Feeling good

First-ever silent hike at Dallas Arboretum is a musical trip for the mind

The experience is described as meditative or "trancelike."

Photo courtesy of MindTravel

Somewhere between a leisurely garden stroll and a restorative yoga flow comes the silent hike. For the first time, a company called MindTravel is bringing its “meditation in motion” experience, called SilentHike, to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.

From 3-5 pm on Sunday, August 11, Dallasites will press pause in their day, slip on headphones, and take "a musical journey into mindfulness" as they walk through the grounds of the garden, the company says in a release.

SilentHikes are a concept created by composer and concert pianist Murray Hidary. During the session, hikers wearing wireless headphones hear music, guidance, and thoughtful commentary from Hidary.

"All the components — music, words, silence, visual cues — work synergistically to help participants connect with themselves and the world around them," the release says. "The evocative, improvisational piano music engenders a feeling of freedom and expansiveness that amplifies the healing and inspirational power of being in nature."

After a quick introduction and intention-setting, the group will take a guided meditative walk down the trails and paths of the Arboretum. The music piped into their headphones — the core of a MindTravel experience — are original compositions written by Hidary.

"MindTravel is an experience like no other," says Jason Wachob, founder of mindbodygreen, in the release. "Imagine a concert pianist improvising beautiful, peaceful music with imagery in the background that matches the beauty of the music — combined, it is almost meditative or trancelike."

In a recent Los Angeles Times story, the writer said that on a silent hike around a museum, she traveled "through the weed-filled gardens of [her] emotions, re-experiencing feelings that just maybe [she] buried on purpose but that resurfaced to embolden [her] to do more than turn on Netflix that night." She added that she slept 11 hours afterwards.

Hidary, a Brooklyn-born composer, pianist, visual artist, tech pioneer, entrepreneur, and physics lover, created MindTravel in 2014 after finding that music helped him heal after the tragic death of his sister in a motorcycle accident. "Now, he is on a mission to share music’s healing power with others and make it the centerpiece of a multi-sensory meditative journey," the company says.

The Dallas experience is part of a 20-city MindTravel summer tour, beginning in the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in New York on July 30. MindTravel heads to Austin for a silent hike and live-to-headphone experience on August 12 and a "silent paddle" on Ladybird Lake on August 13.

Since 2014, more than 100,000 people across the globe have experienced MindTravel at one of their 500-plus events, they say. MindTravel also has a foundation that provides free access to its experiences for underserved and at-risk populations. In 2019, the MindTravel Foundation is supporting individuals suffering from grief and trauma.

The Dallas event is free, but registration is required here. Since the event takes place during the Arboretum's normal business hours, attendees will be expected to pay admission and parking, a spokeswoman for the garden complex says.

Participants should wear comfortable walking shoes, bring water, and take appropriate precautions for the afternoon sun and hot weather. MindTravel will provide the headphones.

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Movie Review

Cillian Murphy takes on church in Irish film Small Things Like These

Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate

Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These.

Last we saw actor Cillian Murphy, he was starring in the titular role of Oppenheimer, a role that would go on to earn him a Best Actor Oscar, not to mention many awards for the film itself. Instead of a big, flashy follow-up to build on that momentum, Murphy has gone in the opposite direction with the small and personal Small Things Like These.

Set in the 1980s in Murphy’s native Ireland, the film centers on Bill (Murphy), who owns a coal delivery company. One of his clients is the local convent, and during a delivery he witnesses a young pregnant woman being forced into the convent against her will by her mother. The scene triggers memories from his own childhood when he was raised by a single mother.

Every subsequent delivery to the convent has him questioning his own morality, although his taciturn nature doesn’t allow him to share his misgivings with his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh). With the Catholic Church an all-encompassing entity in Ireland, even if Bill wanted to help the girls who are trapped and mistreated at the convent, he’s not sure of any way to go about it.

Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh, the film has a slow build to it, so slow that it is a little difficult to ascertain the point of the story. The filmmakers go back and forth between scenes showing Bill as an adult and Bill as a child, and even though they each contain elements of trauma for the characters, the connection between the two timelines is not as strong as they might want it to be.

Even when it’s not part of a scene, the power of the church is the driving force of the film. Bill is clearly having a crisis of faith given his history and what he sees, but his wife seems to be willfully ignorant of any faults of the church and remains a true believer. The few segments that take the audience inside the convent are full of unforgiving nuns, with Sister Mary (Emily Watson) as their ultra-stern leader.

Given that this is an Irish film featuring all Irish actors, heavy accents accompany the majority of the dialogue, making it difficult to understand at times. This is clearly not an issue with the filmmaking and it helps with the verisimilitude of the story, but anyone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Irish accent may find themselves a little lost and/or disengaged with the emotions of the story.

Murphy’s role in Oppenheimer and this one don’t share much in common save for the fact that he clearly put his whole self into each of them. This is a testament to Murphy’s skills and dedication that he cares as much about an inherently local story as he did about a world-changing one. Walsh and Watson are also great as two women who have a huge influence on Bill’s outlook on life.

Small Things Like These, based on the book by Claire Keegan, is not as huge a takedown of the Catholic Church as some other films, but it’s still a searing indictment of its arcane practices. It’s one made even more effective by using a smaller story of one man’s lonely fight against injustice.

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Small Things Like These opens in theaters on November 8.

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