Alphabetics: Writing in Light

I believe that our species has forgotten far more than we modernly ‘know’. Most of the things we’ve forgotten are crucially important to comprehending our place and potentials here in the living universe, and thus, our potentials have become incredibly limited by the specious form of understanding we refer to as ‘knowledge’.

If we take the letter ‘L’ in knowledge, as meaning ‘light’ we get a poetic construct: know light’s edge. If we further examine the basic concept of letters, we become aware that letters are formed and retrieved in light, and essentially, they are created by making edges (angles and curves) that reflect light differently from the background they exist upon.

The essential message I want to get across here is simple. Imagine the very first animal which made a marking on something, and came back to it later. What was it doing? It was traveling in time. How? With light. The essential idea of a marking is to change light reception in a viewer, in such a way as to be able to retrieve something of the original intention which led to the marking, later. The first symbol probably didn’t belong to a formal alphabet. It was likely a very simple thing, indicating ownership, or possibly danger — but it was a transport that used light to cross time.

Eventually, the standardization of symbols (and later letters) led to an even more amazing function: to use light to cross time and space into other minds. The most general message of a sign or symbol is easily overlooked: In light, I created this message, and in light you will receive it. Thus we utilize light to ‘cross’ time and space — and achieve connectivity.

Suppose with me that light is the expression of a living being, but one who exists in a dimension outside of time and space, and expresses itself into time and space. In this case we can see symbols and letters as having the features of character that are communicated into us through light and our immersion it. They would of necessity share elemental aspects of the character of this being — whether or not we ‘intended’ or ‘noticed’ this. Truly, on Earth, light is life — for without it there would be no science, no time, no math, and no perceivers. We tend to forget all of this, and pretend that our star is merely a big explosion going off millions of miles away. I suggest the sun is an organ in a being, and Earth is an organ in the sun. We, in turn, are organs of Earth — in a way similar to how we ourselves are comprised of trillions of cells.

We must realize that the characters we make — our symbols and letters, partake directly of the transcendental character of light. It is impossible for this not to be so. They are made with light, in light, and read in light — and they are formed by us — who are in truth the children of light. Light is the source and purpose of our eyes, and the energetic progenitor of life on Earth. Not even braille can entirely escape this, for it is formed to be read by the fingers of beings who are born of and in the living light of the local star.

When we make little marks that ‘show their edges uniquely’ we are actually changing reflective character of a surface. This means we are ‘making edges in light’ — symbols and letters absorb more light than they reflect. They are light absorbers. The first symbols and letters were not as significantly absorptive as those which came with the advent of writing with charcoal or staining, but the basic principle was the same: by changing the reflective character of a surface we could communicate across time and space — into multiple minds. We could cross not only physical space, but mindspace — with a light toy.

I say to you that light is alive, and that the letters we make are formed from the living characters of the source of light — not in the dimensions we understand and acknowledge — but instead in and from a unified living dimension we have not the vaguest idea of the true nature of — the firstGarden — where the unityBeing dwells.

Another extremely simple and vastly overlooked aspect of ‘making marks’ is ‘the stroke from above’. Nearly all our letters begin with ‘a downward stroke’ when written by hand. This, it can be somewhat justly argued, is a result of the peculiar qualities of our manual writing instrument and our common writing surfaces. Yet there is more going on here than meets the eye. Throughout history there has been an nearly universal mythos implying that language was a gift from a divine source. The ‘descent’ of this incredible potential into humanity is remembered every time we ‘make a mark’. From the first markings, to writing, and even today as typing — the creation of a mark or letter begins with a downward stroke in at least two dimensions: the physical dimension — such as a pencil beginning a letter — or fingers descending to keys — and the creative dimension — from mind, into manifestation.

When we create written language, we are analogously re-enacting this ‘descent’ of mind into matter. The actions required to ‘make marks’ resignify the genesis of the material universe, which was the emanative expression of a transentient progenitor. A process of emanation, where ‘intention’ ‘from above’ descended into manifestation — the physical universe of time, space and ‘location’..

