posted January 18, 2008 11:22 AM         

This is kind of a mish mosh right now. I don't have a real coherent way of collecting these thoughts into a group...so I thought I'd just scatter them out here and see if anyone can add to them or work with them, or find similar patterns, etc.

From the get go, please understand that although I LOVE a good pun as much as the next person hates them, this is NOT about word games or anagrams or spiraling on LEXIS..well not much anyhow. =)

I'm not saying it COULDN'T be about those things, but I'm just not sure they'd be much help in uncovering what it is that I'm sensing is there to be uncovered.

That said, and standard rules of brainstorming in effect..here is what keeps jumping into my head:

I feel some sort of very primal meaning in the sounds that we use to form our more complex words. There is..a pattern to be found in the way we use them, the roots of our words..not a linguistics sort of thing, but a primal meaning.

Here are the three specific examples I've managed to get a decent grasp of:

1. The letter Z/Striped or Barred things/The Buzzing sound associated with that letter.

We find the striped pattern repeated, and although there are exceptions, the general notion is that Z represents a sort of alternating/striped/zigzagging/barred energy. Zebras, zippers, (X)ylophones (I'll come back to that in a second), Zoos with their traditionally barred cages. Did you know that a Saw-Toothed Waveform, which Zig-Zags back and forth (allowing for the raster scan in old Zenith televisions) makes a buzzing sound, that at low frequencies sounds like a "Z"?

2. The letter X/The Unknown/The Unexpected/Hidden or the eXplosive revelation of that which is hidden or previously unknown. Again...same patterns in the words that start with X or have the EX sound in them..particularly at the beginning. Getting back to xylophone, I even toyed with the notion of the notes being the "Z" stripes, but without the value of each stripe being known..thus X-ylophone. I dunno. Since I'm not necessarily talking about how people formed the words so much as I am talking about how the energy surrounding each idea..might tend us to gravitate toward certain word choices. Maybe?

3. Val, the root of valor and value.

Someone once mentioned to me that there is a very ancient symbiosis between the male and the female roles that goes beyond simple procreation. The notion in its simplest form was that men are here to provide physical service in order that women may preserve spiritual virtue for our race. To DO, then was the ultimate test of a man's VALUE to society. The greater the test, the greater his VALOR. Interestingly enough, in Spanish VAL means "VA AL" meaning "Is going to" giving the impression that Value has something to do with going somewhere or going to some thing or activity. And everything of VALUE, is ultimately produced only because SOMEONE did exactly that..went somewhere to do something. (Pointing to the very HEART of what has VALUE in human society. Doing things.)

Although language may have moved away from intuitive symbol/sound/idea to more logical form/function/fit and we'll find exceptions..still I'd like to explore the possibilities to see if perhaps there aren't ancient ideas hidden in our symbols that can be de-X'd with a little exploring.

So what do you think? Can we learn from the symbols that we use to communicate? IS this some sort of "energy magic" we're performing with language? Can you think of other examples? Can our language be forming itself sometimes while we're not thinking about it, based upon ancient and primal rules of energy/sound/pattern?

posted January 18, 2008 02:20 PM         

B for buhbuhbabies and bottles and breasts and blankies and binkies and bunnies and bonnets and things that are bursting into existence and BEcoming.

And M is a comfort/pleasure sound for Mommies and yummies and moaning (in a pleasurable way)

posted January 18, 2008 03:01 PM         

B: The revealing of something new as part of an ongoing process(?)

Wanna "beta test" that definition for me?

Awesome stuff. And thanks, valcap for the info, I'll give those a look.

posted January 18, 2008 06:54 PM         

like a reBirth

Beta... SECOND birth

Hmmm... a nice mystery

breathe

belly

brother

brimstone B ut, those are "b" "r" sounds ('cept belly, that's another nice one that links to birth and emotion)

what is "rrrrrrrr"

a growl, rrrrough, a warrrrrrning

so a combination sound must be a combination of elemental energy meanings

ya know?

Let me know what you guys discover on that link...

posted January 19, 2008 09:50 AM         

L has such a rolling softness about it~

lullaby, Love, lily, linger, living,
lift, light, luminous, laughter, listen

There's an aspect of L that sings like a melody, almost as if its lingering in the air in pause for us to reach for the soft
beauty in its sound.
But also, if you think on it, L often contains it's contrary possibility as well~

Love/Loathe
Lord/Lucifer
Luck/Loss
Loving/Lone
lively/lazy
lightness/load
little/large
Last/Lose
Lift/Lower

etc...

Almost as if L is an awaiting, open hope.
Perhaps aligned with all the pregnancy
and emptiness of the Void~
a blank canvas;
a white paper of Now
on which it's up to us to
turn our ears
to it's higher freqencies
and harness the beautiful
potential it offers,
while always is the alternate
possibility
if we turn our ears away.

hmmm...
so much to think about.

thank you.

posted January 19, 2008 09:59 AM         

It seems that you are right. If I understood you..there is..a CHOICE to be made with L. There is no ambiguity about it. It can go either way, but L is a fork in the road where that decision is made.

Like Lindaland!

Very AWESOME stuff here! Wow! This is SERIOUSLY good work folks.

Linda would be so proud of us.

posted January 19, 2008 10:18 AM         

Z - Zainu - "love and warfare" - "Attack, defense" - "division" - "related to the sickle"
source: http://members.tripod.com/~davidmyriad/phoenician.alphabet.index.html#section1

Notice the encompassing of the entire spectrum, only accomplished by swinging back and forth between the two opposites. See the Zig-Zag pattern of the reaper's sickle as he walks through the field swinging it back and forth? Notice how the Zebra seems divided or cut into pieces by his stripes? The prisoner by the bars of his cell?

