Are you sure you want to? Improving your ability to understand communication from the non-human realms will definitely open up a Pandora’s Box of secrets and opinions that are definitely going to challenge your precious view of Life, Love, and Universal Harmony.

It seems that human beings tend to define communication more and more narrowly as their technological abilities increase. It has gotten to the point that one generation can barely understand another. And because increased technological dexterity gives rise to feelings of superiority, that sense of superiority also infects how and what is communicated. Language begins to take on aspects of secrecy and aloofness, purposefully creating self-serving separation. Ironically as this progresses, communication becomes poorer, creating even more confusion (have you read a systems operation manual lately?) rather than creating a bridge of understanding, which is really the core purpose of communication.

We must begin to understand that actual human words, whether spoken, written, or even quietly conceptualized in what we call our mind are actually dangerous to real communication. Here’s why.

Imagine each word or phrase you utter, write, read or hear as a bubble. Inside that bubble is the thought or feeling that you to want to transmit much like a vapor or a scent. The skin of the bubble is made up of the structure of the word or words that you are hoping will convey that thought or feeling accurately and efficiently. The vapor and the bubble enclosing it might seem like a complete, unified thing but it is important to realize that they are two separate entities. That word-bubble is certainly a convenient way to get the vapor of thought from one place to another, but trouble begins when we forget that the bubble is just a conveyance, merely a vehicle for thoughts and ideas. We end up understanding those thoughts in terms of the bubble and not the vapor that it encloses. And, having become accustomed to and dependant on those hard-shells, we have forgotten that it is the bubble that is amorphous and expendable, and the vapor or the scent of our thought is all that is real.

We humans have been trained that the bubbles-shell must remain. Definitions must be agreed upon and adhered to. There is no other way to maintain our technological edge. We need clearly defined words to be sure that Tab A can go into Slot A consistently so that the wheels of our existence can keep turning. Otherwise motors would stop spinning, electrical transformers would blow up, and our cell phones would all be silent.

And there would be an even worse consequence of our lack of maintaining and moving forward our technology. If the incessant spinning and crackling and blinking of our technological infrastructure would ever stop, we would have to finally face a truth that humans have been running away from for eons. We are simply animals.

Birds twitter, bears grunt and fishes ……. What do the fishes do? Obviously something is going on there. Huge schools of blue-stripe snappers gather deep along the coral, their movements synchronized by ways not discernable to us. And despite our lack of comprehension, the five hundred or so green and blue fishes move in seemingly perfect coordination with each other, in a way that it would take five hundred humans countless hours of rehearsal, and yes, countless words and commands to be able to faintly replicate this resplendent ballet in just two dimensions, never mind in a three dimensional sea unbounded by gravity.

At the root of the word ‘communication’ is the concept of ‘communion’, which has its own roots in the word ‘common’, as in congruous, communal, and mutual. We think that the word-bubbles do the trick, but they really don’t. We, through the training that we all received to protect our technological fiat, have hardened the bubbles into shapes that serve our individual self-interest and reflect our individual past experiences. There is nothing mutual about it. Remember Bill Clinton’s famous quip “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”? When we hear a word, any word, all we see is the reflection of our own psyche in the mirror of the bubble, and miss the vapor trapped inside. There is a world of difference between reading the ingredients on the outside of a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee Meat Ravioli, and actually chowing down on those tender delicacies.

So where does this all leave us? Are we so hopelessly defiled by our own cleverness that we’ve become dumber and dumber? Are we cursed to never hear bird-song as anything other than random vibrations emitting from an avian larynx during exhalation? Can the only thing a banana tree be for us is just a biologically based banana making machine?

Take this test. Go to a junkyard, or some neighbor’s house where they have a really mean Pit Bull or German Shepherd chained up and proceed to take the dog’s food away from under their noses when they are hungry. You don’t talk ‘Dog’ and they don’t talk ‘Human’, but I have no doubts that there will be an incredibly clear communication occurring, to the point that your body might understand the situation described by said dog so vividly as to soil your britches.

There you have it. You really are an animal, and assuming you survived your tête-à-tête with your rude-crude-and-to-the-point canine friend, there should be no doubt that personal communication with the non-human world is possible. You just have to get used to communication without the bubbles. What you got from the dog (if you were stupid enough to try), was pure vapor, that seeped into your very marrow, leaving you no doubt about what he felt about your even thinking about touching his food, and your essence, as it was expressed in your body, knew exactly what to do, which was to get the hell away!