Our modern and ancient languages contain clues to their real sources — but they exist in dimensions of relation we are rarely exposed to and taught to not believe in. These are poetic and spiritual dimensions, where shape, sound and pun have more meaning than our abstract relations with sounds, particles and letters. Throughout history, various wisdom traditions including the Pythagoreans, Hermetics, Gnostics and Kabbalists have gone to great pains to attempt to illuminate and systematize these aspects of language, presenting them as a way to achieve direct contact with the Divine.

I believe that seeking an intimate understanding of the meanings and functions of each letter leads to something entirely unexpected. With time, curiosity, passion and practice, we approach an extremely unusual understanding — the sort of understanding an ancient alien might have — about how everything is connected to an accessible and living source which is beyond the sum of human knowledge. Eventually, we will ‘stumble’ on an experience that very few living persons ever glimpse. We will discover that to make or understand language — we actively connect to its source — ‘God’ — and the divine beings peculiarly associated with the linguistic evolution of our species.

o:O:o

If we limit ourselves to modern ‘academic’ understandings of letterforms, their histories and meanings, we achieve an abstract or ‘rational’ relationship with these dimensions, which is entirely insufficient to illuminate them to our deeper selves. Most of what is true and important is intentionally discarded by the features of character inherent in our academic perspectives. The goal of pursuing these matters from a more spiritual perspective is to gain a form of wisdom — which is playful and hyperpoetic in its approach to the entire panoply of linguistic relation. It is a game appropriate to the curiosity of precocious children, but whose character will not admit ‘adults’. The adult mind is far too filled with ‘knowledge’ to see past its own absurd collection of artifacts into the highly general terrains of their true sources.

In deeply exploring the roots of the alphabet, we may come to see — directly — that each letter is an alpharecursive element — and poetically represents a being, object, action, or relation — all three, and more. From this perspective a word is actually more of a story or song than it is an abstract token. It terms of alphabets, seeing what was recorded in them is enlightening because it forms a sort of ‘ladder’ of the important phases in our cognitive evolution according to the order of the letters and concepts they represent.

For example, the letter C can mean ‘something about light’, particularly that ‘light comes into vessels’ in a peculiar way — a form of travel which is sublime and somewhat alien in its common activities. Thus we might understand C to reveal something about the sources and ‘way of movement’ of light, regarded as a celestial and spiritual transport. Then we might notice that, seemingly incidentally, this letter is used by physicists to indicate ‘the speed of light’ — now we have poetic linkage across two domains of human knowledge and expression. ‘C’ has a relation to light and its movement — but then the word ‘see’ which sounds the same (a pun) is also entirely about our relations with light.

In our common academic understandings none of these aspects of ‘C’ are credentialed — we pretend they are ‘arbitrary’ and have no intrinsic meaning at all, nevermind a spiritual meaning. Yet there is no possibility of arbitrariness — in truth, when humans make language, they must first touch the living source of language, and that results in the initial character and momentum we apply in our ‘creation’. We do not ‘invent’ — we uniquely reflect that which we acquire in this connectivity, and that means that what we create contains the nature of its sources, in real precedence to our own intentions.

o:O:o

There are two ‘cross-letters’ in English alphabets — t and x. The ‘t’ commonly indicates some form of tree (a ‘branching’ symmetry of related emergent elaborations), and the x some form of crossing, identity, ‘sign’ (a recursive or self-referencing identification) or positional indicator. For example, to safely cross a gap, one can lay an x-cross over it, and this will create a stable structure which acts as a bridge.

