““And do you know,” continued Siddhartha, “what word it [the river] pronounces when one is successful in hearing all its ten thousand voices at the same time?””—Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

  Ahh, the ten thousand voices! 

  This morning at six I was out the door and across the street into Parc LaFontaine with my dogeared copy of Hesse’s Siddhartha and of course my camera. I figured I would take a walk and perhaps find a promising vantage as the rising sun began first filtering through the surrounding trees and then climbed above them. 

  A number of joggers and dog walkers were out, plus a few others occupying benches by the pond’s edge. 

  Ducks paddled lazily upon the unruffled surface of the water, gulls crowded the inoperative fountain at the pond’s centre. On the shore more ducks, some with their fuzzy little clutch of ducklings crowding nearby, crouched all sufficient in themselves. They eyed the joggers passing and even the odd walker with a straining dog on the leash. 

  A man and woman pushed a pram by with a wide eyed tyke pointing a tiny finger at the ducks. “C’est un joli canard,” explained the mother. 

  Next to where I had found my perch a squirrel was dumpster diving into a bag lined trash can. He would lower himself down and then leap up to take a cautious look around before diving back in. While he did so another approached but moved off after apparently being told in no uncertain squirrel terms that this particular trash can was taken. 

  Gulls screamed, swallows chirped and pecked, crickets could be heard droning from the leafy far side of the peanut shaped pond and there was a faint rustle of leaves in the trees overhead. 

  What word was being pronounced by all this hushed hubbub, this quiet morning symphony beside the water in Parc LaFontaine? 

  Early in his journey Siddhartha might have said the sacred “Aum…”, or “Om…” as it was spelled in the book…

  But I call it Life…

  Nothing more…

  Nor less….