Neverending Song
The Neverending Song is always there, a haunting melody or hum hidden deep in the core of the sound tapestry reaching our ears, simultaneously seeking and directing life. In unplanned moments, a songwriter bridges the gap between worlds, hears a Neverending Song, and a classic is born.
One evening years ago on the ninth day of a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, I arrived at a campsite on Gabimichigami Lake. Pines grew out of cracks in smooth folded rock on the shore of a little rounded point. The spot was so beautiful that I was lured into putting my tent right on the exposed shoreline rock beneath the pines, breaking all the rules I knew about shelter placement. Surely, on this perfect peaceful night, a storm would not arise . Sitting in contemplation on the shore at dusk, I gazed out over the lake and felt such utter perfection and balance. I had the distinct feeling of arriving, of finally finding that which I'd been seeking. Or, perhaps it had found me because I'd finally slowed down enough for it to catch up.
I awoke in my tent around midnight to rumbling thunder, lightening, and a storm moving in. Soon, sheets of rain and great gusts of wind began lashing at tent from all directions. I felt as if the storm were attempting to throw me off this rock to which the tent couldn't be staked. I was the only "stake" holding it down, the erected tent like a sail in the wind. For a long while as I attempted to hold down the tent's four corners with my limbs I felt an illogical fear, as if this were a personal attack. Eventually the wind lessened and it just poured rain. It had all felt like a battle. I drifted off to sleep amid puddles on the floor.
In the early dawn I awoke to the distinct sound of a fiddle playing a melody which is still with me to this day, like a movement in my soul. Its sound was so enlivening, heavenly and beautiful. I couldn't figure out where such a fiddle sound would be coming from with no one else around. For a long while I lay there dumbfounded. My logical mind had hit a chasm: on one side was the inventory of life experiences by which it judged and negotiated pathways through each new experience. I was on the other side of that chasm consciously experiencing something for which my personal inventory had no explanation: a beautiful and distinct song played on an exquisite solitary fiddle, deep in the wilderness. I kept checking to see if I was actually awake. Finally I made the decision to go out and step back into the forest to take a leak. As I moved and kept listening to the fiddle, I realized the early morning songs of birds were superimposed on the fiddle. Then all at once it hit me. The sound of the fiddle was composed of all the bird songs put together! Great realizations which to this day I am still uncovering were opened to me at that point. As I got back into the tent I found I could choose to listen either to the unique fiddle song, which seemed to be a product of all the bird songs put together, or hear the bird songs separately, or listen to a combination of the two. I laid there for hours enraptured with my ability to hear in this way, playing with moving from the fiddle to the separate songs to the combination.
Afterwards, at first I thought I had been hearing something like a harmonic created by all the birds singing together. Yet, as the months went by and I thought about the event, physically and musically the "bird song harmonic" explanation didn't quite make sense. On that morning, the fiddle song had continued on exactly the same, even as new birds would chime in and others would stop singing and move on.There had to be something more, something spiritual going on, something beyond the physical.
Subsequent experiences further refined the explanation of what happened at the camp on the rock....
On another long canoe trip in the BWCA, it was mid day at a beautiful camp in the interior, the wind singing through tall virgin pines and cedars in the surrounding forest. Bird calls were minimal. All around in that section of forest, I began hearing an exuberant song being sung or played. Over a period of many hours, I kept asking Jessi, my partner, if she could hear it. She could not. The day was exquisite with the wind, sun, and pines, and all she could do was appreciate my rapture at this music which would not stop and which I couldn't turn off. I became fearful that I was going crazy.
Then something happened that offered a big chunk of explanation. Though their calls were sporadic at this mid afternoon time of day, I noticed that the timing and pitch of the occasional bird songs were in perfect sync with the exuberant spiritual chanting. I then realized that the birds could hear it too! That's how they could sync up with it. They were singing to it more than creating it. Then I no longer felt so alone in what I was hearing. My fear of lost sanity abated; after all, the birds could hear it too. I have subsequently begun calling it the Neverending Song. It is indefinable to me, but always there at the core of our existence. The birds, animals, wind and water do not totally play the Neverending Song, yet they are aware of it, part of it, and respond directly to it. It's more like it plays them.
Years ago I began recording nature sounds, especially in the BWCA. Combining them with some of my albums, I made another discovery. I would seek out the one particular nature soundtrack out of hundreds of choices to combine with one of my songs. When I combined it with the song, I realized that the pauses and accentuations of the nature track usually lined up perfectly with those of the song! It hit me then that the reason for this natural synchronization between my music and nature's Baseline Symphony is that the Neverending Song is the place that I have always been inspired by and written from. I believe it is where many inspired works of art come from. I cannot construct good melodies but the Neverending Song can. I simply perform the service of listening. The price of listening is hearing the bad along with the good, the dissonant songs of non-life along with the harmonious Neverending Song. The price for the good stuff is the awareness of the bad. Denial of our awareness because of all the dissonant songs is what keeps us separate from the best of our creativity and allows the destruction of the Earth's health to continue.
