“Speak as if the Coconut Might Fall”

I am standing in the middle of my parents river in Grenada, my feet in the water.
Somewhere under the surface, there might be snakes.
Bugs hover in the air.
The clouds are gathering, it could rain any minute, and I will need to find shelter fast.

This is what nature does. It sharpens the senses. It keeps you here, now. It makes you listen to the world around you, every ripple, every rustle.

I remember feeling this in the Caribbean.
Sitting beneath a coconut tree, aware that a coconut or a breadfruit could drop without warning. Hearing the scratch of lizards in the leaves. Watching the shadow of a crayfish shift in the shallow water. That heightened sense of aliveness was not fear that froze me, but awareness that expanded me. My whole body was listening.

In the city, we lose this kind of listening. We think we have control. We plan, schedule, and push, shoulders tight and stomachs clenched, as if everything depends on us gripping the wheel harder. Our voices often live here too, tight, cautious, shaped more by control than by presence.

But the voice is a living thing. It belongs to the body, and the body belongs to nature. And nature works best with a healthy sense of fear, not panic, but alertness. The kind of fear that makes you notice the cool water on your skin, the way your breath deepens when you are watchful, the pulse in your chest when you are fully alive.

When we bring this kind of alertness into our voice, something shifts.
We stop forcing sound.
We start allowing sound, sound that feels rooted, resonant, and awake.
It might feel unfamiliar at first, even risky. But the reward is rich resonance that travels through the body, softening the grip of control and letting expression flow.

The voice grows stronger when we approach it the way we approach nature, with respect, with openness, and with the willingness to step into the unknown.

So, here is the invitation:
Put your feet in the water.
Sit under the coconut tree.
Let the rain or the breadfruit come.
And speak from that place.

The safest route is rarely the most alive one. We build routines and guardrails to avoid surprise, and in doing so, we also avoid the pulse that makes our work matter. A healthy sense of fear is not about danger, it is about attention. It tells us we are on an edge worth walking. The voice is the same, if there is no tremble, no quickening, then we are not saying anything worth hearing. The magic does not come from control, it comes from showing up ready for the coconut to fall, and speaking anyway.

Randolph