All Nature Sings on Listening Day

1 This is God's wondrous world,
 and to my listening ears
  all nature sings, and round me rings
 the music of the spheres.
 This is God's wondrous world;
 I rest me in the thought
  of rocks and trees, of skies and seas,
 God's hand the wonders wrought.

Voices United 296

Tomorrow is World Listening Day and this year's theme, created by Wild Sanctuary Vice President Katherine Krause is The Collective Field.

There is something new afoot. The field itself is changing.

The creature world knows.  The creative one does too. 

So what does it mean now to listen? How do we express what we know?

Be alert.

Individually and in concert,

There is sanctity in it.

Amid new conditions, travel the field and explore

By call and response

The rhythm within. 

How does your song fit

Within the collective chorus?

I actually think that last year's theme, Listening With, also fits well in these unsettled times It is an awkward and un-poetic title until reading the subtext on the website:

Listening with an awareness that all around you are other life-forms simultaneously listening and sensing with you – plant roots, owls, cicadas, voles – mutually intertwined within the web of vibrations which animate and surround our planet.

This  is what I strive to do whenever I can, wherever I am. During the past four months when what we assumed was normal existence was turned upside down we actually "upped our game" in terms of getting outside. In the first weeks we sought out places to walk where we seldom see other people. Since the end of March we've paddled...and paddled...and paddled -- the ultimate physical distancing. Lots of cycling as well, much of it along the water's edge. We feel that we have been as attuned to the progression of the seasons and creatures around us in a way we may never have been before, even though we have always been outdoor people.

Early in the Spring we visited several waterfalls and delighted in the thunder of the run-off. While we could barely communicate above the roar that was part of the appeal. We always love the weeks when the Spring peepers and chorus frogs are in full voice. It's also a delight to hear the wind through leaves, which is so different that a breeze through bare branches.

We are of an age when listening is more of a physical challenge because. well, we're old! But the words of the hymn still ring true for us, and each day is meant for listening.