This cactus is more than a year old, and was lost for most of that. It sang to me for its life.
Yes, seriously.
I have been revamping some of the things in my bedroom, and at first I thought I had triggered a CD player buried in documents on one of my shelves -- it was a regular high-pitched sound at that frequency.
Now, in the back of my mind, I know that many machine sounds for home or close personal use are designed to have some analog to sounds humans find soothing ... a CD player sort of reminds me of birds chirping when it starts up.
So once I realized I didn't have one of those old CD walkmen with 20-year-old batteries somehow still running and running down because the ON button was being pushed, then the mystery began. Was it a baby bird outside my window, crying for food? No ... not through the night like that, and besides that, I know the sound of most of the birds that live in my area.
Could it be the sounds of insects, like perhaps yellow jackets or bees, scratching their way through my walls? No ... it's February, and for yellow jackets to have nests here, that's way too early. There is a bee hive near me, but I listened to the walls ... no deep buzzing. Silence. Nothing was in the walls.
As I listened, day after day last week, I remained convinced that it was some kind of living thing ... but it was getting weaker, less regular. I had to find it!
As I was opening my window one morning, I saw it -- that little cactus had fallen off behind another flower pot I had, and with everything going on I hadn't missed it in the press of everything else happening at the time.
But I have slowed down greatly since 2023, by choice ... a choice that most li
This cactus, because it had been raining so hard, had started gasping for that moisture so near it on the windowsill, yet through the window -- the moisture in the air had triggered this desperate attempt. 24 hours a day, at every 2-3 minutes, it was sucking up as much of that air as it could, and that was what I had been hearing, whistling through the loose soil in the container.
I rescued the little plant, put a bottletop under it as a water catch-pan, and filled the bottle-top. The water was instantly soaked up ... and although the cactus did not stop "singing" immediately, the rate slowed down, and it was quiet 24 hours later, situated in a good place and well-watered ... as it will remain!
That cactus is a spiny survivor, breaking the barriers of being just a potted plant, creating notes that a musician much attuned to nature could hear it long enough to figure out where it was and what it needed ...
... but here is the thing: I still had to learn how to take the time to know the sounds of nature, and also to be willing to listen. Easiest thing in the world at the end of the day to assume anything but the need to search until I found that cactus.
It is also very easy, in our own stress, to overlook the signs that the people around us are giving small but increasing signs that they need a kind word, a prayer, a helping hand ... or even that indeed, the patterns of the world's weather are changing and therefore the patterns of the plants and animals around us are subtly changing as well. Never mind the arguments about why the climate is changing: simply observing it before you move to a new place may save your life, because weather patterns are indeed becoming more extreme.
At least in the United States, most of the time a Motivational Monday type thing would encourage us to be the cactus, to do whatever it takes to get the attention and resources to survive in the new political and climatic conditions -- I could have called this The Singing Cactus that Could!
But in reality, I wrote this to motivate us to learn how to listen ... to Creation ... to each other ... start the week with ears and heart open to the sounds of winter as the song of spring approaches, and then the symphony of summer ... listen to the people you love; take a moment to hear them ... maybe give a free compliment ... maybe take a little notebook or a journal and note what you see and hear ... and listen to your own internal reaction ... see how your life changes as you turn away from the noise of the world system we as humans have made for our own profit and give deep attention to people, plants, and planet. You may better your life! You may save a life somewhere ... and it just might be someone you love ... and your own!
First I will say Amen.
We all need to stop, think, and listen to each other as fellow humans, put all else aside, and pay attention to what is going on with our planet, it should be the #1 concern.
Most do not listen to each sound, they hear only noise and they miss things like a baby bird being fed, a snake eating a frog, or a cactus pleading for water. You have a good ear and you like me, listen to nature, it is not just noise.
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It is not ... LITERALLY we were made to be the stewards of Creation ... it means we have to PAY ATTENTION. I find that as I walk with the Lord more closely, I am able to see and hear more clearly the things that are happening in Creation as well as with people.
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