Air: the double magic of words

The gentle airs of early summer reign. Everything is possible, even happiness, the season seems to say. On Rambla del Raval, in the old town of Barcelona, the ferns embrace the change, as purple flowers, waving in the wind, bid farewell to spring. 

While some lament the brevity of life, there is a certain vitality that accompanies transience. Don’t we appreciate things more for having less of them? Even the most beautiful song on the world would become a form of hell if repeated endlessly. It is the ephemeral nature of things that makes them wonderful. And nothing is more ephemeral than shape-shifting air.

Astrology associates June with double natured Hermes, Greek god of communication. Both liar and soothsayer, trickster and prophet, tradition credits Hermes with the invention of language. Those mutable signs tell truth or lies, depending on the speaker. 

Words themselves are empty: hollow draughts of spit encasing air. In Tarot cards, the element of air is defined by swords that cut both ways. Words foster clarity or wreak havoc and self-harm. We should be careful how we use them.

Perhaps the ultimate aim of speech is speechlessness. The Buddha likened words to a raft we use to cross a river. Once on the other side, we abandon the raft, and carry on with our journey. Indic philosophy connects brahman, or ultimate reality, with silence. Hindus maintain that the self, atman, is simply a fragment of brahman. Perhaps the purest region of the self is also a kernel of silence, endlessly still, unsullied by mental chatter.

The Buddhist scepticism of language posed a problem for literary-minded monks in the medieval period. Wasn’t the composition of  poetry a distraction from the Buddhist Way? To solve the problem, Japanese poets such as Kenko and Chomei decided that poetry could facilitate enlightenment. Poems can be meditations in their own right. The disease – language and mental processes – is also the cure. Once again we glimpse the double face of Hermes.

I confess, my own thinking is close to this. Unless there’s a higher purpose, it’s difficult not to think of human culture as inherently absurd, anthropocentric and narcissistic. The idea that poems can serve as meditations alleviates this tension. We read and write to travel to higher planes of consciousness, to harness more compassionate energies.

Writing a poem every morning helps focus the mind. It also connects me to a flow of vital music. The word inspiration comes from the Latin, inspirare, meaning ‘breathe or blow into’. Plato credits mania, or divine possession, as the source of all poetry. Writing poetry is both intensely intellectual and visceral. It is the point where the visceral and the intellectual unite as one. Hermes is a fluttering, evanescent butterfly; a maker of dreams; I build my conscience with his words. 

Tibetans also believe in the transformative, magical properties of words. Hence all the chanting that accompanies the Vajrayana strain of Buddhism. Reality is extraordinarily sensitive. A simple utterance can change the world. Even written words are magical. For this reason Tibetans write out their mantras on prayer flags and hang them in the wind. Bad words, and curses, should be disposed of carefully. 

Prayer flags

I always look forward to writing my morning poems. It is a happy time of day, a time for connecting with Mercurius, the world-creating spirit. 

This morning’s meditation:

The boy who plays a thief, becomes a thief;
The man who copies wise men, wise.
Even deceitful imitation
Is the beginning of becoming. 
We are no greater than the models
We seek to emulate. 
The twists and turns of life
Adjust to what imagination
Dreams the maze should look like.
So every day I wake and tell myself,
Thomas, you must keep on looking
Towards the stars.
A day of vision lost is not a day;
So fling your kite into the sky.
And keep her steady, now and evermore.
The winds that blow your balance off
Don’t last forever.
The trick is to endure.

The idea that we become the things we emulate is by no means original. The darker side of this is walking blindly into roles. “Human existence,” writes Schopenhauer, “resembles a theatre performance which, begun by living actors, is ended by automations dressed in the same costumes.”

Not just words, but all communication, is dangerous. As the world lunges from crisis to crisis, the rhetoric of capitalist economies has never felt more exposed. However, any serious attempts to change the status quo have met with either ridicule or silence from the establishment. The unconscious message is clear: things might be bad, but if you disobey, they’ll only get worse.

Once again I return to Hermes and the double nature of words, part salvation, part damnation. Language is the beginning and the end of intelligence. Buddhist scepticism, although austere, is generally correct. It is beneficial to understand the language-power games that have weaved their secret commands into our lives, if only to work out the roles we actually want to play. Life is too short for sleepwalking. Meditation helps.

So find your kite and fling her in the sky. We are the things we dream. And if we dream of better worlds, then better worlds may come.