Dreaming the World

Today was a lovely late autumn day. I renewed my driver’s license and worked on sound. Jennie made space to be out in the sunny garden while still attending to work.

Last weekend we had another coastal storm; we’re told we have had rain on 90% of our weekends this year which seems about right. Another costal storm was forecast for the coming weekend but that forecast has trended much drier. The strength and position of the current El Nino favors coastal storms for the fall and winter and we are off to a strong start; we shall see.

Most of our foliage is still green, with splashes of yellow and red peaking out here and there. As always, a few early turning trees have shown red, turned brown, and promptly lost their leaves. It was yet another stressful summer for plants and any bright foliage will seem a boon.

As I mentioned, I spent much of the day working on sound. The project of the moment is a sound piece about the quietening world. It is late autumn and the natural world has taken on a hush that was not present a couple of weeks ago. A few birds call, as they will do throughout the cold season, and the crickets still sing to the night. Yet, there is a notable silence edging across the landscape.

A gathering silence that is easy to miss comes from innumerable extinctions. Beneath the tumult of sound that is our daily world, a heartbreaking silence grows. At the moment scientists estimate we are losing 150-200 species per day, and the rate is ever increasing. The sheer rate and number of extinction has not occurred since the demise of the dinosaurs.

We are. of course, animals, although a lot of us seem bent on completely forgetting that. What’s more, we depend on innumerable plants, animals, insects and microbes for our continued existence, a fact that is seldom reported and appears outside the frame of reference for most of our population.

In the shaman’s world our kinship with all beings is both obvious and paramount. W find ourselves deeply imbedded in the great web of life, of being, and we see that web rapidly being undone. Who are we without the majestic, wild diversity of life? How can we know who we are if there are no profoundly nonhuman others?

In the end all life on Earth is inexorably interconnected, and the fate of other species will become our fate as well. Beyond that, without other lives to remind us that all life eats, drinks, excretes, reproduces, and dies, how will we survive the loneliness?

If we take the long view we know that in a million years or so the Earth will be lush with new species, most very likely vastly different than those of today. The disaster we are visiting on the planet is just a massive overpopulation event that will likely end as all do, with a dramatic population decline or extinction. Yet, even the long view does little to soothe the heartbreak; we who care are destined to care deeply.

Here is a soundscape that tries to ask profound questions, and of course largely fails as it must. The companion pastel image also carries the title, Beneath that Noise, Silence Grows: