i think that the forced evolution of language
is how we’re going to work our way back
into taking care of our planet
~ Terence McKenna
i’m sure by now you’ve probably heard the phrase: “languages are lenses through which we see the world”
yes, absolutely…and way more than that.
multilingual people will even tell you that their personality is linked to a language, so being multilingual comes also with having multiple personality disorder superpowers
my favourite movie about languages is arrival, as i was watching it, i was reminded of the philosopher and wordsmith Terence McKenna and how the bard predicted the plot of this movie at one if his lectures from well over 30 years ago when pondering the thought of an alien encounter,in his hypnotic tone of speech:
”the first alien encounter will probably be a language lesson”
well…no shit
this movie also greatly boosted my thinking about retrocausality and the uncovering of our timelessness, but i’ll save that for another day. the point here is that, as Amy Adams’ character begins to learn another language; which happens to be an alien one, she also begins to learn a new way of being in the world
in my view, the relation between being in the world and language goes much deeper and it’s usually overlooked, but let’s start from the beginning…
in the beginning was the word…and the word was made flesh
~ gospel of john
no. not that beginning…
(human) culture = humans + land
culture1 can be defined as knowledge passed through generations on how to live in place (land, ocean, etc). the differences in cultures and ways of being of an inuit tribe compared to the ones of an amazon native tribe are due to the environment (duh!). it’s the different relations - better yet- dialogues and conversations with the ecosystem that shape the political economy, governance, resources, and technical stack of their respective cultures into a particular and unique form
within the tech stack of culture is where we include language. as the highest expression of it, deriving from the relation
human + land
language is our thing, like spiders weaves spider-webs and birds build nests, we humans do language. it's how we mediate and share ideas by conversing with the land in its broader sense: as territory and ecology of a bioregion where the land and the kin2 are constantly whispering and showing us their ways of living in place. the deeper we relate to territory, the deeper the vocabulary evolves. and as the culture evolves, so does the land itself, in a cycle
the land speaks
her language is our language
her patterns give form to life and meaning
echoing her splendor
but as we’ve become “modern civilized peoples” our language began to reflect other patterns such as our desires for technology, power and fear over others with wars and borders so that in very little time, land and nature became just resources for us to fulfill these desires
it’s only very recently that humans have been disconnected from the larger environment, like the place where our food and water comes from which has disrupted our capacity to think, to grow and to deepen connections, human as well as neuronal, further disconnecting us from the natural ecosystem and ourselves
we forgot that our way of being is part and parcel of nature and not the other way around. that our words, our stories, prayers and even our dreams are all expressions and reflections of the patterns of the whole, and they close back the land & language cycle i was describing above
language is an incantation,
whether we realize it or not
you ask any anthropologist and they’ll tell you that the main difference between a human and any other animal is language and our ability to transmit symbols, this is our thing. and even though there’s no clear date on how old human language really is, we can be certain that language did not begin with words, but with sounds
the word incantation or enchantment has chant in the middle, which means “a singing of” or “to sing into”
we’re the ceremonial animal
we’re the bridge
by calling the names of the animate forces
by invoking newen ~ the breath of life
in resonance
we sang our place to life
so what did peoples of 30,000 years ago sang or talked about,
if not the interior of things?
what if over time we forgot that the word is the costume of what is inside, that the word is a veil that conceals the essence of a being; and that we’re not supposed to invoke them lightly.
what if, as we grew to know that the word moon is not the moon
we forgot that we had names for her, given to us by other forces; and that when we spoke her name, we invoked her light
we knew that to speak is to adopt a high assignment, an attempt to be a bridge between truth and being. that the word is an invocation of the anima, a calling through the sounds between us and what’s ultimately intangible
language is an organism. a weightless, discontinous organism that lives in the minds and bodies of those through whom it is able to speak
~ Robert Bringhurst,
”the tree of meaning”
let’s take the word “rose” or kalkáy3
you say it out loud and it will resonate in your skull
you read it as letters, and a quiet voice (probably not mine) whispering in your head will also resonate within you
now an essence of the image of rose, as you hold it in your consciousness, through your experiences, touches your mind.
to invoke is to connect with that essence, and this is where things get murky, as it doesn’t matter what we mean, what our dictionaries say, nor our intention; but the vibration
~ that’s the real deal
not the ones sharing the same language,
but the ones sharing the same feeling,
understand each other
~ Rumi
if you’ve ever wondered how ancient myths were able to pass through millennia; it’s through the vibratory aspect of them.
myths, stories and names told out loud carry the original vibration and feeling that was being originally conveyed.
texts don’t carry any of this, especially not the imported and mistranslated ones
so with their yarns, the weavers reveal the fabric of life
old word, new tongue
kuyfike hemvl, we kewvh
languages are like women,
they’re to be seduced with care, respect and patience
~ Nicanor Parra
the modern west claims to have found the treasures of indigenous cultures in their medicines, artifacts and practices. i’d argue that their most valuable treasure is not hidden at all, but accessible through conversation ~ in their world-views and their living4 languages
as languages take several thousands of years to be perfected by peoples from a place, through the process of conversation and gathering of knowledge between peoples and their ecosystems, these old languages themselves are doorways to an ancient past.
the extinction of languages is one of the great losses of our times and this loss of interior worlds mirrors the loss of our exterior world, reflected in the loss of species and biodiversity
the language i’m currently learning, the mapuzugun, was in fact considered endangered at some point, although it's not anymore. mapuzugun (mahpoo-doon-goon) translates as speech of the land, and perhaps that’s precisely what it is, the vibratory onomatopoeia of the land
the more i learn about mapuzugun and other autochthonous languages, then the more i see how languages do sprout from the land as the codifying of nature's signs
a language of place perfected over millennia which conveys nature’s signs and shapes the social metabolism according to the principles of right relation and reciprocity with an ecosystem in such an intricate way that makes it inconceivable to even think about trashing, disrespecting, extracting or plundering the land; but on the contrary, developing such deep
human + land relation; where there’s no hesitation to give one’s life to defend her, as one would if our mother is being harmed and mutilated
nobody damages my land, nobody violates her,
that’s why i will never get tired of fighting
~ Nicolasa KIMXEMVN yem5
mapuzugun is an agglutinative language, complex but with clear and intricate rules. it does not posses abstract concepts nor synonims. nobody will say for sure how old it is6, but when compared to english which is around 1200+ years coming from old english7; it’s quite mind boggling to realize how “new” english is
in mapuzugun, the closest word for nature would be the ixofijmogen; (pronounced eetro-phil-mong-nien) which is composed of three words combined. some translate it as totality without exclusion, others as biodiversity but i personally call it the “web of life”. it’s important to note that whichever translation is chosen, all of them include our own life
this is because when speaking a language based in relationality and interbeing comes the understanding that the body of the individual extends beyond the edges of the skin to the outer landscape and ecosystem in which is embedded. it cements the knowing of the interdependence between all elements and living beings from which we learn values, ways of doing, connecting, communicating and building. this is knowledge in relation that over a period of time comes to be known as language and culture
the way you design the world in your mind is the way you relate to it in the real world
when you design it as dead matter, just to be exploited you will exploit it
when you design it without any understanding of limits you will violate the planetary limits
when you design it with deep recognition of interconnectedness
you will nurture those relationships
~ Vandana Shiva
language unfortunately is also one of the main tools for colonizers to do their deeds. colonization is the breaking of a core human value: to take what doesn’t belong to you, and it’s like a virus that has been going loose for a couple of thousand years already
i call it: the coloniavirus
for some, is an invisible disease that’s making them sick;
for others, it’s the perfect prison: one that they don’t even know they’re in
by and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth
~ George Carlin
in the past, until this day, certain acts of colonization against groups of people are done by using language to strip these groups of peoples of their humanity, either calling them sub-humans “untermensch” or by putting humans in zoos and calling it “ethnological expositions”. there are uncountable similar examples like those that i won’t go into in order to stay on-topic, but one of the very first we must do is realize we live in a world where colonization is still ongoing by neo-colonial means and systems of oppression that have now extended beyond the land into the mining and control of attention, minds and bodies, for profit
one doesn't have to operate with great malice to do great harm. the absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient
~ Charles M. Blow
this is why i’m inclined to believe that it’s of the utmost importance to recover knowledge in relation, to re-unite ourselves with human and more than human life by re-pairing our relation with the environment and re-enact our highest form of being, remember our true values and our humanity
to become fully human, to speak truthfully, mindfully and impeccably to reflect accordingly nature’s signs, whether we’re a settler immigrant or native, to “become naturalized” as author Robin Wall Kimmerer said in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, we ought to re-connect with indigenous ways of being in land and appreciate them, not appropriate them
to be embodied & embedded
to speak in the land
like the ones before us
because words have an interior. a being with intention whose destiny lies in the heart of the listener. that’s why we ought to accurately convey the interior aspect of words. for tender words to land softly on the heart and for the sharp sword of prajna to cut through and slice minds with courage and skill
words have power
names have powers
they transform
they feed energy
we understand emotion
we amplify the process
back and forth
in resonance
to grow a new tongue
first, we must accurately locate ourselves in the world:
as water will take the shape of the vessel, so will the mind.
