About the wind, it is a world of a subject. It may not talk but it comes awful close and gives us a musical score to put our own words to; from a ‘whisper’ to a ‘roar’ and everything in between. Different trees have a different ‘voice’ also even in the same wind, from the murmur of the cotton woods to the sighing of the pines.
When I think of the noise the wind makes, one memory stands out above any other. It is the lonesome, mournful, thin and keen moan of the wind across the radio aerial of those USFS pickups I used to drive. It is best not to hear that sound if you are already sad. Like the sound of a fiddle, it cries for words but there are none to do it justice. It sounds like all the sorrows the world has ever known in one lament.
—Ron Stephens
I love Ron’s thoughts about the wind.
The wind has blown more this spring than anytime I can remember. It seems like the air is stirring constantly.
I’ve always been fascinated with the wind. Oh I’m not talking about the kind that blows down trees and tears up jack. I don’t want any part of that sort of wind.
I’m talking about the wind that rushes down from steep ridges into deep hollers. The type of wind that blows soft enough to caress your hair back away from your sweat soaked brow and throws in a strong gust every once in a while to let you know it could mean business if it wanted to.
The wind makes me feel the smallness of my ownself in the largeness of the world. And like Ron I find myself listening to the sound of the wind as if it’s a person trying to tell me something.
Last night’s video: Family is Everything in Appalachia – A Culture Built Around Family.
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The wind reminds me of the Holy Spirit, you can’t see it, but you can feel it!
On the Blueridge Park way. The Flaming Azaleas should be out next week the pink azaleas where out when I took this photo/video
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0b87UsXr62aFaksyOQvlfy46Q
As Sanford, my first thought was a country song, “Good Ol Boys Like Me” came to mind! The lyric I remember was, “I can still hear those soft southern winds in the live oak trees”; a second lyric follows later, “Nothing makes a sound in the night like the wind does • but, you ain’t afraid if you’re washed in the blood like I was”! As I currently live in Florida surrounded by live oaks, this song resonates with me. I guess there’s nothing like lying in the bed listening to “those southern winds blow”, Tipper. And I too enjoy “Seminole Wind”, Sanford!
Feeling the affects of the wind after two days yard work sure feels refreshing!
Bernie Krause, the guitarist who took Pete Seeger’s place in the Weavers, has recorded many stories about the wind’s relation not just to to music, but also to dance. In one of my favorite stories in The Great Animal Orchestra he recounts how the Nez Perce elder Elizabeth Wilson explained that the wind taught water to sing sad songs. Water grew lonely and wanted to sing with others so it taught the insects how to sing and they in turn taught the birds, who taught the other animal spirits, who in turn guided human beings into the beautiful world of music and dance.
I love the song “Master of the wind”, it’s a good one. I had an experience a couple of years ago. It was either summer or late spring because the trees were full and it was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot but pretty warm, and I was standing outside on the porch (one of my favorite places to be) when the most lovely gentle breeze began blowing through the trees…and they danced. Yep, they danced. That’s what it looked like to me anyway. It was one of those God moments when you can just feel Him all around you so strong. That breeze danced through the trees for a good little while and I was just in awe watching. When it died down and I mean the very second the dance ended, I heard the sound of one of those clocks that chimes a little song on the hour and it was a hymn. I wish I could recall which one it was but I tell you I hadn’t heard that clock before that day and I haven’t heard it since. Like I said, it was a God moment. Made me full nearly to bursting with gratitude…it was like the Lord put on that show just for me.
Wow. That touched a memory for me too. God moments when He lets you know He’s there in that moment with you are precious beyond words. ❤️
Tipper, the very first thing I thought when I saw today’s title was John Anderson’s song,
Seminole Wind.
I also love the sound of the wind. Not the dangerous wind from storms but the sounds it makes blowing through trees if we are sitting on the back porch and it’s windy and we can hear it in our neighbor’s trees. I call it wind music. And if you have wind chimes, that’s some of the most relaxing sounds in the world. Thanks for sharing Ron’s post and I agree with you Tipper, I think the wind has blown more this spring than I can remember also. Loved last night’s video. My daddy gave me and my husband an acre of land and we first put a trailer on it then we built our first house there and it was right beside my parents and even though some folks talked down about living that close to family, we loved every minute of it. Now when we were first married, we lived only about a mile away, well my husband got a job working rotating shifts, one month night, one month day and every other weekend. Well, even only a mile away from mama and daddy, guess where I stayed when he was working nights? My parents house. I’ll never forget those wonderful memories. I would tell anyone, make all the memories you can with your family because as you also said, family is everything.
Where do cotton woods grow? I’ve lived in Appalachia all my life and don’t remember ever seeing one!
I have seen them growing on the banks of the Ohio in Kentucky, on the banks of the Snake River in Jackson Hole so I think they are pretty wide-spread. I don’t believe they are strong trees and therefore not valued. I personally love the sound they make when the wind blows.
