'That thing which your knowledge cannot eat’

‘Malidoma Patrice Somé the Dagara writer and teacher has written that in his language there is a word yielbougura that is quickly and inaccurately translated into English as mystery. He says that this word more accurately should be translated as ‘that thing which your knowledge cannot eat’. Here is an indigenous understanding of understanding and one our culture must learn mystery must have a proper place in learning.’ – Stephen Jenkinson.

Following on from the theme of a previous blog about mystery in knowing here is an example that other languages have a capacity for this.

The English language although rich in words has problems which manifest in unusual ways like expressing things like death. The verb ‘to die’ is an active verb which when expressed in the past tense becomes passive i.e. ‘they died’ whereas in the present ‘they are dying’. We think of time as a line hurtling into the future with no way of getting it back along with the dead, our dreams and memories. Stephen Jenkinson says that this may be why we say we have’ lost someone’ whereas in other cultures their dead are present and active in their life and in their language.

Sting says in a lyric

‘When words are hard to find,

The only cheques I’ve left unsigned,

From the banks of chaos in my mind,

And when their eloquence escapes me,

Their logic ties me up and rapes me.’

Language has a power that structures what we think, how we think and how we frame the world that we experience. What happens with music is that we can experience the world in a way that lies outside of our language. Ask an artist to explain their work and how they created it, it will not be long before they are struggling with language and grasping for metaphors, or they might say ‘I do not know’.

The title quotation is interesting in the concept that knowledge needs to be fed, I like that, especially that in the west we want information and knowledge and are hungry for it, to consume it, for the consumer society, in fact now we are in an information age are we not, or so we are told.

So what about music as a language, can it say something different that cannot be easily expressed in English? What type of connecting can we do with music that seems to transcend what we can do with logic? I draw a definition with poetry here because that can reach parts that literal language often cannot. This is worth considering as a musician and a teacher because we can make changes to ourselves and others and it can open a field of music therapy; for want of a better term.

Vic

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