Language is Holy

Recently I made a post in the Quotes about Writing room on Diving Deeper,  where I posted a couple of excerpts from a wonderful article "Why I Have to Write"
By Zen monk Zoketsu Norman Fischer.

I love this piece so much I thought I'd share it here.

The summary given of the article is: "Aren’t words and concepts the antithesis of enlightenment? In an essay published in the March 2007 issue of Shambhala Sun, Norman wonders why he is compelled to write, and concludes that all language is a form of prayer."

Norman Fischer was trying to see if there was a connection between meditation and writing - two activities he is deeply involved with. He writes:

"I remember Jackson MacLow, the great avant-garde poet, saying, "I am chary (I particularly remember his use of this word) about mentioning these two in the same breath. They exist in different worlds. Writing is effective and public; meditation is private." Something like that.

But, one could argue, MacLow's writing was utterly private. He worked with chance operations and cut-up words, so that there was no intention or conventional communication in his work. He was never trying to say or describe anything. Still, he published copiously. Why?"

But is writing so different? In Diving Deeper - in the online workshop here on Gaia and in the 'real life' workshops I give, I often say that the process is a kind of meditation - and that why I am so attracted to the particular process of Freefall, out of which most of my writing comes, is because of its similarities with spiritual approaches I have been involved with.

Norman discusses something a little different in his article - but it still feels deeply connected to how I feel about writing:

“…if you are a writer, you write. But here's the strange part: you write for the writing, you write alone and in silence, and you don't know if it does anyone any good-yet somehow you need a reader. This shouldn't be the case, but it is. Until there is a reader, some reader, any reader, the writing is incomplete. This is not true, for instance, with meditation practice or, say, with working out. You can run or bike or sit watching the breath without anyone ever witnessing it. It makes no difference whether someone witnesses or not. Because nothing comes of your running or sitting; there's nothing to share. But when you write you produce something that can be shared and somehow must be. You can't write without being read. This doesn't have to do with ambition or desire; it is built into the nature of writing..

….Years ago I went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and did what all tourists there do: wrote some words on a scrap of paper that I tucked into a crevice in the wall. When I closed my eyes and touched my head to the warm stone, it came to me: “All language is prayer.” This must be so. Who is it we are speaking to when we speak to anyone? To that person, and also past him or her to Out There. If there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, being loved. And reaching out to be heard, met, or loved is a holy act. Language is holy.”

What he says seems also connected to what we are doing here, on Gaia.

"..if there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, and being loved."