The symphony we don't always hear

In a moment of retrospest.. how appropriate to this blog, I sat outside in the dark this September 23rd 2012, fall evening and listened to the noises. Crickets, cicadas tree frogs.. Decades of doing this and I still can't say which are which.... But since my early childhood, frequently lying in a tent at camp Wawokiye at the East end of Long Island, I listened to the same sounds. I remember my father telling me that you could guage the temperature by the frequency of a crickets chirp.. But what really struck me tonight, a day after Fall officially started was that, in the cosmic order, whether you believe in a great creator or a higher power or just a great cosmic accident that is based on unified physical laws, there is an interesting similarity to music that I noted this evening.

There is the larger picture that is dictated by the seasons, and also smaller but immediate weather changes that affect the overall ebb and flow of nature. Nature as a whole is predisposed to respond to it as an orchestra to a conductor. Fortisimo, allegro no troppo, etc... It all rises and drops in unison, but... there are those individual voices that stand out.. that break from the overall rhythm, that are working within the context of the whole yet just outside the typical flow... soloists improvising... making a special effort to be a seperate voice yet contribute to the overall theme... The crickets, cicadas, and frogs,.. the rustle of the trees in the wind.. an occasional dog barking...

I listened to the song of the night and could easily tell winter was approaching just as I could tell in the tent at camp, that the camp season was drawing to an end.. There is a shift from the easy, languid, carefree rhythm of summer, to a more desperate urgency, with a build to a crescendo that leaves us eventually in the quiet of a snow storm. That time when the world grows surrealistically quiet with the soft, dull roar of a world of white... Everything muffled,.. and nature takes an intermision...

Then spring.. and the piccolo's accompany the birds and the crickets until they are joined by the cicadas and tree frogs.. and lets not forget the thunder.. and it all builds again once more towards this glorious end called Fall.. but its just a little bit sad... because I know an end to this performance is near...

I can't wait for the next show....

WC 9-23-12