I like the wind too. Nothing like a good breeze on a hot day. We have a fire alert for central and eastern Virginia due to winds, very dry conditions, and low humidity. We are supposed to get rain tomorrow, so hopefully this helps.
The words the wind doesn’t have are those words that, as Verna Mae Sloan said, our hearts want to tell. And oftentimes what our heart wants to tell is beyond words.
lonesome, and occasionally scary, God bless you friends of Appalachia, have a great day with Jesus
Lonesome is the connotation of the word “soughing”, as in “the wind soughing in the trees.” I knew an old minister who used that word at funerals. I haven’t heard it since the last eulogy I heard him deliver, nor have I seen it in print or used it.
I’ve always felt a kinship between wind and water. It’s everywhere in its own realm. Both have streams that flow through. The Atlantic has the Gulfstream that flows past this peninsula towards the British Isles.
The wind has Jetstream and a polar express and much more. The wind that tosses our hair playfully is like a creek that playfully seeks its lowest level. Such thots I never put to words before, but some musings are like that. As far as the destructive side of water, floodings from too much rain, too much or not enough pressure are the opposite of sheer winds and tornadoes.
This world is growing old and tired. Man has used and abused it. Perhaps this is earth’s reaction to it all.
Remember that old Have Presnell song They Called the Wind Mariah?
My feelings about the wind are similar to yours, a breeze on a hot day sure feels good but a strong gusty wind makes me uneasy. I really enjoyed last nights video about family, outside of my relationship with God, nothing in this world is more important to me than my family and my friends. I spent a few hours yesterday eating lunch with 25 of the boys in my high school senior class (51 years ago). I loved my wife’s family and her extended family just as much as my own. Even though my wife is no living, her family still includes me in any of their get togethers. Spending time with my father in law, be it fishing, rabbit hunting, helping one another with work or just sitting and talking was one of the joys of my life and it was icing on the cake if my Daddy was with us. When we were dating, she once asked me if I had come to see her or her daddy. Between marriage and the time we went together she was the joy of my life for 50 years, we married when she was 19 and I was 20 living in a single wide mobile home and $10 in our bank account. Like Tipper said, over the years there was some growling, fussing, and arguments, but never no hitting each other, but at at the end of the day we still loved one another. I ate dinner with some of my sister in laws on Easter Sunday and we were talking about some of the old time ways, one thing mentioned was a pounding. When I was a young teenager, I remember daddy being sick and out of work for about 2 months and his coworkers giving us a pounding, mother worrying and praying about what she could come with for supper, and then two of daddy’s coworkers pulling into the driveway in 53 Ford with the backseat and trunk full of groceries.
You refer to a ‘pounding’ and I’ve never heard that term before and don’t know what it means. (Except for when one boy gives another a pounding or whooping, or beating and I know that is not what you spoke about. Isn’t it amazing that with God and friends, we usually don’t actually need anything more. Good memories are worth repeating and sharing, thanks.
I think it was rooted in bringing a pound of some grocery item – sometimes for newly weds setting up household for the first time. When my first baby was born, disposable diapers were relatively new. They had to be pinned with real diaper pins – no tapes back then. Our church “pounded” all the new babies with boxes of disposable diapers in sizes from newborn on up to about 9 months sizes. That made a new mom’s life a little easier for a bit. By the time my second baby was born, I had decided to go back to cloth diapers so the church pounded me with a couple of months of diaper service. After the diaper service ended I discovered that cloth diapers washed and dried on a clothes line in the sun and wind have that same wonderful smell that line dried sheets have.
Wow I haven’t heard that word in many years. must gave been when I was a kid last time I heard about a pounding! Thank you for bringing that memory.
I love hearing the wind blow through the tree tops. I also watch the wind, it starts on one side and travels through the trees and out of sight. Beautiful
March was extra windy this year. Seems every weekend we had a day of strong winds, with power outages and trees down and roof damages to homes. The insurance company people have been very busy. We had to have our roof replaced because of shingle loss. Thank goodness it has become a little more normal now. I love breezes but the high winds not so much. So glad I don’t live in a tornado prone area.
The sound of wind and the roar of the ocean are two sounds that God gives us to enjoy. I use the sound of vehicles on the interstate highway that is not far away, which almost sounds like the ocean is what I fall asleep with every nite…so soothing. Thanks for sharing the video and looking forward to today’s read. God Bless.
We live in a place the wind is always blowing with the exception of dogs days. The winds are fierce now, a lot! It took down one of our big ol Hackberry trees and laid it on our 2 outbuildings and my husband’s truck. Thankfully and praise the Lord no one was hurt. Now when it blows I have to admit I am certainly afraid. All the woods, and a lot of yards here, are full of Ash trees that have been killed by the Emerald Ash Borer and they are coming down right and left. I love a good breeze, but I admit much more than that is now scary!
I love the wind
Cat Stevens does a lovely song called The Wind. Beautiful short tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd2jXsmSaKc