Mind Tricks

I am a hardcore believer in signs and that everything happens for a reason. Particularly with symbolism of animals. Now, I don’t mean I take every single animal I see throughout the day and think of the divine meaning it carries. It’s the animals that sort of demand your attention or instantly catch your eyes. I mean what are the chances of a person looking out their window at the exact time a bird lands on a branch for only a few seconds?

Lastnight, I was sitting out in my backyard, like I have many other countless nights. I find this to be a very important part of my research to try to be hyper-aware of my surroundings while outdoors. I sat down around 8 and waited for the darkness. By doing this practice, I find it really brings me back to center with nature. I think one of the most important things I have done since I have lived here is feed the birds. (Yes, my friends already call me Grandma so go right ahead.) When I first sat down, it was complete chaos. All I heard was noise coming from every direction. I couldn’t differentiate anything. I was frustrated because I was trying to relax and notice the fine details all the while having my ears torn apart with noise. However, as I sat, the sounds became clearer. I started to be able to recognize the differences between the wind, the birds, the squirrels, things swimming or falling into the pond or jumping out of it. It’s like my ears had adapted to that environment. I was able to differentiate the birds singing over top of my head and the birds way off in the distance in the left and right directions. Any noise I heard I could tell where it was coming from. There was a documentary I watched where a man said something along the lines of, the more you are outdoors…. the more you can hear. (I love movies, don’t judge me!) This night, that man was completely right. One of my bird feeders is about thirty feet away from my chair. When a cardinal would stop for a quick bite, I could hear his beak break open the shell of a sunflower seed to get to the prize. However, I would have never been able to hear that subtle of a noise when I first came outside. I loved it. It was the whole new experience for me. Some might say well isn’t that what hunting is? I guess at a certain level it is but when hunting, you try to block out all the other noises to here a creature walking. It is definitely not about enveloping yourself into the array of all the sounds that are happening simultaneously around you.

As I sat, I started thinking about wind and how it has many variations. The power of wind. When wind rustles through the trees to make the leaves sing, the wind is forcing the leaves to move. From the abundance of them, they brush against each other making that iconic sound. The more I listened the more I heard, when the array of birds would fly back and forth to the feeder, I started to notice another sound. The sound of their wings flapping. Now this sound is not generated by their wings actually making sounds. It is the action of their wings flapping at such a high speed that forces the air to make noise called wind. Wind is an invisible thing that can’t be physically seen. We only see the things the wind is acting upon that move. But we can feel and hear the wind. Don’t have birds? Try fully extending your arm and flapping. You cannot hear the wind but you can feel the wind you are creating on your arm. Now try using only half your arm. If you flap as fast as you can, you can hear the wind. Isn’t that insane? The same wind that can tear siding and roofs off of peoples houses, we can actual make a form of it ourselves. The same as birds.

It seemed like all at once as the darkness approached the birds slowly left me to sit alone. Then a whole other sound emerged. Frogs, yes frogs. I could tell which ones were close and which ones were far. If it was a young frog or an old frog (depending on the deepness of sound). However, the mind plays tricks. Did all of the birds actually go to their nests to settle in for the night? Or was it this new noise of frogs that made the birds fall into the background? Were the frogs reciting their songs all along and I just paid more attention to the birds? Or did I get sick of hearing the birds so I focuses on the frogs? I need to research what makes a frog sing because it is not every night. Sometimes it fills my bedroom, sometimes it is dead silent and I am not talking about different parts of the year. Just day to day. The thing that makes me question how and why I heard the things I did, came from an exercise in undergrad. I had a class called Artists in the Schools which was around twenty-five students and we were to sit quietly for five minutes with our eyes closed and listen. Then once the five minutes were up, we had to say what caught our attention the most. EVERYONE HAD A DIFFERENT ANSWER. And I thought some of my classmates were crazy because I was convinced I never heard the noises they did. (my own ignorance)

I am not real sure on how to end this one because it is just my observations from trying my best to be fully present in the moment. I guess it’s about how there are mysterious in our world that maybe we will never simply figure out. For example, I can never 100 percent have the answers to my questions, Did all of the birds actually go to their nests to settle in for the night? Or was it this new noise of frogs that made the birds fall into the background? Were the frogs reciting their songs all along and I just paid more attention to the birds? Or did I get sick of hearing the birds so I focuses on the frogs? Even if I would have had a friend sit with me, they would have hear different things, we would have focused on different sounds so they wouldn’t be able to definitely tell me the answers to the questions. And I think it would be pointless to try to repeat the scenario and have a friend come sit and me tell them all the things they have to listen for because then its staged along with every night being completely different than the rest. So in a way, I can never know those answers. Okay but lets switch to a different example dealing with the musician Brian Eno (big deal). This is just a story that was passed down to me about one of his performances so I believe it took place sometime in the 1970’s but don’t quote me on that. Oh, and its real! I am not making up a random thing right now but anyways, Brian Eno was a clever man. (Hey side note, he created Oblique Strategies that I talked about in a previous post!) For the start of his performance, he played the same note for TWENTY MINUTES. Naturally, this infuriated a lot of the attendees and a majority of the people went home but the people who did stay had a super special treat waiting for them. Eno changed up the tune at the very end and it was such a big deal that everyone who stayed LOVED the performance. So back to my point while talking about the musician, Was it actually some insane extravagant wild theatrical performance? Hell No. However, did Eno play some kind of mind trickery to drive everyone insane with the same note that sort of brainwashed them and then chemicals reacted with chemicals who reacted with more chemicals in their brains so them the slight change in tune caused peoples brains to explode with happiness and curiosity and wonderment? Hell Yes!

Perhaps we'll never know. Wander