In English sound has four basic meanings, each of them historically unrelated to the others — an unusual situation. The “narrow channel of water” goes back to Germanic swem, “move, be in motion”, which is also the root of swim. The “fathom, probe” meaning is possibly related to swem as well, but can’t be traced back further than Old French sonde. The “noise” meaning has the most regal pedigree — it goes back through Latin sonus to Proto Indo European swonus, which is also the root of swan (“the sounding bird”) and sing. And the “healthy, unhurt” meaning comes from Proto Indo European swen-to, “strong, healthy”.

It’s my sense that the fact that all these meanings have merged into a single simple word — sound — shows an unconscious acknowledgement among English speakers of the underlying affinity between these concepts. Phonosemantically sound indicates energy that arises with great vigor but also with resonance, depth, and earthiness. You can feel the same energy in south and ground and round — volume, profundity, but also vibration and motion. For each of these concepts — the narrow waters, the far fathoms, the shaking air, the healthy body — sound calls to mind a mass, often in movement: a channel of ocean, an echo in the depths, a billow in the atmosphere, an unsullied solid.

And these thoughts bring me round again to where I’m standing. I am here because of a confluence of ripples set in motion quite suddenly this fall. So much was different a year ago — on a cold January day — when I stood with my fiancee on the opposite edge of the continent, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, our faces to the ocean’s wind, planning our wedding. I had a solid job with good prospects, our little home in Pittsburgh was established and orderly, my children (who visited on weekends) were doing well across town with their mother. Everything seemed reasonably sound and predictable. Then, two weeks before our wedding in September, there was an earthquake under my little life: my company was bought by a much larger one in Seattle. Like a hammer tapped against a weak spot in a support beam, or a shout in silence, or a boulder falling into a deep pool, those corporate executives brought a sharp shock to my life. Even as Alison and I launched our new lives as husband and wife, we were shifted, shunted, and everything began to settle into a new shape.

It’s still settling. Our orderly little home in Pittsburgh has been sorted, boxed, and readied for transport three thousand miles. Just today, I put down the deposit to reserve a new apartment — a newer, smaller place, cozier, with more light and less carpet, and strange west-coast trees in the yard. I hope they will be our friends. My new job is even more solid, with even better prospects, but will require more time in an office. The schedule of visitation with the kids — three months in the summer? Two months with extra weeks in the fall and winter? Something else entirely? — has become a source of contention, and I can only hope that it’s resolved quickly. The only thing that has remained rock-steady has been my wife, who has been beside me without a doubt or a flinch every step. When the ground shook under us, we leaned on each other. When the hardest shocks came, we were knocked to our knees, but we landed together, and rose again together.

We were married on the edge of land, sea, and sky, but also on a knife’s edge in our lives — between jobs, between homes, between cities, between landscapes. In September we knew that the edge was coming, but we couldn’t see beyond it. Today I stand on another shore, under another sky, with a new home and new work before me. Even this northern sun seems new. But it is good. And she still stands with me.

There is a sound — a song — when I hear it these days, I often cry.

Harbor

We’re here where the daylight begins
The fog on the streetlight slowly thins
Water on water’s the way
The safety of shoreline fading away

You’ve got a journey to make
There’s your horizon to chase
So go far beyond where we stand
No matter the distance
I’m holding your hand

Vienna Teng

Oddments

• It’s been almost four months since I’ve posted here; the new marriage, new job, new home, and new child custody situation have put this blog on the back burner. But finally things are settling into their new shape, and I can breathe a bit. My posting will still be very sporadic over the next couple of weeks, but I hope to have everything on an even keel by early February.
• In the meantime, I’ve collected some past writings and put them on a new blog, Skein of Words. I want to use it for bits and snatches of fiction I’m working on. I tend to have a number of projects going at once, many of them interconnected and interrelated, and it’s only every once in a while that once of them is knocked into a shape finished enough to be ‘published’ (though, these days, the very definition of ‘finished’ and ‘public’ are changing month to month!). I have been trying to discipline myself to work very hard on just one project until it is finished, but I visited a psychic during my honeymoon who suggested I take a more relaxed, playful attitude. So I made this blog where I can simply work on whatever I want to work on, and whenever one of my projects is ‘ready’, I’ll put it on Amazon and ‘publish’ it. Good times! Check it out!
• If you follow me on facebook (either my personal account or my Druid Journal page), you might have noticed that I haven’t posted anything in months. I’ve gotten pretty fed up with facebook, and plan on confining myself to Twitter (@druidjournal) and G+ from now on. Look me up there!
• “In Seattle you haven’t had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it’s running.” ~Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
• There is a famous, oft-quoted speech attributed to Chief Seattle in 1854, at the time when his people agreed to move to a reservation. It is eloquent and moving, but it was made up in the mid 70′s by a screenwriter. Nevertheless a version exists which probably actually reflects what Seattle really said, and is definitely worth reading: “When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone… At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land.” – Chief Seattle (probably)

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Storm is from Proto Germanic sturmaz, and belongs to that class of uniquely German words that are unrelated to any other branch of the Indo-European language family. It became sturm in German, familiar to most people in the expression Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress” or “Storm and Yearning”), and storm in Old English. Spiritually the word encapsulates the lightning (“st” = the bright energy in motion), the thunder (“or” = the grounding, the power) and the new life that a storm invariably spawns (“m” = manifestation). It’s an awesome word; no wonder it was borrowed into Old French (estour) and Italian (stormo).

