Artist's Statement
The Power of the Word 

You’ve all heard the Biblical Scripture “In the beginning was the Word.”  Or the aphorism, “The Pen is mightier than the Sword.”  We may even have admonished someone with the maxim:  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” only to have the words come back and haunt us, more stinging than any slap or physical blow.

We know the stories of powerful orators who have comforted a nation in time of war like Winston Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  From the same era another powerful wordmonger, Adolph Hitler, also used images and symbols to bring a country from defeat into believing that it was a dominant Aryan nation.

We know words can be powerful.  But which ones are the most powerful?  How do we choose the right words for the right time?  First clue:  Picture words make the most impact, are the most memorable.  Why?  Because they appeal not only to the right side of the brain, but also to the reptilian brain which is in contact with survival and eternity.  The reptile likes the concrete—something it can see-smell-touch –hear- taste.  The more senses involved in a picture, the more impact.  The more impact, the more memorable, and the better chance of going deeper.

‘A person’s reach must exceed his or her grasp or what’s a metaphor?’ 

Poetry sticks with us, why? It presents pictures which tantalize the forebrain. Picture words which give room for a multitude of meanings, layers of meanings, communication becomes more complex.

Let’s look at a simple example:  I could say Sara is a nice girl.  She’s complicated.  Sometimes sweet , but has an edge to her.

Or I could say Sara is like a briar rose.  That’s a simile—is like.

Or I could go even be more succinct, Sara is a briar rose.  That’s a metaphor.

Cliché’s are usually time worn metaphors or similes--language shortcuts which give us a quick picture we all know the meaning of:  Sharp as a tack.  He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Clueless…..

The relational function of poetry, ‘this is like that’ or ‘this is that’ also engages the midbrain where relationship abilities and emotional attachment is said to reside.  To keep both the midbrain and the neocortex engaged poetry needs to walk the line between cliché (recognized relationships expressed in cliché) and unusual combinations.   The neocortex wants novelty in order to spin off into new realms.  This is why good poetry is so difficult to write and so lasting, memorable, life changing when it succeeds.

According to the author of the Alphabet vs. the Goddess,  it was the usage of the alphabet that became the turning point of the Goddess oriented people’s subordination to the God/Yahweh directed people.  Before the alphabet became widespread, pictographs or hieroglyph’s recorded and communicated meaning.  These were more right brained oriented ways of communicating.  For example:  the hieroglyph of a jackal represented Annubis, a god/guide to the underworld.  It also represents digestion or it could be the picto-metaphor for internally considering an idea -- depending on the placement.  The author states this type of holistic thinking pertained more to the Goddess religions or religions were women were equal to men.  The Yahwistic or God religions used a linear more abstract alphabet which put the reader one more step away from the communication.  With linear thinking came hierarchical listing and the down play of the relational way of seeing thing.  To get the same result as a hieroglyph we have to use many words.

What was interesting, though, about Hebrew was it was almost an intermediary step between hieroglyphs and alphabet.  Ancient Hebrew left out the vowels which allowed the reader to put them in, thus giving a wider or different interpretation every time the text was read.  This allowed the reader to interact with the text in a living way. 

So poetry is our way of returning to a holistic relational way of seeing things. Great poetry communicates to both sides of the brain, giving the left brain something to do:  sequence the words, identify the line of the story.  And the right brain processes the images.  Poetry is multi layered communication.  What is also powerful about poetic speech is that the combination of picture words, layers of rhythm and rhyme, delivered by a great voice induces a trance.  A trance allows more information to be communicated more deeply, bypassing conscious blocks or objections.

To give you an experience of what this feels like, we’re going to look at naming through the lens of the Celtic people.  The Celts were an oral tradition oriented people rather than a written tradition people.  Why?  They loved to tell stories, to be involved in the communal trance that a story induces—especially a vivid tale with rhythmic repetition.  They knew words created what they communicated.  Their teachers knew all about creating a trance that would go past the conscious mind to teach deeper truths.  They practiced with vocal and musical vibration, noting which sounds produced what state they wanted their audience to experience.  They created trance states where they could communicate with the unconscious minds of their audiences. 

We are in varying states of trances as we move throughout the day.  Mostly, we are in the Beta state (14 cycles and up).  When we daydream or trance out we are in the Alpha state (7-14 cycles).  Theta is a very deep slow cycled range (4-7 cycles) which seems to open the door to the universal consciousness and is part of the subconscious.  Delta is total unconsciousness and is reached in sleep.

Milton Erickson, the psychologist, was in an iron lung for a great deal of his childhood, so he experimented with states of consciousness and how to get people to do what he wanted them to do by just using his voice.  Later in life, when he was a therapist, he could hypnotize a skeptical or resistant person by just talking with him or her, telling a story, planting suggestions as he spoke, even as early in a session as the initial handshake. 

The Druids who were the teachers of the ancient Celts were also shamanic spiritual and ethical leaders of their people.  They knew about trance—knew how powerful their methods were so they used oral teaching because they wanted to see how the people they were teaching reacted and what they did with the knowledge. 

They did develop a 20 character alphabet represented by stick-like marks over, under or through a base line.  Each letter or their alphabet had a positions on a hand, so that they could be able to communicate by touching an area, spelling out a message, if they wanted to keep the message secret.  This alphabet called Oghams (pronounced O-gum, or Om) was used also to record spells and was placed on sacred stones or memorial stones.  Each letter of their alphabet had a line of a shamanic poem , created by Amergin the Bard, perhaps around the first century BCE.  Each letter also had a totem animal, color, time of year, stone and tree or plant.   If I were saying a poem, I could also be communicating in a myriad leveled shamanic language, secretly telling about a meeting place and a time of year that would be missed by the uninitiated.  Since the Celts were persecuted by the Romans and later the British, they often used their oral code or a sign language version to outwit their captors.  They also used their poetry as a many leveled teaching device where the listener and the bard where participating in the same trance state.

Now, we get to word power embedded in a name.  Remember Rumpelstiltskin and his demise because the maiden knew his true name?  This fairy tale was based on a Celtic reality.  A Celt was given one name at birth, and another when he or she became of age or was initiated into the Druidic order.  Because each letter of a person’s name told something about the person, the second name was often kept secret.  Knowing it, could give another insight into the bearer’s psychology or powers that you might not want known—especially by an enemy. 

And if each letter of your name was a line of poetry, you then possessed a powerful imagistic many leveled picture of yourself, a mantra which could evoke for you who you really were especially in times of doubt and danger.  Since poems evoke different meanings for each person, the same name poem will be unique to each one.

There is more going on in a good poem than meets the eye, or ear or touch or taste or smell.