear and creates scores. We are in front of an ideally harmonious space, lacking oppressive character known from the cities and agglomerations. The silence here is not considered as a deprivation of sounds but deprivation of noise. Nature's environment, staying in it, experiencing it, and becoming a part of it is crucial for achieving a state of liberation and mindfulness which allows us to understand in a better way the most important things. It becomes possible due to the unique characteristics of this space. One of them is the silence itself. There is a forest, about one-hour drive from Warsaw, a peaceful place, that I've been visiting for 28 years.

​

One warm May afternoon I went there after a long break. Although the trees around the house were blooming as every year, the air tasted the same way and birds were flying low as always, it wasn't the same place anymore. The whole space was filled with an oppressive, dominant, and relentless noise issuing from the road a few kilometers away. It turned out that during my absence the part of the forest located near the road, which constituted the natural soundproof barrier and the organic border between the world of nature and the asphalt marking the noisy civilization, was cut down. It meant that my forest had changed forever, it would never hear the silence again.