I’ve been back house and pet sitting in San Francisco and have really been enjoying waking up early to journal and meditate. I can sit on the couch and look out the windows at the fog creating a soft morning as the day slowly begins to brighten. I am near Baker Beach so I can hear the fog horns alerting boats to hazards ahead. It’s such a peaceful way to start the morning.
On Thursday, I took the bus down to the Exploratorium to check out a new exhibit The Great Animal Orchestra. I got there just before it opened at 10 and saw the exuberant groups of kids waiting to get in – both young elementary school age kids, as well as those who appeared to be at the end of their high school journeys. That’s what I love about the Exploratorium, it appeals to kids of all ages, even my age of 55! I made a beeline for the exhibit because I wanted to get in before it was too crowded. I entered a dark room with a couple of dozen round cushioned stools scattered about. On the screen that surround three walls of the room were straight green lines that then transformed into sound patterns according to the depth and breadth of the projected sound frequencies of nature. When I came in, a soundtrack from the Amazon rainforest was playing, I could mainly hear the sound of frogs and insects. The exhibit consists of recordings from seven different biomes each approximately 12 minutes long. It is captivating. Even though all you’re looking at is basically sound waves it is fascinating to see how the different sounds of even a single animal or insect look visually, and then how they all work together in harmony. Around the base of the screen is a shallow pool of water that creates sonic waves to capture the sounds that can’t be visualized on screen, when you hear a deep lions roar, for example. I barely moved during the more than an hour and a half that I sat there watching and listening. During that time lots of people, especially families, came and went. I’m sure it seemed boring to many kids, in contrast I felt the longer that I tuned in the more interested I became. In one section, short clips are played contrasting before and after affects of things such as logging and drought, which really showed the effect on nature of both man-made and natural changes, though I think there’s quite an argument to show that the natural changes occurred because of man. The view of the visual picture of the sounds was just gorgeous, seeing the patterns laid out along the screen. Bernie Krause, the bio-audiologist (what a cool profession!) who created these pieces had originally been a soundtrack expert for movies, Apocalypse Now was the last movie he worked on before he moved into recording sounds of nature. I think he originally got interested because of a recording of nature songs he was making for a movie. One of the devastating things I learned from this exhibit was that since he started recording nature sounds in 1968, 45% of the old growth forests in the lower 48 states were still standing and now less than 2% are. Whoa. I completely agree with his assertion that the best way to preserve our natural environments is to “leave them alone and stop the inveterate consumption of useless products that none of us need.” I think his quote “Whenever we decide to go into the wild, we should go quietly and leave things as we find them.” should be emblazoned on buildings everywhere. After spending so much time in an aural and visual focused environment, it was a shock to the system to come out of that dark cocoon into the bright and busy world of the rest of the Exploratorium. At this point it was almost noon, and the place was bursting at the seams with excited kids and adults. I made my way to the outdoor spaces which gave me a little relief from the cacophony, but soon decided it was time to head home. I was grateful that we were allowed to take photos and videos in the exhibit, so that I could rewatch some of the incredible scenes I had witnessed.
I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Otis and getting some work done before making dinner and watching a couple of episodes of Slow Horses, my new obsession. I love the twists and turns in the plot!