Speaking of Drang, it is probably from Proto Indo European trenk (“beat, press”), and came into Proto Germanic as thrangan. At this time it had connotations of pressure and pushing, as well as crowdedness and tumult. In German the ‘crowding’ meaning was lost, leaving the pressure, urging, yearning. In English, however, the ‘pressure’ meaning was lost, leaving the idea of a crowd: Old English gethrang, modern English throng. Spiritually, Drang is a door opening with forceful authority, reverberating, generating power. Throng has the same sense of power and reverberation, but instead of a door, it is a perilous path.

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one’s head.” – Twain

Oddments

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated the blog, because (drum roll please!) I finally finished a huge set of revisions to Mere America: First Nations, my novella of an alternate-history America which explores the effect of geography and the land on the history of America. I noted yesterday on Google+ that American civil religion is founded in part on the idea of the land being granted to us, with a special place in God’s plan, on analogy with Israel; and I wanted to go deeply into the question of what parts of America’s character derived from us as a people, and what parts were dependent on accidents of geography. In this edition there is a whole new prologue and extensive revisions to the section on the Vikings landing in British Columbia, thanks to excellent feedback from Kara-Leah. If you’ve already bought a copy, you should get a message from Amazon about updating to the new version. If you haven’t already bought a copy — feel free to click here at your earliest convenience.

Mere America

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Black snake stretched, unwound across the path. We stopped to watch in the steam and sun-slant of morning as it melted back into the brush.

It was about three or four feet long, and a few inches thick. To me it looked like water: a jet-black trickle of liquid, flowing across the path, almost painfully slow. It brought to mind the discussion we had on our recent prodcast about Harry Potter, Nagini, and the Midgard Serpent.

What is it about snakes?… There is a passage I always think of, from Kipling’s Kim, in which a Tibetan lama and his disciple, Kim (the English boy raised by native Indians) stumble upon a cobra as they are seeking a mystic river.

“Look! Look!” Kim sprang to [the lama's side] and dragged him back. A yellow and brown streak glided from the purple rustling stems to the bank, stretched its neck to the water, drank, and lay still — a big cobra with fixed, lidless eyes.

“I have no stick — I have no stick,” said Kim. “I will get me one and break his back.”

“Why? He is upon the Wheel as we are — a life ascending or descending — very far from deliverance. Great evil must the soul have done that is cast into this shape.”

“I hate all snakes,” said Kim. No native training can quench the white man’s horror of the Serpent.

“Let him live out his life.” The coiled thing hissed and half opened its hood. “May thy release come soon, brother,” the lama continued placidly. “Hast thou knowledge, by chance, of my River?”

“Never have I seen such a man as thou art,” Kim whispered, overwhelmed. “Do the very snakes understand thy talk?”

“Who knows?” He passed within a foot of the cobra’s poised head. It flattened itself among the dusty coils.

“Come thou!” he called over his shoulder.

“Not I,” said Kim. “I go round.”

Snake

Snake comes from Proto Indo European sneg or snag, meaning ‘crawl’ and ‘creep’. This became snakon in Proto Germanic, snaca in Old English, and snake in Middle English. For a long time people preferred to use the word serpent, borrowed from French; but eventually the native English word pretty much won out.

Snake is a word that carries intimations of increase and fertility, as well as grounding and dispersal of energy, rising power, and containment — all of which well fits a creature so close to the ground, but with the power to strike through the air suddenly.

Serpent

Serpent is from Proto Indo European serp, which meant ‘creep’ (just as sneg/snag did). Serp became the Latin verb serpere, ‘to creep’, and a thing that crept was a serpent. The word was borrowed into Middle English and almost replaced the native snake.

Spiritually serpent has the same sense of increase and fertility, but has more connotations of power directed at a point.

Drake, Dragon

These words come from Latin draco, ‘dragon’; drake was borrowed directly, and dragon came through French. The Latin word came from the Greek drakon, from Proto Indo European derk ‘to see’ (since Greek dragons had the Evil Eye).

Drake, like serpent, is a word of directed motion, but more associated with decision; and like snake, has connotations of rising power and containment. Dragon has a more luxurious energy — decisive motion, but towards grounding, gathering, Source.

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