Contents
Trees speak to us and so you can decipher what they tell you
Nature
Knowing our surroundings through sound can help us improve our well-being
Thomas Hardy wrote in “Far From the Madding Crowd”: “Tonight the sharpest explosions were heard from the trees, striking the wood and passing through it with a grunting sound (…) the instinctual act of mankind was to listen and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left cried or sang to each other ».
As mystical or distant as the act of “listening to trees” may seem, it is not as bizarre as it sounds. Although the murmur of the trees with the wind is not a common sound, there are different types and, if you listen carefully, you can even distinguish it. In that act we find a quiet time: we stop for a few minutes and focus fully on the moment that we are living right now.
«Si aprendemos a recognize trees, we do it visually, with the shape of its leaves or the texture of the trunk, but it can also be done through sound “, they explain in” The Susurrations of Trees “, a BBC podcast, in which producer Julian May and writer Bob Gilbert talk about this curious activity.
But, beyond being able to recognize the different trees, this act is a vehicle for improve our relationship with the environment. To this Bob Gilbert has dedicated his book “Ghost Trees”, in which he investigates, inspired by the novel by Thomas Hardy, on how to stop for a moment to recognize through sound the natural environment that surrounded him improved your relationship with it.
What sound does each type of tree make?
The writer Bob Gilbert, author of “Ghost Trees”, gives the keys to recognize, by sound, some of the most common trees:
Poplar: they are trees that shake their leaves even in the slightest breeze. They are often described as “tremors.” To Gilbert, they have the sound of a mountain stream passing over and around rocks.
Aspen: it is one of the easiest tree sounds to know, since its leaves are almost always in motion. Its sound is often compared to rain; the start of a gentle summer shower, perhaps. They have also been described as the bubbling of a sparkling water bottle.
Fir tree: novelist Thomas Hardy describes them as “sobs and groans.” They are almost always described as “whispering”; as if they were passing a secret from tree to tree through the forest.
Beech: Although they are soft when they start to leaf, they become drier and stiffer throughout the year and produce a distinctive “crunching” sound. They have been described as “almost metallic” and as “iron sheet foliage”.
Tilia: This street tree is common and has heart-shaped leaves that collect dirt as the year progresses. Their sound is like that of someone quickly turning the pages of a book.
Ginkgo biloba: This rare Chinese tree is being planted more and more in our streets. It has uniquely shaped leaves, like a Chinese fan and they sound like the flapping of silk fans.
“My journey into this journey towards the ‘songs of the trees’ began when I realized that the sound that one of the trees in my garden made was transporting me to a memory of my childhood; the sound of the waves breaking on the shore where I used to spend my vacations with my family ”, explains Bob Gilbert himself to ABC Bienestar. «Thanks to this feeling, I began to think that we can differentiate the trees found unique and personal relationships: we associate them with our own memories“, keep going.
Starting from this idea, the author explains that in reality, the objective of his book is not to talk about “listening to the trees”, but about the importance of our relationship with the environment in which we live. «Get to know our neighborhood better, wherever we live, and start look at everything around usEven if they are small details, that is the objective ”, says Bob Gilbert, who explains that, for example, the plants that grow in the cracks in the ground or the moss in the walls are part of our daily lives and we do not notice them.
The author highlights how, thanks to this «listening to the trees», he has learned to pay more attention to his senses, as well as to add a new dimension in the way you appreciate the environment. For this reason, he affirms that this is the way to, in some way, celebrate everything that surrounds us and develop a deeper relationship with the world of which we are part.
«Thank you for stopping me pay attention to sounds, I began to walk more slowly and with greater awareness. The good thing about trees is that you find them alive where you live: in parks, in gardens, on city streets and in a country town, ”says the writer. It emphasizes the idea that this activity, available to everyone, can help us live better. “I believe that learning to pay attention to things is the heart of well-being,” concludes Bob Gilbert.