Every piece of land is sacred and contains echoes of the Neverending Song - that song which longs to journey back to health and balance. Even if an area has been defiled, though it may sound sad or angry at first, the Neverending Song is still there. I can attest to this. I'm not a song writer, I'm a song listener. When we hear the Neverending Song and actively synchronize with it, we automatically begin the process of creating the health and balance the earth longs for.
Baseline Symphony
I first learned the term Baseline Symphony during the advanced Tracking and Awareness class at Tom Brown Jr's Wilderness Survival School in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It refers to the degree of sounds and movements which are typical for a particular area on the landscape at a given time. a few of the conditions governing the degree of sound and motion are time of day, season of the year, weather conditions, and pollution. In each different area on the landscape, this symphony changes. In the more natural areas, the Baseline Symphony can be like a magnificent musical composition. Even near the world of man baseline symphonies can be riveting, expansive, and stress relieving.
All landscapes are unique. In becoming accustomed to the Baseline Symphony of a particular area, we set ourselves up to notice the variances, to learning nature's sophisticated language. We belong to the land. By learning its baseline symphonies we respect that ownership, and in respecting it, open ourselves up to a two way communication with it. The Baseline Symphonies offered here are segments of real time news from the wilderness. Tom often refers to a quote from Stalking Wolf which states that awareness is the most important skill we can possess. Finding the spectacular in the so-called mundane is key to developing awareness. My favorite tool for finding the spectacular in the mundane is the Sit Area.
A great way to learn the baseline symphony of an area is to find, somewhere near your home or campsite, a sit area or "sacred area". This is an area on the landscape where you feel most peaceful and right. By going to the same spot day after day, the resident birds and animals become accustomed to your presence and begin to act more naturally around you. It's great to go there and reflect, both in the morning and evening, when the symphony is often at its peak. It's also good to eventually go there at all times of day and night to get used to the ebb and flow of the symphony. In this way, the baseline symphony teaches itself.
An area's Baseline Symphony can be studied in a way similar to how we learn and internalize musical compositions. Not so much by memorization at first, but by noticing patterns or attitudes in the fluctuations of sound. Eventually we learn more and more of the typical individual voices and movements and become increasingly aware of deviances from the norm. If someone plays a deviant note in a song you know really well, you notice it immediately. If you don't know the song, it is much harder to be sure of the deviant note.
Generally in the natural world there is a large increase in bird song and animal activity during the sunrise and sunset hours. From mid day into the afternoon there can be quite a lull in daytime singers and movement. By dark the night-shift sounds and movements have taken over. These can also be spectacular at times. A sudden stoppage of frog voices or the whippoorwill is often a communication from nature, a concentric ring traveling outward to the ears and eyes of those who understand its meaning. By becoming familiar with an area's baseline symphony, we know something is up if there is a sudden spike in bird sounds at mid day. That spike might mean an imminent storm or the presence of a predator. By learning the meaning of a disturbance, when it happens again in the future we can pinpoint its meaning early and be forewarned. In the natural world of survival, foreknowledge of dangers and opportunities at the earliest possible time can make all the difference. Tom Brown jr. was a master at reading baseline symphonies and their disturbances. To read about it I recommend his books, particularly the chapter "My Frankenstein" in "Case Files Of The Tracker".
Everything has a baseline symphony. Chances are that if you have a spouse or a pet, you can instantly read their moods. By the quirks and variances of their symphony you can tell what they will do next or how they are feeling, while a stranger may not have a clue of what those quirks mean. That's because you've spent time learning their baseline symphony, and what the variances and disturbances mean. An auto mechanic diagnoses the particulars of an engine by its sound because he or she has mastered baseline symphonies for engines. I've mastered the baseline symphonies of certain things and am in the process of applying those principles to nature. By applying these principles to nature we gain access to an astounding amount of information. Disturbances to the baseline symphony move across the landscape like the concentric rings formed on a still pond when a pebble is dropped into it. A loon call can indicate an eagle over head. A sudden burst of alarm calls from sparrows can indicate a perceived threat. An out of context Chickadee call can indicate an impending storm.
I have not mastered reading any but some of the the most rudimentary aspects of baseline symphonies in Nature and am unqualified to say much about them. I have other reasons for offering recordings of them. I've learned that listening to them can reduce stress and promote a wondrous meditation. Playing recorded natural symphonies can help create a positive atmosphere in many scenarios: at home, in a health clinic, at work, or at public places like restaurants and shops. A great deal of human stress and unease is caused by our constant inundation with sounds that reflect imbalance. Deep in our consciousness lies the awareness that many sounds in an urban setting are, ultimately, sounds out of balance with ourselves.
Listening to recordings of baseline symphonies teaches much about nature and the stories and communications going on there. The sounds have an air of mystery to them. The question of what they are and why they are made is naturally alluring. Our imagination brings us many questions that we normally don't ask. The mere asking of these questions does much of the teaching about these symphonies. However, listening to recordings runs a distant second to actually getting out to your own sacred area and learning the fascinating and extensive language of nature.