It is early October, and I went out into the woods early one morning. At first, all I heard was the noise of my own mind jumping from one thing to another. Soon, something seemed to be asking to be heard. What was that?
Crickets. It was the song of crickets playing their “fall is cool” tune, a tune and rhythm so fast and intense that it sounds like a soprano voice with a beautiful vibrato filling the woods and . . . me! Once I tuned in to the sound of the crickets, other voices wanted in: Crows calling to each other, then Chickadees and Wrens. I know all of these birds, and while I had not seen one yet, I could hear them. I imagined all their chatter to be about where to find food that morning, finding it, and calling their mates to the treasure. Before long, another sound took over: a school bus. Knowing the bus schedules like I do, it occurred to me that this was the bus picking up the little ones, elementary aged students, for their school day, and I imagined the tiny bundles standing at the stops with parents or grandparents nearby. I imagined school bus drivers all over our nation waking up well before daylight to begin their sacred journeys. I heard the back door open and knew that it meant the arrival of our dogs out into the yard and the beginning of their day of sniffing and eating and barking and napping and general caregiving to us.
Listening in the woods woke me up to so many realities beyond myself. It’s one of the things listening does–to deliver to our minds, hearts and imaginations the interdependent web of which we are all a part and the invitation to take up our places in it again. It strikes me as I ponder that early morning experience, that tuning in to sounds and what they bring is like opening to the sound of the Tibetan bell that we invite to sound in our Sunday services, a mindful invitation to open ourselves to the wonders of life even, perhaps especially, when we are surrounded by suffering. Isn’t it, in fact, the suffering that often closes us up? And listening, deeply, can open our way again.
~Robert Patrick
