THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE – Hearing Nature In the City

Only once before in the 15 years we’ve lived here in Minneapolis’s Prospect Park had I experienced such quiet. It was late May, 2020, right after George Floyd was killed, and they closed the freeways as a security measure while protests surged.

This time, it’s because they’ve closed I-94 in both directions this weekend for construction.

Sally and I knew, when we bought our townhouse right next to the interstate, that we’d live with the constant hiss of tire treads on pavement. We made light of it, pretending it was the surf—just like in our favorite Mexican Pacific beach town.

In the city one gets used to things like that. But I, as one committed to noticing and celebrating life’s small wonders, have been acutely aware of what I couldn’t hear through all that traffic noise: the sweet, subtle sounds of Nature.

SOFT-SPOKEN BIRDS 
Usually, Nature’s soundscape around our house is like splashes of translucent watercolor thrown on drab, grey paper, the hues all but swallowed by the dim background. But back in May, 2020, and again today, the paper is once again pure white; the colors, vivid. 

IMAGE: Vecteezy

PHOTO: Nat'l Audubon Society

Most days it takes the raucous scolding of the blue jays to penetrate the veil, but today I’m catching the subtler notes of sparrows and 
house finches. In fact, I hear dozens of bird voices from all over our block. 

Today, pleasant summery music wafts to my 
ear from someone’s patio over on East River Terrace. Today I hear the cadence of my own footsteps.

       The deafening hush was rent by the eerie 
       wailing of wolves just across the bay.

A SILENT ROAR 
Silence is, indeed, a rare and precious gift. But is what we believe to be silence really silent? I’ve found that it isn’t. Nearly always there’s at least a murmur of sound—an airplane high overhead, a whisper of wind through pines, the indistinct hum every city produces from vehicles, air conditioners, people…whatever—to sort of anchor your hearing. 

And if you’ve ever experienced true silence, the kind that might envelop you in the wilderness, it can be unnerving. It is, as they say, deafening. 

PHOTO: Save the Boundary Waters

I experienced that kind of stillness at night on a solo canoe trip in northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. My brain had a hard time processing that profound absence of sound, manifesting a kind of roaring sensation as if in protest of the depravation. (One early morning, that deafening hush was rent by the haunting wail of wolves just across the bay.)

         It may take a bit more focus sifting out 
         those subtler notes.

HEAVY METAL BANNED
Silence—at least occasionally—is good for us. Not just us introverts, but everyone. A 2021 article in Healthline details eight distinct physical and mental health benefits. Many other studies agree.

So I urge you, if you can, to get out of town for a while to a place where the voices of Nature can land as bright brush strokes on that pure white paper of silence.  

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

And even when we’re in the city, let’s make a special effort to discern the natural sounds hiding in plain hearing all around us. It may take a bit more focus sifting out those subtler notes from the “heavy metal” of urban noise, but its proven health benefits—not to mention the equally-well-proven spiritual lift—make it well worthwhile.

Have any tips or tricks for better hearing and appreciating Nature’s sounds? We’d love to hear them! Just jot a comment using the “comments” link below.

FILLED WITH EMPTINESS – The Power of Presence

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing...not healing, not curing...that is a friend who cares.” 
HENRI NOUWEN                      
                                             •      ~      •      ~      •

It’s taken me a very long time to realize that just sitting, with no task, no agenda, no expectation, is not a waste of time.

“Just being” is something infants and old folks do very well. I suppose you could say that’s because they can’t walk and their hands don’t work very well. But more important than how they might have come to be so acutely in the present moment is the fact that only the most cynical observer would ever conclude from their lack of “productiveness” that they’re squandering their potential.

What a shame that the art of just being is so lost on the rest of us! For it’s in that state, devoid of ambition and guile, liberated from presumption, that we’re best able to experience what I’d argue are the human pursuits of the highest order: curiosity, compassion and wonder.

            There are some worthwhile goals
            that don’t fall within the reach
            of anyone who’s reaching.

NOT THEN OR WHEN, BUT NOW
By the time we’re in grade school, most of us have already been indoctrinated with the familiar mantras: keep your nose to the grindstone; idle hands make for the devil’s work; work hard enough and everything will be fine. You know, the good old American dream. Trouble is, there are some worthwhile goals that don’t fall within the reach of anyone who’s reaching.

We’re all conditioned to place enormous value on the past and the future. We think the past, the sum total of all our life experiences to date, defines who we are. We think the future is where all our hopes and dreams—and fears—will play out.

In fact, we tend to focus so much of our mental and emotional energy on the “then” and the “when” that we fail to fully experience the “now.” And, as much as we’d like to think we can do it, no one can be in two places at the same time.

I learned a lot about just being during my parents’ last days in this life. These lessons come naturally when you’re with someone who can no longer communicate with words. You sit there. Maybe you talk a little, hoping the person understands you at some level. But mostly, you just sit.

I continue to refine this art in my work as a hospice volunteer, in which capacity I’ve witnessed at least 30 people’s ultimate lettings-go.

Sitting with someone—or, for that matter, sitting with Nature—may seem like an old-fashioned idea, like visiting or courting. These are things no one used to think much about; there were fewer options, fewer distractions, so they just did them. 

      It’s in precisely such moments of “emptiness”
   that we are most apt to be fulfilled.

