Nature's Language

Chapter Manuscript:

‘Languages of Life’

by Milt Markewitz

Each letter-number of the Hebrew alphabet signifies an aspect of living forces at play in the universe; the text is intended to project these forces into our very being, thus acting as a Revelation.

Ken Roffmann, “Hebrew: the ‘projective’ language"

As a Math-Physics major in college and then in my working life with IBM, I had little time for formal education in linguistics. But while working with other cultures, I found that language fascinated me from several perspectives: the rhythms of Portuguese and how much a part of Brazilian happiness it seems to be; language structure and how it affects thought processes; the use of symbols going hand-in-glove with stories and conversational cultures; and the use of alphabets with their inherent efficiencies and capacity for creating single ‘truth’.

Several years ago, my friend Ken Roffmann sent me ‘The Cipher of Genesis,’ a book in which the author, Carlo Suares, observed that thousands of years ago symbolic languages -- Sanskrit, Ancient Chinese, and Hebrew, to name a few -- were utilized by different peoples throughout the world. His book concerns itself with Hebrew, the symbolic language of the Old Testament, and specifically its first book, Genesis.

Much of my thinking regarding Hebrew as a symbolic language coalesced when I presented an interpretation of the Genesis story, ‘The Binding of Isaac’. The usual interpretation of the Biblical story is that Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Isaac is lead to the sacrificial site, and the process is begun. Just before the execution of Isaac, God spares Isaac and miraculously a ram is caught in some nearby brambles and sacrificed in his stead. I told the story from Abraham’s perspective, a mystic who gained profound understanding of the universe from the symbolic Hebrew language spoken in the community of Ur where he grew up. By focusing on the cosmological symbols (100-900), the story read very differently. In fact, the name of the story, Aiqida, has little to do with ‘binding’, but is a story of the cosmological life-death-life continuum (100) creating an archetypal birth (4) (the Jewish people) and manifesting unbounded possibility.
[Click here for The Binding of Yitzhhaq]

One of the thoughts that struck me when I first saw Suares’ 3x9 construct of the twenty-seven symbols was that the nine symbols, essentially repeated three times, represent the organization of all living systems. The language is like an analogue of Living Systems Theory where organization is fixed and structure is continually changing. It is a language of life, with all that is necessary to understand the creation and sustaining of life. It is a sacred geometry of sound, energy and shape. And it demonstrates a remarkable intuitive understanding of some of our greatest ‘discoveries’ in the last 1/2 to 3/4 of a century – Quantum Physics and Living Systems Theory.

The symbols have been retained in that their names and shapes are today’s Hebrew alphabet of twenty-two letters plus a variation of each of five letters when they appear at the end of a ‘word’. I use the term ‘word’ loosely, since the symbols when combined may express anything from a phrase to a complex thought.

In Kabalistic teaching there are four worlds, and the three-tiered language gives us insight into the first three – 1) the Newtonian we see manifested; 2) the metaphorical, abstract and quantum world that we are just beginning to explain scientifically; and 3) the cosmological world much of which we accept as mystery. These three worlds give us some insight into the fourth world, the Ein Sof or infinity, that cannot be described by words or symbols.

The tiers are numbered. The symbols in the upper tier are numbered 1-9 and they represent the metaphorical, abstract, quantum world. The symbols in the second tier are numbered 10-90 and are our perceived reality. The symbols in the third tier are numbered 100-900 and are cosmological.

Each column in the matrix, 1-10-100 through 9-90-900, represents one of the nine components necessary to create and sustain life. 1-10-100 are the Life-Death-Life continuum; 2-20-200 our sense of Structure and Order; 3-30-300 is Organic Life( the blending of apparent opposites, the Life-Death continuum and structure); 4-40-400 is Birthing with all its inherent Resistance; 5-50-500 is Universal Life; 6-60-600 is Impregnation; 7-70-700 is Unbounded Possibility; 8-80-800 is Undifferentiated Energy (the Field); and 9-90-900 is Feminine Beauty and Sensuality.

One can only imagine the loss of meaning when we transitioned from a symbolic language in which the symbols were grouped and there was an energetic connection among them, to an alphabetic language where letters were combined to form words. A secondary loss occurred when reading the written words (often representing a single truth) replaced the oral traditions of storytelling and dialogue. The efficiencies gained from the written, alphabetic languages are undeniable, but the very long term, unintended consequences are creating enormous problems that we try to solve using alphabetically articulated solutions. The language we use plays a critical role in our perception of life, its source, and the appreciation we hold for it. As we grow to more deeply appreciate life, we get in touch with its mystery and sensual beauty. Symbolic language itself is alive as the energies of the symbols interrelate, and from this we discern the spark or essence in everything.

Rather than look at alphabetic and symbolic as a duality, both are to be deeply appreciated, and our challenge is to figure out how to re-blend them. As we reap the benefits of both the symbolic and alphabetic, it is expected that the former will once again be our dominant paradigm in matters of spirituality and re-achieving a sustainable planet.

Some questions you may wish to reflect upon are –

• How important is it for you personally to recreate your own religious story?
• How important is it for all of us to collectively rethink and retell our cosmology?
• What is the story you wish to tell your children and grandchildren?
• What is the story you want them to tell about you?
• What are the virtues you wish to be shared if the environment becomes less hospitable to our species?