As I mentioned last week, one of the gifts I received last month was the opportunity to spend some time in the White Mountains. Most days, I spent at least some time sitting on this small back porch, looking across the road to a stand of ponderosa pine trees, grateful for the chance to listen to the wind flow between the branches.
That sound is sacred to me. It somehow brings me home in my soul, carrying layers of memories of precious places where I can hear that sound of wind in pine needles. Most of all, somehow I’m at peace when I hear it, like so many folks are at peace when hearing the roar and retreat of ocean waves.
It turns out lots of people feel this way. There’s even a term for the sound of wind in pine trees (and other trees): psithurism. It’s not a word I’d encountered before (good editors never stop learning!), and even the pronunciation seems to fit the sound: sith-err-iz-um.
Spiritual teachers speak to the sound. In the classic Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki writes, “When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all that they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or will feel something unusual.”
Yes, poets speak to the sound. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote of “the wind among the trees” in “A Day of Sunshine,” while Lulu Knight and Manmohan Ghose made this image the title of their poems. I also took time while on my retreat to write a poem about the sound:
Oceanic Pines
For so many, it’s the sound of the ocean.
For me, it’s the oceanic sound of the breeze
threading its way between sleek, straight Ponderosa pine needles.
Green spears reflect solar luminescence.
Branches dance, shimmy,
surge and retreat.
Trunks sway.
Birds hover, touch down, fly off again.
Evanescent vanilla rides the heatwave on a
drought-soaked summer afternoon.
What about you? Does wind in pine trees impact you in any way? What sounds move you to prayer or praise?
When I was young my family lived in a tenant house that had a single large pine in the yard. I remember so well the sound of the wind whistling through it. As a young adult I lived in an area where pines were cultivated and grown for lumber & paper. I recall thinking of the sound of the single pine of my childhood as a single instrument and being in the pine forest as being immersed in an orchestra with such beautiful music being played overhead as the wind would blow. Thank you for bringing this memory forward Shirin! -Tom
Oh, Tom, thank you for sharing these lovely memories with us. I’m glad to help you bring the memory to fresh life in you.
Peace,
Shirin
The Ocean…. always the ocean – Pacific or Atlantic, it matters not. I can walk, sit in the sand or on chair, at the water’s edge or on pier and be lost in memory and revere.
I hear you Joyce! I’m glad you have such a strong connection to ocean sounds.
Peace,
Shirin
Another onomatopoeia inspired by pines, I think, is murmur. Perhaps by starlings, not pines
Great point and connection Jen! Murmuration is birds but I think we all murmur. 😉 Thank you.
Peace,
Shirin