So I went fishing a few days ago. It was that pre-dusk time, and the chorus of peepers was phenomenal. I was standing on the dam of a small lake, and all the frogs were at the far end in the shallows. Being that the lake is nestled between two hills, and there is a hill directly behind it as well, the sound was funneled directly at me. In fact it was as if I was standing in the open end of a giant tin can and thousands of frogs were deep inside. The sound literally enveloped me and there were times when I tilted my head just right and felt completely surrounded by the chorus. The resounding frogs are only part of the story.
It was a very still evening, not a twitch of breeze. I was fascinated by the concentric rings that emanated from my fishing bobber
each time I cast. I was trying to watch the rings expand as far as I could, watching how they became increasingly difficult to see as they expanded towards the bank. Then I went into wide-angle vision (see description below), and picked up the reflections of the trees and sky upon the water and realized the water was not still at all! I picked up multitudes of very delicate but distinct ridges of water crisscrossing the reflections in very intricate patterns, as if they were the very edges of expanding concentric rings coming from all directions. Bounce back rings from the bank caused by my bobber? It seems there were way to many of them, which is really the only way I noticed them… their sheer volume. The ever-slight breezes that I couldn’t even detect on my skin? Possibly. I continued fishing (which it was in this case, because it certainly had no resemblance whatsoever to “catching”) without much more thought. I just enjoyed being in the audience as the frogs performed at the far end of this natural amphitheater, the water itself seeming to be in concert with the performers.Today I began thinking about sound and how it travels in percussive waves until it hits our eardrums. It dawned on me, the proverbial light bulb. Were those tiny ridges of water that I noticed caused by the percussive waves of the frog’s singing as their voice traveled out in all directions reflecting off the surface of the lake? Or even across the surface for the frogs partially submerged at the water’s edge? Could even my foot stomp on the shore produce minute rings that travel out across the water, undetected by all but the most trained observer? Does not the same thing occur then in the air?
Water once again, teaching us, showing us the inner workings of our natural world… gratitude.
Wide-angle vision: The opposite of “tunnel vision”.
Stand still keeping your head straight in front of you. Now put your arms straight out in front of you and wiggle your fingers. Now without moving your head, keeping your eyes directly in front, begin to spread your outstretched arms apart, continuing to wiggle your fingers. Notice the wiggling. Continue to spread your arms as far out the sides as you can while still observing your wiggling fingers. You are now in wide-angle vision! AKA: splatter-vision.
It is a technique where you eyes are not focused on anything in particular, but out-focus a bit, observing everything from the peripheral of your vision in. Awareness of your entire surroundings becomes heightened. This is how most animals see most of the time, because even the slightest motion anywhere in your vision becomes noticeable, you are then able to focus in on the motion to determine if it might be “lunch”, or might be looking at you for it’s “lunch”.
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