Being in Communication
talking together
Photo: Rajghat, Varanasi, India. Maggie Alexander
To be in communion with, to communicate not just through words but beyond the word.
I look out of the window at the low grey clouds pushing past and watch them part to reveal the blue that reaches far into the atmosphere. A watery sun reflects a downy white within the grey and the rain still falls. Drops hang on to the black metal fence in front of the field with its green shoots, and the dark trees in the distance are enveloped in damp curtains of rain. For a moment a red kite appears, wings outspread riding the wind. Its distinctive forked tail moves to correct its delicate balance as its wide wings steady, without any seeming effort.
There are so many words. So many ways of using words. So many meanings in words. Are we lost in our own use of language, prisoners of that extraordinary aspect of humanity that makes us unique?
Soon Maggie and I will be visiting our grandchildren in Copenhagen and for the first time will be able to communicate with our four-year-old grandson in English. He came with his parents and younger brother to visit us for a week in the summer and was surrounded by English speakers. His father has spoken to him in English since his birth. When he returned to Copenhagen our grandson continued to speak to his father in English. He just did it without any coercion or even suggestion. What kind of intelligence is that?
Communication, however, is more than language, so much more.
We all know that.
Sound elicits emotions, feelings, moods. The touch of a warm breeze in the shadows on the face slowly brings life to the body. You hold a small animal and feel its heart beating in the gentle grip of your hand and you’re in touch with another world. The smell of the trees in the rain whilst watching the leaves fall. Tasting the salt from the sea’s pounding waves showering spray in their uncontrolled power. Our bodies, our minds receive so much from the world around us, and once we understand that we are just part of that then it all changes.
For most of my life I have worked with children and young people aged from six to nineteen. It took me quite some time before I began to understand the subtleties, intricacies and simplicity of the relationship between the learner and the educator. My assumptions were gleaned from my own schooling and upbringing; not that they were the right way, but that was all I knew.
When I began working in school environments that stripped away the trappings of formality; uniforms, “Sir’ and ‘Miss’, systems of punishment and reward that inculcated fear and comparison, creating competition as a means control, I began to learn about the potential quality of relationship in an environment of mutual respect.
Generally, our communication founders on the rocks of explanation, theory and persuasion. One who knows meets the one to be convinced – the teacher and the taught. It’s an arid, two-dimensional relationship; functional, utilitarian and mechanical. Like living without colour. It is a relationship of convenience and exploitation where attention is deliberately and single-mindedly focussed on achieving a pre-determined result. There is no exploration, no silence, no listening and, above all, no care. This is not a creative relationship. There is no joy in our meeting.
There is a tendency in our lives to become distracted by the big things – grand ideas, following the crowd, having more experiences, more things. We come to value our opinions, identifying ourselves with those we admire, those who influence us. There is so much noise, speed, racing to whatever destination we might aspire to in this mechanistic world.
Where is the quality in our relationships?
Maybe it is in the quiet corners of living where communication in words are like raindrops on the edge of a leaf before it falls. Where there is care in our expression, attention to meaning and an understanding that language has its own limitations.
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I would like to draw your attention to a recent post I put on the Revolution in Mind Substack. It is the transcript of a telephone conversation I had with Laurie, who is fifteen. His father had brought him along to a gathering in Spain at the end of June which I also attended. I have written about the gathering itself in a previous Substack on this platform – “A Few Days Away.’ https://andrewalexander.substack.com/p/a-few-days-away
The link to the conversation is:
