There is a Language Older Than Words

There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, of gesture, of symbol, of memory. We have forgotten that it exists. If we are to survive, we must remember this language. We must relearn how to think like a planet.

I remember walking into a cold January afternoon several years ago. My breath hung white in the air, and two dogs danced at my feet. I heard in the distance the clamor of geese, then stood speechless to watch a huge V fly low overhead. I opened my mouth to say something - I didn't know what it would be - and heard my voice say three times, "Godspeed." Suddenly, and for no reason I could understand, I burst into tears. Then I ran into the house.

Walking back outside later and staring into the now empty sky, I realized that in speaking not only had I been wishing the geese well for their journey south, but they had been using my voice and my breath to wish me just-as-well on my own just-as-difficult journey - this journey of opposition to the culture that is destroying life on the planet. The tears, it came clear to me, had been neighter from sorrow nor joy, but from homecoming, like a sailor who has been toolong at sea, and who spontaneously bursts into sobs on feeling those tentative first steps back on solid ground, back at home.

If we are to survive, we need the planet's help, just as it needs ours. To dismantle the walls we've so laboriously constructed to constrict our broken hearts, we must step away from our isolation from the rest of the world. There is a whole world waiting for us, ready to welcome us home. They have missed us as sorely as we have missed them. It is time. Return.

Godspeed.

Derrick Jensen

Environmentalist, California

From Prayers for a Thousand Years