The Acoustics of Altered States

What do we hear when we feel with all our senses and how does this inform a place-based knowledge system?

I’ve been telling my daughters¹ a story when they are at the trance state brink of sleep.

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Once upon a time, there was a girl who didn’t know herself and she decided to ascend a Volcano. She went with others, some who knew themselves and some who did not. There wasn’t really a path to climb up the Volcano because the Volcano was made of sand and scraggly plants. So they climbed a little up the Volcano and then slid down the Face, climbed a little then slid, and climbed a little then slid until they reached the Mouth of the Volcano — where Air met Water and Water met Mist.

Once there in the quiet of the Volcano, the girl who didn’t know herself felt a low hum. She decided to find where the noise was coming from and found a swarm of Bees. Moving closer towards the Bees, the girl who didn’t know herself then felt a voice from deep inside. She didn’t know whether the voice was hers, the god of the Volcano or the Bees themselves but the voice echoed:

“You should not be here. You should not be here. You should not be here.”

The girl who didn’t know herself returned to the others, some who knew themselves and some who did not, told them that they should not be there. The others, some who knew themselves and some who did not, laughed at the girl and returned their gaze to the Mouth of the Volcano — where Air met Water and Water met Mist.

The girl who didn’t know herself decided to descend the Volcano alone. There wasn’t really a path to climb down the Volcano because the Volcano was made of sand and scraggly plants. So she climbed a little and then slid down the Face of the Volcano, climbed a little then slid and climbed a little then slid until she reached the Volcano’s Feet. When the girl who didn’t know herself looked up she saw the others, some who knew themselves and some who did not, were descending down the Volcano. They climbed a little then slid, climbed a little then slid and climbed a little then slid. When they reached the Volcano’s Feet, they all looked up to see the Volcano was erupting smoke, gas and ash.

It was then that the girl who didn’t know herself felt a voice from deep inside. She didn’t know whether the voice was hers, the god of the Volcano or the Bees but the voice said:

“I told you.”

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This story is based on an experience I had almost 13 years ago when I hiked the San Cristóbal Volcano near Chinandega, Nicaragua. The volcano erupted twice within 20 minutes of our descent. As the story said, we sat at the Volcano’s Feet and watched plumes of ash and poisonous gases rise 100 meters into the air. We felt equal parts wonder and horror at what could have been.

San Cristóbal Volcano, also known as El Viejo or the Old One, is the most active volcano in the Pacific Rim. I personally find it spiralic that the Spanish likened this volcano to Saint Christopher, a saint often invoked for protection for travelers and against sudden death.

This day is something I often revisit in my conscious and unconscious mindscapes. I think about how the Volcano’s Mist mesmerized us all into an altered state, how the Bees hummed, and what we hear when we attune with all our senses.

Attunement, a concept frequently discussed in the context of modern childrearing, plays a crucial role in fostering secure attachment between a child and their caregiver.² Attunement as a practice is not limited to child-caregiver dynamics but spreads to all beings we choose to be in active relations with. This process involves an acute sensitivity to and understanding of another person’s state, as well as the capacity to respond appropriately. But for the beings that do not speak with their tongue, attunement requires that old form of listening that is felt.

So for the purposes of Land Clinic: How can we attune ourselves to the natural phenomena so our legal systems are more reflective of this form of listening? A legal framework the presently tries to divide, categorize and claim dominion on all it sees.

It seems that the Rights of Nature movement, which we’ve spoken to before on here, is an attempt at doing something like this. The MOTH (More Than Human) Life Collective recently did something interesting by submitting a petition to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognize the Los Cedros cloud-forest as the co-creator of a song titled "Song of the Cedars.” From the MOTH’s press release:

This will be the first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship in the co- creation of a work of art … This legal case aims to disrupt traditional anthropocentric copyright frameworks by granting creative rights to a non-human natural entity. This is the first known attempt in any jurisdiction to establish the 'moral authorship' of an ecosystem as a co-creator in a work.

While the song itself is hypnotizing and a beautiful offering to Los Cedros³, I wonder how we can make these gestures even more culturally significant. Meaningful shifts toward a shared and ecologically-guided legal system requires acknowledging the roots of what it means to be human in the tangle of today. I have a feeling part of this work will likely involve the wordless ways in which the latger world seeks to communicate with us.

