Words fail us - "If You Want to Kill Something, Give it a Name"

My son, Mark, and I at the Modern Art Museum in San Fran.  

Words and words and words … If you have stepped into the self-help world, you have stepped into a book eventually.  Perhaps several books.  Perhaps you have read books for years … searching …  each book softening something inside you, perhaps, each book adding a string of “words” that become your motto for a while or come out of your mouth when talking to another, when giving advice…

I used to think these wise string of words, if they came from my mouth, would symbolize something about me.  They didn’t.  I used to think these books held knowledge I needed to know… they don’t. 

The books hold words - someone else’s words. 

Last month my son came to visit.  He is 20 years old.  He and I went down to the Modern Art Museum in San Francisco for the afternoon.  I suggested we listen to the audio from the MOMA App about some of the artwork.  He suggested that first we just experience the art and name what it makes us feel.  Never, (never) say a person is too young or too this or that to hold wisdom…  I don’t remember what the audios said, but I will always remember being in a room of hanging light bulbs with my son asking each other, “What do you feel?” and “Wow, now what do YOU feel?” … and listening and noticing. 

I grew from a childhood that I have little memories of.  Did I live it?  Yes, in a way.  Did I experience it?  Somehow I feel the grief that I did not deeply.  This I can not change and is un-important ... because, (like someone else’s words) it is in the past. 

I remember long ago I was given a task to observe a plant for 5 minutes.  At the time I thought, “that’s easy.”  Actually, I wasn’t observing and experiencing the plant, although I thought I was.  I was listening to a mental dialogue in my head…”look it’s delicate and very dark green.  It has round leaves…”  Did I really experience that plant?  Do I even remember the plant at all?  (chuckle) 

A brilliant man I once knew said “If you want to kill something, give it a name.”  I thought him extreme at the time.  Now I’ve noticed that when I use a word to describe something/someone, I’ve reduced it/them.

Not all words are a reduction.  At times, lovely words will find me. Words can interpret what I am experiencing.  They may help me to see it.   But, honestly, I think these words mostly help my sorely slow Intellect to catch up to my blindingly fast Spirit.  The words just repeat what I already “know” inside. 

We are being asked to slow down.  We are also being asked to pay attention.  Not to someone else’s words, but to our own experience in this moment. 

Life is not on the page of my book.  It’s not in these words I write.  My life is happening in my body, in my breath, in what I feel right now. 

Some times the simplicity of healing is mind-boggling!  (chuckle)