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  • Interrorem Soundwalk

    Interrorem Soundwalk
    2025/12/11
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com

    Hi Everyone. How are we? Are you OK? I’m OK. I’m just really grateful to be able to do this: to walk, listen, make music. To share it here. It’s a dream gig, really.

    So for starters today, I think we should discuss the weird name of this week’s soundwalk. It comes from a log cabin built in 1907, as the first administrative site in the Olympic National Forest. Ranger Emery J. Finch constructed it for his bride Mabel, and they moved in on April 22, 1908. Word has it he chose the spot for a nearby fishing hole, which came to be known as Ranger Hole. But the name, recorded in early years as “No. 27 Interrorem Administrative Site,” remains something of a mystery. This rustic cabin is still standing proud, near the SE border of the park, and you can even book a stay for $58/night in the near future.

    “Interrorem” is latin. It’s law jargon for a legal threat, meant to compel compliance without resorting to a lawsuit or prosecution. It’s basically what a cease and desist letter attempts to accomplish, and it is undoubtedly a primary objective of any ranger: to convey authority over a domain. It is not however, a term that would often enter the lexicon of an early 20th century ranger. It’s difficult to imagine Emery saying to Mabel, after putting his whipsaw and adze to rest, “This will be our home, dear. We’ll call it Interrorem.”

    Some say it was a scrambling of the less fussy word “interim.” Seems like we’ll never know. The important thing for this story is that the trail I walked for this soundwalk is basically the same path Ranger Emery J. Finch wore into the once-primeval forest to go down to the Duckabush River fishing hole he prized.

    The cabin itself is surrounded by Big Leaf Maple trees in a clearing, giving way along the trail to western hemlock, Douglas-fir, and western red cedar. The Olympic National Forest is famous for its temperate rain forests, and while this watershed may not see the 130” of annual rainfall the famous Hoh Valley does, it too is a mossy wonderland.

    On this rainy day soundwalk we are greeted in the beginning by Varied Thrush, before the woodland seems to envelop the visitor in quiet. As the rain lets up a little, we hear Golden-crowned Kinglets and trailside rivulets before the surging Duckabush River comes into the fore. Clocking in at 19 minutes, it’s on the shorter side, but long enough to relax me into slumberland.

    This is just a taste of what’s to come. We’ll hear more soundscapes from Olympic National Park in 2026! Thank you, as always, for joining me here, and for listening.

    Interrorem Soundwalk is available on all music streaming services on December 12th, 2025.
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    5 分
  • Morgan Lake

    Morgan Lake
    2025/12/05
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com

    The view from Morgan Lake looks more like Montana than Oregon to me. It’s big sky country.

    Just 10 minutes up a gravel road from the eastern Oregon city of La Grande, Morgan Lake is mysteriously a world apart. From its shores you see only rolling prairie giving way to distant mountains. Situated on a ridge, Morgan and its sibling Twin Lake have an implacable mirage-like quality. The surrounding topography—the absence of enfolding contours—doesn’t readily explain their presence. There is no incoming stream to feed them. Subterranean springs pump water from an active aquifer hidden below.

    I found myself on the lake shore on a breezy March Saturday. People were fishing nearby. The wind billowed through the Ponderosa Pine canopy. An osprey occasionally called out. Nuthatches passed through. Later on, White-throated Sparrows sing in the quiet, followed by a wayfaring Winter Wren.

    As I’ve shared in the past, I like to program my releases in batches. This is the last in a trilogy located in the Pacific Northwest, east of the Cascade Range. It’s lodgepole and ponderosa pine country. Once again, the main character in this soundscape is the mesmerizing whisper of the wind in the pines. This particular day was dynamic; the breeze ebbed and flowed. Occasionally it howled.

    The arrangement is super sparse. Honestly it would likely fail as a piece of music without the wind. The ratio of solos to duets is about 50/50. Most of my arrangements are comprised of at least duets, most of the time. I think I was responding to the sense of loneliness I felt in the physical space. The chord progression is progressive. Each part adds another chord and more harmonic complexity. There is a touch of minor color, which sounds a little unsettling. Though it was recorded in early spring, it strikes me as a wintry listen. I hope you enjoy it.