Now that most of us are on call wherever we go, connected 24/7 to each other and to all the information that ever was, it’s gotten harder and harder not to feel we should be productive to some degree nearly all the time.

But it’s in precisely such moments of “emptiness” that we are most apt to be fulfilled. That’s when we let go of any notion that, somehow, we’re in control, that there’s something we should be doing or thinking, or that anything but our presence matters.

It’s only by clearing the decks of this preoccupation with stuff from the past and future that we can be truly open to a communion with the present, whether with our own true spirit, the soul of a loved one, or the astounding beauty of Nature’s gifts that surround and fill us.

            We tend to focus so much of our
            mental and emotional energy on the
            “then” and the “when” that we fail
            to fully experience the “now.”

FINDING SOMETHING NEVER LOST
To be truly in the moment is a difficult concept for some people to grasp. After all, how can you achieve something that’s accessibly only to those who don’t try to achieve it? Is it really possible to notice the absence of everything? Can you really hear silence, feel emptiness?

You can if you’re ready. Just as a sponge can’t absorb a spill until it’s wrung out, you can’t understand these things without first wringing from your consciousness the concerns and constructs that saturate your mind.

Perhaps the one mental construct that clashes most with just being is our notion of time. We imagine our lives as linear paths; we move along a time line. Each day, each experience we have becomes another part of our past, that which defines who we are.

And the line extending in front of us, the future, holds all the experiences we will have from now on, illuminated by our hopes and dreams.

       Outside of the present moment, nothing—
       literally, nothing—exists.

Curiously, we even see the spatial aspect of our existence as linear, imagining, again, that only those places where we’ve been and where we’re to go delineate the sphere of our existence. Imagine walking through a Costa Rican rain forest, touring the Musee D’Orsay or even riding the bus home from work, looking nowhere else but straight ahead or straight behind you. Would anyone consider this a whole experience?

As Eckhart Tolle says in his wonderful book, The Power of Now, these linear paradigms are just illusions we’ve invented to help us deal with the incomprehensible reality of the infinite.

If you're looking to the past, the future or a change of scene for the secret of happiness, you're looking in the wrong place. If fact, it makes no sense to be looking at all, since you already possess it; it’s already inside of you, part of you.

This is why just being is such a compelling, articulate force. Notwithstanding its utter simplicity—or, perhaps, because of it—it is a most eloquent expression of a reality few of us are ready to grasp, that, outside of the present moment, nothing—literally, nothing—exists.

Even the most defining moments of your past exist only as you interpret and apply their lessons now. Even your fondest wish, your most compelling goal, exists only in the work you begin now to realize it.

ARTICULATE SILENCE – The Power of Presence

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing...not healing, not curing...that is a friend who cares.”
HENRI NOUWEN
                                              ~      •     ~      •.     ~     .     

It’s taken me a very long time to realize that just sitting, with no task, no agenda, no expectations, isn’t necessarily a waste of time.

“Just being” is something babies and old folks do very well. I suppose you could say that’s because they can’t walk and their hands don’t work very well. But more important than how they might have come to be so acutely in the present moment is the fact that only the most cynical observer would ever conclude from their lack of “productiveness” that they’re wasting their time.

It’s a shame the art of just being is so lost on the rest of us. For it’s in that state, devoid of ambition and guile, liberated from expectations of any kind, that we’re best able to experience what I’d argue are the human pursuits of the highest order: curiosity, compassion and wonder.

NOT THEN OR WHEN, BUT NOW
By the time we’re in grade school, most of us have already been indoctrinated with the familiar mantras: Keep your nose to the grindstone; Idle hands make for the devil’s work; Work hard enough and everything will be fine. You know, the good old American dream. Trouble is, there are some worthwhile goals that don’t fall within the reach of anyone who’s reaching.

          There are some worthwhile goals that
          don’t fall within the reach of anyone
          who’s reaching.

We’re all conditioned to place enormous value on the past and the future. We think the past, the sum total of all our life experiences to date, defines who we are. We think the future is where all our hopes, dreams and fears will play out. In fact, we tend to focus so much of our mental and emotional energy on the “then” and the “when” that we fail to fully experience the “now.” As much as we’d like to think we can do it, no one can be in two places at the same time.

I learned a lot about just being during my parents’ last days in this life. These lessons come naturally when you’re with someone who can no longer communicate with words. You sit there. Maybe you talk a little, hoping the person understands you at some level. But mostly, you just sit.

Simply sitting with someone may seem like an old-fashioned idea, like visiting or court-
ing. These are things no one used to think much about; there were fewer options, fewer distractions, so they just did them. But now that we’re all wired in, on call, connected 24/7 wherever we go, it’s gotten harder and harder not to feel we should be “productive” at some level nearly all the time.

Yet it’s precisely in such moments of “emptiness” that we are most apt to be fulfilled. That’s when we let go of any notion that, somehow, we’re “in control,” that there’s something we should be doing or thinking, or that anything but our presence matters.

When our consciousness is full of stuff from the past and future, there’s no room for what’s happening now. It’s only by clearing the decks of these preoccupations that we can be open to a communion with the present, whether with our own true spirit, the soul of a loved one, or the astounding beauty of Nature’s gifts that surround and fill us.

            We focus so much of our mental and 
          emotional energy on the “then” and the
          “when” that we fail to fully experience
          the “now.”

