Late yesterday afternoon it got cool enough for me to open all the windows and doors in the house. Doors? Yes, I have screen doors and also burglar bars, being from Miami, so I never wonder if someone is going to wander in uninvited. Not human anyway. The raccoons and opossums are another story. They think they can come right in the cat door and make a beeline for the cat food. I can always tell when a raccoon has been inside: the cats’ drinking water is dirty from the coons washing the kibble in it. Ugh! The temperature on the news said 85 however my outside thermometer said 71. Since I’m covered in deep shade with lots of woods around me, it stays cooler right here. Just around the corner in the Publix parking lot it’s a whole lot warmer. The humidity dropping to under 70% is the biggest factor. If you haven’t been to Florida (or the Amazon), you can’t imagine what I’m talking about. But now it’s cooling off!
For me, one of the best things about the cooler weather is having the windows open so I can hear the outside sounds. There are a lot of crickets in the trees surrounding me, and a lot of bird sounds. I love to hear the wind rustling through the bamboo, palms and oaks, and listen to the squirrels as they chatter at the cats and each other outside my windows. I can also hear the wind chimes and the sounds of the neighbors walking by on their walks, and the cars coming and going about their daily business. A whole new world opens up when I open the windows. And for me, the crickets are most telling and healing of all the sounds.
Interesting me finding the crickets more remarkable and soothing than the other sounds. Scientists have discovered an amazing fact about the sounds of the ebb and flow of ocean tides, people’s voices, dolphin cries, and bird and cricket chirps. They sound the same. When researchers slow down voice recordings of people, they discover the people’s voices sound like the ebb and flow of ocean tides. Then when researchers speed up the recordings, people’s voices sound like dolphin cries. Speeded up more, like bird chirps. Even more like crickets. And guess what crickets chirps sound like slowed down? Yep. First like birds. Then dolphins. Then people.
But wait! There’s more. While examining the recordings of spacecrafts Voyager I and II at the California Institute for Human Science, scientists discover the same sounds! NASA recordings from outer space sound remarkably like ocean sounds, choirs of voices singing, dolphins, birds and crickets. Additionally, sounds produced by the rings of Uranus are virtually identical to those produced by Tibetan bowls. Researchers believe that this similarity is no coincidence. Scientific medical studies are discovering that the sound vibrations of dolphins, Tibetan bowls and choirs have a profound healing effect. – Center for Neuroacoustic Research and The California Institute for Human Science
When I’m able to open the windows to access that whole world of sound, a new world opens up to me. Kind of like when I open my mind to something new. It invigorates me and fills me with new hope and enthusiasm. Excitement for doing things differently and out of my normal routine. Not just like making my favorite First of the Fall soup or one of my favorite mini soups, but also like going new places, meeting new people and doing new things. An entire new world opens up, right in the midst of the life I am living now. It has to do with seeing with new eyes but also opening my inner eye to grok more of that is around me.
The 5 months of the year I live with the ac on, I am insulated from those sounds and hear only the fans and the computer equipment. Getting to open the windows is like getting a new lease on life. And I’m always ready for that.
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