wisdom and knowingness will form behind the right perspective,
~ the perspective of WHAT we identify as ~ which in turn determines the focus of attention; to accurately locate ourselves means to identify the self as nature and the body as landscape (place & ecology) - only then, by releasing the idea that nature is outside, then the mind begins to tune to the right frequency and the self can become a mouthpiece for that level of wisdom
~ to accordingly reflect the ethos of nature
the wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself
~ Leonardo da Vinci
davinci as a lover of nature spilled deep truth in his quote, but we must take it a step further so that the “itself” part doesn’t perpetuate the story of separation, acknowledging that the body is also as wise and noble, for it contains all of nature’s qualities
꩜ nature does not lie ~ the body does not lie
the self, which is permeable and inseparable from the larger organism is a unique expression of the natural world, it’s informed through sensing and comprehension and expresses it’s beingness through movement, speech, dance, play and song as it becomes and reveals in the world
this is verbing: from human being to being human,
an expression of a larger being called earth
now, i talked a lot about “nature” back there, but actually, nature is a word that i’m not very fond of, and i’ll explain why
i believe it’s the misuse of language what has partly got us into this mess. through the creation and use of concepts such as nature and climate, that are too large, too abstract and unspecific for us to relate to. we’ve installed a malware in our minds that has created a gap, prompting the disconnection between ourselves and our actions toward our own planet.
there is no human subject in nature as background, that’s a tainted view, an illusion that’s been perpetuated by fear and control
to grow a new tongue is to make the switch to evolve our language and identify its edges. this growth is a reclamation of a true form of being. as growth is neither pretty nor clean, with a greater understanding of language and reality, the releasing of old ideas can even create distress
a language possesses utility only insofar as it can construct conventional boundaries. a language of no boundaries is no language at all, and thus the mystic who tries to speak logically and formally of unity consciousness is doomed to sound very paradoxical or contradictory. the problem is that the structure of any language cannot grasp the nature of unity consciousness, any more than a fork could grasp the ocean
~ Ken Wilber, “no boundary”
in short, when a word encompasses everything, it becomes meaningless; as Ken Wilber explained, the use of words like nature, mind, environment and climate will inevitably come at the cost of sounding metaphorical, paradoxical and contradictory.
as we evolve our world-view and the boundary of subject/object/verb blurs so that everything attains these “both/and” “inside and out” nuances we might feel odd when using these words in an effort to convey unitive aspects of reality. as experience acquires feelings of unity, the language falls and this is why we make poetry (by the way) - to test these edges of language
all is mind, the light that roars
all is waveforms, awareness that resounds
all is music, all in vibration
divine pulsation
forever going reverberation
to get all various manifestation
weaving the strands of the web of creation
i do encourage to try to describe the indescribable, effing the ineffable, speak the unspeakable and explore the living mystery for the development of our own articulation, but to replace these descriptions by uttering words such as “g0d” or “non-duality” then we’ve stopped describing, instead, we’re just labelling and we ought to know when it’s wise not to label
language is a net which will never succeed
in capturing the world
~ Alan Watts
this new tongue does not make reckless use of names and labels that don’t convey our true intention in the mind of the listener, as the listener’s mind will bring its own charge when exposed to the vibration of these labels, and thus possibly further fuelling bad ideas
languaging is human tunning
language as a powerful psychotechnology, is also a malleable tool. as we shape it, it shapes us back; because to speak is to transform and be transformed, as our speech declares the shape of our existence - its energy will bring out the fire of creation - this fire transmutes and weaves forms into the fabric of our beings and our worlds. so it is our choice to bring this fire of creation to re-create ourselves; mindlessly in dissonance or mindfully in orderly harmonious tones
a mindful use of language is done by focusing on resonance and tones, on verbing, and on the duality of things. puns and double innuendos add fun and levity which can be useful to hold paradoxes by lessening the subject/object hardwired perspective.
when we practice these, we tune our resonance, our speech becomes a meditation and over time we notice that we start to appreciate more and more the way our voice sounds
reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it,
not just keep yelling
~ Anne Carson
we’re growing a new tongue here,
an evolved language
a living one
spoken by one in knowing
so how about we quit uttering names given by others?
and instead, we inquire
what is your name?
how do i know you?
how am i to perceive you?
and in our limited sense,
what language can we communicate on?
i know words do not come from myself
i catch them from the river of life
the great river of words that flows everywhere
moving energy that glistens through the landas word became stories of light mountains
walking trees and rainbow serpents
we forgot that it was flesh
but wait said the fractal being
i’ve kept it in my heart still, all fresh
i am the word as the word is me
from now and ever
that which has always been
even when i did not speak
my vibration speared
deep within the imaginal realms
laid on land unraveled cleared
i fed the spirits with joy in return
loudly cheering
to the tune of what i become
animals have culture too, but for this, i’ll refer to the human ones only
the rooted, the smalls, the swimming, the crawlers, the winged, the two-legged and four-legged…and i probably missed a whole bunch
like the Squamish peoples (from the place i live on) call it
a living language is one that is able to evolve and create neologisms (new words). mapuzungun has that capability: for example, there is a word for phones: mvxvm-we (pronounced muh-truhm-we) and it literally means “call-object”. not even Spanish could do that, as they could only took it from the greek : tele-fonos (distance-sound)
could be 12,000 or well over 17,000 years by some scholars