FINDING SOMETHING NEVER LOST
To be truly in the moment is a difficult concept for some people to grasp. After all, how can you achieve something that’s accessible only to those who don’t try to achieve it? Is it really possible to notice the absence of everything?

Can you really hear silence, feel emptiness? You can if you’re ready. Just as a sponge can’t absorb a spill until it’s wrung out, you can’t understand these things without first wringing from your consciousness the concerns and constructs that saturate your mind.

Perhaps the one mental construct that clashes most with just being is our notion of time. We imagine our lives as linear paths; we move along a time line. Each day, each experience we have, becomes another part of our past, that which defines who we are.

And the line extending in front of us, the future, holds all the experiences we will have from now on, illuminated by our hopes and dreams. It’s precisely in such moments of “emptiness” that we are most apt to be fulfilled.

        

Curiously, we even tend to see the spatial aspect of our existence as linear, imagining, again, that only those places where we’ve been and where we’re to go delineate the sphere of our existence. Imagine walking through a Costa Rican rain forest, touring the Musee D’Orsay or even riding the bus home from work, looking nowhere else but straight ahead or straight behind you. Would anyone consider this a whole experience?

As Eckhart Tolle says in his wonderful book, The Power of Now, these linear paradigms are just illusions we’ve invented to help us deal with the incomprehensible reality of the infinite. 

If you're looking to the past, the future or a change
of scene for the secret of happiness, you're looking
in the wrong place. If fact, it makes no sense to be looking at all, because you already possess it; it’s already inside of you. It is part of you; you are part
of it.

This is why just being is such a powerful, articulate force. Notwithstanding its utter simplicity—or, perhaps, because of it—it is a most eloquent expression of a reality few of us are ready to grasp. That, outside of the present moment, nothing—literally, nothing—exists.

Even the most defining moments of your past exist only as you interpret and apply their lessons now. Even your fondest wish, your most compelling goal, exists only in the work you begin now to realize it.

ONE SQUARE INCH OF SILENCE – Hearing the Whisper of Nature

The other day I listened to an NPR interview* with Matt Mikkelsen, an audio technician and recording specialist with the nonprofit One Square Inch of Silence.** The organization was founded by Mikkelsen’s mentor, audio ecologist Gordon Hempton.

Mikkelsen points out that, sadly, there are fewer than ten places left in the U.S. where one can spend 15 minutes without hearing a single man-made sound.

IMAGE: U.S. Forest Service

This doesn’t surprise me, and it makes me quite sad.

      He saw that expansive spot of quietude as    
      powerful enough to affect entire ecosystems.

EXPANSIVE QUIETUDE
Tuning in after the piece was well along, I thought at first that the challenge had been to find an area of ground as represented by a square inch on a map. But the real concept may not be that much different.

Hempton felt that if one could find a mere square inch of actual ground where true silence survives, the effect of that tiny locus would surely radiate out for a considerable distance—miles, in fact—all around. He saw that expansive spot of quietude as powerful enough to affect entire ecosystems.

Symbolically, he located one such spot, in the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington's Olympic National Park, and marked it with a single, approximately one-inch stone which he’d painted red.

For the interview, Mikkelsen led writer Samir S. Patel to the spot. As they approached it, Patel wasurged not to speak. He was first to spot the red rock.Then Mikkelsen left him alone in the silence. For an hour. 

And the effect on him was quite amazing. He soaked in the pure beauty all around. He reflected on the recent death of a loved one. He felt both utterly insignificant and all-powerful at the same time. A profound sense of gratitude moved him to tears.

PROFIT AND LOSS
I suppose it takes a certain kind of person to open himself to that kind of affect. For listening is about not just what you hear, but how you hear. Like other kinds of sensing, real listening is an act of generosity.

In this age of constant stimulus, instant gratification and seamless interconnectedness, such moments are indeed rare, and it’s hard to see how they won’t soon vanish entirely from the human experience.

All the more reason to resist the brazen, visionless oligarchy that’s overthrown our great nation—a nation characterized as much by its traditional affinity for wilderness as by its constitution—and is evidently bent on appropriating every inch of public land for private gain.

       My fear turned to a prayer, and I knew
       I was getting reacquainted with my inner 
       strength.

A ROAR OF SILENCE
I encountered my one square inch of silence in Minnesota’s precious Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness about 30 years ago while on a solo canoe trip.

My second night out, I lay in my tent immersed in both total darkness and utter silence. My ears probed, like a sweeping radar dish, for some sound—an insect, a breaking wave, a whisper of air through pine needles, anything. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t experienced it, but the depth of that silence caused my brain to invent a sort of roar.

That deafening void, the sense of alone-ness, was so profound, my mind even stumbled into thoughts of possibly not being able to stand it. I mean was it even safe to be so completely alone?

It took me a few minutes to realize that, as anxious as I may have been to hear the sound of a human voice, its absence had put me in touch with other voices, ones ever fewer of us are privileged to hear any more. My fear turned to a prayer, and I knew I was getting reacquainted with my inner strength.

I awoke the next morning at first light, not sure what it was that had roused me. I was still shrouded in stillness. As my senses tried to get their bearings, I wondered if the eerie noise I was hearing was another imaginary one. A chill rattled me as I realized it was a pack of wolves, awakening with me and musically greeting their day on the other side of the bay.

