The feel good viral post of the week seems to be the Barcelona Opera House reopening for a quartet playing to a packed symphony hall... packed with plants! It's so charming that it's impossible not to love. The musicians clad in black, the lush reds and golds of the architecture peeking out behind massive green fronds occupying every seat make for a beautiful series of photographs that acknowledge how different the world has become since covid began to turn off various switches connected to our society. These musicians have spent lifetimes training to play beautiful music, each performance requiring countless hours of human striving before it drifts into the ears of their audience in normal circumstances; these days washing over plants.
I, too, make noises for my houseplants. I speak to them when I water them, asking how they are feeling while I gently feel their leaves to gauge their thirst. I see no reason to think they don't hear everything I say, even if I doubt they care about any of the contents of the conversations I have. Like many houseplant owners, I am convinced that my green friends appreciate the nice things I try to do for them.
How odd that the photos of the Barcelona symphony didn't move me. For reasons then unknown, I reacted to the photos with complete indifference, and to be honest, I didn't even click them to get a closer look. Fortunately, either the universe is ordered or coincidences can be happy. Today, a musician friend posted a recording of the frogs in her backyard.
Do you remember the last time you heard frogs? Aren't they wildly unpredictable and magical sounding, even when you think you know what to expect? I remember one time I was on a walk around a golf course and a chorus of the strangest miniature organs turned on in surround sound. That same year, I had been going to a church to hear Bach's organ works played regularly. Please do not ask me to choose which I preferred. I rarely hear frogs where I live now; how sad to know my home was certainly once a lush wetland filled with the peeps, urps and rorks of the amphibian chorus.
In search of a conclusion for this article, I looked at the photos. This time, I realized I have a new emotion, the result of the reflection that comes from sharing my thoughts.
I see excitement in the plants, and I share that emotion. What a magnificent and novel gesture this is for western society, to perform our art for plants! I see plants in the audience that acknowledge that humans are ready to try to please them. Iit is time for institutions such as opera houses to ask "what would the plants like?"And I think those plants thought our music was lovely, but I doubt it replaces the music to which they are attuned.
Think again about the music of frogs and insects and birds. Plants once had that ringing in their [whatever passes for plant] ears every evening. We once had that, too. I wish I had it, still. Do you?
We can have it again. The plants certainly will - they will be here long after we erase ourselves from this planet. You and I might not - unless we try very hard to bring the frogs back to where we live.
Remember this - all of those frog sounds you hear are no different than most human songs.The music of frogs is a chorus of frog love songs. Some things never change.
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