Fifty years ago, I had a mystical experience.  It wasn’t something I was trying to have. I didn’t even know what it was. I just knew I had experienced a sudden understanding and clarity.

Nothing outside me changed.  All that changed was my understanding of my external world.  Suddenly, I was looking at everything through new eyes.

I had to tell others. No one understood.  How could I use divisive, analytical words to communicate a unifying, holistic experience? It was like trying to use a screwdriver to hammer a nail.

Mystical experiences have always been called “ineffable.” They cannot be talked about with any kind of accuracy. The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao.

I began playing with words, discovering all the creative ways they structure our experiences. I wrote poetry, essays and stories; I journaled. I questioned. Words were illusions, dancing at a masked ball. They were fingers pointing at the moon. They were not the moon.  However, they could be used as powerful, transformational facilitators.

Alfred Korzybski wrote, “The map is not the territory.” The words (however useful) are not the experience.

There is this unifying, holistic, enlightening, transformational experience that has happened to people all over the planet from the beginning of time. It has been named by different people in different ways: salvation, enlightenment, satori, awakening, “I am aware.”

As soon as anyone tries to talk about it, however, they are creating a conceptual map of the experience. Each map is different, and the map is not the territory. The words are not the experience.

Socrates used questions. Jesus used parables. Buddhists teach the Noble Eightfold Path. Zen Buddhists use koans.

For fifty years, I have had many holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences. For 22 years, I practiced rigorous, left-brain law. Throughout my life, I have been playing with language and honing my people skills.

Out of this, an art form has emerged that I call “Word Sculptures.” Word Sculptures uses words in atypical ways (paradox, metaphor, allegory, poetry, questions, deep dialog) to shift people into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace.

When you change your words, you change your world; your emotions change, your actions change, and your relationships change. Learn more here.

If we all understood what we humans do with words, together, we could be astoundingly powerful and effective in co-creating the dynamic, respectful, peaceful, powerful, prosperous planet we all need in order to survive and thrive.