A gentler and less bloody exercise would be to just sit. Anywhere. The less beautiful, the busier, the noisier, the better. And for heaven’s sake please don’t start to meditate. That would be the worst thing that you could do. Save it for when you’re pissed off or something. You don’t want to withdraw! You want to start training yourself to engage. But, without the bubbles. It’s hard at first because we are trained to attach some sort of label or word-bubble to each one of our sensory experiences. “Red flower”. “Bird chirp”. “Car brakes”. “Concrete”. It’s an endless hell of names, like Adam trying fulfill God’s commandment to name every creature that was ever created, whilst the Almighty sits hidden in the bushes, maniacally creating more and more just….. because.

So just stop labeling. Pop the bubbles. Feel the vapor. See what happens.

From this point on, you are on your own. If you want to really learn something, you have to experience it. My reporting on my experiences will do you no good. The vapor is so malleable that it will naturally bend to the boxes that you want to put it in. Just don’t. Respect its plasticity. This vapor is as pliable as the air you walk through, leaving no space unfilled. But in case you are worried about the fragility of it, don’t forget what hurricanes are made of. That’s right. Air. Nice fluffy, gentle air that can rip your house apart.

Some day, maybe sooner rather than later, you’ll start talking back. Yeah, sure, you’re going to use words, just like I’ve using words to discuss the futility of communication with words! It’s OK. Just remember your ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’s’. Introduce yourself. Be polite. And be clear about why you are talking to them. If you need something, offer something first. Some Native Peoples use tobacco, but a bit of food, or a strand of your hair will do. Just avoid being a hungry, desperately grasping ghost. You will still be provided with all the air you need, all the water to quench your thirst and to clean yourself up with, all the food and material you need to manage your life, and all the good things that come from sunshine and fire (like porch lights and internal combustion engines). But being nice about it all makes things, well, nicer.

And, who is this Mystery I’ve been hinting about that provides all the air, water, food and light that you need? If you really want to know, sit down, shut up, and pop the bubbles. You’ll see.

Are you sure you want to? Improving your ability to understand communication from the non-human realms will definitely open up a Pandora’s Box of secrets and opinions that are definitely going to challenge your precious view of Life, Love, and Universal Harmony.

It seems that human beings tend to define communication more and more narrowly as their technological abilities increase. It has gotten to the point that one generation can barely understand another. And because increased technological dexterity gives rise to feelings of superiority, that sense of superiority also infects how and what is communicated. Language begins to take on aspects of secrecy and aloofness, purposefully creating self-serving separation. Ironically as this progresses, communication becomes poorer, creating even more confusion (have you read a systems operation manual lately?) rather than creating a bridge of understanding, which is really the core purpose of communication.

We must begin to understand that actual human words, whether spoken, written, or even quietly conceptualized in what we call our mind are actually dangerous to real communication. Here’s why.

Imagine each word or phrase you utter, write, read or hear as a bubble. Inside that bubble is the thought or feeling that you to want to transmit much like a vapor or a scent. The skin of the bubble is made up of the structure of the word or words that you are hoping will convey that thought or feeling accurately and efficiently. The vapor and the bubble enclosing it might seem like a complete, unified thing but it is important to realize that they are two separate entities. That word-bubble is certainly a convenient way to get the vapor of thought from one place to another, but trouble begins when we forget that the bubble is just a conveyance, merely a vehicle for thoughts and ideas. We end up understanding those thoughts in terms of the bubble and not the vapor that it encloses. And, having become accustomed to and dependant on those hard-shells, we have forgotten that it is the bubble that is amorphous and expendable, and the vapor or the scent of our thought is all that is real.

We humans have been trained that the bubbles-shell must remain. Definitions must be agreed upon and adhered to. There is no other way to maintain our technological edge. We need clearly defined words to be sure that Tab A can go into Slot A consistently so that the wheels of our existence can keep turning. Otherwise motors would stop spinning, electrical transformers would blow up, and our cell phones would all be silent.

And there would be an even worse consequence of our lack of maintaining and moving forward our technology. If the incessant spinning and crackling and blinking of our technological infrastructure would ever stop, we would have to finally face a truth that humans have been running away from for eons. We are simply animals.

