© 2024 David Parker

Oracles

"I count the number of grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless".

Sounds in Nature are the common threads linking these images; utterance as an enigmatic herald of change, shaping the landscape. Waters lapping or breaking on a shore, or rushing upwards through a blowhole. Water dripping and echoing in a cave. Wind softy whispering around rocky contours. The sudden violence of a cascading rock fall, and the convulsions of seismic activity.

Over time and across many cultures these sounds were sometimes interpreted as oracular portents and prophesies, the angry voices of the gods, nowhere more so than in ancient Greece; Poseidon the earth shaker, Boreas, god of the north wind, Proteus, the old sea god of elusive change etc., and ultimately the mysterious and ambiguous utterances of the Delphic Oracle, or Pithia, voicing what is predestined and ineluctable.

The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices.