"In the West, discussion and debate are very important, especially in the context of education. This is another area where the West differs from the indigenous world. Indigenous people would prefer to preserve in its naked form the material encountered in one's experience. Experience, to indigenous people, looks like a different kind of discourse that parallels, but does not intersect, the verbal. The more intense an experience, the more likely indigenous people are to leave it in the language in which it came rather than to discuss and dissect it with words. It is almost as if discussing diminishes what is being discussed. Villagers feel that words conquer experience, dislodging experience from its rightful place of power. So unless powerful experiences and ideas are addressed poetically, or with proverbs, people don't want to take the risk of losing in a fog of words what they have struggled so hard to acquire."
--The Healing Wisdom of Africa, Malidoma Some
Beautiful... Just allowing our experience to speak for itself, in its own language... I notice too that us "westerners" have a need to question experience, because it doesn't fit into the intellect's *idea* of the way things "should" be. And then, we start questioning each other's experience, as if our own is the only valid one... Strange lot we are, hm? :)
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, we are. . . I was in Peru in May/June, and was encouraged to "simply experience" and allow those experiences to continue to "unfold" over time, to be "taught" by them. It's so contrary to our (i.e., Western thinkers) typical way of being to do this. We want intense flashes of wisdom to blow us off our feet and give us encyclopedic words we can blow others away with so we don't feel so alone. . .
ReplyDeletePS - Chris - I like what you said abut letting our experiences "unfold over time", and especially to "be taught by them." I'm guilty of not allowing myself to let my experiences sink in and be *taught*... to just kind of steep in the experience... Thank you for your wisdom on that!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Christine; I'm not sure I ever learn anything "permanently," so anything I share is a reminder to myself, too! And your saying we "steep in the experience" reflects exactly what Malidoma Some said about understanding/relating poetically. . .
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