Update One: I must change the freeway closing on my last post to a Good Scene, as it appears that the freeway was closed down on account of a gasoline tanker that kept catching fire and, eventually, exploded. I am very glad to have been routed away, as I am not a fan of anything remotely close to real-life explosions, even if it did mean two and a half more hours in the car with my feline traveling companion.

Update Two: Though I am not one to count unhatched chickens, I think it might be safe enough to say at this point that I’m going to have another chapbook published. Details forthcoming.

Random Musing: I had drafted a Nicole Richie Waka post earlier this morning, but was suddenly seized with anxiety and regret. I’ve been thinking a lot about speech, and words having a power, a charge. And I don’t mean that in the euphemistic way, but in a very real way. I think there’s a tendency to think of the word, if at least the spoken word, as powerless, as just breath, as empty molecules. But the word is much more than that. It is, in a very real sense, our very selves — we are known through what we tell of ourselves, what of ourselves we communicate to others (and how others interpret that). There’s a lot that can be said about naming and so forth, but I often wonder if that’s too theoretical to really seem real, to seem applicable, to illustrate the real brute power of the word, even the spoken word, if for no other reason than that the act of speech is one of the few that is clearly, visibly irrevocable: once something is said, it is said, and can’t be unsaid, no matter how much we wish it so.

With great power, of course, comes great responsibility. I’ve been thinking a great deal about the responsibility of speech.

In his notes on the Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran devotes a lot of time to the sacred and speech:

“In all mystical traditions, speech is at least potentially a sacred act. . . .In practical terms, when we speak harshly to others, or even speak harshly about them, we are tearing at the original unity among all of us.”

Here’s what the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad has to say about it:

“Then speech is our light, for by that we sit, work, go out, and come back. Even though we cannot see our own hand in the dark, we can hear what is said and move toward the person speaking.”