language of transition
fellow questers…
in my last essay… symbolic expression over words… i touched on how i ask questers to use materials around them to symbolize concepts we discuss… on my latest ‘wild self’ quest walk with nicole doherty… she grabbed leaves and arranged them into the shape of barbed wire… to symbolize what?… threshold..
in her cat pose, nicole doherty, hovers over her symbolic expression… yes.. we do have fun on quest walks..
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remember… threshold is the part of our journey where we cross from the known world… world of the societal self… to the unknown world… the ‘wild self’…
sometimes… crossing the threshold is the hardest part of the journey… at least on the front end of the journey… on the back end… it’s returning back to the ‘normal’ world after you’ve completed your spiritual trek…
crossing the threshold comes in many shapes and forms… with nicole… we explored how everyday language can act as a potential threshold…
most everyday language suggests life as permanence… what do you do? where do you live? who are you with?… if you don’t have a clear answer to these questions… you feel awkward.. you think something is wrong with you… when you do answer these questions… you feel the internal lie within… it’s not me…. you tell to yourself…
to our detriment… our mind convinces us that we are the only person encountering communication blockage with the outside world… especially if we are around a group of people knee-deep in social identity… their language makes life appear so clean and tidy… i do this… i do that.. i live here… i’m going there… it’s almost mind-numbing… like a powerpoint presentation without end…
if you are listening to your ‘wild self’… you know life is transition… migration… movement… shifting… adapting… adjusting…. about feeling alive…
the language of journey resonates with questers… it’s a language for seekers… longing for dimensions beyond cultural categorization of self…
on ‘wild-self’ quests… questers learn the language of journey… a language that accounts for nuance… for flux… so when in the commerce of human exchange… questers not only embrace their journey…. they communicate the journey to others and in their communication… their confidence builds to cross over thresholds…
alive,
gino
quester question:
have you examined how language might keep you from living out your journey?
quester tip:
first… view language as metaphorical… and second… understand how we live by metaphors… third… not only live by… but how our notion of self is conditioned by the metaphors we use… how you see yourself… and others… can be tracked back to the metaphorical communities your psyche and body occupy…
if you’re interested in this topic… check out george lakoff’s metaphors we live by… excellent insight into the relationship between language and being… when i taught university classes in rhetoric and communication… this was always a required reading… students enjoyed it…
from → consciousness, expression, journey, quests
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nicoledoherty

