This is the first FIELDNOTES recording of the new season. So let me begin with a HAPPYNEW YEAR to one and all & all the best for 2018!
I report on a pair of woodpecker’s – – Northern flickers – – that are partaking in early morning ritual drumming. It is a kind of “calling out” to each other, back-and-forth, in a very subtle way. It’s also very muted, very quiet. But this gave me occasion to dialogue tape or meditate together with you the listener on Waze Waz it’s also very muted, very quiet. But this gave me occasion to dialogue tape or meditate together with you the listener on The meaning of natural silence more generally.You see, the recording is coming from depths of Oregon winter wilderness. So that means, that what I would call “a hydrocarbon man interruption” is simply not possible. there’s so much snow here that the roads are of course course closed. For normal traffic, that is. There could be a snowmachine. Or two or three or 10 or 20 or more. So I speak to the difference. One of the as yet to be realized bright sides of climate crisis is that the snow level is now rising so high that snow machines are having an increasingly difficult time of even getting started I’ve been to the high country. My own view, is that that is a very very good thing. If we were to say this is now I kind of dialogue so don’t take my word for it – – that the essence of winter is silence, solitude, & purity. But if we were to say — this is now I kind of dialogue so don’t take my word for it –– that the essence of winter is related to silence, solitude, & purity, then we might also say that snow machines contradict all three. It’s interesting that the root meaning of contradicts is “contra” or against, plus “to speak.” So the root meaning suggests to “speak against something.”
Well, that’s exactly what the snow machine does: it speaks against, in my view, the very essence of winter.