Still reading, good stuff valcap. Thanks.

UPDATE: Another thought, related to the Division, Reaper, Sickle image. What about the relationship between Z (last letter) the Grim Reaper and the fact that our memories of each other are somewhat obliterated by the death and eventual rebirth process. (If you believe in rebirth.) We are...brought closer by our life's experiences, then divided up again by the cross over and rebirth into more self interested youthful pursuits.

Where is this going? What does the symbol Z or L or B or X or any of them MEAN?! (I'm so sure there is an understanding of them that can be attained like the understanding of astrological symbols.)

Can't you almost TASTE it there?

posted January 20, 2008 12:14 AM         

Hello everybody!

Lia, that duality that you've seemed to bring to light about the letter "L" reminded me of "Libra".

There is something I've often thought about that is deeply related to all of this. It has to do with that part of communication that comes before the part of putting it into words. Have you all ever paid attention to that moment? For example, have you ever known what you wanted to say, but just didn't know the word for it at that moment? It just happened to me with my dad today. I knew what I meant, but I couldn't find a word for it in neither english nor spanish. That's a very intense moment. I remember being littler and getting very frustrated when that happened because I felt stupid and ignorant. Sometimes we get so overwhelmed by stereotypes...
Now, I revel in that moment. I try to absorb it as much as I can. It tends to grow on you, too. I find that it helps to filter your speech very well. When you try to absorb that energy of expression before you start to turn it into words, you get a better feel for it and lessen the chance for misinterpretation because you choose your words better.
I don't think it's about the words you choose either. You could be a human dictionary and have a higher chance for choosing the wrong words. On the contrary, I think it has to do more with the current of the moment and who your words are directed towards. There is a manner of communication in which the message may be embedded within the words, but not be overtly understood. Sometimes I wonder. I feel that, when speaking with intense heart, one's words (and even one's looks/body language/etc.) may be "charged" with seeds of messages that often supercede the words themselves. Something that reminds me of this topic comes from the Harry Potter books. The young wizards in the story eventually learn that some "spells" can be cast without speaking a single word.

Well, I just thought I'd add this for now. I'll try to get back to some other ideas I've had about this later.

posted January 21, 2008 10:07 AM         

there's often nothing so difficult
as struggling for voice to
come close to emotions felt inside.
With all our defenses up
to protect us,
we learn mutually to intuitively hone beyond the more apparent layers of language and tone, as well as to penetrate deeply into what we're hearing right before us. For all spoken, there simultaneously
resides a wealth of unspoken
cautiously peeking out, quietly longing to be heard.

Interesting about the Zebra stripes.
I believe you're onto something there.

Do you believe there is signifance in Z
(along with X) being a kind of loner rebel of language? When you hear it,
it seems to ring attention or break it, momentarily. It's like a uniquely stark sound standing off on its own, unable to fluidly blend into the structure of language as other letters/sounds so easily flow.

posted January 22, 2008 07:36 AM         

NosiS,

Same feelings here about the pre-spoken. Also similar ideas about the power of the words once they've left our lips. There is a sort of BIRTH process as the ethereal formless IDEA becomes..real energy in the physical world, capable of initiating physical world activity...isn't there?

The question then becomes, from my perspective, whether or not a word's character becomes understood when the individual symbols are understood? Like interpreting a horoscope? Read each letter like a planet? Maybe letter position is a factor too?

Similarly, once the symbols themselves are understood in this way..couldn't words be spoken that sound like nonsense, but that in fact have their own "energy signature" when spoken?

Lia,

X and Z are rebels aren't they? Z seems very Scorpio in many ways. Look at Zoology's function of revealing species that would otherwise remain hidden from most people's experiences and of sticking up for the "underdogs" of the animal & plant kingdoms: endangered species.

Or the Zipper's very prominent Scorpio location in the crotchal region; it's main function also being to reveal what is hidden.

Seriously, what you said about these letters' inability to "fit in" to the language completely reminded me of something that floated through my brain about the "dirty" words and what they have in common. I noticed that many of the dirty words end in very quick, sharp ending sounds. As though the energy is distinctly and abruptly cut off as part of the FOULNESS of the word? The negativity of it?

(To any cuss word sensitive readers: pardon the intrusion of some censored cuss words.)

s--T f--K b--CH

I don't know if there's anything there or not. But I definitely detect a STOP in the energy in words that end with those hard sounds.

Hopefully we'll decipher some of the meaning of that here through these discussions.

This really is proving to be productive on this end of the conversation.

I suppose we should summarize the ideas we've brought up here pretty soon. Like a whiteboard of the ideas that have been produced so far.

Lots of things to think about, spiral and daydream on here. I'm so glad we're having this chat.

posted February 01, 2008 12:13 PM         

Interestingly enough, however..the EMPHASIS is on the B. I wonder how that plays out with other words?

Also I thought that perhaps the easiest places to look for more clues in actual language would be in older languages like Latin..and in words for natural objects and notions like trees, wind etc..that would also mean understanding the translation of the idea properly too though. Difficult.

For instance, some languages have many words for variations of the same thing. The word would then describe the specific thing (I'd tend to guess so anyhow.)

B - Labor? Some thing or action whose benefit or existence is derived through extraction or expression(to let out)?

Billiards? Banks? Buffets? Blanks? Bullets? Blues? Beautiful?

Wow..I dunno..what do you think?