I realized after I wrote this post that it should be my blog entry for today. I hope it brings a little color and a smile into your day.

I have always listened to trees since I learned to live among them as a child and I am past the half century mark. In the forests of my youth the cacophony of song sifting through them was like the symphony and chorus combined. I still travel to the ridges to hear the voice of the whispering pines and creaking aspens.

Their thoughts were not foreign to me as much as foreign to what I am, one must be able to hear the Earth speak through touch and smell and listening to trees is both internal and external simultaneously but the *words* are ours and the meaning theirs. To understand trees one must extend their time sense and see well beyond the fleeting moment of man. Trees understand geology like no human; they live it.

My advice to any that seek to appreciate this relationship is to first slow down, then get very close and try and open all your sensory ability not merely your ears. Listening to trees doesn't require Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) it requires Total Sensory Perception.

Today the leaves have been falling like rain here in the NE. For the last two or three weeks we have been treated to a splendor of sights that only trees provide. The leaves fell as a gentle drizzle over that time but last night the winds of winter wafted vigorously through the forest and the trees bowed making their grand finale of fall.

So they release their majesty and the golden and red hues swirl in the wind, cover the Earth and change the delicious morning into feast for the eyes and heart.

I always try and remember to say thank you them when this happens because their fruit is on the table and they are about to take their season of rest from a hard working summer but even in the hard of frozen darkness they stand sentinel around us.

Yes each tree speaks to us, each is an entity unto itself. I have a friend that stands outside my home, a northern blue spruce that was planted too close but was a sapling when I was born. For me that tree is like a spiritual sibling and to the consternation of many who offer free advice I chose to work the remodeling and construction of my home around that tree and let her live, in fact protect her.

It is sometimes scary to have a 75 foot tall friend sway just a few feet outside your window, but it is far better than television to watch the birds make their home and squirrels dance. The voice of that tree is at times like whale song in the dead dark sea of night but it is also a bulwark against the monotone of winter to have the bright blue green needles and golden cones continuously present even when the snows swirl and drift all around.

Today the leaves of autumn are golden and red droplets falling in a driving rain and the hillsides are getting dressed for winter. The trees are thankful for a bountiful long summer and look forward to a short but suddenly hard winter. Yes they told me so but they are not alone.

The birds have been flocking, gathering for travel and filling the suddenly naked branches too. They sing so loud one cannot hear a single voice except the occasional proud scream of the herons in the distance preparing for departure and the complaining geese.