Without words
Before us humans, there was a time without words.
A long, long time.
Without gestures and signs. Without carved or written letters, with angles and lines never before existent in nature. Without consonants and vowels, bouncing with the sound waves between the trees and leaves of grass.
A long, long time.
Without music.
Without the smell of cooked food.
Only nature. Mouldering leaves. The wind’s whizzing through thousands of different kinds of tree tops. Eyes glimmering in pitch-black night. Crawling, climbing, flapping, creaking, rippling, roaring, storming, pattering, popping, stillness. No noise, only sounds.
Before there were any felled trees turned into logs and stacked to create walls. Vertical facades. Barriers, that hinder the wind. Like the beaver’s dam stems the water. Similar, but not equivalent. Why is not a square wooden house built by humans similar to the beavers’ lodge made up of twigs piled in a stream? Because we build more than we need? Because we are so many more individuals? So many that we become an invasion, without awareness of the consequences we cause the site that we invade? Or, awareness today maybe, and thereby even worse: indifference?
Humans belong to the group of species that gives rise to few offspring and spend much energy taking care of those few so that they have time to grow up, survive and have offspring of their own. Like cows, lions and elephants. Which have evolved to focus on quality.
In contrast to the group of species that instead spend much energy on creating very many small offspring, but not so much energy on protecting them or helping them survive. Like for example frogs, fish, maples and oak trees. Those which focus on quantity.
Is one way more noble than the other? Do cows see themselves as more noble than oak trees? Or is it only humans who even know of the concept? Who have constructed ethics and moral? To nature, there are no constructed concepts. It just is. It just lives, dies, evolves, lives on. It does not think.
We humans oftentimes think too much for our own good. Or oftentimes nearly not enough. Rather, maybe we are thinking of the wrong things?
Is it not that you feel the best when you are not thinking so much? But when you simply are. When you are true to yourself and are performing an action that does not go against anything within you.
When you concentrate on what the being in front of you is trying to communicate, without a thought on what you want to convey yourself.
When you pick up a mitten without thinking, take a few quick paces catching up to the person who dropped it, and feel your heart warm as you tap the person’s shoulder.
When you admire the shapes and patterns of a small flower, and let go of time.
When you are outside of yourself, when you have forgotten your ego for a moment.
That is also when you are the most beautiful.
And when the world is the most beautiful to you.
That is where I want to be. As often as I can.
Out there.
Where it is actions that count, not promises.
Where communication takes place through eye contact and body language.
Where only the important things matter.
Without facades, only skin and heart.
Without constructed angles.
Without noise.
Without words.
© Lyrics : Annika Hagberg. Photos: Torbjörn Wrange.