Would that sound have affected me that way if it hadn’t emerged out of total silence? Would I still have let it feed my inner strength? I don’t think so.

HOW ‘BOUT YOU?
So when was the last time you experienced 15 minutes listening to the unadulterated, calmly-empowering voice of Nature? Has it happened even once? If it has, I’m guessing you remember it well and invite you to share it here.

I also urge you to speak up in protecting those precious gifts a couple of generations of wise and prescient Americans chose to set aside for all future generations: our National Parks,*** where most of the nation's remaining square inches of silence tenuously survive.

* SAMIR PATEL’S NPR PIECE   

** ONE SQUARE INCH  

*** NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION

BEYOND WORDS – A Dialog of the Spirit

I’ve been visiting Harold (not the man's real name) as a hospice volunteer for three months now. His diagnosis is Alzheimer’s disease, and the reason he’s in hospice is that it’s quite advanced.

When I first met him, Harold could talk. That is, he had enough breath to make sounds, and he could move his lips. He’d even punctuate his comments with hand gestures and the occasional little chuckle. But very little of it came across clearly enough for me to understand.

As for my end of the conversation, I’d tell him what kind of a day it was outside, report on how the Minnesota Twins were doing, or maybe recount one of my experiences I thought might resonate with one of his. Occasionally, when he was tracking, he’d respond to something I said quite clearly, “Oh, is that right?” That was nice to hear.

I did my best. Most often that meant simply maintaining eye contact with him as
he spoke, trying to keep that faintly-received channel open. Since I didn’t want to pretend to understand when I didn’t, all I could do was nod so he’d know I was, if not understanding, at least hearing him.

Once in a while I’d make out a word or two. If I heard “brother,” I’d respond, “Oh, your brother. Uh-huh” or “I’ll bet you and your brother were quite a pair.” Anything to preserve a crack in that shell of isolation the poor man must inhabit.

      I remember vividly why I originally signed 
      up for hospice work...I knew it had little to 
      do with words.

A LOSS FOR WORDS
Harold still likes to talk, but now, at this week’s visit, he’s clearly faded…a lot. He’s gazing up at me with what appears to be the intent of speaking, but I have to look hard to detect the subtle movement of his lips. I hear wisps of air coming out of his mouth, but he can no longer make a sound.

I’m so sad for him; I know he’d once been a pretty gregarious fellow. He still had the will, but not the way. I also feel an arresting sense of gratitude. Yes, of course, simply for not being Harold, but also for the opportunity– the privilege—of being with this good man at such a vulnerable point in his life.


I’m a writer; my stock in trade is communicating with words. So this is unfamiliar territory for me. Yet I remember vividly why I originally signed up for hospice work. I felt I had something spiritual to offer. I wasn’t quite sure how to describe it, but I knew it had little to do with words.

HEARING SILENCE
So I’m sitting here at Harold’s bedside, and he’s just looking up into my eyes. It’s a little unnerving, but I feel something—I’ll call it energy for lack of a better word—flowing between us. It feels good, and I can only hope Harold feels it too.

I take his gnarly hand and hope I can convey some kind of understanding that way. I don’t know how much he can grasp, but I acknowledge how awful it must be to have thoughts ambushed like that before he can get them out. “It’s okay,” I reassure him. “I’m hearing you.”

Our hour together comes to an end. I take his hand again and ask if it’s okay for me to come back next week. He just looks at me. As I walk away, I recall the moment, just the week before, when, after I’d strained the whole time to understand a word here and there, he somehow managed to say, as plain as day, “Thank you for coming.”

Today, he says nothing. But his eyes follow me through the door.

FOURTEEN WORDS ABOUT SILENCE

 
          Silence is not the absence of sound as much as the presence 
          of understanding.

IT IS WHAT IT ISN'T – Does a Vacuum Really Suck?

      In Nature, as in life, we can see more if we notice not just things, but 
      the spaces between things; not just sounds, but the silences they frame.
      Far from empty, these inhalations in the song of creation are what 
      make each note so clear, so sweet.
       From Under the Wild Ginger – A Simple Guide to the Wisdom of Wonder, by Jeffrey Willius
 
INTO THE VOID
When is the absence of something more powerful than its presence? It's not a trick question. In fact, Nature provides many answers: the colossal explosion of a lightning bolt; the swirling core of a vortex; the mind-boggling power of a cosmic black hole.

I’ve written occasionally here about the interplay between positive and negative space. As I’ve tried to capture in that quote from my book, Under the Wild Ginger, it can have a profound effect on how we see the world and life.

It’s knowing the whale’s down there without even seeing it. It’s the void, the potential, in the human experience an entrepreneur or inventor sees and then fills. It’s the hurtful implication of a friend’s hesitation when you ask them what they think of something you’re just nuts about.

Whether it's the inescapable laws of physics or the often-less-clearly defined rules of human dynamics, seeing and appreciating the spaces between is one of the great little secrets of being truly aware and in the moment. And it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. At least in western society, most of us are raised and educated quite literally. We’re taught to see what’s there, and completely miss what’s not.

            To twist the old axiom a bit, 
            you have to believe it to see it.

NATURE THE TEACHER
Allowing existence to something most people would say isn’t there takes a little practice. What’s perhaps most difficult for many folks is the irony that, the harder you try to do this, the less likely you are to succeed.