    Morgan Lake is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms today Friday, December 5th, 2025.
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    6 分
  • Ice Cave

    Ice Cave
    2025/11/21
    Dear Reader, In this Thanksgiving season, I just wanted to take a moment to express gratitude I’ve been feeling for three people here on Substack that I admire, and who have helped me to connect with a bunch of you.Carson Ellis Carson is a busy artist / illustrator and children’s book author, but when I asked her for her take on Substack almost two years ago she emailed back the same day with a 600 word email. At some point between then and now she added Soundwalk to the recommendations that appear in the sidebar of her newsletter, Slowpoke. In the interim nearly one in five of my subscribers found me through her! That knocked my socks off. It’s a testament to the naturally curious people that gravitate to her and her amazing work. Three cheers for Carson Ellis!Rowen Brooke I was immediately curious about Rowen’s fast-growing newsletter, Field Notes, from its title. Her posts relate her observations, challenges and insights in pursuit of becoming both a regenerative flower farmer & florist and aspiring naturalist. Her recent posts indicate a measured advance toward the latter, given the sensory detail emerging in her writing. Rowen’s past recommendation of Soundwalk points to nearly one in ten subscribers finding me through Field Notes. Thanks Rowen! Colin Meloy Colin is the frontman for The Decemberists, the author of many books, and is married to Carson Ellis. You’d be forgiven for thinking he couldn’t possibly sound like his writing in real life, given his ability to weave in some impressive and uncommon vocabulary words in his newsletter, Colin Meloy’s Machine Shop, but I’m here to tell you that he does. He writes like he talks, folks. Colin slipped Soundwalk into a little list he worked up for the official guest-authored compendium The Substack Post halfway through 2024. I recollect my subscriber count jumped by well over 100 overnight! A generous inclusion, to be sure. Thanks Meloy! It really underscores how meaningful word-of-mouth is to someone like me. If you’re reading this and found me through a recommendation, feel free to let me know with a ‘like’ or comment below. On to this week’s soundwalk. Last week I shared a recording made at Natural Bridges in Washington, a site with two rock bridges spanning a rock-jumbled ravine. The bridges were the remnants of a lava tube cave ceiling, created 12,000 to 18,000 years ago. A few miles away, another complex of lava tubes known as Guler Ice Cave(s) remain intact. These caves, once commercialized for their ability keep ice and preserve harvested crops by one Christian Guler, are easily accessed today, though exploring them extensively requires crawling through cold, dark, tight passages. My recording is centered on the main cave mouth that is pictured above. Once again you hear that marvelous wind in the pines (which appeared in the previous two recordings) juxtaposed against a constellation of drips, plinks and plops in the foreground. My composition pulls from complimentary instrument voices: the sweep of a dobro-derived synth pads; the resonance of low end stringed instruments; the percussive twinkle of a Dulcitone celeste; the shimmer of a percolating “swarm” synth pad. It’s all designed to mirror the tonality of the cave entrance environment.Strains of Pine Siskin and Dark-eyed Junco filter in. This is a short, textural audio postcard. I hope you enjoy it. Ice Cave is available under the artist name Listening Spot on all streaming platforms today Friday, November 21st, 2025. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadcrouch.substack.com/subscribe
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    12 分
  • Natural Bridges

    Natural Bridges
    2025/11/13
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.com

    It’s a Substack exclusive. And, my favorite recording that I’ve listened to lately.

    Natural Bridges was on the shorter side (11:34) so I didn’t slate it for a wide release. I hadn’t even listened to it for over four months, until a few days ago. It surprised me how good it was: how transportive, how intertwined, how gentle, how concise.

    This all brings to mind the subject of confidence in artistry. A few years ago, when I was just beginning my explorations in environmental music—and while explaining what I’d been up to lately at a wedding reception—I decided to try on a few words: I’m the best at it.

    My logic was this: being the best at something almost nobody does is really pretty easy—an absurdist boast—so why not frame it that way? Why not project seriousness with a touch of humor? (This was well before my stats on the leading streaming service increased, by the way, so it wasn’t any kind of posturing based on numbers.) Isn’t it what every artist secretly wants: to be the best at what they do?

    So I said, “I make soundwalks. I record the sound of my walk and compose instrumental music to go with it. I’m the best at it.”

