After a good night's rest at the Union Creek campground and a hearty breakfast at the local cafe, we took off to revisit an old waystation from last year’s trip. The only problem was we didn’t have service and consequently weren’t able to get the corresponding GPS coordinates. While riding around searching for the waystation, I heard a specific "rushhhhh" that sparked my memory: this was the spot. We even found a few sprouts in the area where I planted last year. Sweet!
After sowing seeds, Ursa and I tried a new listening prompt that we’re calling “Synesthetic Listening.” It's inspired by a section of the book, "An Immense World," where author Ed Yong talks about synesthesia being special among humans but standard to many other critters. Here's the prompt:
Monarchs are multisensory beings. Their antennae alone sense light (regulating their circadian clock), smell (for flowers and pheromones of other monarchs), touch (for detecting wind), and the earth’s magnetic field (for navigating). Monarchs likely perceive all this data in much more porous ways than separate sense categories would have us believe.
For this listening prompt, we’ll consider the possibility of our own synesthetic capacity. To begin, get grounded in the sounds around you. Listen openly... then bring in your other senses (vision, touch, smell etc). Ask yourself: “Are the sounds I’m hearing affecting my other senses in any way?” Take notes after listening for a time and share your findings with a friend.
-Ale and Ursa