My best teacher has been Nature, with a dash of faith, instilled by my parents, thrown in. If you can simply BE in Nature—no agenda, no schedule, no expectation, just pure, simple presence—Nature will eventually show you both what is and what exists right next to that, behind it...even in the space it now occupies, but once didn’t.

Sounds a bit metaphysical, a little new-agey, right? That’s where the faith comes in. To twist an old axiom a bit, you have to believe it to see it. And how does one unaccustomed to it come by that faith? It helps if you want to—something I’m not sure many millennials do, addicted as they seem to be, to all the predigested information and virtual experiences available to them at the tap of an icon.

The other key to hearing the inhalations of Nature's song lies in what I like to call seeing generously. It’s the attitude, the belief, that truly seeing—even what may not seem at first to be there—is more like giving than receiving. Far from the competitive, materialistic fervor our culture seems to believe drives our economy and makes us all happy, it is not an act of acquisition. It’s an act of surrender.

              So how do you embrace what's left 
              of life's sweet spaces and silences?

AWKWARD SILENCES
We live in a culture that does not easily abide empty spaces and times. We find even the briefest silences awkward, filling them with "ahs" or "ums" or silly small talk. We allow others to dictate our schedules—not just bosses or clients, but loved ones who, with the best of intentions, pounce on what's left of our "free" time as if we could not say no—and too often we do not.

And don't get me going on all those silly little screens that spoon-feed us information, entertainment and advertising wherever we go, whatever the time, and which we find so hard to turn off.

So how do you embrace what's left of life's sweet spaces and silences? By staying in your seat a few minutes, still listening, after the concert is over? Watching the way the brook flows between two rocks? Finding your deepest inner space and letting it merge with infinity? Can you think of other ways?

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

TIP #75 
Make a quiet entrance.

Nature's a wary host…when she knows you're coming. 

In the wild, declare special times for slow, silent movement. Be still; walk or paddle lightly; peer slowly around the next bend.
 

KEY TO THE REALM – A Dad's Faith In Nature

My parents embarrassed me. They were older than the parents of most of my friends. I was sure my buddies’ dads took them out camping, hiking and fishing all the time. Mine didn’t; he was always working. I thought he was a wimp.

A SECRET LIFE
Many years later, when Dad was in his 80s, he started parceling out some of his memorabilia to me and my siblings. They brought to light a story of his earlier years that blew my assumptions right out of the water.

Among his keepsakes were merit badges and other emblems of what appeared to have been a stellar stint in the Boy Scouts. And a few small black-and-white pictures of him canoeing with another young man in Minnesota’s north woods. They looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, young and fit and suntanned.

There were also receipts from outfitters in Ely and Winton, Minnesota, near entry points to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). They listed flour, sugar, lard and various canned goods, all in quantities sufficient for extended stays in the wilderness.

And there was a map, printed on treated canvas, of a portion of Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park, the BWCAW’s even wilder counterpart across the border in Ontario. (On it was hand-drawn a new portage the two had blazed across the base of a long peninsula, cutting off an hour’s paddling time around it. They’d tentatively named it with their initials)

Notice the details; celebrate the simple elegance of how things are and how they work; expect wonder.

ARTICULATE SILENCE
My time with my dad was more likely spent helping with a home-improvement or yard-care project than camping or exploring. But it was not without its quiet lessons on life, love and Nature. While we were in the backyard gouging rock-hard putty out from around a cracked pane of glass, I could tell he was in tune with the life that teemed around us. He’d comment on the clouds, a smell, a cricket he'd picked up. He’d reply to the lovesick call of a cardinal.

Dad showed me, by example, how rich silence can be. While we may not have solved the world's problems, nor bared our respective souls, we were nonetheless in touch through our shared connection with Nature.

He taught me to be curious. Again, the application usually involved some little engineering challenge—like how best to haul our boat to and from the river each spring and fall without a trailer or rack. But the lesson was pay attention; notice the details; celebrate the simple elegance of how things are and how they work; expect wonder.

WIND BENEATH MY WINGS
As I grew up, I'm sure Dad tried to share more outdoor adventures with my brother and me, but, strangely, that effort and our schedules seldom managed to align. Yet, again, the value my dad placed on our connection with Nature and adventure, was clear. What experience he couldn’t provide himself, he made sure we got anyway.

When I was ten, I attended a YMCA summer camp where my cabin group set a record for the camp’s longest expedition to date—canoeing from Hudson WI, 360 miles down the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers to E. Dubuque IL. Two years later, I went to YMCA Camp Widjiwagan, where I learned about wilderness canoeing and camping, this time in Dad's long-ago stomping ground, the BWCAW.

It was one thing for my dad to promote my learning these outdoor skills; it was another altogether allowing me to apply them on my own. By the time I was 15, five friends and I had planned and outfitted our own eight-day wilderness canoe trip.

In a show of faith I still can’t imagine having granting my own teen-age kids, Dad and Mom, conferring with my friends’ parents, gave us their blessing. They trusted us, and they trusted in Nature not to throw more at us than we could handle. (Since we were still too young to drive, they ferried us six hours north to our put-in point, and came back eight days later to pick us up at the end.)

