Tasting Life Twice

The Silence of the Badlands

Two weeks ago today I was on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for a work week at Re-member.  While there, I had to make a run up to Rapid City to pick up one of our students at the airport.  The drive through the Badlands National Park was unbelievably quiet.  I didn’t pass a car for long stretches of roadway.  At one point, I stopped on the side of the road and climbed atop the rental van for a video panoramic of the landscape. 

In Scenic, South Dakota, I sought some refreshment at the local saloon but it looked like it had been closed for some time.  I was glad to see that Indians were allowed but sad to miss out on their misspelled “wiskey”. 

Making the drive back to Pine Ridge, I was struck once again by the marvel of big sky country.  The western landscapes overwhelm the senses.  On the way back I played “Calling Out Your Name” by Rich Mullins.  The late songwriter paid homage to the “Keeper of the Plains” with these words:

Well the moon moved past Nebraska
And spilled laughter on them cold Dakota Hills
And angels danced on Jacob’s stairs
Yeah, they danced on Jacob’s stairs
There is this silence in the Badlands
And over Kansas the whole universe was stilled
By the whisper of a prayer
The whisper of a prayer

And the single hawk bursts into flight
And in the east the whole horizon is in flames
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

I can feel the earth tremble
Beneath the rumbling of the buffalo hooves
And the fury in the pheasant’s wings
And there’s fury in a pheasant’s wings
It tells me the Lord is in His temple
And there is still a faith
That can make the mountains move
And a love that can make the heavens ring
And I’ve seen love make heaven ring

Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name

Speaking of silence, as part of our cultural immersion program at Re-member, we went for a hike deep in the Badlands and sat still for an hour or so.  Some fell asleep.  Some stared at the clouds.  Others daydreamed.  But as we sat in silence, we paid attention to creation.  I thought of a recent book by Gordon Hempton. Hempton is an audio ecologist.

Over the past three decades Hempton has circled the earth three times, recording sound on every continent except Antarctica: butterfly wings fluttering, coyotes singing, snow melting, waterfalls crashing, traffic clanging, birds singing. His work has been used in film soundtracks, videogames, and museums.

For nearly thirty years, he has awakened to each new day determined to listen to the world and record the sounds that can be heard. This lifelong work has also led him to an important discovery. In his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, he contends that silence has become an endangered species.

In 1983 he found 21 places in Washington state with noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or more. By 2007 there were three. (One of them is Olympic National Park, which he is trying to save, and he will not reveal the names of the others, arguing that they are protected by their anonymity.) Whom can we blame? People, and planes. Hempton claims that, during daytime, the average noise-free interval in wilderness areas has shrunk to less than five minutes. Think of the snowmobiles roaring through Yellowstone, helicopters flying over Hawaii volcanoes, and air tours over the Grand Canyon.

Hempton thinks silence can be a gift and he has made it his life work to conserve sanctuaries of quiet. When asked why we should be concerned about silence, he responds:

It has become an increasingly rare experience to be in nature as our distant ancestors were. Even in our national parks today, despite laws to protect them, you are much more likely to be hearing noise pollution, particularly overhead aircraft, than you are to be hearing only the native sounds of the land. Yet to be in a naturally silent place is as essential today as it was to our distant ancestors. Besides spending time away from the damaging noise impacts present at our workplace, neighborhoods, and homes, we are given the opportunity not only to heal but discover something incredible—the presence of life, interwoven! Do you know what it sounds like to listen for 20 miles in every direction? That is more than 1,000 square miles. When I listen to a naturally silent place and hear nature at its most natural, it is no longer merely sound; it is music. And like all music, good or bad, it affects us deeply.

Upon leaving the Badlands, I thought of a song by the Zac Brown Band.  Quiet Your Mind stresses the value of stillness and the importance of listening. 

At the end of the water
A red sun is risin’
And the stars are all goin’ away
And if you’re too busy talkin’
You’re not busy listenin’
To hear what the land has to say
Quiet your mind