Sound plays real tricks on you -especially at night - wherever you are in the world.
My home, KuangaKuanga is, fundamentally, a large rock with a shack attached. It aches with sounds at night. It pings, clangs and dings as its corrugated tin roof shrinks. Naturally it contracts and it contorts as it cools from incredibly high temperatures by day - a whole lot less by 3 am. The lizards in it must think they are under perpetual enemy fire. I did find a bullet today.
Strange then to be shocked by the wind by day. I hadn't thought of it before but every living system on the planet has its equivalent of the wind. From the driving energy of the immense currents at sea, to the photo-synthesis of the light from the sun.
As one wanders around these remote lands a blast can come from nowhere. It hits you like a punch to the head. It is intoxicating and its story is always different. I can't read it yet but watching the movie has made me interested. Like a thought the wind is there and then gone. Like a thought I can't enjoy it long enough so I try to imagine it again when it has left. Impossible.
Where does it come from isn't the question I have. How can I understand and harness its deeper message is more interesting to me. What part does it play in my own system of things?
For some reason the wind seems to have something far more important to say out here. It has pretty much single-handedly shaped the people and the land for millennia. Everything here has been affected by it. It has lifted the very rocks, smashed them into tiny pieces and moved them hundreds of miles. It decides when the clouds come. And when they go. They are not invited at present.
Like much of this place you don't get to see what is here - but you know it's out there. Keeping an eye on you and at any moment - if you disrespect it - you will die.
Like every living system there is something indefinable and yet present that drives it on. The energy within it and within all that it embraces.
There is an invisible force that owns this place and the wind is its hands and fingers - touching everything.
Wandering in any potentially hostile terrain ensures that all your senses are very alive. In tune to each rock and every inch of the arrid soil. A snake, a leopard - anything could be lying in wait and watching for any slip. Flies hurt your head and remind you of all that is wrong in the world. Airports for example.
A lizard shoots along the path in front of me.
The direction I am taking is aimless yet trodden by something much larger than me - or the lizard. The wind blows long white grasses into the reptiles way. The wind's strange and invisible force whips this entire micro-fantasy up into intense musical notes. Whilst messing with the reptile the same wind reminds me of the searing heat - the bass drum of hot coals just got unloaded into my face.
My eyes are half closed from the white wind and the glare from the white ground. The rocky pass up into the higher mountain is suddenly not a pass. Enormous boulders that house the cats and the Oryx are far bigger than London buses and stand in my way. It is dark.
This forces the wind to whistle through any remaining narrow spaces - like a diabolical organ it reaches a deeply impressive tone. At this height the only competing sound is that from my own heart pounding inside my head.
The wind is telling me to back off this mountain. I nod. I'm off.
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