It's taken me many years to give my dad credit for the wonderful lessons he taught me—lessons about integrity, about hard work, about faith, and, ultimately, modestly, about the value of a life in love with Nature. Thank you, Dad!

In what ways has your father (or grandfather) opened the gate to Nature's 
realm for you? How are you passing that legacy along to your kids? Happy 
Fathers Day!

AWESOME, SCHMAWESOME – The Slow Death of Superlatives

Awe is the most transcendent of all human emotions. That makes it hard to talk or write about. After all, words are all we have, and they are so inadequate. That doesn't keep us from trying, though—sometimes, perhaps, a little too hard.

ILLUSTRATION: Katy Farina

HYPER-HYPE
For example, in my lifetime the word awe in all of its manifestations, as well as other terms used to describe profound emotion, have been rendered virtually powerless by their misuse and overuse. The media—especially the entertainment media (which now apparently includes journalism)—seem afraid that if they don’t out-awe the competition, they just won’t get noticed.

Awe, awful and awesome...roll off people’s tongues like so many watermelon seeds at a July picnic.

And it’s rubbed off on everyone; just listen to how people talk. Awe, awful and awesome, not to mention ambitious words like disaster, horrific, unbelievable, extreme or mega-fill-in-the-blank, roll off people’s tongues like so many watermelon seeds at a July picnic.

CALL THE AWE POLICE
My children’s generation managed to attach awesome to everything from Nikes to Napster, rendering that word, in particular, powerless to describe much of anything that’s truly important. Come on now, if everything’s awesome, then nothing is.

So how do we describe something that really is rare and awesome—or unspeakably bad—when the words we once reserved for such occasions have gotten so threadbare?

I suppose we could try to restore those words to their long-lost potency. Under threat of arrest, we’d reserve them for describing—or should I say trying to describe—only things that really matter. Like an experience (good or bad) we can never fully understand, and which truly humbles us. Short of that, very, very little of what most of us are or do or see qualifies as either "awful" or "awesome."

Wouldn’t the truest, most articulate expression of an emotion this powerful be utter speechlessness?

THE ELOQUENCE OF SILENCE

The other solution, one that makes more sense to me, would be to just accept the fact that some words, especially those derived from awe, have simply become too frivolous to be used or believed any more. After all, wouldn’t the truest, most articulate expression of an emotion this powerful be utter speechlessness?

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed." ~ ALBERT EINSTEIN

ON TLALNEPANTLA TIME – Savoring a Mexican Moment

One of the many things I admire about Mexican culture (at least in parts of the country I’ve visited) is the way people savor life.

For generations Mexicans have gotten a bad rap for being slow, unreliable and lazy. While I know from much experience that this is far from an accurate characterization, I can see how an ignorant person might get that impression.

It’s a responsibility to things on which a norteamericano or an europeo might not 
place as high a value.

Mexicans don’t let plans, schedules or clocks run their lives. This isn’t because they’re inconsiderate or irresponsible; they aren’t. In fact, it’s often because they are so responsible that Mexicans find it so hard to be bridled by time. But it’s a responsibility to things on which a norteamericano or an europeo might not place as high a value—especially their commitment to family and community, and their unfailing graciousness.

SIMPLE PLEASURES
Mexicans know how to appreciate the simple little wonders that life presents while others might be busy making other plans.

One telling—and typical—experience with this occurred several years ago when I, two of my fellow Spanish students and my friend Silverio were visiting the home of Silverio’s old friends, Ignacio (Nacho), Marta and their three daughters in Tlalnepantla, a northern suburb of Mexico City.



Mexicans know how to appreciate the simple little wonders that life presents while others might be busy making other plans. 

They were going to join us for dinner and a night out in the big city’s infamous Garibaldi Square. We arrived at their house at about 8:00 PM. I thought we were in a bit of a hurry, since we’d planned to leave for the restaurant by about 9:00.

After hugs all around, I presented our hosts with the customary regalito—little gift—a bottle of maple syrup I’d brought from home. (On a previous trip I’d given them another taste of Minnesota exotica, a ceramic moose.)

ONE KERNEL AT A TIME
We sat around the dining room table. Nacho offered us the obligatory tequila, poured from the fanciest of four or five bottles prominently arrayed on the overwrought bar—obviously his pride and joy. When Marta asked if anyone wanted popcorn, the hands of Brenda, Andrea and Abril, shot up in the air, making it unanimous.

A few minutes later Marta emerged from the kitchen carrying nine paper napkins and one small, steaming bag of microwave popcorn. We all helped ourselves to our share, just about a handful each, which we piled on our napkins.



One precious kernel at a time, they’d hold it up, inspect it and finally place it in their mouths.

I watched the little girls as they quietly savored that popcorn. It was as if it were the last popcorn they’d ever see. One precious kernel at a time, they’d hold it up, inspect it and finally place it in their mouths. They made those few buttery morsels last for about ten minutes.

PRECIOUS MEMORIES
I got up to stretch my legs, taking a closer look at some of their prints and knick-knacks. Nestled in the corner of the living room was a small all-glass étagère with three or four shelves. On each were displayed cheap little souvenir items from places the family had been to or dreamt of going to: a baby spoon engraved with the name of some amusement park; a shot glass from a resort area near Guanajuato; a plastic replica of the Statue of Liberty. And there, front and center on the top shelf, was my moose.

