“Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason, you sing.”— William Stafford

“Stand still. The forest knows where you are.” — David Waggoner | Oil on wood panel — L Doctor

My attention turned to sound when I heard the great horned owls calling this morning. I went out before dawn, as if they were summoning me, and listened. One was a tenor, the other a bass. Back and forth they sang, with long pauses between. Once the tenor came in early, blending their voices together in harmony. The owls were hidden in thick shades of green, and the air a moist medium of song. When it  began to get light, I thought surely this is the last verse. But the sun rose, the songbirds chimed in, and still the owls continued their duet. 

It delights me each time I remember what a reprieve it is to shift my attention from the visual to one of the other senses. This is, in part, self-preservation — a way of overcoming my despondency-ennui due to the over stimulation of my eyes from screens — and the uncertainty in this continuing covid moment as the world opens and closes and opens and closes. Sound. The restoration that music, poetry and birdsong bring. And my desire to pause in the quiet, as we find new ways and resume old ways of being in the world. 

Listen to the sound of your landscape; what is changing? Or familiar? How do you translate sound visually, or in words? Make a note each day, or a visual mark, indicating sound.

Top to bottom: 1. hum of traffic with horn blast 2. far away plane 3. steady gentle breeze 4. dog barking 5. Crow cawing 6. chit-chit of cardinal

I walked in the woods and listened. I wanted to bring my phone to record sound, but there is always a reason to bring it, so I left it behind. I wanted to be tactile and attentive. I wanted to return to the ancient knowledge that the air itself is not immaterial, but a palpable presence in which we are all immersed. In winter the invisible air carries the thin rattle of beech leaves left on branches when all the other leaves have vanished. The beech with her smooth skin, and the flare of keeping her leaves, adding the palest burnt sienna, touched white, to the bare winter branches.

Walking off the path, I searched for Grandmother Beech in the midst of her children. I crossed the meadow to the edge of the creek where I found a tall beech, and sat with my back to its bark. I closed my eyes and listened. I had my sketchbook on my lap, and my pencil in my hand. I waited for a sound to come in clearly, near or far. The active waiting with my eyes closed was just as important as the moment I began to draw. Once the sound came in, I let my hand move to it, without my eyes intervening. This did not create great pieces of art, but the awakening process of doing this gave me such delight.

In the drawing below, I sat with my eyes closed, a brush in each hand, and waited to feel the rhythm of the sound. I let the sounds to my left move my left hand, and the sounds to the right move my right hand. The larger strokes at the top are the loud crows caw-cawing, and in the small lines below the cardinals, with their chit-chit-tink calls, enter in.

Crows and Songbirds, blind contour drawing, brush in each hand, sumi ink. L Doctor Sketchbook

“Sometimes from sorrow for no reason, you sing…” — William Stafford

I was altered and renewed by this crazy exercise, and the synchronicity that followed. My ears were opened and more sound discoveries kept happening. Here is the poem that comes to mind, feeling sound as “… a reminder that a steady center is holding all else.”

Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.

Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell where it is, and you
can slide your way past trouble.

Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path – but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on the earth, again and again.
— William Stafford

How do you feel sound? Write sound? Notate sound? I’d love to hear from you.