By Linda Wiggen Kraft,
Healthy Planet Green & Growing Editor
There may be way more songs in your garden, and all gardens, than meets our ears. We hear bird song and songs of cicadas that fill the summer air. But are our ears tuned out to songs that go beyond our limited senses? Even if we can’t perceive these songs, we can open our hearts and minds to immense awe at the dimensions of nature’s wonder and beauty beyond our limitations.
There is a widely available online recording of crickets chirping and a chorus of angelic sounding voices. After a minute or so of this recording which starts with familiar cricket sounds alone, these chirps are joined with angelic sounding “human” voices. These two different songs continue for a while and then a human voice begins to explain that both these sounds are created by crickets only. One track is the normal sound of crickets rubbing their wings together. The other track is the sound of crickets slowed down. The chirps become chants in the slower recording. The sounds are mesmerizing and bring to mind the question of what are we humans missing when we experience a garden. What other songs are being sung and by whom or what? Are trees, plants, insects, worms, soil, along with all the animals the live in or visit the garden singing their own song in an orchestra of heavenly voices that are beyond our perceiving ears?
How can we humans experience these songs? How can we join in and be part of this melody of nature’s power and beauty? Perhaps the easiest way to experience these songs, which our ears don’t hear, is to feel the energy of the garden. Sit in a spot, preferably on the ground or up against a tree. Let your entire body open to receiving the vibrations, or songs, of the garden. Acknowledge the sky, plants, soil, birds, insects and all beings of the garden whether animate or inanimate. Imagine all these beings singing their song. Their songs share the essence of their magnificence, their part in the community of garden life. Each plant and part of the garden is a unique song, sung by the instrument of their structure and beingness. Together their songs are a symphony that writes a song of life.
We can join in the symphony and sing with the others. A dear musically inclined friend listened to the cricket chorus mentioned above. She transcribed the notes. The angelic voices “sing” with a repetition of twelve notes in a key of C. The notes are: A,F,C,A,G,EG,E,C,G,A. The notes can be played on a piano or other musical instrument. This song is easily learned and sung. It is a song I often sing in and to gardens, either aloud or sometimes silently in public places.
There are other ways to bring song into the garden. A Zuni Native American Indian carving of a Corn Maiden that I got in Santa Fe a few years ago inspired a way to always have song in my garden. The two-inch high turquoise Zuni carving is a simple form of a woman whose body is in the shape of an ear of corn. In Zuni culture Corn Maidens are a symbol of life. She brought corn to the people and represents strength, creation and wisdom. My Zuni carving has simply carved eyes and an always singing open mouth. Inspired by the Corn Mother carving, I created 8 inch-tall ceramic Garden Guardians* with a simple leaf shape, simple eyes and an always singing open mouth. Along the back of my garden vegetable beds there are nine Garden Guardians always singing into the rest of garden. I often join them in song and together we become part of the greater garden song, heard and unheard.
*Garden Guardians, along with my Ceramic Jewelry, will be at the next The Healthy Planet Expo, Spring 2022. They can also be found at my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/CreativityForTheSoul
Linda Wiggen Kraft is an artist and landscape designer who creates holistic and organic gardens. She offers Creativity Journeys, Mandala and Nature Journey workshops. More info is at her website and blog: www.CreativityForTheSoul.com Call her at 314 504-4266.