A brief introduction to my thoughts on language.
Language is the "map" we have created over millennia to make sense of our surrounding world. It is the raw experience, disciplined. Just as our environment is constantly changing, our language evolves and adapts to continue to guide us. This is evident to any 10th grader reading Hamlet, or anyone who remembers when "neato!" was an acceptable affirmation.
Every individual, and every culture (from the super localized, to the global) creates a story (using language) to make meaning of our experiences. We have hundreds of stories; some we use in certain situations, and others in other situations; some we use all of the time, to the point that we aren't even aware of them being stories, and others we only use occasionally. Our individual lives, our social values, spiritual beliefs, and healing modalities cannot be separated from each other because they comprise that whole Self-identifying story. Think of identity as a fabric woven in a thread of your particular language. The thread being composed, in turn of each smaller thread of beliefs, values, history, etc. twisted around each other.
When we learn a new language (and I mean, really learn a language- not just from a book, but in its own context and from it's native speakers), we not only enter into the stories told in that language, we also engage in a process or writing a new story. We bring our own values, beliefs, fears, histories= STORIES- into the picture: a "mezcla," if you will (I don't know the Hindi word, yet). In his book, Narrative Medicine, Lewis Mehl-Madrona discusses the implications of 20th century quantum physicist, David Bohm's theory of "implicate order," and states,
(Hindi HW, Day 1)
(Hindi Textbook, and flashcards, Day 2)
So to even think that I could set up these discrete boundaries on this blog to separate my posts on "language," from my posts on, "community," from my posts on "healing," is glaring at me straight in my eyes like the monkeys on the street threatening and menacing. But more than that it's a challenge. Academia, the Western epistemology (or story) thrives on and demands categorized information and despises overlap- at least traditionally. Interdisciplinary is coming up and coming into it's own- slowly, but steadily.
Mehl-Madrona writes, "We will never be able to experience what ancient healing practices were really like. We are all stuck in our modernity with our prejudices, our romanticism about the past, our preferences about what we would like to believe and our skepticism and doubt that we have learned from Western society." There is something to be said for purity, as it were- keeping the traditions in tact- fencing off "untouched" communities, and keeping sacred what has always been, but we also live in this reality of globalization, and unescapable connectivity (whether it is "good," or "bad," is almost irrelevant, and the answer will be different based upon the perspective you take,) and perhaps a "mezcla" is precisely was is needed in our global community.
So then what am I to make of my experiences here? I was told once, by a professor from Orissa, India, who teaches dance and literature at my college, "When you've spent a week in India, you can write a book about it; when you've spent a month there, you can write an article; and after a year, you can say nothing."
I will do my best to continually reinforce the neural network connecting English and Hindi, somatic and intellectual knowledge, and my individual experiences to my broader community. Thank you, dhnyavaad and hugs to all of you who support me!
Language is the "map" we have created over millennia to make sense of our surrounding world. It is the raw experience, disciplined. Just as our environment is constantly changing, our language evolves and adapts to continue to guide us. This is evident to any 10th grader reading Hamlet, or anyone who remembers when "neato!" was an acceptable affirmation.
Every individual, and every culture (from the super localized, to the global) creates a story (using language) to make meaning of our experiences. We have hundreds of stories; some we use in certain situations, and others in other situations; some we use all of the time, to the point that we aren't even aware of them being stories, and others we only use occasionally. Our individual lives, our social values, spiritual beliefs, and healing modalities cannot be separated from each other because they comprise that whole Self-identifying story. Think of identity as a fabric woven in a thread of your particular language. The thread being composed, in turn of each smaller thread of beliefs, values, history, etc. twisted around each other.
When we learn a new language (and I mean, really learn a language- not just from a book, but in its own context and from it's native speakers), we not only enter into the stories told in that language, we also engage in a process or writing a new story. We bring our own values, beliefs, fears, histories= STORIES- into the picture: a "mezcla," if you will (I don't know the Hindi word, yet). In his book, Narrative Medicine, Lewis Mehl-Madrona discusses the implications of 20th century quantum physicist, David Bohm's theory of "implicate order," and states,
"each individual consciousness unfolds the universe for itself... any high level of consciousness is a social process... [that depends] on language, which is social. The word, which is outside of the individual, evokes the meaning that is inside each person."
"Some of our maps have left out the roads to more desirable places than those we may have imagined." -from Narrative Medicine
So to even think that I could set up these discrete boundaries on this blog to separate my posts on "language," from my posts on, "community," from my posts on "healing," is glaring at me straight in my eyes like the monkeys on the street threatening and menacing. But more than that it's a challenge. Academia, the Western epistemology (or story) thrives on and demands categorized information and despises overlap- at least traditionally. Interdisciplinary is coming up and coming into it's own- slowly, but steadily.
Mehl-Madrona writes, "We will never be able to experience what ancient healing practices were really like. We are all stuck in our modernity with our prejudices, our romanticism about the past, our preferences about what we would like to believe and our skepticism and doubt that we have learned from Western society." There is something to be said for purity, as it were- keeping the traditions in tact- fencing off "untouched" communities, and keeping sacred what has always been, but we also live in this reality of globalization, and unescapable connectivity (whether it is "good," or "bad," is almost irrelevant, and the answer will be different based upon the perspective you take,) and perhaps a "mezcla" is precisely was is needed in our global community.
So then what am I to make of my experiences here? I was told once, by a professor from Orissa, India, who teaches dance and literature at my college, "When you've spent a week in India, you can write a book about it; when you've spent a month there, you can write an article; and after a year, you can say nothing."
I will do my best to continually reinforce the neural network connecting English and Hindi, somatic and intellectual knowledge, and my individual experiences to my broader community. Thank you, dhnyavaad and hugs to all of you who support me!
No comments:
Post a Comment