Beat of the Earth.

There's a deep quiet in the underbrush near my summer camp. It lies there unobserved by the motorized world.

Hidden to the day-time hiker, it's buried by nearby highway tire noise and revving rumbles.

It comes to the dawn-treader awake before the rising throb of human life. If this privileged audience walks carefully awed and clean washed from brashness they can hear earth’s song; a tune that tickles awareness with suspicion that it’s there.

Long thrumming, low humming, single syllables that sound for days and come out of the rocks and into the roots and up the tree trunks.

It's the beat of the earth.

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There really is a humming sound that the earth makes. It's caused by very long ocean waves acting against the ocean floor off the western coast of North America and to a lesser extent Northern Europe. An article in WIRED magazine describes this hum or vibration. It's at a frequency of about 10 milli-hertz which is twelve octives below the lowest audible music note, E. It has only recently been measured and it's source located. Cool, eh!

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