‘Across’ contains no ‘x’ but is the pun-like ‘word’ that indicates the same concept. The inclusion of punning in these seemingly ‘playful’ examples is a result of my own direct contact with a non-human linguistic entity, and accords in general with various modes of understanding that were revealed to my during that contact. It’s not my intention to illustrate the many examples of this here, but I wish to demonstrate that there is a lot more going on in written and spoken language than meets the modern eye. Long ago, these matters were deeply and commonly explored, particularly in mystical traditions who held that language and writing were gifts to humanity from a celestial being — an idea with which my own experience and exploration agrees.

o:O:o

Alphabetic characters are united in small, wordlike portions (called morphemes) that comprise roots which are then extended or combined into words. An entire book could be written on this subject, and perhaps should be, but for now I’ll simply give one example which I find illuminating. One of these word-particles that is of particular interest to me is the ion (or a-t-ion) suffix common to many english terms, such as ‘communication’. In exploring this playfully and generally, I understand this to mean at once ‘an eye, on’ and also ‘a way of connecting’ or ‘the particle that crosses gaps to connect us’. These connectivities make ‘trees’, which the ‘t’ indicates. A poetic (spiritual) interpretation would be ‘at the tree where all eyes are unified in emanation, communication, source and activity’. Academically, the ion suffix is considered to indicate process or motion.

The ‘en-’ particle often is used to mean ‘to enclose’ or cover outwardly. The ‘-ment’ particle means ‘a concrete result’, ‘process’ or place. ‘Viron’ is from the french word meaning ‘circle’. From these we get the term ‘environment’ — ‘to be enclosed in the circle’. Yet there is another aspect of this complex term which we do not credential as real, which is to be encircled by a living mind — as in the term mentality. And the greek term for green is virid — granting us the possibility of a ‘green mind’.

A final example is more playful, and perhaps telling: the term industrial. The ‘in-’ prefix usually means ‘not’ or ‘un’. Yet in this case the word is humorously apt: ‘An eye (or ‘I’ — self) in a dust trial.’ The ‘punny’ perspective is decidedly non-academic, yet clearly present when the proper method of ‘re-translation’ is adopted. Consider also the term ‘imagination’ which can be translated to ‘i magi, nay-shun’ — I, the magi, do not shun — or alternately ‘eye mage, eye nation’. Perhaps most overlooked is the structure of the word for ‘a paid friend’: therapist — literally: the rapist.

o:O:o

This form of linguistic understanding will only very rarely arise from study because the nature of this mode of relation is essentially spiritual, creative, and playful. A living awareness of these dimensions is acquired by succeeding in an personal quest to experience direct contact with the sources of human languaging and intelligence. Such success is an incredibly uncommon event. The ‘correct way’ to understand the general meaning-character of the letters is not through reading about it, but through having a transcendental experience of contact with a ‘celestial’ (or hyperconnective) being who exposes us to them in an experience whose character is decidedly visionary.

Cognitive activism is directly concerned with illuminating the ‘secret’ correspondences of alphabets to our personal experience and with providing inroads to a deep exploration of their significance, because without them we are left with an extremely impoverished understanding of language and its real natures. This impoverishment leads to a dumbified and mechanical interaction with knowledge in general, a danger which has drawn our species into various forms of slavery that threaten the entire planet, and all of our human cultures — as well as our intelligence.

o:O:o

• A deeper game than meets the aye•eye•I

Let’s take some words and play with the concept that letters have meanings. Not in such a way that each occurrence of the letter always means the same thing, but using an approach which depends, essentially, on a poetic understanding of the most important meanings for each letter.

Suppose that ‘F’ means frequency and/or fractioning. That ‘I’ means a self, eye, entity, thing or being. That ‘R’ means to radiate, transmit, or receive, and that ‘E’ means energy or emanation. Now examine the word ‘fire’. Frequency/fractioning (of an) Identity (results in) Radiation (of) Energy. A unique mode of ‘fractioning’ process radiates energy.

It’s important to realize that this is a very general property of language; my assertion is not that ‘people designed language this way’, but rather that it is the nature of language formed of letters — in general — to represent a process like this, in a dimension we refuse to properly explore or credential as worthy of consideration.