    I scanned the table for responses. I was surrounded by musicians who were all more skilled than me, incidentally. I saw some thin smiles, but overall a muted response. Usually when I’m uncomfortable, I immediately follow up with a qualifying remark, but I was determined to let this linger. Then a friend I admire said something along the lines of, “I don’t know… the best, huh?” like he was challenging me to a soundwalk duel, or at least like he imagined I would go down pretty easily in a soundwalk duel. It was delivered like a line at a poker table. I couldn’t tell if it was casual or calculated, or both. In that moment, though, I decided that the bravado didn’t suit me. I laughed it off and switched the subject. The exchange helped me realize I don’t need to, or want to be the best. Being the best is defending a title. It’s not motivating, it’s not authentic. It’s conflict, it’s worry, it’s stress. No thanks.

    But, I’m okay going on the record that this 11 minutes, 34 seconds of audio is good. In fact, maybe it’s the best 11:34 of environmental music I presently have to offer.

    Natural Bridges is a geological curiosity and a short hiking destination in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in SW Washington state. The “natural bridge” features are the remnants of a lava tube cave ceiling that collapsed, created during lava flows 12,000-18,000 years ago. The site is in a quiet region of mountain prairies, lakes and coniferous forests.

    Natural Bridges is only available (for the foreseeable future) to paid subscribers. Soundwalk is a reader-supported publication. Thank you for reading and listening. And, thank you for your support!
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    3 分
  • Ponderosa Grove

    Ponderosa Grove
    2025/11/07
    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit chadcrouch.substack.comOne thing I think you come to appreciate after some months or years of field recording, or intentional listening, is the variability of sound that conifers make when played by the wind.Where I live, I’m surrounded by conifers. Douglas-firs abound. They produce a sharp sound in the wind, occasionally what you might call a hiss. Just an hour to the east, beyond the crest of the Cascade Range, a more arid landscape plays host to ponderosa pine trees. The wind on their needles is quite different. Because their needles are flexible and bundled together, they sway and brush against each other in waves, producing a softer sound. More of a shush. Words fail me here. You just have to listen.This recording captures the song of the pines as a backdrop for the birds that make this habitat their home.We hear Western Wood Pewee, Pine Siskin, American Goldfinch, Hairy Woodpecker, White-crowned sparrow, American Robin, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and California Quail—to name names—on a mild June evening near Glenwood, Washington. But what is it about ponderosa pine trees that they produce such a sonorous sound? According to field recordist Gordon Hempton, the pitch is a function of the length of the needle or blade of grass. “We can go back to the writings of John Muir, which — he turned me on to the fact that the tone, the pitch, of the wind is a function of the length of the needle or the blade of grass. So the shorter the needle on the pine, the higher the pitch; the longer, the lower the pitch.”-Gordon Hempton, recordistWhile that sounds plausible and is certainly memorable, it’s not the whole story. It’s not just about length; stiffness, density, bundling, and flexibility all matter too. All the complexity of the canopy structure goes into the sound. The turbulence of the wind moving between needles, branches and trunks, and the brushing of the needles against each other all plays a role. Take a guitar string; the string is fixed at both ends and vibrates at specific frequencies determined by its length, tension, and mass. Needles are only fixed at one end, so they’re more like tines than strings. The frequency of a guitar string follows clear mathematical relationships: a string twice as long vibrates at half the frequency (one octave lower), assuming same tension and thickness. The sound of pine needles comes primarily from aerodynamics: wind flowing around needles creates fluctuations in the air. Needles twice as long do not whisper an octave lower; rather, they produce a lower range of pitches due to the lower frequency of movements and resulting turbulence they create. A string can produce a clear frequency. A needle produces a spectrum of frequencies; a texture. What can be said about all the variety of needles, leaves, and blades of grass and the sounds they make in the wind? Has someone attempted to map them? If there is such an inventory, I did not find it, but I did find the following observations made nearly seven centuries ago in an interesting piece of nature writing. It’s observational, philosophical, and poetic all at once: Wind cannot create sound on its own: it sounds only in connection with things. It is unlike the ferocious clamor of thunder, which rumbles through the void. Since wind sounds only in connection with things, its sound depends on the thing: loud or soft, clear or vague, delightful or frightening—all are produced depending on the form of the thing. Though it may come into contact with earthen or rock pedestals in the shape of tortoises, sounds are not produced. If a valley is empty and immense, its sound is vigorous and fierce; when water gently flows, its sound is still turbulent and agitated—neither achieves a harmonious balance, and both cause man to feel fearful and frightened. Therefore, only plants and trees can produce suitable sounds.Among plants and trees, those with large leaves have a muffled sound; those with dry leaves have a sorrowful sound; those with frail leaves have a weak and unmelodic sound. For this reason, nothing is better suited to wind than the pine.Now, the pine as a species has a stiff trunk and curled branches, its leaves are thin, and its twigs are long. It is gnarled yet noble, unconstrained and overspreading, entangled and intricate. So when wind passes through it, it is neither obstructed nor agitated. Wind flows through smoothly with a natural sound. Listening to it can relieve anxiety and humiliation, wash away confusion and impurity, expand the spirit and lighten the heart, make one feel peaceful and contemplative, cause one to wander free and easy through the skies and travel along with the force of Creation. It is well suited to gentlemen who seek pleasure in mountains and forests, delighting in them and unable to abandon them.-Liu Chi, (1311–1375)Thanks for listening and reading. If you made it this far, consider tapping ‘like’ just to...
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    4 分
  • Sleeping Animal

