A repeated act of will

 David George Haskell's "A Forest Unseen"

In the chapter titled "October 5th -- Alarm Waves," Haskell recounts a time when a deer wanders close to him as he sits silently in the mandala.  The deer becomes alarmed, "just a foot or two behind me," and snorts an alarm call into the forest.

The snorts immediately set three squirrels chattering and whining. Eight chipmunks join in, shooting off rapid chips. The wave moves out from the mandala.  A wood thrush downslope starts calling, whippa-whippo-whop, its head feather hackled up as it hurls out the call. Distant chipmunks pick up the staccato chorus, carrying it to the edge of earshot.

Haskell reflects on this alarm wave.

The mandala's birds and mammals live embedded in an acoustic network, each individual connected to others through sound. The forest's news ripples through this network, carrying the latest information about the location and activities of troublemakers. It takes some effort for us urbanized humans to become aware of these traveling signals. We are accustomed to ignoring "background noise," instead taking our cues from the interior noise of our minds. Most of my time sitting or walking in the woods is spent riding waves inside my head, thinking of past or future. I suspect that this is a common experience.  Only a repeated act of the will can bring us back to the present, back to our senses.

Our own alienation from this world makes it hard to understand.  Haskell's hundreds of hours of silent watching have provided him a dynamic picture of how it works.

When we arrive in the acoustic now, we discover that the forest's newsroom is focused on -- surprise! -- us.  We're large, noisy, and fast. And many animals have seen us in our more predatory modes.  Those that haven't had personal experience of our guns, traps, and saws quickly learn from their more experience peers: it is in an animal's interest to pay attention to what alarms others.  We are like the hawks, owls, and foxes that seldom get to observe the forest network without triggering noisy news bulletins.  Sitting low, staying still, and biding one's time is the only way to slip in.  Then we experience the alternating calm and clatter of the news wires.  Hikers, for example, are preceded by bow waves that arrive minutes before their chatter and laughter.  More minor disturbances, such as a branch falling or the overflight of a crow, send quieter and more short-lived pulses through the network. The deer's alarm at stumbling upon me was, on the other hand, a surge, a bold headline.