This past Sunday morning I am reading about the latest happenings in the world, catching up on the news when I hear a birdsong float through my open window next to me, and I am drawn away from those far away events to this noise. I do not recognize the bird’s song although I would guess it to be a mockingbird, but it brings several thoughts to mind; about how I should really spend more time studying the bird calls for our class, how strangely uncommon it feels for me to hear a bird from my apartment, and how I still needed to complete my weekly journal. Taking advantage of this inspiration, I head off towards my spot, quickly remembering that the fall equinox was a couple of days ago, something that is well reflected in the cool air that greets me outside.

As I descend the hill towards my spot by the creek, I notice something aside from the cool air that suggests autumn has truly started which is the satisfying crunch of leaves as I walk the path. The leaves on the trees are still green by and large, but there are a few that have begun to shed their leaves for the winter months, and the feeling of walking over downed leaves in the presence of a cool, slightly breezy morning warms my soul, as the natural transitions that happen during the autumn have always captured my imagination and gave me the urge to head into nature.

As I return to the tiny, rocky area next to the water’s edge of the creek that has been my mandala, not much has changed with the autumn equinox, save the cooler weather and a few more leaves floating along the creek. Remembering our class on Tuesday where we spent time meditating, and how Scott Russell Sanders described being able to disappear for a spell, with “only this rapt awareness” instead of the incessant thoughts that usually cloud our minds on a minute-to-minute basis, I am inspired to try the same. Settling into as comfortable of a position as I can on the rock that has come to be my perch during my visits, I try to focus on my breathing, the rustle of the breeze through the leaves, the slight murmur of the creek’s water, and the occasional bird call to separate myself from my own thoughts. It is difficult, with so many things competing for my attention in my own mind, let alone in the environment I am surrounded by. I begin to notice two distinct bird calls that I know belong to a wren and a chickadee, knowledge I have from growing up near where such birds were ubiquitous, and a quick look around the area shows that there are two of each type of bird on either side of me, bouncing through tree branches. For such tiny creatures, the volume of noise they can produce is impressive, but as I am admiring the birds capabilities, my concentration is broken by a series of noises; a car’s engine somewhere in the distance comes to life as it hits the open road, a branch or a rock falls into the creek with a satisfying sploosh, and finally the train that crosses North College is approaching that road, and sounds its distinctly unnatural horn, echoing down the hill into the small valley I am currently in. While the horn seems to blast on and on for several minutes, announcing its mighty presence to all whether they care to hear it or not, I try to retain my focus on the nature around me which has either been silenced by the train, or entirely drowned out. When at long last the horn subsides and the last reverberations dissipate from the soundscape, the natural noises I had been focusing on, particularly those bird calls, seem to have come to a rest, and there is a surprising silence. This does not last long, and soon the birds begin to chatter away, the squirrels’ rustling is audible again, and life in the environment seems to have normalized.

My attempt at meditation may have been thwarted, but I am spurned to an interesting train of thought about nature and its relationship to humans and the infrastructure we have created in the environment. The train’s horn, when heard in such a setting as I was in, far from being able to actually see or interact with the train, it is ridiculously out of place, and clearly unnatural. To be a creature with minimal comprehension of such things as trains, like the birds and squirrels I have shared this morning with, what must their instincts make of this massive, alien noise? Has it been normalized, just another part of their environment due to the frequency at which it occurs, or was that brief silence and stillness I experienced after the train’s horn ceased indicative of deeper effects on those animals? These answers would be impossible to find, but as I leave my spot this week, I cannot help but ponder just how complex our relationship with the rest of our environment is, as we (humans) have managed to make our presence felt in so many aspects of the environment.