    Sleeping Animal
    2025/10/30
    I hadn’t planned to write a post for Wren. In fact, just yesterday I was thinking about how I could skip even writing a Substack Note, which I had been mulling over. What to say? And then I found myself returning to the interesting thing I learned earlier in the week: how the Cherokee traditional calendar ended and started in the fall, and how that made intrinsic sense to me. A time of harvest and reflection. So, I’m feeling inclined to reflect because this is the last Sleeping Animal release from a slate of several this year. As a brief recap, Sleeping Animal came about as a solution for two of my concerns: first, I was swamping my own name with too many releases, and second, I’d long feared my preoccupation with incorporating environmental recordings was seen as little more than a gimmick. So Sleeping Animal became my repository for instrumental works, destined to succeed or fail on their own birdsong-less merits. Let’s turn the clock back to 1994. Having re-enrolled at the University of Oregon after a stint at community college, I was edged out of upper level fine arts courses that I needed for my degree. They were all full. The solution was Independent Study. I would pay the university for credits I needed with the minimum amount of instruction. No problem, I thought. I’d already done that in high school by completing an International Baccalaureate art portfolio, a boon to my college credit tally going in. I wanted to impress my professor/mentor, so I put a lot of hours into having what amounted to a full exhibit’s worth of paintings to show at our first meeting. The oil paintings were monochromatic—raw umber primarily—using a medium to essentially mimic a watercolor technique. The subject matter was figurative, featuring simple, almost abstracted backgrounds. So there I was, in the little-used art school room I’d been using for a studio, with all my paintings spread out, only weeks into the term. I imagined my mentor would be surprised. He might say something like, “Well you’ve been busy!”What happened was he entered the room, said almost nothing, ranged around with a pained expression on his face, seemingly finding nothing worth examining closely, asking few if any questions, and then proclaimied—in so many words—that the work was thin and cartoony. Those were the words I specifically remembered anyway, because they cut. They hurt. There was not the slightest scrap of praise offered for my work ethic. If anything, it seemed like the number of paintings was taken as an affront; evidence for their thin-ness. I did not mount much of a defense, and was relieved when I was again by myself in the quiet room. In the following weeks I painted over every one of them. Though hard to hear, it was true. The paintings were essentially drawings, rendered with paint. You could see the gesso brush strokes under the washier areas. In my second act of Independent Study I turned to landscapes and still life. A little bit Rothko, a little bit Morandi. A completely different path. Now, looking at the gallery of album art that has swiftly assembled for Sleeping Animal—all monochrome and seemingly in service of a neoclassical trope—how could I not be reminded of that formative season thirty years ago?Now, in the peak of fall with my body of work on display, for all to hear, I’m drawn back to that quiet classroom in my mind. What is the verdict?Well, I’ll be the first to say they all look and sound more or less the same. Having said that, it’s not a matter of if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all. More like if you heard one and didn’t find it at all useful, you can skip the others. But, isn’t it like that for most artists?When I first imagined Sleeping Animal, I thought I would revisit a type of work I made that was built up with arpeggiated synthesizers. I also thought that I would leave an opening for vocals, at first just dipping my toe in those waters. Alas, I never came round to those programmed arpeggios. The vocal layers, however, are a unique attribute, mixed at a whisper. I wanted them to be felt more than heard. What I’m proud of is how naive, imperfect and unvarnished these works are. And, for this first act, I’m happy that I didn’t come out with arpeggiated synths blazing. The thing I prize most about them, as compositions, is how they breathe. They expand and contract. They are expressive not through dexterity or dynamics, but in their relationship to time.Now for act two! Thanks for joining me on this trip down memory lane. It only took me a few decades to be able to tell the story. Find Wren filed under Sleeping Animal today Oct. 30th, 2025 on all streaming services. I rely on word of mouth to find my audience, so if you find my music or my storytelling entertaining, useful or relatable, please do share it with someone. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ...
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    11 分
  • Saltzman Creek

