Nature's Sound

Today I read David Dunn's Nature, Sound Art and the Sacred. Some of the essay was hard to wrap my head around, but overall I enjoyed how it made me rethink my experiences and interpretations of sounds in natural landscapes. Dunn's point about how we have altered nature and how our disruptive presence is apparent through sound reminded me of times I went up to Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder. I like to go up to a little scenic spot off of Flagstaff road to relax and enjoy the views, and thinking back to those experiences I remember how I enjoyed the periods of silence in between the sounds of wind gusting through the trees; I also remember being annoyed when the periods of silence were interrupted by cars driving on a distant road below me. I still enjoy going up there to get away from the frenzy of society. Here are some pictures I took when my friends from St. Louis visited:

In this video you can hear mainly silence but some subtle sounds of insects flying and birds chirping:

As humans, we have changed the natural world around us quite a bit by making ourselves become more than just a small part of the natural ecosystems on our planet. I like how Dunn tries to capture a lot of the non-human intelligence on the planet even though it is outside of our understanding. I think if we all spent more time in the (almost still) natural environment we could begin to get in touch with these other forms of intelligence and become closer with the vast life on the planet.