Today, as I sit here with my coffee—after the homeschooling morning rush, eggs and bacon, sticky kisses, a full kitchen symphony of family life—I’m struck by the fullness of this moment. Life feels full.
And in that fullness, I’m contemplating the nothingness.
Today I want to write about zero.
Zero.
The silence.
The emptiness.
The space between the notes.
It’s perhaps the most overlooked or even feared of all the numbers—if you can even call it a number. But zero is where it all begins. Musically, the silence is pregnant with all possible notes.
As human beings, we are zero for far longer than we are one. And eventually, we return to it again.
From womb to dust.
I’ve always been an all-or-nothing kind of person.
The other day in the car, I was talking to my beautiful wife Sophie—who, if you haven’t already, you must follow on Substack. Her blog Plenty of Stars is pure magic. (Listed in the top 100 in Literature on Substack!)
When we first met, we were all in from moment one. We both knew it. She had sent me Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite, Jupiter. I was sitting on the floor of my best mate’s loft in Lower Manhattan, listening to it, I knew she knew that I knew she knew…Within an hour or two of meeting, I was all in. No hesitation. No half-measures.
It’s always been that way for me.
As a teenager, I was dead set on becoming a lawyer. I knew I needed a 99.96% score on my final exams to get into Sydney Law. I worked my arse off. I went all in. But I didn’t quite make it.
So I walked away. From law, completely.
All. Or nothing.
And I’m so glad I did.
Which brings me back to zero.
Zero is this incredible still point. A full room of space. It is a nothingness that includes ALL numbers. It is the deafening silence containing all notes.
From zero, all number is born.
Take the Fibonacci sequence. It begins at zero.
And then—seemingly from nothing—something emerges.
From zero to one.
Not a fraction, not a half or a third. A whole.
Zero births the one.
It is the cradle of existence.
The nursery of potentiality.
The wormhole of creation.
In zero, anything and everything is possible. And, as it turns out, likely.
A stunning example of a musical piece that embodies the power of silence and emergence from zero is Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel”.
Why “Spiegel im Spiegel” reveals the potency of silence:
Silence as presence: The piece begins with almost nothing—just a single, quiet piano note—and unfolds with long pauses and sustained tones that honor the silence between the sounds.
Emergence from zero: It feels as though the music is born from stillness, growing gently, like a soul awakening or a voice returning after silence. It echoes the journey of reclaiming one’s voice.
Tintinnabuli style: Pärt’s compositional technique mirrors sacred geometry—his minimalist structure feels mathematical yet deeply emotional, resonating with spiritual emergence.
Intimate vulnerability: There’s no performance ego here—just pure, spacious resonance. This invites the listener (or voice journeyer) to meet the music in stillness and be transformed by it.
Even our entire digital reality—modern technology itself—is based on the distinction between zero and one. On and off. Silence and sound.
This binary code is the foundational hum of our current world.
And it mirrors this very truth of existence:
We live in a world of polarity. Of form and formlessness. Of music and the rest.
But what do we do with zero?
Who do we become when we allow ourselves to dwell in nothingness?
Can we really sit with silence—in music, in art, in life—without rushing to fill it with “something”?
What about those moments in life where we feel like we’re at zero—between jobs, after loss, in the ache of transition?
Can we trust that the one will emerge?
Some of Claude Debussy’s music subtly reflects the Fibonacci sequence and Golden Ratio. One example is “Clair de Lune” from Suite Bergamasque. While Debussy may not have consciously used the Fibonacci sequence in the mathematical sense, his instinctive phrasing, pacing, and structural timing often align with natural proportions, which are at the heart of the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio (approximately 1.618).
Why “Clair de Lune” exhibits this form:
Natural unfolding: The piece has a flow that feels organic and inevitable, echoing the way spirals or branches unfold in nature—key visual metaphors for the Fibonacci sequence.
Timing and phrasing: If you analyze the musical structure, key transitions and climaxes tend to fall near the 61.8% mark or at Fibonacci-related measure numbers.
Emotional arc: The build and release in the piece mirrors the Fibonacci spiral—a slow, steady expansion and a graceful resolution.
Impressionist design: Debussy’s impressionism was deeply connected to nature, mystery, and intuitive form—much like Fibonacci patterns in art and nature.
If you’re looking to highlight the intersection of music, mathematics, and emotional resonance in a transformational voice-based experience, “Clair de Lune” can serve as a profound touchstone. Here is BRÅVES rendition of the song:
Can we surrender into the silence, the blank page, the resting note, and know that creation is happening even there?
Because it is.
Zero is not the absence of life—it’s the womb of it.
The Fibonacci sequence teaches us something beautiful:
Zero becomes one. And then what?
The one hangs out with itself for a moment.
1 + 0 = 1
1 + 1 = 2
The one gets to become… and be.
To enjoy its own presence.
To revel in oneness.
But first—always first—there is the zero.
So today, I honor her.
The mother of our becoming.
The stillness before the song.
The blank canvas.
The cosmic pause.
The sacred nothing.
Zero.