    Saltzman Creek
    2025/10/24
    Today’s environmental recording captures the sound of an area within Forest Park that few people gave much thought to, until a headline grabbed their attention 21 years ago.In 2004, a pair of off-trail endurance runners came across a father and daughter living in a dugout shelter in Portland’s 5200 acre Forest Park. They had been living there for four years.Upon discovery, police were dispatched for a wellness check. Eventually one officer helped the two resettle on a horse farm where the father, Frank, worked and they attended the local church. They left the farm after about a month, never to be heard from again. Their story inspired Peter Rock’s 2009 fictionalized novel My Abandonment, which was adapted into the acclaimed 2018 film Leave No Trace.When first discovered, Frank was 53 and Ruth was 12. Their makeshift home was constructed on the side of a steep hill, not far from where this recording was made. Inside the shelter were encyclopedias, a bible, toys, a doll, sleeping bags. Nearby was a planted vegetable garden and a water catchment structure.“But how could a 53 year old father with a 12 year old daughter survive in this thick, dense forest for four years?” asks a reporter as he bushwhacks down a brushy hillside in a 2004 segment for KATU news. “Well, police say Frank’s a smart guy, college-educated. He’s also an ex-marine who served two tours in Vietnam.”The reporter concludes, “So why would a father with no job, but a $400 a month disability check, hide in the forest? Those that saw them on their weekly walks out of the woods to church, the library and to buy food say it was a father’s fear society might separate him from the one he loves.” Amateur mystery detectives on Reddit wanted to know more. Based on the few details in the 2004 news stories, they placed the father, Frank Trecarten, in articles 20 years prior in 1984, describing a manhunt for a mountain man or “survivalist”, in Quebec and New Hampshire after allegations of desecrating an church altar and attempted arson. Then in 2005, log books for Appalachian Trail hikers signed by “Mountain Man” and “Miss Mountain Dew”—believed to be trail names for Frank and Ruth—were discovered. A photo corroborates the placement with the identifying note: Frank “Trefcarten”. Most recently, in 2013, the name Frank Treecarten reappears in articles outlining a flare gun shooting assault in Concord, New Hampshire, where it appears Frank was charged with two felonies and held on $8,000 bail. The verdict in the case is unknown.These details paint the story in a more acute light, potentially revealing a decades-long pattern of living on the fringes, possibly exacerbated by PTSD.I re-watched Leave No Trace and listened to the My Abandonment audiobook. Although the movie is adapted from the book, they diverge significantly, especially approaching their conclusions. The book is decidedly more tragic, while the movie hits a more optimistic note. The optimist in me wants the film to be closer to the truth. One can’t help but wonder about Ruth, who would be in her mid 30’s now, and Frank, now in his mid 70‘s. If amateur investigators are to be believed, Ruth is now married and living in Oregon. Another thing that I noticed and appreciated in the film was how sparse the score was. It was barely there. It inspired me to further pare down my own future scores, letting the soundscape “take solos”. Additionally, a lot of films get the wildlife sounds wrong, but this was better than most. Varied Thrush, and Northern Pygmy Owl stood out to my ear. I don’t remember hearing Pacific Wren though; a true soundmark of Forest Park. That late May morning I sat in the middle of the Maple Trail above Saltzman Creek. No one passed by. The trail had been closed for some time following bridge damage. Portions of steel decking were broken off and the railing remained squashed from the impact of a fallen tree. While there, I made an oil pastel drawing while soaking up the tranquil setting. I also made a half-hearted attempt to scout around looking some clue of a former habitation; a whisper trail, a depression. Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know precisely where to look. That ridge or this ridge? It seemed pointless, really. Perhaps the reason that this story still looms so large in imaginations is because it makes us confront how estranged we truly are from the old ways: living light in the woods, not too far removed from hunting and gathering. We don’t really hear these kind of narratives in the USA anymore. We are aghast to discover that a father and daughter did so, undetected, for four years in a city nature park. It defied expectation. I wonder what this says about us; about the velocity and trajectory of civilization? I don’t have any conclusions of my own to offer. All I know is a young person, I spent nights discretely camped at a few dubious spots while cycling across the USA. You definitely sleep ...
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    26 分
  • Creek & Raven

