“Words don’t change their shape, they change their meaning, their function … They don’t have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don’t know, that you’ve never read or heard…you’ve never seen their shape, but you feel … you suspect … they correspond to … an empty space inside you … or in the universe …”
— Marguerite Duras
“I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.”
— Samuel Beckett
I have no words yet still I’m asked to speak. No subject or object tho plenty of objection. Shall I speak of the peace I seek yet find only pieces of? Will whispered words of social grace with no content make you content? What are the right wards that will keep away your loneliness and how shall I utter them? Do you wish communication without communion between us or interlocution when neither of us can find ourselves?
I can offer you my thoughts but don’t know whether you can weather the storm. I burn for understanding yet is it to know or to be known, that is unbeknownst.
I will hold your hands in silence and perhaps that will be enough.
“…Words…altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.”
— Lev Grossman
The right words spoken at the right moment can prevent war or heartbreak. They can bring joy to someone joyless or hope to someone who is in despair. They can be the cause of union and possibly bring insight and an evolution in thought and spirit. On the other hand other words can start war and cause irreparable rifts. They can lose someone their livelihood and end relationships that have lasted years. We can build walls with words that block out the world or smash the walls down. Words are the purest form of magick and possibly the most powerful. If we learn to use our words carefully, we can control what spells we cast and their results.
Blessings, G
“The poet…is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs…the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.”
— Jacques Derrida
Use my words
to find their meaning
play with their tone
to find their truth
concepts, shadowy but obscure
may only come from images
reflected in the mind’s eye
I use my meaning
to find my words
rolling from tongue to song
to ear to hear
what resonates
and is returned
Sense the tense
in words and truth
Release it
and it changes.
— G A Rosenberg
“Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it.”
— Frances Hodgson Burnett
Wordlessly I take your hand
I rub your back after a hard day
I smile and we hug in silence
words get in the way
I touch your heart
as I stroke your skin
I laugh at your expression of delight
We walk in nature
hand in hand
and watch the sunset
and enjoy the gentle breeze.
I feel the pain of the past
as you cry out in your sleep
and I take it away with my touch
we say more with our faces
and our hands than our tongues ever did.
— G A Rosenberg
“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”
~ Patrick Rothfuss
Words like daggers
aimed towards my heart
We war with our tongues and minds
each dying the death of a thousand cuts
tares in the flesh
and tears in the eyes
and it all seems to lose meaning
as the love bleeds out
Words of healing
a balm for the soul
We comfort and seek to mend the pain
each grieving what has been lost through war
wiping the tears
bandaging the tares
we seek to find the meaning
and relight the flame.
— G A Rosenberg
A bit of solo word association. A drug trip for those who use words to see what might spill out. It’s an interesting form of meditation that helps when I don’t know what to write or it feels like my brain is overfull and there is no way of communicating what lies inside.
Blessings, G
“I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.”
— Jack Gilbert
Words are powerful symbols and yet so inadequate. We all throw around words like love and faith and democracy yet we use very different definitions of the words. Yet the internet runs on misunderstandings that abound from people not agreeing on vocabulary. The average argument on FaceBook or any other social media more than adequately backs this up. Yet there are feelings that we have that if there was ever a word for it then it has been lost to antiquity. Words that describe and impart levels of emotional pain and joy that bliss and despair don’t begin to cover. Words that describe unrecoverable lost love and words that speak of what its like to mourn someone who hasn’t physically left but still has vanished forever.
If only we could find a vocabulary of the soul to express these concepts. Maybe at least, we could agree on their definitions.
Blessings, G
“I believe that Magic is Art and Art whether it be music, writing, sculpture or any other, is literally magic. Art, like any magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness… Indeed to cast a spell is simply to manipulate words, to change people’s consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or a writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a Shaman.”
— Alan Moore
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”
— Philip K Dick
Entranced in the spell of your words and art
I came along for the vision
Together we created clouds of wonder
and invited friends to join in
but one can’t live on clouds for long
without the substance to back it up.
Maybe we need to weave the spell again.
Enlivened by the height of the tower
we built upon the sandy beachfront
Together we felt when tragedy struck
and washed it out to sea
For how long can a castle last
without a good foundation
Perhaps we need to build it up again.
Magick can create wondrous things with
word and art combining to make them real
Yet words fail without effort to back them
leaving fading images behind.
I want to build a life with you
together with effort we’ll see it through
We’ll work and create the dream anew.
“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.”
― Philip K. Dick
“There exists, for everyone, a sentence – a series of words – that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you’re lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.”
― Philip K. Dick
It all comes down to words doesn’t it? “In the beginning was the word…”The word is spoken or writ and reality forms around it..Words of power..words of control…and we and the universe manifests the words in form and actions.A picture may be worth a thousand words yet it is the words that come to mind . We move beyond words into silence which is broken by a new word that comes even from the deepest of meditations. What’s the word? What will the word be today?
Say the magic word…I have been sentenced twice according to Dick… and yes one tore me apart and the other healed or came close to it…It’s only words yet they have power…or maybe I am just having one of my spells. If you can discover the words that can destroy or heal before they are used on you than you have a powerful talisman indeed tho there is always the next sentence…
Blessings, G
Dragon Arch by G A Rosenberg 
Lost in a Fractal Perspective by G A Rosenberg 
