Qui Parle

What is resounds. The tolling parades the substance of the cathedral bell, the rustling materializes the dry leaves in the autumn winds, the crackling delineates the hard grains of the hail. The quail and the albatross, the coyotes and the seals, the schooling fish and the great whales, the crocodiles infrasonically and the praying mantises ultra-sonically continue and reverberate the creaking of the branches, the fluttering of the leaves, the bubbling of the creeks, the hissing of the marsh gases, the whirring of the winds, the shifting of the rocks, the grinding of the continental plates.

We communicate what we communicate with the background noise, and we communicate the background noise. We speak in the vibrancy of the land, the oceans, and the skies taken up, condensed, and unfurled in the hollows of our body, then released, and we hear its echo returning with the wind and the sea.

Words go to the heart of things. A marine biologist, speaking of the whales whose songs he has recorded over ten seasons—how his words put us too on intimate terms with them! Thought that has dwelled long and intimately with a painting by Botticelli, a temple in Cambodia, a willow tree in one's backyard finds the right words with which to speak of them.

All day, in our minds, we are saying things, planning things to do, commenting on the success or frustrations in what we are doing, commenting on the traffic, going back over what we did and what happened. Some of it is addressed to someone: we rehearse what we will say to our boss, what we will say to our lover who is upset with us. We rancorously rehearse what we should have said, what we would have liked to say to someone who slighted us. When we are absorbed in conversation with someone, there continues an inner commentary on what they are saying, a rehearsing what we might say about it. But most of it will never be said to anyone. Most of the inner monologue is inane, hackneyed.

But there are moments when the words we utter inwardly are forces. In a surge of excess energies we exclaim, "How strong I am!," "How healthy I am!," "How happy I am!," "How beautiful I am!" These words do not simply report on an inner surge of force; they consecrate it and intensify it. Saying "How happy I am!," we feel still happier. The powerful words strengthen, healthy words invigorate, joyous words enhance, beautiful words glorify; the feeble words weaken, morbid words sicken, sullen words depress, ugly words disfigure.

The utterance "I" presents the speaker and maintains him or her present. "Here I am!"; "I saw, I heard, I did …"; "I say, I tell you …" When he or she utters "I," this word goes back to the heart of the speaker. The speaker impresses it on himself or herself and retains it with all the substance of his or her reality that speaks. The speaker is committed to it, and the next time he or she utters "I," this subsequent "I" corresponds to and answers for the prior one.

To speak is to expose ourselves to being offended, outraged, wounded. Words energize, prod, badger, poke at, harass, agitate, and stupefy our bodies. Abrasive words, stinging words, biting words, cutting words.

Our words touch others. With everything we say to someone, we sense how we affect the listener, trouble him or her, question, distress, probe, anger, support, amuse, console him or her. We see it on his or her face, on the quivers and spasms of his or her skin, on the tightening or recoil of his or her hands. Our words, our responses—not only their content but their tone, their pacing—are moved by the other's vulnerability and distress.

Words heal. Psychoanalysis formulated treatment for which language is the pharmacology and the surgery. The talking cure. The healing energies in language lie not only in their illuminating, informative capabilities but also in their melodic and rhythmic, incantatory and ritual components. There is a healing power in myth and poetry.

A voice uttered...