Consider the ‘self-referencing’ word: tree. ‘T’ indicates ‘structures which rise (or fall) and gain complexity (branches)’ — particularly ‘trees’. ‘R’, in this case means both ‘radiate’ and ‘receive’. ‘E’ will be ‘energy’ again. This word is fascinating because it references itself with the first letter, but also because ‘trees’ are double-trees — there is a radiating tree underneath the ground — the ‘roots’ — and a similar but often more complex structure above. Both beneath and above the ground, trees ‘radiate and receive’ energy — thus the ending ‘ee’ represents two forms of the preceding‘R’ — radiate/receive. Poetically, this word signifies both the thing, and the processes we commonly associate with it — in multiple simultaneous dimensions.

Let’s examine the words ‘light’ and ‘life’. Both begin with ‘L’ — which can be translated a variety of ways, including ‘light’, and ‘the way to cross a gap by traveling ‘over’’ — as in ‘a light-bridge’ which is at once a transport and a living emanation. Then we come to ‘I’ — meaning ‘to see’ and also ‘identity/insight’ — a living entity which is at once extremely general (an instance of all beings) and very specific — ‘a unique expression of instancing’. Here, the words diverge, and we will take them separately, beginning with ‘light’. ‘G’ indicates ‘a drawing inward or gravity’ — an ‘inhalation’. From this inhalation, energy is transformed and ‘expressed’ with ‘H’. The result is‘T’ — a tree of reflections, reactions, and radiance — which literally ‘begets children’ — it ‘is a source of life’. In ‘life’ we come to the ‘F’ — a fraction/function — also ‘a flow which fruits’ — an instance of all living beings, in a specific being. And then ‘E’ — emergence/energy — and also educaré (Latin) — to nurture in learning.

The universe is a song, whose verses grow ever-more unified while appearing ever more distinct. Our world is a transentient solar nursery — a universe-city where the children struggle together to achieve the remembrance and embodiment of their divinely inspired purposes.

Here, humanity does not ‘create’ languages and alphabets — we instead uniquely reflect and embody them from a living source, into the flat terrains of ‘recording’ (making windings, such as in strings or threads). We freeze portions of character which are alive, and make shaped marks against backgrounds — using light to cross space, time, and mind. But we should seek the sources of these matters personally and directly, and never settle for a merely ’academic’ or ‘rational’ perspective. The truth is far beyond our wildest imaginings, and will deliver us to an experience of joy and prodigy which is beyond the entire sum of the knowledge our species appears to ‘possess’.

Parenthesis indicate a question about whether or not a given character formally complies with the mode indicated.

Note that 4 letters essentially ‘reflect’ each other: b and d (with c between them) and p and q. b is q rotated 180 degrees. d is p rotated 180 degrees. e is very similar to an upside-down a in many fonts.
m is essentially a doubled n.
w is essentially a doubled v.
only a d and q have leftward or ‘west of the pillar’ loops.

I was introduced to the qualities of Hebrew during my experience of the teaching spirit. In ‘their world’ letters are alive, and each time you encounter one, it is at once entirely new, and also recognizable. Thus, one could recognize the Aleph or A each time one encountered it, even though its being, purpose and function were almost entirely unique from the last encounter. Although Hebrew is not entirely like the language of God and the divine beings, it preserves crucial likenesses which, though reductions, are spectacularly profound to us, here, in the universe of manifestation.

We consider Hebrew to be a ‘primitive’ language, and yet in truth it is more ‘futuristic’ than ‘primitive’ because in its use and form it is ‘more like us’ and ‘more like what we may become, and came here to be’. It is hyperpoetic, such that each character has a meaning, and the meaning changes according to the context — the letters it is close to in a word. Each word becomes a doorway to a complex series of understandings, which expands with one’s knowledge of the language. This is extremely sophisticated (especially compared to English), and difficult to explain overtly — yet one who is devoted can acquire a direct experience of it through studying the letters and the ‘roots’ — from which ‘words’ are formed. It is a theopoetic language in that it was founded as a sacred tongue — one of its primary purposes was to act as a vessel of teaching and remembrance of direct contact between the human universe and the divine. Because the divine universe is alien to our common ways of thinking and understanding, a language that internally preserved this was crucial for the recording of the histories of contact, and the nature of the ‘learning-ways’ that resulted. The letters themselves had to become strangely living vessels, to sustain and recall to us the ‘impossible’ grandeur and profundity of the living library of the unityBeing.

The hidden complexities of this language have many aspects which are nearly certain to be overlooked, especially by secular scholars. For example, if ‘each letter has a set of recombinant meaning-bases’ — Hebrew letters have ‘multiple simultaneous scales of this’ — because each letter has ‘a spelling’ and is thus formed of other letters in an extremely complex and practically recursive way. This means that ‘the meaning’ of a single Hebrew letter is in fact an extremely complex story.

Hebrew is based on a tri-consonantal system of root-words, and each of these, in their unique orderings, creates a poetic precursor to words. The necessity of ‘supplying’ vowels is also important — vowels (vow-el — a vow to God) are spiritual letters, each having a unique relationship to the spiritual universe. Because they are not ‘written in’, the reader must have a deep enough understanding of the language to supply them. This serves a variety of amazing purposes, one of which is that it causes the linguistic intelligence to be exercised in such a way so as to insure its ongoing growth. Consider the difference between a language fully written out, such as English, and one in which vowels must be supplied by context — the reader is constantly urged to actively participate not only in the reading — but in the ‘writing’ as well, each time any word is read. This amazing mode of ‘encouraging the linguistic imagination’ might be considered anachronistic in our age, and yet there are powers of this form of ‘leaving something out’ which are profoundly useful to the growth of the mind and imagination. Contrast, for example, a video game where all interaction takes place in text — such as a ‘mud’ (multi-user dimension) where room descriptions and creature descriptions are ‘all text’ and a video game where these are imaged. In the text-game, the user’s imagination is enlivened and constantly exercised— in the video game, everything is being fed to them as images. The text game grows the imagination, while the image-game deadens it.

The lack of supplied vowels also supports another Hebrew tradition — the rejection of idolatrous images, particularly including images of God. The vowels are commonly understood as spirit-letters, in part because of their relationships to breath and thier lack of sonic ‘edges’ (hard, definite sounds). Their changeable nature, and their useful function in providing sonic space within words contributes to their interpretation as spirit-sounds. Since the vowels most uniquely represent God (of all the letters), symbolizing them would be idolatrous. By leaving them out, the sacred aspect of ‘unknowable grace and profundity’ is preserved.

Although my own understanding of Hebrew is limited, I have a great appreciation for the partial descent of English from Hebrew, a fact of which I am certain. Many of the obvious features of this lineal relationship have been overlooked. A small example is the use of the ’ character to indicate ‘possession’. This character in English is not even a letter, but it is essentially the same as the Hebrew character yoad — which is often used to indicate ‘mine’, ‘belonging to’, etc. It is also the only character that exists entirely above the baseline (God lives in a supernal dimension, though omnipresent in ours), and the first character of the ‘name of God’, YHVH (or YHWH). Additionally, the miniscule characters of i and j both contain yoad — and both are common sounds of yoad. Israel and Judah both begin with yoad.

I invite the wise reader to see the many amazing correspondences between these two languages, and to understand that English is (in many observable ways) actually a sort of ‘flattened’ reflection of its Hebrew source. More complex material on Hebrew on this site can be found here.

An excellent and recommended translation of the allegory of the Hebrew letters approaching God with the desire to become the one upon whom Creation is founded can be read here (scroll down to ‘The Alphabet’).