Throughout much of human history, trance and altered states have served as this conduit, connecting us to the world and illuminating our place within it. Anthropological and historical accounts suggest that trance was/is/will always be integral to practices such as shamanic rituals, spiritual ceremonies, and even the formation of legal and social systems. For instance, among the Sámi of Northern Europe, noaidi (shamans/wizards/human guides) enter trance states to mediate disputes, interpret the natural world, and guide communal decisions.⁴ Tyson Yunkaporta’s work often highlights how the cosmic Lore of the Original People, deeply rooted in sensory engagement and often accessed through trance states, influences communal laws that align with the broader needs of the natural world.⁵ As such, altered trance states are not only our tools for survival but also means of accessing deeper wisdom and forging connections with environment.

A Cougar frequents the land we live on. In the tradition of the world’s trackers and hunters, rub your eyes with the heels of your hands and soften your gaze. She might reveal herself to you in this in-between vision.

The sensory interplay in trance and altered states —where sight, sound, touch, and intuition merge—offers a direct way to engage with a world that wishes s to speak with us. These experiences, deeply rooted in sometime forgotten ancestral traditions and somatic experiences, emphasize humanity’s reliance on non-verbal, sensory forms of knowledge.⁶ This reminds us that the path to an ecologically guided legal system does not necessarily reside in our existing rights-based frameworks but most likely in reconnecting with the embodied, sensory wisdom that has guided humans for millennia.

As humans, we frequently slip into trance-like states, often without realizing it—have you ever seen someone lost in scolling through their phone? Yet, in the intact cultures where altered states are embraced as a form of sense-making, law divination and connecting with the natural world, these practices are treated with deep reverence. They require intentional preparation, shared cultural and communal understandings, and profound respect for the insights they reveal.

In this gentle space between years in the Gregorian calendar, when the world seems to dream a little more and think a little less, might we welcome intentional practices of altered states⁷ to reconnect with deeper ways of knowing before stepping into what lies ahead?

1. I gave birth to my second daughter on October 18 under a moon so low and ripe I could pick it out of the sky. Side note: Pregnancy and un-medicated births have been the most profound trance states I’ve ever reached.

2. See Fern, Jessica. Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma, and Consensual Nonmonogamy. Thornapple Press, 2020.

3. This work is composed in collaboration with musician Cosmo Sheldrake, writer Robert Macfarlane, field mycologist Giuliana Furci, and legal scholar César Rodríguez-Garavito. Knowing of and some of the humans behind this, I suspect there were many trance like states induced and moments of reverence during this process.

4. See Joy, Francis, Sámi Shamanism, Fishing Magic and Drum Symbolism (2015). Accessed by https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291338077_Sami_Shamanism_Fishing_Magic_and_Drum_Symbolism.

5. See Yunkaporta, Tyson, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World, HarperOne, 2019.

6. Religious figures who preached the end times were hardly rare in the late Middle Ages, but the Franciscan Friar John of Rupescissa's teachings were unique. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and trance states and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. See McIntosh, Diana. Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010.

The Huni Kui people of the Amazon entered ayahuasca-induced trances to gain ecological and spiritual insights. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_C%C3%B3rdova-Rios.

In Ancient Greece, the Pythia of Delphi delivered prophetic guidance through trance states induced by vapors, shaping governance and law. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Delphic-oracle.

Certain Sufi traditions use rhythmic spinning to achieve spiritual ecstasy and divine connection (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_whirling), while prehistoric European rock art suggests that trance inspired spiritual and hunting rituals. See Räihä, Mikko R. I. "Fragments of the Hunt: A Persistence Hunting Approach to Rock Art." Hunter-Gatherer Research, University of Helsinki.

Jesus and Moses were both said to be in trance states for 40 days before receiving their messages from God. See The Bible. Authorized King James Version. Oxford UP, 1998.
(Exodus 24:18; Matthew 4:1-2).

7. Trance-like states can be accessed through a variety of methods including but defnitely not limited to:

• auditory stimuli such as singing, drumming and chanting

• visual stimuli like watching a fire

• physical movement, such as rhythmic dancing or spinning

• when done mindfully, ingesting certain substances

• exposure to natural elements like taking a hike

• meditation and other forms of introspection

• dream divining or otherwise owrking with your dreamworlds.