Giant Sounds - Giant Songs - Giant Prayers

Once upon a time a great Giant heard the lovely sound of the seashore, or the sound of voices singing, or many men in prayer. He could not figure out what his ears were hearing. He looked up from his chore of ripping fresh young 100 year old trees out of the ground. The birds looked up at The Giant to see what was different. The worms and beetles that had come uncovered during the tree ripping quickly skittered into the earth. This beautiful noise The Giant heard wafted with the wind, a sound for his ears, as light as the smell of mountain flowers in the breeze. The Giant turned his head to his left. The sound continued to grace his ears. He turned his head to the right and he found the sound washed into his ears even stronger. The giant left his tools and the pile of tree trunks. He stumbled up the mountain along the ruts and rocks and went in search of this great comforting noise that blew in his ears. After many hours and a scraped knee, The Giant sat down on a boulder to catch his breath and to listen for the sound of the ocean or the singing or the prayers. It sounded closer, but still wafted with the wind and nowhere near in sight.

The Great Giant heaved his heavy body up from his rocky seat and and lumbered further on reaching the upper ridge of the mountains he had always lived among. He could see down one side of the mountain and see the cabins his giant neighbors had built. He could see the clearing of trees he was working on. The Giant could also see down the other side of the mountain. There he saw a steep and treacherous incline . The slope appeared to end abruptly and harshly in craggy cliffs and pounding waves of a frothy, heaving, incessant sea. The Giant stared off into the distance. His eyes were full of things he had never seen before. His ears were trying to hear the songs he heard.

The Giant stepped off the ridge and started lumbering very carefully and very slowly down the rocky, steep and treacherous side of the mountain. He held onto tall pines and fir trees to keep him from stumbling. They bent and swayed in his hands unable to offer more than a minimum of stability to The Giant's decent. The Giant kept looking up over the tree tops to see if he could tell where the prayers were coming from. As he had left the top of the mountain the wind had died down and the chanting, mantra, prayer of the song was coming steadily up the mountain to accompany his decent.

When The Giant had seen the cliffs and the water and the crashing waves into the rock walls, he had hoped it was the sound of the waves he heard. He wanted to get to the sea to bask in the glory of this great power of the waves. As he descended and the song had become more regular, or regulated, he decided it was the sound of monks in great droves at great prayer. The Giant hoped to come across the immense conclave this must be coming from. He wanted to envelope himself in the greatness of this divinity. The Giant continued his slow careful steps down the mountain, turning here and there to go around denser groves of trees and to find better footing without the sharp rocks and boulders that rolled under his soft animal skin shoes.

Every once in a while in the turns and twists of his trail the trees became taller and the wind died down more than otherwise and the song in his ears was a love song. It was a love song sung by maidens whose voices carried without direction, without knowledge. It was definitely sung by maidens. They sang without pretense, they sang. It was a pure song. The singers were without affectation, without knowledge of reserve. They sang. It is here that The Giant's face popped up to attention as he heared these notes. His eyes widened and he knew he must find these maidens. He must find these songs. His heart yearned to fill his eyes and his ears with this song and these singers.

He slipped on the patch of rocks at his feet and his giant bum hit the ground. His hand slipped from the tree top he was holding to steady himself and he skidded down the mountain to where the erosion pooled in a lumpy puddle of rocks. And the songs came louder. He sat among the rocks and boulders trying to listen around the continued sound of more rocks rolling down behind and around him that finished the landslide he had started. He could hear the prayers as they melded into waves on the rocky shore and then the singers, ever faint, reached his ears. He knew he had come closer. He could hear it. As quietly as a giant can, he got up and turned where he stood to find the best direction to head out to meet the monks, to see the sea and to gaze upon the singers.

This sound cannot be one source, thought The Giant. But, the sounds come and they go, they become one and then part away, they are not the same yet they are, thought The Giant. He did not want to be confused. He wanted to see the sound. He wanted to see the sound to clear his head, to add a vision to what his heart was hearing.