Nature’s Tinnitus

Not quite in a sitting meditation near my tiny solar water garden, I was aware of the gurgles between the lily pads, the birds peeping in the tall bushes that line the parameter of the yard and the occasional mechanics from the quarry to the west.

All the usual backyard symphony players in our little outdoor home amphitheater.

But there was one sound I could not place.  It seemed familiar yet I just could not name that tune within my cerebral media library.  Had the drone originated inside of my own head it would have been my familiar tinnitus adding to the concert de jour.

But this sound was not part of my internal vibrations; it was coming from the north.  It seemed fixed in place, not on the move like the bird song or the jet engines over head.

I tried to listen closer, to isolate the hum from the other voices in the garden.  Yet everything was melting together and the separate nature of the waves impossible to discern from the auditory ocean.

Just then a memory appeared on my internal LCD.  It was many years ago.  I could see myself walking around a tree farm with my family.  The air was crisp, not like the balmy weather of a SoCal summer today.

In the remembrance, I heard this same hum coming from over head and looking upwards I could see a swarm of bees busy in migration.  No doubt they were aloft following the queen.

Opening my eyes and looking up to my own trees beside the tall hedges, I saw hundreds of busy worker bees at task in the branches.  Perhaps they were pollinating the birch buds or otherwise enjoying a garden meditation of their own.

Funny how the unidentified drone turned out to be many drones on the move.  Nature’s tinnitus.

Mystery unraveled, I closed my eyes and listened to the remaining stanzas of the ensemble within a more  formal Zazen sit atop a stone zafu.