If the first casualty of war is truth,
the weapon of choice for its destruction is language.
- Barrett Watten

TRUTH ALWAYS GETS DESTROYED by language - not just in war. Studies show that body talk is more dependable than words. The body knows.

Language is a device of the left brain which tries to explain what the right brain already understands. Knowing sometimes gets lost when translated into words. The left brain doesn't always get it right.

Even the words, "I Love You" - which I think is the most useful sentence in our language and closest to truth - is a lie. I don't believe that You and I are separate. We're Love. Jean-Paul Sartre said,

The other is hell.

When you love someone, you know how he feels. Love opens you to new ways of communicating that require fewer words. The writer's struggle to find the right word is famous, but there are no right words.

Consider the way you communicate with a lover. Or the way a mother communicates with her unborn child. Or the experiments that show how twins communicate with each other. Fewer words. No words (a lover can lie with words, but the loved one will either recognize the lie or spend a lot of energy in denial. Our children instantly know when we lie to them). We don't feel separate from each other in these relationships because the connections are palpable: lovers physically join together as one, the fetus and mom inhabit one body, and twins spend nine months together in close quarters. We feel part of the one.

There is a word for this way of communicating: telepathy. But it's more like empathy. We all know this space; we get to it by loving. It's not a failure to find words. It's the entrance to a new consciousness.

If you love everyone, you will know how everyone feels. If everyone loves you, everyone will know how you feel. It is where we're heading. A lot of cultures we called "primitive" or "pre-literate" are already there.

I'm not saying that the word is dead or that words aren't beautiful (there's a little bit of truth in everything). I think we'll need more words until we feel safe enough to go into the silence together. If we each practice loving everyone, we'll get there.

Until then,
I Love You.

© Sharon Harris, 2007

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, why not sample the rest of the great articles, series, columns and monthly featured articles in PLW online magazine? WE NOW OFFER a 1-month, 3-month or 6-month subscription, or, for less than the price of one single cup of coffee per month, you get great metaphysical - spiritual - new thought articles, celestial guidance and news every single month for an ENTIRE YEAR …or even two! The longer you sign up for, the cheaper it gets! Your contribution to PLW assists us in covering the monthly costs of labor, running our website server, routinely upgrading hardware and software, and it also funds our latest project, Children of the New Earth Online Magazine. Click here for more...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Love activist Sharon Harris has read shelves of books about love by psychologists, medical doctors, philosophers, biologists, poets, gay activists, Wiccans, psychiatrists, cartoonists, historians, criminologists, sex therapists, theologians, naturopaths, sociologists, astrologers, CEO's, chemists, comedians, prostitutes, linguists, new agers, cultural critics, and Andy Warhol! Her first book, Avatar, was released by The Mercury Press in Fall, 2006, and her work has appeared on TV, radio and in newspapers and magazines across Canada. She lives in Toronto and is currently working on an illustrated cultural study of the words, "I love you". Please visit her online home, www.iloveyougalleries.com for hundreds of ILY's.