There are moments in this work that stay with you.
Moments that leave you with the feeling that you have witnessed something you don't entirely understand.
One of those moments happened during an outdoor sound practice.
We were standing at the edge of a field while Zacciah played a simple rhythm on a frame drum. Nothing elaborate. Just a steady pulse, carried by breath, movement, and attention. The kind of rhythm that gradually settles both the listener and the one playing.
Our focus wasn't on the field beside us. It was on the practice itself.
At some point, someone noticed movement in the distance.
The cows had begun to gather.
At first there were only one or two. A head lifting above the grass. A turn toward the sound.
Then more.
Slowly, calmly, almost imperceptibly, they made their way across the field, sometimes picking up speed in spiral formations together, then walking calmly again, until the entire herd stood gathered along the fence line nearby.
No one had called them. Nothing was being directed toward them. And yet they came.
The moment felt strangely familiar—not because we understood it, but because many of us who spend time working with sound have witnessed similar things.
A horse choosing to stand beside a gong in play—positioned with eyes soft, breath slow, body comfortable.
A bird becoming unusually still during a sound session —relaxed, calm, but focused.
A cat curling up beside an instrument that has only been played softly for a few moments.
Wildlife lingering nearby when instinct suggests they should move away.
Animals experience the world differently than we do. They remain deeply attuned to subtle changes in their environment—to shifts in vibration, movement, rhythm, and atmosphere. They live in continual relationship with the fields around them, sensing through far more than sight and sound alone.
They are listening all the time—not just with their ears, but through their entire system.
When we begin working with sound in the presence of animals, it becomes clear very quickly that this is not about technique.
It is about relationship.
The instrument you use—whether it is a crystal bowl, a drum, a bell, a flute—matters far less than how it is being played, and the state from which it is being offered.
Animals notice when we are hurried.
They notice when we are tense.
And they notice when we arrive without trying to make something happen.
Perhaps that is why the most meaningful moments often emerge through simplicity.
A single tone allowed to fully rise and fade.
A rhythm that remains steady.
Silence between sounds.
Enough space for the environment to respond in its own way.
In these moments, sound begins to feel like more than something we create. It becomes part of a relationship. A conversation between ourselves, the environment around us, and the living beings sharing that space.
And perhaps that is why encounters like the one in the field stay with us for so long.
They remind us how much mystery still exists within listening.
The longer we work with sound, the less certain we become that we are the only ones listening. And the more we begin to wonder if animals are hearing—or sensing—something we have forgotten how to perceive.
Something subtle. Something ancient. Something that has been present all along.