By this time, everyone else had joined me around the curios. For the next half hour, we all stood there admiring those three- or four-dollar items, listening to the girls recalling each trip, hearing all about the people who’d sent them this keepsake or that. At times, I felt a bit uncomfortable with the lengthy silences, no one uttering a word except for a few contemplative “Hm-m-ms.”

Many of us north of the border strive too much, 
talk too much and admire too little.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN
I suspect that here in the United States this scene would have played out quite differently. First, the mementos would have been more expensive by a factor of a hundred…but that’s not the point. Even if they were Faberge eggs and Hummel figurines, we’re not exactly famous for our attention spans. Chances are, the first time there was a lull of more than a few seconds, someone would have jumped at the chance to change the focus to something more exciting.

Many of us north of the border strive too much, talk too much and admire too little. Silences make us nervous. I’ve tried to adopt a bit of the Mexicans’ appreciation of little things, their comfort with quiet, thoughtful interludes in conversation, and their knack for being in the moment.

All these gifts, it seems to me, lend themselves very well to our relationships, not just with other human beings, but with ourselves, with Nature and with whatever it is we find sacred.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
JOHN LENNON – "Beautiful Boy"

SOME KIND OF MUSIC – When the Words Aren’t There

 "The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers." - THICH NHAT HANH
   
New York clinical psychologist Alan Dienstag, a guest on NPR’s excellent Speaking of Faith program, was talking about his experiences leading a writing group for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I was especially moved by his accounts of the inevitable transition out of the group by participants no longer able to communicate in ways that contributed to the meetings.

He recalled one such woman who, it seemed, had reached that point. As her disease advanced, he continued seeing her privately, helping her hang on to what few connections her brain was able to make, especially those with Nature.

A smile’s light suddenly broke through her opaque expression, and he knew this had reached her.

Even after she could no longer vocalize her experiences of the birds, animals and plants, she and Dienstag would still just walk around and look at things. Later, when she’d retreated still further into “almost a mask-like blankness,” he began talking with the woman’s husband about whether their sessions were the best way to spend her time.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dienstag was preparing to go on vacation. He knew the woman shared his love of the beach. So, as he was leaving their session, he told her that’s where he was going.

A smile’s light suddenly broke through her opaque expression, and he knew this had reached her. He asked her, “What do you love about the beach?”

Then, in Dienstag’s words, “She kind of drifted away…and she got very quiet. And again I waited and I thought…she can't really answer that question. And she turned to me and she said, 'There's some kind of music that lives there.'"

NO IDEA
I witnessed a similar breakthrough in my mother during her last few years in this life. No one seemed willing to say whether she had Alzheimer’s or not, but it seemed clear that she—or at least that bright, articulate part of her spirit once visible to us—had gone somewhere.

I joined Mom for dinner every Thursday evening. I’d catch her up on the latest news of family and world. Most of the time I couldn’t tell if she understood me or not. Even when I’d try to engage her with a question, her expression would remain blank, her eyes unfocused.

I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, hoping that, at some level, she heard and understood me—perhaps like what we sometimes hear about people coming out of comas and remembering people who’d visited and talking with them.

She lifted up her head from her osteoporosis-bent body, fixed her cloudy eyes right on mine and said, “Oh, you have no idea!”

Once in a while, Mom would look at me and start talking exactly as she might have ten years earlier. The first few words would have that familiar, bright, engaging intonation I remembered. “Well, you know I’d…” Whatever it was she’d intended to say, the thought would evaporate into thin air. That was it. I didn’t know what to do.

Sometimes I'd just assume that what she’d intended to say pertained to what I’d been telling her, so I’d go back and provide more details. Or I’d try to guess what she’d meant to say, but she wouldn’t respond to my questions. This had happened several times when I finally said, “Mom, it must be awful knowing what you want to say and not being able to find the words!”

It was a long shot; I figured it would go right through her. But she lifted up her head slowly from her osteoporosis-bent body, fixed her cloudy eyes right on mine and said, “Oh, you have no idea!”

Nature can affect us at any number of levels and in ways we might not expect. Both of these women, even though nearly stripped of their ability to interact with anything outside of their own skin, still managed to find and express a point of connection.

BRING ME DOGS
How haunting these glimpses into the hidden layers of mind and spirit. After all, we know so little about those places. At least so far, we can’t interview anyone who’s been there and come back in any condition to tell the tale.

Perhaps my mother’s comment comes as close as we’re going to get to a report on what that’s like. I suspect each of us lives with a shard of fear that we could succumb to Alzheimer’s, ending our days in what seems like it must be a living hell. Would we be acutely aware of our alienation, or might Nature (or would God) mercifully provide us an antidote to the loneliness—perhaps the emotional equivalent of adrenaline?

I want to believe that, just as a person can lose his or her hearing or vision or legs and still adapt and carry on with a happy, productive life, one with a cognitive disease like Alzheimer’s might fall back on some other, as yet unknown, capacity for happiness. Perhaps it’s an imaginary world or maybe just a heightened level of spirituality.

Whatever it is, I pray the reason we don’t yet know about it is simply that we haven’t been able to find it. We should all be grateful to the researchers who are looking.

Might Nature … mercifully provide us an antidote to the loneliness—perhaps the emotional equivalent of adrenaline?

