I walk outside every day to the sound of birds, frogs (in summer) and moving water. At my office I work with a waterfall and two creeks always singing at the edges of my consciousness, and can hear an eagle’s cry from high in the sky while sitting at my desk. I know when the goats are tangled, when the horse has wandered too far or a stranger wanders by because the Crows and Jays strike up a cacophony of alarm. I can hear the softest rain on the tin roof and a hummingbird showdown at the feeder out front. At night, owls on the hunt call to each other, raccoons chatter incessantly and throaty bullfrogs join a chorus of peepers and tree frogs as the whippoorwill’s age-old refrain echos across the valley and back. It’s a 24 hour concert both subtle and soothing – intriguing and incredibly complex. Layer upon layer of sounds large and small that call to something deep inside that I can’t name and don’t really understand — but I know my mind and body respond by pushing me outside to join in,  to see, to hear, to feel, to touch – to find my own rhythm and natural place in the song.

People sometimes try to relax while plugged into a myriad of electronics that shut out all else and fill their heads with something so overwhelming that it literally deafens them to the world —  a world alive with sound unique to just that moment in that place  — and then wonder why sleep and serenity continue to elude them.  The iPod is a marvelous (and miraculous) invention – who dreamed we’d one day carry around our entire music library on something the size of a deck of cards? And I continue to be amazed at the wonders inside my iPhone. I love both of them, but I love most turning them off and plugging instead into nature and life and the moment that is before me.

How long will it be before people live their entire lives plugged into an artificial world?  Already the constantly connected appear everywhere, headphones in, earpieces connected, tiny microphones hanging like some bizarre jewel in front of their faces, as they talk to the air and stare intently into their hand at a 2″ dose of instant gratification. How long before they feel they cannot survive, might suffocate as if deprived of oxygen, without that wire tether connected and input being shot straight into their brains 24 hours a day? Already some turn away from actual human interaction – preferring instead instant, numbing noise, a miniature faux world under their thumb and disembodied voices inserted right inside their head.

There is music everywhere, here, it’s insistent, constant and beautiful… hard to believe anyone could step outside and then choose to shroud birdsong and a fawn’s hesitant footsteps in artifice from a machine, no matter how insistent. And when someone does stop, unplug, walk outside or sit on the wide porchswing at their cabin in solitude and take in the native symphony – listen, connect, sleep peacefully immersed in the natural music around them  -  you can see the change – you can sense them relaxing and reconnecting with a part of themselves they’ve been drowning out for far too long. It’s part of the magic of The Retreat, and it’s as real and close as the OFF button in their hand.

Stop, Unplug – and Listen, there is music everywhere.