Caitlin Bush - Earth Train Panama
Week 4

Horizontal Layers

Imagine the sound of termites beating their heads against the ground, or the scent that an ant leaves for others to follow.  That drumming sound, ahh the deep thump of seeds falling to the ground, and that smell, perhaps fresh ground pepper.  What our imaginations can revel is more than a sense, but an experience, and a deeper meaning of what it is that we can relate to. 

            The rain falls in a dart-like movement, each drop shadowing another raindrop five centimeters down, and hits the adobe clay.  Its harmony, an un-tuned radio, and as I watch the drops fall, I attempt to concentrate on one drop, and listen to it.  I tried and tried, and came to realize that rain was like a community of wasps.  Wasps are social insects, meaning that their importance as an individual is non-existent.  Furthermore, together, wasps are brilliant using techniques and different humming sounds to communicate and work together.  One drop of rain affects nothing more than a grain of sand, but the replication of thousands falling, transforms all that it hits.  

            At so many times I have stayed up while the rest of us are asleep, and wondered how an entire universe of nightlife creatures could sound so consistent throughout the night.  A large group of people, who are talking all at once, creates an almost parallel sound, yet instead of primarily exchanging information, humans share thoughts, emotions, and ideas.  A type of frog calls out for a female, using a one toned crock.  When another male of the same type of frog approaches, the croak immediately changes into two tones, competing for the female.  The communication that this frog is presenting is not only relevant to the females and the other male frog, but towards their predators, and prey.

            It has been just over a month here in beautiful Panama, and what has caught my divine interest, are all of the communication windows throughout life.  How do we choose whether to open them, or simply lock them off to isolate our fears?  Along with nature, humans are nothing without communication and without a mass of some sort of living. I am nothing without communication or body language; a hollow body waiting to be suffocated in the moist dirt.  But isn’t dying the only reason for living; to transform into another’s necessity, or perhaps a roadblock that further explains what it is that can be enhanced, or destroyed.  This cycle is a twenty four hour display out here in the rainforest; an insect dies alone, a mass of insects carry it away, the dirt replenishes itself, the worm eats the soil, a bird sweeps away the worm, and the bird pollinates a flower. This cycle is never-ending, but what is important is that the cycle relies on individual death to boost the system. My point is clearly unclear, yet the relationships that overlap are tremendously reliant on one another.  The time spent in the center of a new universe, at first gives off the feeling of intrusion, like the insects conversing all night, or the ants plowing over anything with scent or texture, but deeper within this life, I have found that nothing is personal, everything is general, and it makes sense to feel loss of individuality, because individuality only strengthens when it is shared.  It becomes lost, but everything around transforms into a clear and pixilated painting.