Lower yet, the gusts raised the dead leaves into the air. As the wind subsided, the leaves again dropped to the ground. Where I was, these leaves blew round and round as if looking for a satisfactory place to light, to lie down, to settle only to once again resume that swirling with the next strong blow. The sound of the leaves was more like a gentle sweeping, brushing if you will, a sound familiar to us all.
I listened for the birds, for the animals and over the choruses of the wind, I heard only the sparrows and the chickadees. All others were drowned out. Other life was in motion, the squirrels, the neighborhood cat, birds on high but none of these were audible.
I drank in the sounds and got a little high on them, a buzz of a sort. When I owned guns, I used to hunt with my ears maybe more so than with my eyes. Many people seem oblivious to this marvelous sense. They hear mainly other people talking or music or the sounds accompanying the visual images on the TV screen. Here I was listening to things natural to the sounds of the ages and in stereo at that. I was ever so grateful for the sense of hearing.
Nothing can put you more in touch with your soul, with the Supreme Being that lives in you and everywhere, than the slow rhythmic repeating sounds of the surf on a sandy shore, of drums alone or in chorus with other music, of chants repeated over and over. Structured music has a verse following which is a chorus or a refrain, that followed by another verse and the same refrain, and another verse and the same refrain and the emotions are aroused sometimes from the verses, more often from the words and tones of the refrain. "Take it to the limit…take it to the limit…take it to the limit…one more time…" And after a few of those, in your mind you are there and the words and the tunes go on and on, well after the music has ended.I read of a researcher with many interests and talents who unwrapped physically a model of the human DNA molecule as best he could and laid it out on a plane, the twos, the fours, the eights, the half notes, the eighth notes, up and down the scale, the octaves, if you will, and it had a striking resemblance to the sheet music of the masters, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Could it be that their compositions came from unique combinations of DNA molecules already existing in their bodies, expressions of the soul screaming for new ways to manifest themselves?
Now, as I put the pen to the paper and the thoughts come out, I again sit in the yard in the same spot as before. The breeze is gentler, the gusts are kinder, and a whole new symphony of sounds surround me. What a treat, this sense of hearing. What a high it can cause. What an appreciation of a God given gift just sitting on idle waiting for us to notice, to enjoy, to feel, to express, to use. Let's do it. Let's sit for a while in nature sometime each week and notice with our ears, read with our ears, and experience the universe in a little different way every time.Origianlly published 2001 January 26
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