The Whispering Season

Art courtesy of resident art director, Oana Beatrice – @wannaarkd

All ears, I enter the small patch of woods to my left, just before the crossroads. Further ahead the old road leading from the house to the main road simply trails off, into a set of ditches. This is where whatever remains is eventually cut off by the highway. The woods continue on the other side of the highway, but I never go there. I don’t think the old road continues there either. I hear the cars buzzing by, just behind the little glen where I’m standing. The trees are at least as tall as a four-storey building. The foliage is thick. I can’t see the cars, I can only hear them. Buzz, buzz, buzz. As I enter, I have in front of me a perfect tapestry of woodland, as if it had been hung in front of the highway, like a curtain. Birds quietly hop from bow to bow on the high branches above my head. The floor of moss is like a carpet, just as perfect as the curtain. I hesitate to step ahead. Little bugs, mushrooms, and wildflowers are perched everywhere in the soft, green crevices that surround me. I take a look around before I lie down. I close my eyes, and listen.

Beyond the rhythmic buzzing of the highway, there are other sounds. To get to them I have to come to terms with the buzzing of the cars, as if they too were a natural part of the soundscape of the forest. I can’t have a debate with myself every time I do it. I have to push past the small difficult moment of acceptance. So, instead I try to listen to them. They have a hypnotic sound, the cars. I settle in on it, and then I let go.

This is the whispering season. The leaves dry up, the winds come in, and the woods begin to speak. I like to look at the leaves in the shape of ears. I like to think that in the fall, even the ears begin to speak. As if ripe with all the chatter of summer, they turn into little lips instead, ready to tell you all sorts of things. Some are red, like lipstick stains. Some are furled, and dark. Bright yellow jokes smile as they go by, too soft to say anything. But as the weeks pass, they too will start to speak. Big yellow crowds will gather round the pathways, and whisper.

But today, the floor is still green. The falling leaves are few. The air is fresh with the first scent of mushrooms. Later we’ll come here and pick them by the bucketful. But right now, I’m just on a visit to listen. Most of the season is still ahead. The days are long. The sun is bright. I don’t need a coat to go out, just a jacket. When the whispering season is done, the quiet season begins. Before that, we talk late into the evenings. We get it all out. We take it all in. We get the year done. The harvest comes, and we salvage every given thing. Later in the season, we commemorate what has been lost. We come to terms, I suppose, before we come to peace. In the stars above, the Scales of Libra, further down, only four storeys high, the canopy rustles. Back and forth, in and out. The breath goes both ways, just like a conversation. In physics they call it an entrainment. When two systems share their energy along a common medium, they sync up. I lay flat, with my back to the ground, in the small glen, just to the left before the cross roads. The trees breathe out, I breathe in. I breathe out, they breathe in. When I feel like I’m levelled out, I open my eyes.

Listening is the quality of water. The surface ruffles when a gust of wind hits a puddle. Speaking is the quality of air. My own voice is a flute, made the same way as the grasses and the reeds, and the tunnels of branches that flow through the canopy. The result is the roaring of the woods. It drowns out the noise from the nearby highway, when it rises to its full power. A multitude of separate noises that are too intense to make out one from the other. They are just one big noise that comes and goes, as the wind rises and falls. There is no intent in that noise, and there is no intent among the falling leaves, as one might think. But I still listen, as I walk back the old road, to the small house. Is it wet, or dry? Heavy, or light? Birds call, and caw, in between the gusts of wind. I listen for their intent, a constant conversation. Near or far? High or low? Are they busy, or content? Will it rain? Will the temperature drop? What color is the sky? A short glance, before I go back into the house. The birds are coming down. Black darts on a dark sky. The house is warm, and quiet. My friend calls out from the back room, busy. I shout back. I’m home! Unsure if there’s any real intent, or just a common medium. Unsure if it matters at all, because there’s comfort in the greeting.

I turn my listening inward. The house is dark. There are ghosts. Two kinds. One kind that brings you out, and one that brings you in. Mice are the kind of ghosts that can bring you out, when you least expect it. You have to ignore them, along with the deep sounds, coming from the outside. Thay can spook you out, because they are too difficult to locate, or discern. Then there’s always the sudden sounds that old houses make by themselves. If I stay in the city for too long, the first few nights in the woods are uncomfortable. I sleep with my scarf around my head, to get any possible rest from the constant clutter of life all around me. Life, and I suppose, in physics, entropy. The thump of a thing that has just this moment decided to be too old to hang on a wall. How can you be any older than I am, I ask? I was the one that fixed you to the wall. Ghosts have no reasonable sense of time, and there is no point in asking. But those are the outgoing ghosts, the ones that make noises, and tricks, to bring you out of yourself. So, just do what I do, and ignore them.

The second kind is a different kind, the ones that bring you in. I put the scarf over my eyes, and think about my grandfather. His kind presence fills the room. I gaze at his face behind my eyelids. I listen, and if I do my best, he brings me in. There is a small house, within the small house, where the inside ghosts live. I walk one step behind my grandfather as he walks around the house. He looks at the buckets I placed by the door. That’s good. He nods. But what’s the vacuum cleaner doing in the bathroom? He’s still anxious about water and electricity. It’s alright, I tell him. Still, he shrugs, just mop the floors, and you won’t have any problems. And where’s the blue bucket? You should have the blue bucket by the door, if you’re going out tomorrow. I can’t remember the blue bucket. I’ll look for it tomorrow. Don’t worry, he tells me. Go to sleep. Things are fine. They whisper silently, without much voice, the inside ghosts. Good night, Grandpa, I tell him. Unsure if there’s really a common medium now, or if I’m just half asleep, and dreaming. Unsure if there’s really a common intent, or if it’s just me remembering things. I don’t think it matters, as long as I find the blue bucket in the morning.

Resources:
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/libra-heres-your-constellation/