{"id":1787,"date":"2023-10-09T08:29:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T15:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2023-10-09T08:29:18","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T15:29:18","slug":"wordwork-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wordwork-1\/","title":{"rendered":"WORDWORK 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

W O R D W O R K<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Wordwork is a method of revealing the deep psyche hidden in words and images. From time to time, I\u2019ll post an example to illustrate how to make use of this method. For more details, consult my paper, \u201cWords as Eggs,\u201d in my book, Words as Eggs: Psyche in Language and Clinic<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

consider<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first step is to find the word in the dictionary. For wordwork, I suggest The American Heritage Dictionary<\/a>. <\/em>Here is what you will find:<\/p>\n

con?sid?er<\/strong> (k?n-sid\u2019?r) v. –ered<\/strong>, –er?ing<\/strong>, –ers<\/strong>\u2014tr. <\/em>1.<\/strong> To think carefully about. 2. <\/strong>To think or deem to be, regard as. See Usage Note at as<\/strong>1<\/sup>. 3.<\/strong> To form an opinion about; judge: considers waste to be criminal. <\/em>4. <\/strong>To take into account; bear in mind. 5. <\/strong>To show consideration for; considered the feelings of others. 6. <\/strong>To esteem; regard. 7. <\/strong>To look at thoughtfully. \u2014 <\/strong>intr.<\/em> To think carefully; reflect. [ME consideren<\/em> < OFr. < Lat. considerare <\/em>: com-, <\/em>com + s?dus, s?der-, star<\/em>.]<\/p>\n

The initial entry will show the word in bold and separated into syllables. Here you can see that \u201cconsider\u201d is a three-syllable word. Next comes the phonetic spelling showing how the word is pronounced. Then the part of speech is indicated; in this case, consider is a verb. There follow different grammatical forms of consider. The entry then tells us this is a transitive <\/em>verb, meaning that it requires an object to be acted on, to make sense. Then there will be a number of entries showing what the word means. <\/em>Most dictionaries will list these meanings historically (with current-meaning first) or in terms of commonality (the most common-meaning first). If the verb can also be used intransitively (as a stand-alone word not requiring an object to make sense), this will be indicated.<\/p>\n

So far, while some of this may be useful in various ways, none of it has any impact emotionally, psychologically, or imaginatively. All necessary, of course, and not to be ignored, but essentially utilitarian and rather boring.<\/p>\n

But now something interesting begins to happen as the dictionary shows us the origin <\/em>and history <\/em>of the word. We rarely think about the origin of a word, but every word in every language was born<\/em> at some point in time and somewhere in the world. And every word that has been born has a history, a story<\/em> to tell. This birth and story of a word is referred to generally as a word\u2019s etymology. <\/em>You will recognize the \u201c-logy\u201d of this word, which means \u201cspeech.\u201d The component \u201cetym-, refers to \u201ctruth.\u201d So, etymology literally means \u201ctruth speaking.\u201d Notice that the dictionary \u201cbrackets\u201d the etymology. It\u2019s the last entry. Some dictionaries omit this altogether. But this is where the gold is.<\/p>\n

Current meaning and definition are too often only the shell of a word. We use words but do not know their soul\u2014or even care; we are all word abusers. Anything that will help free us from the prison of current meaning, the literalness and speed of the present, will help us to free Psyche from her prison shell. Words take on life, induce images, excite the imagination, begin to weave textures with one another, and tell whole stories, if we but scratch the surface of the word.<\/p>\n

The sider<\/em> part of this word is the root-word for star\u2014the same etymon we see in such words as sidereal, meaning \u201cin reference to star time,\u201d and siderite, the iron from meteorites\u2014that is, \u201cwhat falls to earth from the stars.\u201d In earlier times, a sidus <\/em>was one who observed the stars. That required care and time\u2014one could not hurry the heavens. And in watching the stars in this slow and attentive way, the psyche was stirred, began to move, and projected itself into the starry lights. In such careful looking, the psyche began to see itself, and man perceived the relationship between himself and the stars. In such con-sideration, being with the stars, the psyche gave birth to astrology.<\/p>\n

In these days of instant, this sense of \u201cconsider\u201d has been lost.<\/p>\n

So, paying attention to the word\u2019s birth and its developmental history is one effective waay of slowing down. And by slowing down, we become psychically prepared to experience the \u201cshock\u201d of what is revealed, that what is hidden in the birth and history of \u201cconsider\u201d is the image of \u201cstar.\u201d Now this revelation can set the imagination in motion.<\/p>\n

Even more. Sometimes, the dictionary will follow the origin-story further back, to the primitive Indo-European roots. In this case, the I-E root for \u201cconsider\u201d is sweide<\/em>1<\/sup>. This root means \u201cto shine,\u201d and \u201cto consult the stars.\u201d A further development is the word \u201cdesiderate,\u201d which originally meant \u201cto hope from the stars,\u201d but in modern time has given rise to our word for \u201cdesire.\u201d Neither of these images (star, desire) is available to us unless we do this sort of word work.<\/p>\n

In future posts, I\u2019ll illustrate more fully how wordwork can lead one into unexpected places in working on a dream. In the meantime, keep in mind what Emerson said: \u201cEvery word was once a poem.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W O R D W O R K Wordwork is a method of revealing the deep psyche hidden in words and images. From time to time, I\u2019ll post an example to illustrate how to make use of this method. For more details, consult my paper, \u201cWords as Eggs,\u201d in my book, Words as Eggs: Psyche […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}