Journal 5

Joe Hartshorn

Dr. Dan Williams

8 October 2017

Nature Journal 5

            This is my first journal where I have decided to write about my accounts of an experience within nature that wasn’t specifically during our class time on Tuesdays. This experience actually wasn’t even intended to be one of my journals initially, however my experience was interesting enough to document here. On October 8^th three of my friends and I decided to spontaneously drive to Austin in the morning to attend the last day of the Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival. The tickets weren’t too expensive and a few bands that we really wanted to see perform were there. Katie Myers from our class was actually one of my friends that came with. We drove up early to get to Austin by noon, and spent the entire day within the confines of the festival. The festival takes place every year in Zilker Park, a wide-open park in the middle of Austin. The park has many trees throughout, and under one of these trees is where my inspiration from this journal takes place.

            At about 2:00 PM, Zach and I split up between Katie and Kaity due to us wanting to see a different performer than them at that time. We left the performer we went to early, and had about an hour to kill until we planned to meet up with them again. The temperature was still in the high 80s, so we were sweating most of the day. We knew we had to last until midnight when the festival ended, so we decided to rest under a nearby tree to get some shade and get off of our feet. We found a grove of trees with various people laying down and chatting underneath them, so we followed suit and perched underneath one where nobody else was. The combination of laying down and being in the shade was marvelous. While Zach fell asleep for a bit, I stayed awake, almost in a sort of trance underneath this specific tree. I made the conscious decision to pretend that I was the only one there underneath this tree. I’m not sure what sort of tree it was, but its leaves were still a lush green and small leaves that would fall down to the earth every now and then. The sun was high in the air still, as if it was at the highest point in the sky. Sunrays glimmered down through the trees leaves, creating a sort of pattern that consisted of the sunrays and leaves flowing together, as the rays filled in any gaps between the leaves as I peered upwards. This is one of the first moments since this class began that I noticed myself subconsciously examining an occurrence in nature with this detail. The music playing from the stage nearest to us was soft and calming, and as I fell more into a daze between consciousness and sleep, it felt as though the music and leaves were in sync with one another. The leaves appeared to almost be dancing to the music as the leaves slowly swayed back and forth in the wind. I then started to evaluate how this music might be influencing my perception of the leaves and sunrays I was observing. The music definitely altered my perception of the experience, as I felt as though the music was a soundtrack to my life at that moment because it fit so perfectly with the behavior of the leaves in the wind.

However, I found myself wishing it was silent so that I could hear the wind glide through the leaves. At Overton Park I greatly appreciated the faint bristling sounds I would hear as we discussed our readings. As cliché as it sounds, perhaps nature does have its own soundtrack and produces its own sort of music. People listen to white noise sounds from nature when they go to sleep for a reason, yet everywhere we go the soundtrack of nature is drowned out by the busyness of life. Anyways, I find it so interesting that I was at a music festival in a different city but found myself wishing it was silent for a moment so I could listen to the natural sounds happening around me.