If a Tree Falls in the Forest . . .

I lived in the "Piney Woods" of East Texas for more than half my childhood. Green is my favorite color, and I love trees, especially pines. East Texas is known for its variety of pines, including loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf and slash. When my family first moved back to East Texas in 1969, my parents bought a farm. The little house was on a hill and there was a large pine tree in front of the house. The trunk was curved, like one of those tubular kid slides. I remember watching a roadrunner scurry up that tree and survey his territory. The woods were just a few yards from by bedroom window. Since we didn’t have air conditioning at first, I slept with the window open. I remember listening to the call of the whippoorwill as it got dark and I drifted off to sleep. Click here to listen.


Pine forests have a special scent, especially when you’re walking through the forest on a thick pine-needle carpet on a sunny day. The sun releases the fragrant oils like a lighted Yankee Candle. Wind blowing through pine needles is a softer sound than wind blowing through leaves. It’s more of a whoosh or a whisper. In Colorado we have the Ponderosa pine, which smells like cinnamon.

If a tree falls in the forest . . . does it make a sound?

Sound is a pressure wave through the air, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and strong enough to be heard. There are two parts to that definition, if either one is missing, you don’t have sound. There is the physical part and the non-physical part . . . “meta-physical,” if you will. The physical component is the pressure wave, which can be measured in decibels and frequencies. The “sound” is what the brain hears.

Please, hear me out. What I'm trying to say is, the message is independent of the medium. Just as sound is the mental perception of pressure waves, so is speech. But the message . . . the meaning . . . is separate. When you listen to speech you are hearing sounds . . . but you perceive meaning. The sounds are the physical part, the meaning is meta-physical.

To understand Shakespeare, you look at ink and paper . . . or pixels of light . . . or you watch actors and listen to their words; they are the medium. The story is the meta-physical message. The message “I’m hungry” can be transmitted in thousands of physical ways . . . . English, Spanish, Portuguese . . . text message, sign language, telegraph, telephone, semaphore . . . but the message is the same, regardless of the medium.














Color is displayed in length of light waves . . . physically measurable. When you see a bright, multi-colored sunset, you see “beauty” . . . immeasurable.

Radio waves are like sound, they’re modulated signals of a certain amplitude and frequency . The radio does not understand its message, but you do. Your thoughts are carried on electrical currents, yet are independent from those currents, like the radio message on the signal.

What is the weight of an idea? The length of truth? The temperature of beauty?

How do you measure . . . using physics . . . love, happiness, sadness, knowledge, information, music, consciousness, intelligence, relationships, humor, culture, charity, peace, creativity, memories, instructions, expressions, or perceptions? Those things are metaphysical because they cannot be measured physically. Yet, no one denies these things exist.

If a tree falls in the forest . . . and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Technically . . . “no.” If the sky is colorful, but no one looks at it, is it beautiful? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder . . . in the non-physical mind of the beholder. Music is only oscillating pressure waves until someone hears it. Art is created by expressing weightless ideas with physical mediums. You create relationships by making metaphysical bonds.

A story is the metaphysical substantiation of ink on paper. Beauty is the metaphysical manifestation of a colorflul sky. You are the metaphysical actualization of human DNA. A synonym of metaphysical is supernatural . . . beyond the natural. You are more than natural . . . you are SUPER!


A famous poet once said:

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree . . .

I would add . . .

I think that I shall never hear
A sound as lovely to my ear . . .

As birdsong in the twilight hue,
Or family saying, “I love you.”

_________________
Photos
1. My little sister riding "Daisy" on our Piney Woods farm, circa 1970.
2. The barn was half surrounded by pine trees. The Appaloosa horse's name was Hilda. The German Shepherd dog's name was Kelly.
3. Colorado sunset photo taken by my daughter in 2006.