The Language of One

Hi everyone,

The cartoon I’m sharing today was something I made a year ago while trying to remember the sensation of being new on this planet.

Like most people, I'm not able to access any concrete memories from very early on. Still I'm able to connect with a felt memory. The time before words. The time before definitions. Before learning patterns of function.

What I recall, or believe I recall, is that I experienced myself as part of energy. It was a peacefully vibrant and living flow. I existed in, as part of and with that energy, I interacted with it, and it was a language.

That language was still with me as I learned to recognize words of the language spoken around me. But over time it weakened.

For example, experiencing a bird through the language of energy, where there's no clear definition of the bird as a bird, or oneself as a defined Self, is wisdom beyond all the words and functions we come to learn and that gradually separates us from that first language. Little by little, we stop listening until we no longer trust in it as something real. Because it's not concrete. It's something else. Fluid. It requires being open to possibilities and to move in space of uncertainty.

I'm trying to imagine how language and other learned patterns (function, relationship, etc) play into our tendency to objectify “the other”.

A bird becomes a “bird”. The bird is separate from me. The bird is different from me. The bird doesn't understand my words. The bird is not as intelligent as I am. The bird can't reason. The bird is just a dumb bird. The bird can be deprived of its freedom and caged. The bird can be deprived of its life for my benefit and enjoyment.

I can have other people cage the bird and kill it in some other place. That way I don't have to face myself and the ancient wisdom that lives within me. Doing it this way allows me the freedom to eat as many birds as I want purely for my own enjoyment.

Based on personal experience, I believe it’s impossible to participate in the harming of others without importing that harm into the fabric of our own unique beings. In essence, the violence connected to the choices we make is violence we also commit against ourselves. It's easy to miss it in the midst of our complex personal lives. It mingles with other internal baggage we haven't been able to sort through and move on from.

We live in a world built on the intentional and calculated suffering of “the other”, of systematic killing in exchange for pleasure and convenience. That “other” may be humans, animals, or bodies of water and forests. This is our reality. It seems it's do or die. It's easy to feel as if there's no choice. We either go with it or we're out.

But we are so much bigger than this often absurd illusion of reality that we've come to accept as inevitable, “like it or not”.

We are so much bigger than bringing our own cloth bags to the grocery store - only to fold in the next minute and say that what we do on an individual level doesn't matter.

If nothing else, assuming that we are valuable to our individual selves, it does matter what we do and how we do it. It's not about being or trying to become perfect, but to find the doors out of the box and try out what it feels like to engage with life as if life matters.

What does it feel like to give equal consideration to the lives and well being of others?

What does it feel like to recognize a desire for something and letting it go?

For the past few years I've made an intentional effort to reconnect with what I see as the language of origin. After years of pushing it aside and ignoring it I'm now allowing it a voice. I am listening. It is guiding me to be more mindful and to make choices that are inclusive of myself as part of a larger self. It's a bit like leaving a prison behind and slowly become increasingly free. It's a journey of healing.

Each imperfect and wobbly step leading away from old outdated patterns, both personal and societal, while forming new ground under our feet and in our beings...

Thanks for reading!

- Mia