As I have stepped into the world of conscious reality creation and opened myself to an ever greater variety of experiences, I have found it increasingly difficult, even impossible at times, to put those experiences into words.. Words are our chief form of communication, and whether written or spoken they serve as the medium for the majority of human communication. As I delved further into this area, however, I discovered that the words themselves were not to blame. Words, after all, are only meant to be symbols of our natural telepathy, and as symbols they should be flexible enough to express any experience that we wish to share with each other. My difficulty arose when I tried to convey the essence of a mystical experience into previously defined linear terms, and a rather rigid set of personal symbols that my rational mind had judged as THE acceptable form of communication.

As conscious creators, Kristen and I share a variety of experiences which are far beyond the grasp of the linear rational mind. The difficulty of explaining these concepts has come up more and more for us lately; we had created a wonderful dilemma of communication for ourselves. Since we enjoy sharing these experiences with others, the dilemma was doubly compounded. (grin)

For example, a few weeks ago, Kristen and I realized that if we really let go of struggle, we could just let the universe support us in whatever we chose. This was information we had read before, but now it had finally reached that intuitive level of understanding that makes it experiential, rather than just theoretical. The emotional reality that came with this acceptance appeared truly beyond conventional description. To call it an "epiphany" is like calling an orchestra a bunch of musical instruments.

In Dialogues of the Soul and Mortal Self in Time, Jane Roberts remarks that poetry is a better means for expressing these types of experiences. Our rational minds are more relaxed when reading poetry, and we are more willing to freely associate ideas and concepts that would not translate as easily into normal prose.

Poetry however, has its own limits. People will often read a poem in the same manner that they look at a painting. It may speak to them, even inspire them, but it often gets put aside once the rational mind begins focusing on its daily "reality."  Often, we will allow the details of our lives to block out such inspirations.  Another limitation of poetry is conversational language.  While poems can certainly be spoken, we do not normally speak in a poetic manner during our daily conversations. Ideas expressed in a conversational manner, or written in more linear terms, will often stay in the back of a person's mind, even while they are busying themselves with the details of life. Later on these ideas might come forward again in the form of a new concept or understanding.

Speaking in metaphors often helps bridge the gap between the rational and the intuitive. Our rational minds have no use for metaphors, as the observers of reality they do not put together meaningful coincidences, or symbolic values of objects, that takes place on a deeper level. Metaphors often work both in written word, and in conversational tones, they are perhaps one of our best and most flexible tools for conceptual communication.

While poetry and metaphor are valid ways in which we can express ourselves through our language, an examination of the language itself might be more revealing. Those of us who speak a common language, American English in my own case, tend to think of it as a language that we all share.  This is one of those areas though where our rational minds have bought into an illusion and labeled it truth.

Though we do share common words, and to a lesser extent common definitions, in actuality we each have a personal library that is to some degree unconscious. Our rational minds have collected a warehouse of terms and phrases based on past experiences. We use these phrases in conversation, often without consciously choosing them,  and sometimes even when the original definition of the phrase has been stretched beyond its actual limits.

One of the habitual expressions I grew up with is the phrase "makes sense to me." The phrase seems innocent enough unto itself, but what it is really saying is: "that appears logical to my rational mind," which is fine, although I found myself often using this expression in response to one of Kristen's revelatory concepts or theories, that do not "make sense" to my rational mind at all.  Such concepts do resonate with my intuition however, and though that's not as catchy, it's a more conscious recognition of the language we are constantly creating.

When Kristen and I discussed the idea of releasing old expressions, and adapting new ones, she remarked that we might start to sound like "hokey new agers." Once again we found ourselves exposed to beliefs and judgments that we had been holding onto quite unconsciously; these judgments were telling us which words and phrases were acceptable, not by our own standards, but by the standards we had adapted from the world around us.

A recent episode of the Simpsons pointed out to me how easily we can become prejudiced in our regional dialects as well. In the show, the town's founder was quoted as saying: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."  Bart's teacher Mrs. Crabapple turned to another teacher and stated that she never heard of the word "embiggens" until she came to Springfield. The other teacher replied that it was a perfectly "cromulent" word. (grin)  Now, do we judge the residents of Springfield less worldly than us, simply because "cromulent" and "embiggens" do not appear in any dictionary, or do we accept that they have created their own symbol of communication that is no more or less valid then any other?

The problem then is not that I could not describe these experiences in words, but that my choice of words and expressions had become too limited, too small and tight a box for such expanding concepts. Choice of language then, not out of some silly fear about negative vibes, or in some vain effort to be politically correct but for the purpose of greater clarity, becomes yet another new country to explore.

Going back to the example from the beginning of the article, when I was trying to explain the concept of letting go of struggle: The personal release I felt was more than what we normally define as an epiphany. It was a tremendous release of internal tension, tension that I had been carrying for so long that it felt like a natural part of me. The release of that tension allowed new levels of energy to flow through  my body, unencumbered by the prior feelings of conflict and struggle.

The idea of bringing my conscious awareness into my every day language seemed quite effortful at first, though I soon realized that most conversation only requires a minimal amount of monitoring. As I pushed away old, now meaningless phrases from my personal storehouse, it had the effect of unclogging a mental pipe, allowing thoughts to flow freely again.

Sometimes, the creation of a new word or phrase might be necessary to truly convey the ideas of a new concept. For example: How would you have described the word "Internet" before it became part of our daily language. The conscious intention to create a new word might seem audacious at first, but the truth is we accept new words and phrases via the mass media all the time. We pick them up from headlines, commercials, television shows, and songs continuously. Consciously being aware of our choice of language, and creating the terms we choose to best convey ideas, rather than choosing from what exists only by default, is just another way in which to recognize the power in ourselves as conscious creators.

©1998, John McNally. Printed in the August 1998 Issue of the Conscious Creation Journal. (Feel free to duplicate this article for personal use - please include this copyright notice.) http://www.consciouscreation.com/