Words — wor[L]ds
Listen to my voice narration here: Words — wor[L]ds
Words are moving vessels…
…containers…
…moments…
…holding, releasing, morphing…
…moving forward…
…moving backwards…
…and swaying…
…side-to-side.
Words are powerful…
…holding meanings and possibilities…
They open and close…
…drawing us close…
…pulling us in…
…pushing us away…
…shutting us out.
Words empower and fill us up…
…they can be nourishing…
…more often filled with empty calories…
…emptying our souls…
…ringing hollowness.
…leaving us in a swirling void…
…of meaninglessness…
…feeling hollowed out.
Words move and dance…
…paradox and binaries…
…opening…closing..
…lifting…lowering…
…constricting…flooding…
…widening…deepening.
The either-or-ness…
…the in-ness and out-ness…
…that we impose…
…are fictitious ideations…
…as if life operates…
…as a closed membership club.
Life contains and transcends binaries…
Words pull us back into the past…
…the realities and fantasies…
…of what was.
Words conjure up dreams..
…dangling imaginings …
…of what might be.
Filled with optimism…
…pregnant with hope and possibility…
…lovingly holding space open…
…for what is not yet born…
…for what is poised and ripe with promise.
Brooding with pessimism…
…the shadowy memory of disappointment…
…fear, dread and foreboding…
…the hard edges of reality…
…as we perceived it…
…as we anticipate it.
Fixated on a future…not yet here…
…another fiction…
…that suspends…
…and propels us.
Living like caterpillars…
…voracious, hungry, swallowing and consuming…
…relentlessly reaching, searching….
…insatiable.
The caterpillar doesn’t know…
…or fulfill its potential…
…in suspended separation.
Words are consumed and spent…
…compiled…and treasured…
…deified and defiled…
…buried…and lost..
…swept up and swept away…
…unearthed and re-birthed…
…composted and harvested…
…transported and timeless.
Words and their meanings…are meant to move…
…and flow…
…not in staccato stop-and-go…
…or suspended animation…
…or addictive consumption…
…or perpetually cocooned.
Words grasped and held tightly…
…worshipped and embraced…
…evoking and choking emotion…
…rendered frozen and motionless…
…grasped from possibility…
…are ossified…fossilized
…aborted from life.
Words are not the terrain…
…they are living, breathing feelings…
…the moving train-of-thoughts…
…the ideas and notions in mid-flight.
When we hard-brake stop the train
…when we seek and accept hard landings…
…fooled into thinking we’ve arrived…
…at a destination…
…we miss the point…
…our real chance to pause…
…and feel the purpose.
The beating heart doesn’t obsess over…
…finding the perfect beats…
…and then stopping…
…having arrived at its final destination.
The beating heart…
…its beating…
…doesn’t stop…
…or work in fits-and-starts.
The heart that no longer beats…
…arriving at a final stop…
…has arrived at death.
Naming the thing kills it…
…like putting life in a jar with a tight lid…
Words that capture, package and commodify,
…thingify and itify
…defy the essence and meanings…
…that are life-infused…
…and brimming with life.
Embracing the naming lightly…
…a soft embrace…
…a gentle kiss…
…pausing…in motion…
…lighting upon it…still tremulous…
…with a stillness that is…
…the ever-readiness to move.
Like a butterfly perched on a flower…
…wings undulating…
…being present while moving…
…in love with the flower…
…and the dew drops…
…the essence of aliveness…
…pausing and taking flight…
…taking and giving…
…holding and releasing.
The naming of things…
…perhaps fleeting rest stops…
…pausing long enough to…
…absorb, assimilate and transfer.
We convey with words…
…together our conveyance…
…as exchange and play…
…wayfaring vehicles…
…helping us navigate…
…and finding our way.
Words convey…
…they can trick, trap and con…
…or enrich and soften…
…as they bring us along…
…accompanying our journey…
…a voyage that is long.
Words can enfold us…
…in our longing…
…yet…our belonging…
…doesn’t reside in the words.
Words offer choices…
…as we craft…shape…
…hear and share them.
Words suggest pathways and possibilities…
…when we sense and feel them
…when we live and move with them.
Words can become deadened…
…immovable and monumental…
…dead weight…
…when we flash-freeze them…
…as immortalized…
…frozen thoughts-in-time.
Words are messy…
…imperfect and unfinished…
…fleeting, tumbling and spilling over…
…sloshing around…
…with ideas, feelings and formulations.
Words are containers…
…they’re also contained…
…transported, transporting and teleporting…
…across time and space.
Words are transport systems…
…moving containers…
…circulating contents…
…from past to present…
…and present to past…
Words are energizing…
…currents of energy…
…with present-centred readiness…
…to move forward…
Shifting our perceptual fields…
…from nowness to becomingness…
…at the nexuses…
…and betweenness…
…for what’s forming…
…and taking shape…
… and whatever might come next…
Words have no fixed address…
…nomadic and Indigenous…
…to everywhere…
…and every place…
…and everyone.
Afternote: Reflecting on wor[L]ds…
Words matter. What underlies our words might mean the world to us…
When our wor[l]ds are wor[l]ds apart…incoherent…
…how in our worlds can words be deeply heard? How are we moved and moving?
How might we cohere — grow together, here and now — in coherence?
