Sound
on a cosmic frequency of planets turning
I pass the lily pads each day. The sun chooses which ones to light. Little lanterns in a morning viewing. My drives to work have become a sacred time for listening. I roll down my windows, let the pollen infested air tickle my nose. Sneeze. The frogs synchronize. The bees harmonize. All the birds kiss the wind with their whistles.
I think back to a time in Paris where I stumbled upon the only English book in a field of French: The Great Animal Orchestra. How impactful that Bernie Krause (2012) piece would be on my life, in how it resurrected a truth both my dad and grandfather had been teaching all along. That nature sings.
With my friend Keara, who showed me this little shop, I reveled in how humans transcribed, that is put to paper, what was already innate in the movements and choices of nature’s creatures. There was always a bass line, a conductor, the shining soprano. An oral tradition made legible. We do no inventing in this way. Just remembering.
Years later, in a different city, Salem, Keara visits me for a couple days, a reunion of us American friends who had studied and explored France’s offerings. I find an exhibit. It is titled that of the book’s. “Could it be?” And it was. In the same way I had found this author, unexpectedly, I discovered the only other museum in the world, besides the one in Paris, that was showcasing this artist’s work. It was as if the strumming movements were singing to me once more.
Feet on the ground, bellies close to our thighs, wrists touching ankles, we sat in the darkness of a sound wave. Here were the transcriptions of the world, the natural world, the one that is buried beneath that human layer, quiet, ever-patient. We know this tune, humans. I believe in our dreams, we hum it. In olden times, we danced not to it, but with it. Every part of my being awakens to the sound. Screens surrounded us on all sides. Little pockets of water standing still as barriers between screen and carpeted floor. If close enough, one can see the little ripples struck by a toad’s thump of a croak. The space is freedom in that no one could see my shape. The space is home in that it welcomed me in. My body absorbing.
Now that it is Spring, I find the earth is becoming louder. “Listen,” she demands, “It is all right here.” I imagine those same exhibit screens in front of me. The shifting reeds, they’d be red, a consistent lifting and falling. The mosquitoes buzzing in my ear, purple, and yellow. The whole scene becomes a sheet of music in motion. Only listener for a minute, there is so much we do not know of this story.
I come back to that incidental reacquaintance, in my quiet drives that once were noisy with my mind. I let the silence, or rather, orchestrated quiet, open me. Then of course there are the days where it rains and I must close my windows. I’ve been reaching for podcasts. Soulfull Sound, this one is called, and I play all the interviews with people who have discovered some way to heal. One such interviewee is a man named Davor Božič. He came on to share many things, including his life story and mission to music. He talked about the impact stumbling upon a book on Pythagoras and how it changed him, or rather focused him. Pythagoras writes about “harmony of the sphere,” which Božič summarizes as “how the universe creates sound when the planets turn... the frequency in which they turn actually creates a sound…” that is not heard yet is still sound. He concludes, “…we are living inside a kind of harmony.” He went on to explore mathematics and have calculations done that would help scale those notes into octaves that could be heard. From there, instruments were tuned to match these cosmic frequencies. (2025, 8:44 - 9:43). What a beautiful thought that we are living within a harmony.
I spent college and most of my life considering what I guess we could call, the “Human Orchestra,” in which I questioned, and continue to, question, why it is we do what we do. Surely, I’ve found my way into ritual, and spirit, and healing, those things that make us feel unique in some way, but truly, sound is such an undeniable parallel to the natural world, that I feel it carries more pertinence to answering those big questions: why are we here and what we can learn and create while we’re here? Sound is a portal just as much as healing and spirit and ritual. Sound is the vessel carrying all that. Like breath is locomotive, the universe hears our life force. Is it possible that in listening we can begin to uncover hidden messages? Perhaps the answers to some of our biggest problems are just within a cosmic frequency away.
Though there is much I do not yet know, I am certain there is something buried in the magic of sound. My sister recently graduated from a music school. The same one Božič studied at. At her commencement, speakers shared insight and prayers of hope for the graduating class’s future. They spoke about bravery often, in that it takes courage to choose a path of music. In that it doesn’t translate to a profitable life for most. Yet here sit, as the presenters relayed, the next generation of creators. Kids that will go on to change this world. Especially as we need it. What a world to enter. One that is run by sound but of people who do not grasp its significance. To be valued only by what you can give them as opposed to where you can take them. The artists, they’re just passengers too. Being taken, they are being transported, led to transcribe the ancient language and help us down here, move. Move the pain. Move the love. Move the hope. Move the fear. What a gift it is to walk this path, to be the reason earth’s frequency can rise.
My sister and I sing in her apartment “I am a woman of heart and mind,” a Joni classic we both love. So much in the mind, I am grateful to have her, a girl so in her heart. For most of our lives we have fought because of our differences, operating, it often seems, in opposing realities. But in this moment, in this exchange where voices and guitar strings meet, we can be of the same woman. The one that is of harmony.
I ask you, in what ways has sound moved you? Is there something you can be more attentive to, in listening? The world is opening to that of the heart. How can you open to what the natural world is delivering? Little lanterns in a morning viewing.
Quick note: Next women’s writing group is this Monday, the 19th!
References:
Krause, B. (2012). The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places. Little, Brown and Company.
Mitchell, J. (1972). “Woman of Heart and Mind” on For the Roses. [Audio File]. Retrieved from Apple Music.
Niles, S. (2025). Davor Božič on Music, Creativity and Connection. Soulfull Sound: Podcast with Simone Niles. https://www.simoneniles.com/podcasts/soulfull-sound-podcast/episodes/2149000119