Undirected

As I’ve posted previously on The Shelf, I’ve long been fascinated by the Ozarks, particularly a town called Eureka Springs, in Arkansas.  I first visited there in 1985, or so, when my grandma had moved there from Wisconsin, and it was captivating to me even at that age.  I’ve gone there at least every few years since.

The town was formed in the 1800s, and originally was a place people came to for the incredible healing water that gushed from various springs.  Like all things, this resource faded, but people still are attracted to this place.  I, for one, am, and it’s difficult to explain why.  I just keep going back, and did so again last week.

There is a lot of information on the internet about hauntings at the hotel we stayed at (pictured above), so I won’t go into it here.  But I do want to talk about the incredible sounds around this place.

At night, the woods around the hotel become vibrant with various rhythms of likely hundreds of thousands of insects.  Some are distinctly tonal, but most blur into immense textural waves, that cross and weave within one another, and as you walk in the dark, new tempos and repetitive squeals enter and fade.  My friend Jim recorded some great long segments of this activity, and while I’m sure every forest and mountainous area has this activity, I’ve never heard it so complex before.  We could have listened for hours.  It really was like a symphony.

And as we listened, I really thought about how so much chaos was actually filled with primal purpose.  Every phrase, tempo, and pitch had an instinctual reason behind it, and though it was incredibly interesting to listen to, it was not occuring for our sake.  Instead, these sounds were meant to individually communicate something, or, to be joined with a group to send a message.  Altogether, it was almost overwhelming, and I thought, sometimes it’s much more clear just to enjoy listening in the presence of so much sound, than it is to be the intended recipient of some message.