Its the reason we find these other languages and concepts attractive. Ove the years I’ve learned of similar words and ideas in other languages an cultures: in fact this seems to be a feature of human language in a way that isn’t quite available to unilingual English speakers like myself. Without tsawalk we are not doing good work, because we are not doing work that attends to the many relational fields that are necessary to create space that is fully alive. In Nuu-Chah-Nulth, the word “ tsawalk” meaning “oneness” really is a word that points to the presence of a texture in a container that helps us see the connection between things (people, animals, land…) and the relationship between the spiritual and physical world. In Diné there is a word – “ k’e” – which describes the quality of connection between an individual and their clan and family that is critical for survival and sustainability. Over the years, teaching about containers to people who speak these languages I have begun to learn a few concepts. We have to use metaphors like “safe space” or “brave space” or “juicy” or “a ripe time” that point a bit at the feel, but use words as metaphors and not direct. When they say those things, the English ear hears the word “time” or “space” (the nouns in the sentence), but the words the Elders use are pointing to the qualities of the relationships between things in the container of time or space. Indigenous languages here contain many words and ideas that are similar to the ones Yurie described, and I have experienced language speaking Elders and others cautioning me that “this time isn’t right” or “the space is wrong” in a way that is hard to put into English. Over my career I’ve had the gift of working extensively in indigenous communities in North America and one of the features of many (but not all) indigenous languages is the fact that they are verb-based as opposed to English which is very noun-based. Anyone who engages in dialogue will know that there is a time and a place for everything. I learned today that all of these words are similar, and include not just ideas about the quality of space but time as well.
As I will be working this spring in Japan with these very concepts, I thought it would be interesting to hear from my colleagues Yurie Makihara and Kazuhiko Nakamura about these ideas of “wa,” “ma,” “ba,” and “tokoro.” Yurie shared her thoughts, on some of these words, including noting that the word “ba” is often cited by foreigners as an example of a word describing the quality of dialogic container that exists in Japanese and not English.
On the Art of Hosting list today there has been a very interesting conversation about some of the Japanese words that are used to describe space and container.
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