We are officially in Phase 2 of reopening here in southeastern Washington, and while I am looking forward to doing some things we haven't done for a long time, just getting out into the wild is a sublime thing.
The evening we went to the river in these pictures, I put on my rubber boots and straw hat, took my camera, and wandered through an undiscovered wood. I foraged, sniffed, gazed, and touched. I took in textures and colors, shadows and sparkles. Perhaps most importantly, I listened.
I've been doing a deep dive back through years of posts here and seeing how my relationship with nature and the elements has given me so much. I hope I have been a good steward and that I have given back as much as I have been given. Listening, which for me is also feeling, has been a constant theme and, paradoxically, a guiding light.
I've been thinking a lot about the essay by Jay Griffiths I posted about last November, but also about acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton's Sanctuaries of Silence, which I first heard on the Emergence Magazine podcast and then later watched the film. Highly sensitive types love silence, and I am no exception, but by silence I mean no human sounds. Gordon Hempton defines silence not as the absence of sound but the absence of noise from modern life. I feel this deeply when I'm out in the wild and it's one of the reasons I love it so much. For me this is true sound - sound free of human static. Hempton's work and projects are so wonderful. The last link below is excellent and talks about several of them, if you are interested.
Watch/Read/Listen:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
We Need an NRA for Nature.
What Hangs On Trees.
Timelines.
Silence and the Presence of Everything.
Until next time ~ x