A few key words I extracted from this article are “sonic meditation”, “listen”, “heal”, and “feminist activism”. “sonic meditation” is an “experiment in self-care” initiated by Oliveros. In this meditation, Oliveros “taught awareness through slow, quotidian movements like sitting, standing, lying, and walking. In meditation, Oliveros asks participants to feel the rhythms of their bodies with the sounds they make, such as the sound of breathing. This kind of meditation is regarded as a “turning of mind and body”. For Oliveros, when “one’s inner experience is made manifest and accepted by others”, healing can occur. She herself would follow this code by sharing her “Sonic Meditations” in print and in performance. Meanwhile, because of the inherently gender-exclusive nature of “sonic meditation,” such practices are seen as a feminist struggle.

For me, there is a controversial point in the article where the author calls “sonic meditation” a “musical experimentation”. A related issue is whether the breathing and the sound made by the gong can be included in the category of music. Beyond that, I think this “quiet activism” of listening is really an action to create a more open and inclusive society. Through such meditation experiments, people can pay more attention to listening. By bringing this habit to life, people can become more attentive to the inner experience of others. For females who lacked voice and attention at that time, this was an innovative and bold attempt to fight for the rise of feminism. But again, who would have thought that feminism would be expressed in such an obscure and seemingly unrelated way?