Ancient Hush

As we stood in the ancient pine forest near the RSPB Osprey Observation Lodge by Loch Garten, I said to Toad and Toadlet: "Listen."

They listened and then said: "What?"

They expected to hear something. We don't listen very often to silence. Most people never get a chance. I can go days, weeks, months even, without ever feeling the need to listen to a radio or a TV (not that we have the latter), or any other kind of manufactured sound. Even if it is good sound, like wonderful music, I can – indeed I want to – live without it most of the time. The apparently common practice of wanting background noise all day long from a radio or TV, or one's iPod, not only leaves me cold, but actually terrifies me. I'd go bonkers if it was imposed on me. When  I go to a concert, I go to listen intently; however good a recording, it's never the same as 'live'. Concentration is high and exhausting, but 'what I get' from the music is immeasurable.  Having other things going on at the same time as listening, or having to work and concentrate on something else at the same time, would be trying in the extreme.

A background of natural noises – of wind or sea or stream, of birds – is entirely different. I can live with that, and do as much as possible. Most of the time, I regard my sensitivity to noise as rather strange – unusual at any rate – mainly, I think, because that's how other people seem to view it. (Don't worry; I don't mind being found odd).

This all came to mind this morning as a result of two things. For the first time this year, I noticed the sun's rays slanting from 20° south of east into our front room. The daymark for this is a sycamore tree in the copse in the field by the eastern corner of our garden. Sunshine getting into our north-east facing room is always a welcome sign of spring. Today the rays got as far as a third of the way along the north-west wall. By midsummer, the early sun (when there is any!) will shine straight into the room as the sun rises over the hills on the far side of the loch. As the day progresses, it slopes off to shine on the more southerly aspects of the house, as you would expect. I do love its early morning appearances in the north-east room though.

The second thing was a passage I read in Billie Wright's book Four Season's North which I'm thoroughly enjoying:

The day is bright and sparkling, deep-shadowed in the thickset woods, sun-slanted where the trees stand apart. As in all forests in all seasons, there is an ancient hush here, too, a great stillness deepened more by the snow cover blanketing the forest tundra, subduing the voice while exciting the imagination. These moments of connectedness with what we know as the primeval are so very rare today as to be unknown to many. (p.57 in my version, ISBN 0-87156-555-2).