“Inspiration is a fragile thing… just a breeze, touching the green foliage of a city park, just a whisper from the soul of a friend. Just a line of verse clipped from some forgotten magazine…or a paragraph standing out from the chapters of a book.
“Inspiration…who can say where it is born, and why it leaves us? Who can tell the reasons for its being or not being? Only this…I think inspiration comes from the heart of heaven to give the lift of wings, and the breath of diving music to those of us who are earthbound.” Margaret Sangster from Fields of Gold, published by C.R. Gibson Company.
I promise to keep this blog almost to a whisper tonight.
In the TV series, Lost, there is a point when the survivors of the plane-crash hear whispering voices all around them in the jungle. On a supposedly deserted island, the survivors ran into a group called “The Others,” and then saw ghosts from their past. The whispering voices in the jungle brush added a certain sense of dread to an already desperate situation. If my memory serves me correctly, we have yet to learn where the voices are coming from. There are so many loose ends that the producers and writers will have to clear up before the series ends.
Another popular TV series is The Ghost Whisperer, based on true events. That’s what it must be like for the character in real life to hear ethereal, otherworldly voices must be like listening to a whisper.
But I do believe there is something in nature that we hear on occasion. When I shovel snow, I cna’t help but hear this voice whispered in the wind.. when I rake leaves in Autumn, I often hear it.. In Summer, when I’m near my pond and listen to the wings of a dragonfly or hummingbird nearby, I again hear something that gives me pause to believe there is a voice around us all the time…
Longfellow heard something, too, when he wrote, “A voice out of the silence of the deep,/ A sound mysteriously multiplied/ As of a cataract from the mountain’s side./ Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.”
“The trees along this city street/ Save for traffic and the trains,/ Would make a sound as thin and sweet/ As trees in country lanes.
“And people standing in their shade/ Out of a shower, undoubtedly/ Would hear such music as is made/ Upon a country tree.
“Oh, little leaves that are so dumb/ Against the shrieking city air,/ I watch you when the wind has come,-/ I know what sound is there.” City Trees by Edna St. Vincent Millay, published in Collected Lyrics by Harper.
Sitting out in a chair on our front walk tonight, I was surprised to find a little toad sitting on a decorative stone beside our gardens no more than a metre away. He’s been around our house for awhile now. We see him on the path at the side of our house. I’ve also seen him resting on a lily-pad in the pond. Our dog, Brownie, has even discovered him. It’s been fun to watch her stalking the little toad who is as bold as bold can be. I can only imagine what it must think of this monster-our dog- quietly creeping right up to the little creature. And yet it doesn’t make a sound. I know it spends its nights either by the pond or in our front gardens, and yet I’ve never heard it make a sound, which is unusual for toads. Usually they’re vocal late at night. Maybe this one likes to whisper. We’ve taken a photo of this little toad that I’ll post sometime in the near future.
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.” -George Washington Carver, quoted, an excerpt from The Treasure Chest, edited by Charles L. Wallis, and published in 1965 by Harper and Row, publishers. That’s a pretty good description of it. It’s like trying to tune in a distant radio station at night. The sound comes in clear for awhile and eventually fades out again.
There is something about a whisper that commands your attention, rivets you one spot. Maybe it’s the feeling that someone is about to share a delicious secret, or reveal something that is for your ears only…
Wait till you hear the very last story in tonight’s program, whispered to someone a very long time ago. It had the power to change a life forever…
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Don Jackson
