Walking across the almost empty parking lot at my church on Sunday morning, I heard the birds singing and thought for a moment that they almost sounded like the opening notes of John Luther Adams' Inuksuit. That I heard music was not surprising. I hear music everyday, hear music in the every day sounds and noises that shape and reflect life around me. That I thought of Inuskuit was also not surprising, as I was on my way to Ijams nature preserve to hear exactly that, John Luther Adams' Inuksuit, the concluding event of Big Ears Festival 2016.
And so I entered the grounds in that continued reflective mood. The sun was warm, the air was crisp, the crowd good hearted and cheerful. It was a perfect spring day, perhaps a little cool, but I am inclined to prefer things a bit on the cool side. I found a spot for waiting and settled in listening to the overlapping melodies of children playing, conversations, birdsong, and the muted comingling of new leaves rustling in the wind blurred by footsteps and blankets swooshing. In this its own symphony, one could have missed the opening of Inuskuit, except of course it was introduced, so that we were primed for that soft and subtle beginning. I closed my eyes and listened, the soft sounds becoming more frequent, more enveloping. The occasional whoosh crossed my aural threshold: wind? the sound of a car on the road? No, that wouldn't be it... or would it? An airplane passes overhead. A child's giggle mixes with the tinkling and the whooshing, and it becomes difficult to distinguish between the place and the music, or the way the place and the music dance together, to create a separate space.
The songs become richer, enveloping. The air is filled with song, or is it noise? No it is song, and it reminds me of that joyous cacophony that greets me in the hour before sunrise each morning, the air filled with the sounds of birds and crickets, chirps and hums, chatters and tweets. Eyes closed, the sun on your face, the sounds of joyous song surrounding you, you feel at peace.
Until...
A wall of screeching, roaring, thundering noise assaults you. Stunned, you are overwhelmed by an urge to flee, to run for cover. Your heart leaps in terror and you open your eyes only to see the startled looks of those around you and remember that you are safe, that the sun is shining and the air is soft. Children pause, wide eyed, then laugh and continue on, listening for the specific sounds, pointing, marveling. The world is not coming to an end. But you are no longer comfortable. Close your eyes again and you have gone from idyllic mother nature to the fury of nature, fierce and terrifying. A child nearby whimpers, and inwardly you cry out in sympathy. You must battle your own conflicting emotions, the almost instinctual, visceral fear, and the calm voice of reason in your head, the voice that keeps repeating that it is only music, and you are, indeed, safe. Open your eyes. Safe, yes. The world goes on, and we watch it, secure. Or are we?
Close your eyes again. Is this what a trapped animal feels like? You hear a shrill whirring noise, like the screech of a siren, or is the shrieking vortex of the wind? You no longer know the difference. Is this nature's fury? or the fury man has wrought? Is that distant rumbling thunder? Or is it the rumbling of bulldozers come to destroy your verdant home into acres of concrete. As you continue to sit, eyes closed, the music washing over you, the chill in he air becomes more noticeable. You imagine nature reshaping the earth, uprooting trees, creating mountains, and you imagine man uprooting trees, reshaping the earth, creating cities, and you quiver in terror as those very trees that were your home, those very cities that were your home, are shattered in the wind.
You open your eyes, and the sound is the same yet different. People are gathered 'round. Some are quiet and still, others talking, children are playing guessing games, trying to find the sources of the various sounds. Eyes open, the disconnect is more obvious, vision rules. You see a musician playing the drums, you hear the echoes of sound off the rocks, off the water. Shimmering and distant. The leaves of the tree next to you still rustle gently in the breeze.
And then it fades. The thunder grows more distant. Occasionally you hear a softer whoosh; occasionally you hear a single note, a song about to be reborn. You close your eyes again and your pulse stills. Your own breath becomes softer and the songs become more clear. Beauty has reclaimed the earth, is reclaiming the earth, will reclaim the earth.
And you open your eyes. It is a sunny day in April, a bit cool. People chatter and laugh, gathering themselves and their families together. There is a sense of awe in the air, of shared awareness. You walk back to your car and you notice, perhaps more closely than when you arrived, the tender green leaves, some nascent, some still tightly curled, others slowly unfurling their soft delicate skin to toward the sun. You cup an embryonic leaf gently in your hand and feel the softness, knowing that in a couple of days it will be crisp and green. And you give thanks for the safety of your life even as you also beg forgiveness for all the harm that you, that we, that the collective we that is the species we call humans, has done to this earth, even as you know that we will continue to simultaneously treasure beauty and cause harm, sometimes intentionally, but not always, in our own struggle to survive. You recognize that this too is the true nature of our existence, of existence at all. We all just want to get by, to survive, but we also all seek transcendence. And yet there can be no transcendence without terror, even though we can only stand the weight of that terror for a short time, even though we can only stand the joy of transcendence for a short time.
And you are reminded of those sentries, the inuksuit, standing watch, reminding us of how small indeed we are against the forces of the world. Solitary and alone. One of the marvels of the musical piece called Inuksuit is that each of the musicians is part of a group, but each is also a solitary figure, a soloist performing a prescribed thing, but in concert with other soloists and with the environment around him or her; acting and reacting. The music draws our attention to the kind of polyphonous harmony that surrounds us every day, in which we often unwittingly participate, a harmony to which we are often all too oblivious. The music asks us to slow, to consider, to hear....and to heed.
