In this contemplative field recording beneath a black walnut tree, Sam reflects on the language of the more-than-human world. What if whales aren’t singing—but speaking? What if cedars holding hands and squirrels chittering aren’t just charming scenes, but conversations we’ve forgotten how to hear? Drawing from interspecies communication, wilderness training, Christian kenosis, and Nishitani’s middle way, this episode gently unravels the limits of human speech and invites us into an older, quieter kind of communion. Speech, I suggest, may not begin in words, but in presence, and perhaps in reverence.