Day 7: Etymology

A phrase kept ringing in my head for the last couple of days: "And then she invented the word, "Open". I was thinking what the world must have been like before this word arrived on someone's lips. I think of how in Mecca's world, things must still belong to oneness. Things must still bleed into each other. Then, one day, we point to something and say, "apple". And the apple becomes separate from everything else---becomes an object in her consciousness. Then, the illusion begins.

I thought of how language fortifies the illusion that we are separate (you--me) but keeps us together as well. I used to be more in tune with Mecca's mind. I used to know what she needed, almost instantly. Now, there's this gap that separates us. Maybe it started when she realized that I wasn't one of her limbs. Now we both get frustrated with this disconnection. We need language to connect us again. Things are happening naturally this way. Otherwise, if we were psychically connected all the time, why bother speaking?

This brings me to the word, "Open". What was it like when there was no word for this concept/feeling/thing ? When I painted today I wrote down the phrase--with a little change:

and
then
on a particularly gray day,
she invented the word,
OPEN
(and it was a good word)


Maybe this word wasn't invented to describe a concept. Maybe it was a command. A spell.