What if words weren’t just abstract combinations of symbols that make sounds? What if there were concrete pictures in each word we used, that, when we thought of that word, brought up that particular combination of pictures, with real, concrete meanings behind them? What if those pictures gave us not only concrete understandings of the concepts behind them, but also gave us mental, emotional, and physical healing paths to pursue? What if all of that were connected to finances, food, shelter, relationships, and every other major area of “discussion” in our lives?
Here’s to a Living Language– one that’s coming back from the dead “L’Chaim!” 🙂
You’ve all heard the song L’Chaim from Fiddler On The Roof, right? Means “To Life,” right? Well… yes, but that’s an abstract picture– what is “Life”? Can we draw a picture of it? The Ancient Hebrews did 🙂
Chet- Tent Wall: Separation, Inside / Outside
Yud- Arm: Administration, Authority
The “Stomach” or “Life” is our “Inner Administrator”, or “Gut Instinct”, separated from the
Whole Breath of Life (Gen. 2:7) in this “Life”… but that’s another post… should expound on that some more, sometime…
OK… so what does “Life” have to do with “Stomach”? It’s the same word in the Ancient Hebrew Pictographs… Why???
From the AHLB # 1171:
“When the stomach is empty, one is famished and weak, and when it is filled, one is revived. This organ is seen as the life, as an empty stomach is like death, but a revived stomach is life.”
When you’re a nomadic shepherd in the wilderness, your entire life revolves around finding food for your sheep, and for yourself. But we’re modern folk, and we’ve moved beyond those “base” needs… right? …maybe …maybe not.
How many people out there are making choices between healthy foods and medical bills? …or between healthy foods and medical insurance? …or between healthy foods and drugs to deal with the diseases that have arisen from our modern, “convenient” diet? Maybe money could solve that problem for some folks, but it takes more than money to fill a stomach with life. I could take a mint and go buy dinner out every night, but it wouldn’t solve my health problems, or reduce my need for medical insurance or drugs. There’s more to it than money. Money is a tool– a means to an end, but it doesn’t solve problems on its own. Knowledge of how to use that money… or other tools can bring Life on a gut-level– both physically and emotionally/ mentally.
So where do we go to find that Knowledge? Two places work for me: Torah (Teaching and Instruction, originally written in those Ancient Hebrew Pictographs), and other Breaths of Life– particularly those who have studied Ancient cultures, who knew bits of Truth that have been shoved aside, and driven out of mainstream culture by the money gods 😉
So if I’m lookin’ there for my Teaching and Instruction about how to keep my “Life” / “Stomach” functioning properly, what do I find? First off, I find that before anything else happens, there’a a set of Teachings that apply to all of Noah’s children– everybody. They’re pretty basic. It’s re-stated pretty concisely later on in one of the Prophets:
“He has shown thee, O man, what is good, and what YHWH requires of thee: but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” –Micah 6:8
Pretty basic, right? So what does that have to do with my guts??? Let’s go back to those original Teachings that were for everybody… (click on the link, check out #3, specifically, and come back to me 🙂 How many ways does our modern society impose cruel conditions, cruel feeding, housing, and modifications on the animals that we consume as food? Our “sanitized” world, where we don’t have to see the animals, either the way they live, or the way they die to become our dinners is pretty bad / dysfunctional, honestly. The results are in our guts. We have astronomically high incidences of intestinal disorders, and food allergies, oftentimes produced by compromised gut lining. The genetically modified corn that we use to feed livestock in their unnaturally cramped quarters isn’t the same fare they’d be getting if they were free to graze– it’s a synthesized freak-of-nature that produces infertility in man and beast. When we’re cruel to animals, we reduce our own “Life.” Our Chai (maybe related to “Chi” for those who are familiar with Chinese medicine?) is negatively affected and diminished by our choices to trample these Natural Laws. According to Chinese medicine (one of those “breaths of life” that have found Ancient Truths that we’ve swept under the rug in our modern “sanitized” culture), all health begins in the gut. Therefore, if we have illness (mental, physical, or emotional) in our “Life”, we must look to what could be dysfunctional in our gut (bm’s too fast or too slow, anyone? LOL!), and heal the “Stomach.” If our “gut instincts” are off in relationships, and get us into trouble, we must look to where our “Gut” / “Stomach” needs healing.
Like it or not, we are still living in animal bodies– no matter how many layers of paint & nonsense we use to pretend otherwise (just keepin’ it real, here LOL!) We are no better than our ancestors, and we would do well to hear their wisdom.
No, I don’t expect you to get from here to “Idealsville” overnight… maybe not even ever. A wise friend once told me that it’s like getting into a spaceship, and heading for a planet an infinite distance away– you’ll never arrive, because it’s an infinite distance away. That’s not the point. The point is to be pointed in that direction. Each step we take in the right direction is a footprint that the generations behind us can trace to find the Way again, making the path more clear for others after them.
For more info on the pictographs, see http://ancient-hebrew.org/
leavesheal 