To know sound you have to notice it first. Too bad that civilization requires the knack of folding the senses under, of choosing not to hear. I need to remember how to be a forest animal again, to be the fox who hears everything or the carp whose shape is the wave of the water itself. I need ways to remind myself that I'm the central fish in this sea of sound. . . .
When I keep my eyes closed, sound has new meaning. It becomes nourishment, holy food, and my best friend. Lost dimensions are restored: sounds that before had only a surface now have a deep interior. Urgent personal messages are aimed at my head. When I lift open my eyes again the sharp details of these sounds are gone, vaporized in the everyday blaze.
— W. A. Mathieu, The Musical Life