ABSTRACT
Does a falling tree make a sound if no one is around to hear? It depends on what is meant by sound. If it is a physical impulse, transmitted through the aerial medium, then “yes”; if it is something we register in our minds, then “no.” But must we choose between these alternatives? In a storm, the sounds of trees falling, wind gusting, and thunder rumbling are not objects of perception but the reverberations of a consciousness that has opened to the sky, to merge with the cosmos. In this sense, sounds are neither mental nor physical but atmospheric. This leads us to think differently about ears, not as anatomical organs primed to respond to acoustic signals, but as the attentiveness of a body placed on aural alert. This aural attention gives voice to the tree, the wind, and the thunder. Hearing, thus, doesn’t provide a portal for the human mind to take possession of a world. Rather, it is in taking possession of its human inhabitants that the world makes itself heard.
