The Songs of Nature

'Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything' - Plato

For thousands of years, we have cherished the soul of music. It is more than just sound in the air, more than just ink on paper. We use it to mirror our thoughts, bring to life complex emotions that can otherwise be lost in translation. Ancient armies used music to rally their soldiers into a fierce and fiery passion, to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. We have always used music to tell stories, to manipulate the heartstrings of listeners with the ease of a puppeteer manipulating the strings of a marionette. Music gives us the power to speak without words. 

Even somewhere devoid of all human influence, there is rarely silence. 

Deep within the gloomiest rainforests, a choir waits, silent, concealed by the leaves and shadows. Its audience, unseen, but out there somewhere. Throats swell, songs rise, and a cacophony of voices suddenly engulfs the silence of the trees. The male frogs serenade their invisible females, coax them out of the darkness like a love-struck Romeo serenading Juliet beneath her ivy-clad balcony. 

And in the darkness, within the shadows of the sickle moon, a lone wolf raises his head and sings at the stars, fills the sky with the echoes of his haunted voice. He is a ghost, mourning his solitude, and his song is a lonely one. It carries further than he will ever wander.

Songbirds warble joyfully in the trees, and even the caged canary must sing to keep his soul alive. We cherish the lark for her beautiful lovelorn ballads, the hooting owl for his soothing lullabies. 

We are captivated by the songs of Nature. We have listened to them, learned from them, taken from them something that is primitive and raw, and transformed them into entirely new creatures. There are many voices, each one demanding to be heard. Music has existed longer than we have. We do not possess it, nor do we claim to. We merely embrace it, allow it to embrace us, to nourish our fettered emotions, and to set them free.