My boyfriend and I were on a hike in Point Reyes last year on an unusually bright and blazing January day. We were on a nine-mile loop that, as I’m learning is pretty typical for northern California, passed through a good handful of disparate biomes in a matter of miles. There was the rainforest that turned into an army of tall, straight pine trees that faded into desert-esque scrub brush that ultimately became rocky coastline.

Listen

As we were crossing an arbitrary, wide-open meadow of yellow grass separating one treed landscape from another, he stopped abruptly. “Listen,” he said, then, “Look,” angling his outstretched arm toward the treetops on the far side of the field.

I looked. I listened. I saw trees. I heard nothing.

“Wow.” I said.

“Do you hear it?”

“Um …?”

“It’s my favorite sound.”

“Silence?”

“The wind in the trees.”

And then I was silent. I realized in the space of that second that I’d been sitting on top of a miracle my whole life and never, ever knew. I’d been gently shaken awake by a 31-year dream and acquainted with one of the most beautiful things about the world there is to know. (I also loved that I’d been with this man for nine years and was learning something new and beautiful about him, too.)

What was really there

I wasn’t just looking at treetops. I was watching them sway, wave, and dance – almost imperceptibly, but most assuredly. They were being moved by a breeze I hadn’t really felt all day, and a sound I’d never heard in my life: the most magnificent, godly whisper you can imagine.

I’ve heard people say that life is constantly whispering to us, and that if we stop and listen, we can hear it. I had no idea that was a literal truth. It’s a sound that at once snapped me into the present like nothing else and overwhelmed me in that moment with gratitude that I get to live on this planet.

And it wasn’t just there

I sit on my porch typing this while the dance takes place all around me. The redwoods down the block look like they’re primping themselves for the day ahead. The pine tree across the street waves good morning like the neighbor it is. I want to learn what it so I can call it by name as I wave back. The magnolia tree that lives next door paws at the railing of my porch, whispering excitedly like it has an urgent secret. The chorus of neighborhood trees echoes the sound of the ocean. Maybe they’re cheering for the world cup.

Except for the wind chimes that are more obvious reminders of the moving air, I would have thought of this as a relatively still day. But everything is most certainly awake and busy – and making no attempts to hide it.

Constant surprise

Since that day in Point Reyes, I’ve regularly forgotten this and every now and again, like today, I become delightfully reawoken to it. When I do, I might pause while I’m walking and listen for a message, or, like to day, sit in my box seats and enjoy the concert.

When you find yourself in a moment that is TOO quiet, I invite you to listen closely. There are dimensions to the silence always. What music is playing? What secrets are being whispered? How might you connect more deeply into the moment, wherever you are?

Awed as ever,
Joy