I am a hopeless romantic, a certified love junkie. I long to be carried away in a riptide of amorous transcendence. The last time I fell in love, I was 24 years old. I was so fresh and pure and untainted by the fickle whims of irresponsible lovers, that I felt free to express the entirety of my glorious self. The boy I fell in love with flipped my switch; he illuminated me. And during the short period of time that we spent together, I opened for him like a morning glory in the glow of dawn's breaking light; I blossomed into the magnificent person that had been buried beneath dark, cold layers of “what ifs” and “if onlys.”

It wasn’t until our unexpected breakup that I realized how codependent I had become. I had never taken full responsibility for finding love within my own heart, and I had used lovers as excuses to find alignment with who I truly am. For me, love is an absolute, bare necessity. Love is my feeling of connection, of strength, of confidence. Love is what I strive to embody: the true essence of who I am. Love is my life-source, so it was for my own survival that I had to construct a new method for achieving an unadulterated state of love on a daily basis.

With no clue where to begin, I took the advice of Maria Von Trapp: “Let’s start at the very beginning… a very good place to start.” Sifting through my memories, I found myself in the exact moment that I fell in love. I was deep in conversation, exploring a level of intimacy that I'd never knew existed. Freedom of expression is what brought such deep joy to my heart, and I knew I had found my way back into love through the building block of creation: word.

Consider the infantile elation of communicating our most basic, primal needs for the first time. Hunger is eradicated by learning the word “baba;” love, care, and attention are thrust upon us by using the word, “mama,” or “dada.” Before we learn to write, or draw, or paint, or use any other outlet for creative expression, we learn to speak. Through the power of word, we break through all prior limitations and find that we are suddenly capable of manifesting our desires.

As it says in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In this respect, word is the seed of creation, and of manifestation itself. It seems, then, that word is the most important component to manifestation as we mature, and perhaps, the key to our sustained happiness.

This seems to make sense on a biological level as well, as research shows that we are ‘rewarded’ by adding new words to our lexicon. According to a recent scientific study published in Current Biology, learning new words can spark the ventral striatum area of the brain: the same region associated with a release of dopamine, a hormone and neurotransmitter that is commonly referred to as "the love drug." This means that as we expand our vocabulary, we receive a hit of dopamine, and feel the accompanying sense of pleasure.

One can also look to quantum physics to understand the power of word. One of the most incredible phenomena of the quantum world is that of “wave particle theory,” in which subatomic matter acts as either a wave (a force field displaying multiple potentials of movement) or as a particle (acting as solid material) based on the observer’s perspective. As Bruce Lipton describes in his book The Biology of Belief, “When scientists study the physical properties of atoms, such as mass and weight, they look and act like physical matter. However, when the same atoms are described in terms of voltage potentials and wavelengths, they exhibit the qualities and properties of energy (waves).” Atoms exhibit different patterns of behavior based on the language, the words, used to describe them, literally changing the very nature of their existence.

 

We’ve grown accustomed to believing that magic lies within illusion and trickery—the slight of hand, the smoke and mirrors—but quantum physics teaches that language endows each and every one of us with the mystical power of a cosmic sorcerer. In fact, did you know that in Aramaic, ‘abracadabra’ means ‘as I speak, I create?’

I am fascinated by the profound connection between incantation and intention.  I believe intention fuels and empowers the words that we use. When I intend to express myself authentically, my words carry more weight as they are driven from that infinite place within me where I am in a state of numinous accord: where I am one with divine understanding. Rumi says, “There’s a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.” Translation, then, is unequivocally ingrained in the human condition. Translation becomes an internal battle to find words that embody nonverbal knowing and understanding.  

As Jason Silva so eloquently states, “When we are awakened, we come to realize that it’s really about these feedback loops between our linguistic choices and our inner experience. The inner dance reflects or mirrors the outside world.”  What a powerful tool words can be, in that they allow you to both express your inner experience, and become a creator of your external reality.

Communication, whether through conversation or writing, "is to join the movement of words, or else it is to feel the coming together of words, a spark being thrown between the blurry inner activity of the self and the surrounding world," according to Sven Birkerts. Khalil Gibran says, "Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your hearts knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought." It is through the delicate maneuvering between the celestial and physical realms that one gains direct access to the sublime.

This love, this euphoria, comes from the intoxicating experience of choosing the words that most closely resonate with the intuited essence of our innermost feelings. It is through this authentic dialogue between soul (nonverbal) and person (verbal) that we unlock the explosive power of our own creative energy.

Through the use of word, we awaken to the totality of our heavenly nature. This heavenly nature is love, because love is the fullest, most honest and joyful expression of whom we really are. And beyond the limits of love, this is creation: because it is within our divine design to be godlike, ourselves creators of external circumstance.

This is the ecstasy of communication.

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Check out my animated short, Words of Love, which was inspired by this essay!