If I’m ever in that position—unable to communicate, possibly even close to death—my fondest wish would be that someone give me the benefit of the doubt that I gave my mother that evening. Believe—no, expect—that, in some way, at some level, I’ll understand.

It’s not so different from how enlightened parents teach their children. Just as they expect their kids to understand some things other parents might assume are beyond them, I’d like my loved ones to expect that I can hear them, understand them and appreciate their presence.

And I don’t want this credit to end with just the obvious physical and mental contacts. I want them to understand that I’ll still need spiritual nourishment too. As Dr. Dienstag did, take me outdoors and let me feel the air, smell the earth, witness life. If anyone says it’s pointless, ignore them. 

Give me the chance to touch my grandchildren or great-grandchildren and pass on, in ways far surpassing words or even thoughts, my love and my spirit. Bring me dogs too, so I can exchange with them that sublime blessing I’ve always been able to share with animals.

They’ll understand.

THE TRUTH OF SILENCE

There's a "fill-in-the-blanks" conspiracy out there, a plot to cover every square inch of every possible surface with a mark claiming it as either the property or the advertising medium of some enterprise or another. If it's not already there, we'll soon see advertising tattooed on people's faces!

And, as if this visual scourge weren't bad enough, the offensive has also taken aim on audible open space.

In this era of $10 million-a-minute Super Bowl spots and ever- more- aggressive, ever- more- creative advertising blitzes, air time is money. Those nice quiet spells sitting in a theater, waiting for the feature to begin…gone. Being able to concentrate on your shopping list while negotiating the aisles at the super market…nope. Escaping the blitz on "commercial-free" public media…forget about it.


  Silences are the driving force behind real dialog.

Furthermore, this saturation of every possible medium with some kind of message seems to have spilled over into how we human animals communicate with each other. To be fair, we already seem to have a natural discomfort with silences in our conversation. But have you noticed that, between this aversion and the aggression of sheer, blatant self-promotion, it's often hard for one without an agenda to get in a word edgewise?

In fact, it's gone beyond just losing the silent intervals in conversation; the new norm seems to be for all the tracks of a conversation to run simultaneously. In Minnesota Public Radio's just completed membership drive, for example, it struck me how this multi-tracking banter has become the norm for these fundraising affairs. The same with those inane morning TV talk shows; everyone's talking over each other. Do they know something we don't? Is that really what they think we want to hear?

I LOVE SILENCES
I've only recently begun to articulate what it is that bothers me so much about this trend. I love silences. Not necessarily silence in general, though I enjoy that too, but intervals of silence, pauses, a little breathing room here and there in a conversation.

Silences are the driving force behind real dialog. Not only do they indicate that the speaker is thinking—a good thing, don't you think?—they also give the listener a chance to enter the conversation. And even when it's just one-way communication—such as a speech or a lecture—those little breaks allow listeners a chance to begin processing what they're hearing, time, if you will, to respond mentally.

   It was as if he'd intentionally allowed those 
   intervals for the thoughts to complete 
   their flow from him, transfer and take root 
   in my consciousness.

GIVING VOICE TO THE SPIRIT
I recently heard, for the first time, the voice of the astute author and spiritual guide, Eckhart Tolle. I was struck right away by how soft-spoken he is. But what drew me in even more were the lavish periods of silence he welcomes into his delivery—intervals of sometimes ten to fifteen seconds.

I suppose that, in some kinds of conversation, that sort of void might have made me uncomfortable. But, in this case, I found myself basking in those silences. You might say I found as much of a message in the spaces between his thoughts as in the thoughts themselves. It was as if he'd intentionally allowed those intervals for the thoughts to complete their flow from him, transfer and take root in my consciousness.

I also experience the spiritual richness of silence in church, in my men's group or at any gathering where time is devoted to quiet prayer or reflection. There's something so powerful and moving about a group of people together engaged in that kind of transcendent dialog. In those instances, it's even more clear to me how much we need silence in order for our own souls to both listen and speak to us.

SILENCE IS RELATIVE
Though we think of Nature—or more particularly, wilderness—as being rich with silence, this is rarely the case. I guess it's just that, unlike the background noise of our workaday worlds, the ambient sounds of nature are something we choose, and therefore welcome. Perhaps the whisper of pines, the gurgling of water, the jabber of birds, seem like silence because something deep inside tells us they belong.

    The next sound to enter that empty space in 
    my soul was the one that woke me the next 
    morning: the electrifying howls of a pack of 
    wolves from across the bay.

I've experienced utter silence just a few times in my life. The most memorable was one night while I was on a solo canoe trip deep in northern Minnesota's vast Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. As I lay in my sleeping bag one still, starry night, I realized I couldn't make out a sound of any kind. Not a breeze, not the smallest wave breaking, not even the ubiquitous, mournful plea of a distant loon. The silence was so profound that I experienced it as a thundering reverberation, perhaps a response my brain devised as its own nervous response to such an unaccustomed lack of stimulation.

I eventually fell back asleep, unaware at the time that the sound vacuum I'd experienced was to serve a higher purpose, to make room in my spirit for an even greater wonder that was to come. In fact, the very next sound to enter that empty space in my soul was the one that woke me the next morning: the electrifying howls of a pack of wolves from across the bay.

 So, what's the balance of noise and silence in your life? How do you experience the silences? Do you find yourself wanting more?

Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music. -- MARCEL MARCEAU