    Creek & Raven
    2025/10/09
    I’m sitting on a bench at the nearby city park listening to Creek & Raven. It comes out in a few days, as I write this. I haven’t listened to it for many months now, so it’s both surprising and unsurprising how it opens. Unsurprising is the trilling Pacific Wren, a distant Common Raven and the faint sound of a creek. Surprising is the mournful synthesizer lead that resembles a French horn.The vibe is meeting me where I am today, on this last overcast day of another extended Portland Indian summer. Winter is coming, literally and figuratively. I feel it; stark, curious and foreboding.The environmental audio was captured in one of the deeper canyons of Forest Park in early June of this year. The creek that carved this deep canyon is named Rocking Chair Creek after the discovery of a rocking chair in its waters. I’m visualizing it now like the heirloom bentwood rocker in my living room, half sunk with gold-green moss growing on it, illuminated in a sunbeam. I returned to the canyon a few weeks ago and made more sketches. It’s interesting to me how the palette shifted, on return, to bluer hues of green. This brings to mind how the observer influences a scene; how interpretations and tone can shift. About 8 miles away from this canyon is a different scene that has captured the imagination of the nation, and beyond, in the recent news cycle.Here, a nondescript beige multi-story federal building stands between Interstate 5 and the Willamette river on the margins of downtown Portland, Oregon. It is ground zero for a political Rorschach test. A lot has been written about it. I’m not interested in trying to summarize that here. If you know, you know…you know?But the idea that there is any debate about facts on the ground; that there is any set of conditions that presently call for US military intervention in my home town is unnerving. It is deeply strange and seemingly animated by a dark fantasy. Most here poke fun at the absurdity of it all; the disconnect between truth and image-peddling. A few have their own reasons to support some hazy notion of a “crackdown”. The city is not without problems, after all. Anyone can tell you that. It’s been a tough run over the better part of a decade, here and most everywhere. On that score, there have been plenty of indications that the city turned a corner. I travelled to four capital cities in Europe over the summer and they didn’t strike me as better or worse, any more or less livable on the whole.The fever-pitched finger pointing is what makes my stomach churn. The notion that educated people cannot in good faith arrive at a consensus on whether a city is “war-ravaged”, “under siege”, even “burning to the ground” or about average for its size is like a chapter out of George Orwell’s 1984. “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.”“2 + 2 = 5”-Party doctrine from 1984 by George OrwellIn the finale of Creek and Raven we hear ravens croak and rattle with gusto. What are they saying?Ravens have long been cast as messengers in the symbology of First Nations. As a communicative carrion bird, their associations with prophecy, insight, and playing intermediary between life and death are long held. Do these ravens have any prophecies or insights to share about their home in Portland, Oregon? Recent studies have identified at least 30 to 40 distinct vocalizations in ravens’ repertoire. They vocalize for the same reasons humans do: talking about food, keeping track of family members, socializing, bonding, playing, warning, and identifying each other specifically. Ravens even use “emotional” prosody; they convey urgency or calm through tone. They can learn new vocalizations, mimicking human speech and other sounds.I think we could all benefit by taking time to actively listen to what Bernie Krause coined the “biophony”, the layer of the soundscape made by living organisms. We would do well to listen to each other as well; us human animals. I believe estrangement from the biophony, can lead to less empathy, and that can lead to all sorts of unfortunate outcomes.We have some mending to do. We have holes in our social fabric left over from the pandemic; splits aggravated by social media and the tribalism of news media empires. Maybe we can take a lesson from ravens and just remember to talk to each other; to shoot the breeze about food and family.A raven’s warning call is a sharp, urgent Kawk! Kawk! Kawk! But what happens when one of the flock spreads alarm when there is no real threat? We know from the old folk tale how Chicken Little—the sky is falling!—learns a lesson about spreading alarm without evidence…in the sanitized version of the tale. In most versions, the characters (Chicken Little, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey) encounter Foxy Loxy who uses the panic to trick them into his den and eat them all. What I think we are facing in this country is leadership that is acting like Chicken Little...
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    39 分