Last month we practiced listening to the soundscape of our place, not only the sounds from people, but also the whistling wind, the trickling water, the birds singing, and the sounds of machinery. This week, we’ll consider how we communicate with others, especially the non-human beings who share our place.
Language is often tied to a place and reflects its culture. As the culture changes, the language changes too. We humans communicate with each other mainly through language, but also through touch and taste, smells, and gestures. These are different forms of language.
In her book, Dwellings, Linda Hogan writes that these other ways of communicating often get beneath the surface and can be “more honest, more comprehensible, than the words we utter.” She says that when it comes to a language that can bridge species, it needs to be one of respect, care, and reverence for life. Without this, we will never feel totally at home.
Some of you may have had the experience of a caring relationship with a family pet. It’s certainly not the same as our human relationships, but deep nonetheless. I recently visited a local family-run winery and their dog, Simba, well known by winery guests, had very recently died of cancer. When I acknowledged the loss with one of the owners, she burst into tears, obviously still suffering greatly. I understood as I was surprised at the depth of my emotion when my beloved dog, Daisy, died.
We understand that we can have a relationship with our pets, even when we don’t speak the same language. Why wouldn’t it be possible to have a caring relationship or at least a connection with other non-human beings who share our place?
A Grammar of Animacy
“To be native to a place, we must learn to speak its language.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
One powerful way to develop kinship with the other inhabitants of your place is by learning their language, what they’re communicating, as well as considering the way we speak to and about them. Words matter. There is a chapter in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book called ‘The Grammar of Animacy,’ which in a nutshell, is “language that affirms our kinship with the natural world.”
Kimmerer comes from the Potawatomi lineage, and she invokes the imaginative possibilities of a new language, one that reflects a democracy of species, rather than a hierarchy. In this world, everything is alive and has its own rights. She asks us to see that wisdom can be found outside of the human experience. Everyone belongs.
This mindset is not necessarily consistent with our current culture, which is based on a hierarchy of beings, with humans at the top. The English language reflects this culture, where humans are addressed as masculine or feminine subjects, while non-human living beings are addressed as objects, often as “it.”
If we begin to see the other inhabitants of our place as kin, as beings we care about, and with their own rights, then we need a different way of thinking and speaking about them. Indigenous languages provide a model. Their words are closely tied to place and reflect the relationships and processes within a place.
Unlike the English language, Indigenous languages have more verbs than nouns. Everything is considered animate (alive) or inanimate. And, most of the inhabitants of a place are considered to be alive, including rocks and water, stories and music. Inanimate things tend to be human-made.
Practice
Start by acknowledging the aliveness and the unique personhood (not in a human person sense) of every living species. Notice how the inhabitants of your place speak their own language through sound or gesture.
Think of a relationship you have or had with a non-human being. How would you describe the relationship? How did you communicate?
Notice your own language this week. How do you speak of non-human beings? Practice speaking of them (and to them) as subjects, not objects. Say someone, not something. Say they, not it. Say hello. Touch, if possible. Or, just sit in silence in their presence. Accept that they’re living their one precious life, just as you are.
Resources
Speaking of Nature by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Orion Magazine
Heather Swan has a special connection with bees. But, just before her Dad died she had an experience with a particular owl, who she was convinced was visiting her intentionally. In her article, What the Owls Knew (via the Center for Humans and Nature), she writes, “Isn’t it true that a nonhuman being can understand us in ways that no other human ever could, because of an understanding that goes far beyond the limitations of spoken language?”