Birds twitter, bears grunt and fishes ……. What do the fishes do? Obviously something is going on there. Huge schools of blue-stripe snappers gather deep along the coral, their movements synchronized by ways not discernable to us. And despite our lack of comprehension, the five hundred or so green and blue fishes move in seemingly perfect coordination with each other, in a way that it would take five hundred humans countless hours of rehearsal, and yes, countless words and commands to be able to faintly replicate this resplendent ballet in just two dimensions, never mind in a three dimensional sea unbounded by gravity.

At the root of the word ‘communication’ is the concept of ‘communion’, which has its own roots in the word ‘common’, as in congruous, communal, and mutual. We think that the word-bubbles do the trick, but they really don’t. We, through the training that we all received to protect our technological fiat, have hardened the bubbles into shapes that serve our individual self-interest and reflect our individual past experiences. There is nothing mutual about it. Remember Bill Clinton’s famous quip “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”? When we hear a word, any word, all we see is the reflection of our own psyche in the mirror of the bubble, and miss the vapor trapped inside. There is a world of difference between reading the ingredients on the outside of a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee Meat Ravioli, and actually chowing down on those tender delicacies.

So where does this all leave us? Are we so hopelessly defiled by our own cleverness that we’ve become dumber and dumber? Are we cursed to never hear bird-song as anything other than random vibrations emitting from an avian larynx during exhalation? Can the only thing a banana tree be for us is just a biologically based banana making machine?

Take this test. Go to a junkyard, or some neighbor’s house where they have a really mean Pit Bull or German Shepherd chained up and proceed to take the dog’s food away from under their noses when they are hungry. You don’t talk ‘Dog’ and they don’t talk ‘Human’, but I have no doubts that there will be an incredibly clear communication occurring, to the point that your body might understand the situation described by said dog so vividly as to soil your britches.

There you have it. You really are an animal, and assuming you survived your tête-à-tête with your rude-crude-and-to-the-point canine friend, there should be no doubt that personal communication with the non-human world is possible. You just have to get used to communication without the bubbles. What you got from the dog (if you were stupid enough to try), was pure vapor, that seeped into your very marrow, leaving you no doubt about what he felt about your even thinking about touching his food, and your essence, as it was expressed in your body, knew exactly what to do, which was to get the hell away!

A gentler and less bloody exercise would be to just sit. Anywhere. The less beautiful, the busier, the noisier, the better. And for heaven’s sake please don’t start to meditate. That would be the worst thing that you could do. Save it for when you’re pissed off or something. You don’t want to withdraw! You want to start training yourself to engage. But, without the bubbles. It’s hard at first because we are trained to attach some sort of label or word-bubble to each one of our sensory experiences. “Red flower”. “Bird chirp”. “Car brakes”. “Concrete”. It’s an endless hell of names, like Adam trying fulfill God’s commandment to name every creature that was ever created, whilst the Almighty sits hidden in the bushes, maniacally creating more and more just….. because.

So just stop labeling. Pop the bubbles. Feel the vapor. See what happens.

From this point on, you are on your own. If you want to really learn something, you have to experience it. My reporting on my experiences will do you no good. The vapor is so malleable that it will naturally bend to the boxes that you want to put it in. Just don’t. Respect its plasticity. This vapor is as pliable as the air you walk through, leaving no space unfilled. But in case you are worried about the fragility of it, don’t forget what hurricanes are made of. That’s right. Air. Nice fluffy, gentle air that can rip your house apart.

Some day, maybe sooner rather than later, you’ll start talking back. Yeah, sure, you’re going to use words, just like I’ve using words to discuss the futility of communication with words! It’s OK. Just remember your ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’s’. Introduce yourself. Be polite. And be clear about why you are talking to them. If you need something, offer something first. Some Native Peoples use tobacco, but a bit of food, or a strand of your hair will do. Just avoid being a hungry, desperately grasping ghost. You will still be provided with all the air you need, all the water to quench your thirst and to clean yourself up with, all the food and material you need to manage your life, and all the good things that come from sunshine and fire (like porch lights and internal combustion engines). But being nice about it all makes things, well, nicer.

And, who is this Mystery I’ve been hinting about that provides all the air, water, food and light that you need? If you really want to know, sit down, shut up, and pop the bubbles. You’ll see.