Standing in the middle of a roaring wind on his front lawn, it was easy for him to listen to the wind. There was no subtlety here, at least not one he could detect. Sound was the only participant in this cacophony; light, imagery, touch...none of these had a role to play. It was a training exercise he had embarked on before, but had been overwhelmed time and time again. Determined this time would be different, he focused on listening. Where was the message? Where was the song? "I was told there are messages on the wind, carried from those that had gone before to those that had yet to traverse this road," he thought to himself. Where is it? Frustrated, the wind whipping branches and leaves in the trees around him against their neighbors, he went back onto his porch.
The following day, with nature's turbulence now drifted off somewhere else, he wandered distracted out onto his lawn again. With a sigh, he sat on the lawn. "I should have heard something last night" he mumbled. "I waited for the perfect night.. plenty of wind, nothing else to distract me... damn it all." He fell backwards to stare at the clouds. Distracted, he noted small clouds, long flat ones, and the bright blue sky they shuffled around on with long legs. His soul felt heavy. The day was bright, his mood was dark in contrast. Birds sang occasional songs, and the same leaves that we're so riled up the night before only whispered now. The grass muttered under his weight, complaining that they were being crushed and denied time under the sun.
Eyes now closed, his mind latched onto an endless tapestry of sound that they day presented to him. Subtleties beyond number presented themselves in layers that began to confound him: Quiet branches sang to passing birds. The bird's wings produced rhythm and spoke to distant cousins soaring miles over head. Small insects mapped their path through the air with energetic whirs and buzzes. The air moved in small breezes, bringing a symphonic chorus of voices as they slipped by. The voices came as simple sound layered upon simple sound, came as quiet breezes quietly sifting through attentive leaves holding onto determined branches, and came as a soft humming of insects delighted to be apart of the day. It was so simple.
The message he had sought for so long came from the simplest of messengers... quietly, his very being sang back in delight to the song that roared quietly around him.
