If A Tree Falls...

September 5th marked my 39th trip around the sun and, as I laid in bed, one day’s night slowly folding into the next day’s morning, I tried to conjure some wise and deep seated birthday reflection. I don’t know for sure that this is it, but I think it is at least worth sharing.

The age old question: “If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

This is the question that came to mind when reflecting back on an almost forgotten, half-asleep, sometime ‘round midnight note written to myself. The note, entitled Showing Up, reads:

Showing up doesn’t, and won’t always mean that everyone will see you. But I do think, it most certainly means that you will see yourself.

When I Googled, “If a tree falls in the forest…”, the first search result read:

“So, the answer to this age-old question seems to be simple: it depends on how we define 'sound'. If we define it as 'vibrating air', the falling tree makes a sound. If we define it as a conscious experience, the lonesome falling tree does not make a sound.” {source}

The article from which the excerpt is pulled goes on to state that the point of this question is not to answer it quickly, instead it is, “to draw out the rather strange tension between our two very different definitions of the word ‘sound’.” In the same way, the “showing” in showing up invites one to consider, or re-consider our perspective on the word show (verb. to be seen; be or become visible). While I can’t clearly recall my mindstate prior to writing this note-to-self, I can only guess that some occurrence, that day or within the days prior, had brought me to the point of questioning and challenging my notions of what it means to “show up”, specifically what it means to, as the definition lays out, be seen, be or become visible.

As a former ballerina, someone who spent most of my adolescent life dancing in front of mirrors, learning steps and perfecting lines, appearing on a stage as a gracefully arranged piece of moving art, it’s easy to understand how and why I have had to spend so much time behind the preverbal curtain looking for and finding, over and over again, myself. A truer self, perhaps less perfect, less graceful, less arranged and maybe not so in-line with an outsiders perception but more aligned with my own. I recently shared this thought with a friend and he pointed out that most often when we posture in front of a mirror, performers in particular, we are doing so to see if how we think we look is actually how we look, and if what we think, and what we see are incongruent, we work until the idea of ourselves and the reflection of ourselves match, agree and connect.

So here begs another question, what happens when the idea of who we think we are, or who we believe we are suppose to be, doesn’t connect, with the reflection? Answer: You Go In.

Given that I have spent the last 38, now 39 years physically in this mind, and this body, it’s a bit odd to say that this last year, more than any year prior, has been spent journeying in. Does this mean that for all the other years I have been journeying out? Standing in front of mirrors, whether they be actual or the mirrors that are the people and environments around me, posturing, trying to match who I actually am with how I am seen? Short answer, Yes.

The “If a tree falls” question is a mind bender. Much less about whether or not the tree makes a sound, it’s about the possibility, and actuality, of something being present and happening, in and of itself, with or without our sighting or experience of it. In terms of showing up, when feeling the tension between being seen and seeing, I am learning and constantly leaning into seeing, knowing that I am happening, being, becoming, even when no one else is looking.