Kything and The Silver Cord- A Communication Enhancer

"She kytheth what she is."
~Geoffrey Chaucer

There is a children's book titled, "A Wind in the Door" by Madeleine L'Engle that manages to illustrate a description of a new heart to heart language in action. This story, meant for young readers proved very helpful to generate a frame of reference when attempting to understand this "other" communication possibility. In her book, the character Proginoskes teaches Meg, a young frustrated girl on a quest to save her little brother Charles Wallace about "Kything." I gravitated toward this concept instantly because it seemed to put words to an experience that I had been taught to take notice of and one that I had felt occasionally throughout my life with people I was close to.

When I googled "Kything" I found that Madeleine had found this word in an old Scottish Dictionary belonging to her grandfather. The definition presented was, "To make visible." This is a process where people are connected regardless of time and space and are essentially able to step into each other or be aware of each other even though the other is not always physically present. Even beyond this, it is an ability to "be" the other person and experience things from their unique perspective. We "see" the other in a different light when we are able kythe with them.

This unseen but strongly felt connection can provide us with a "knowing". This is the "knowing" of beautiful familiarity and peace that I have felt while "being still" with someone I love. Words become irrelevant and unnecessary. There is no need to talk or explain to the other, it is the sensation of "being" together..that almost transcends the physical limitations of having separate bodies. This connection doesn't observe the regular rules of time or space. I felt my son before he was born, as I continue to feel my grandparents and unborn children now.

I can feel when my partner and I are close. When we are, "on the same page" and "together" we don't really have to be physically together to be with each other. When he or I travel separately, I miss his touch but I am not without his presence. When we are experiencing a "disconnect," however, being together physically becomes very important to me. Once we are reconnected we often go about our lives without much conscious thoughts toward the other. This isn't to say that we aren't "with" each other or do things that thoughtlessly affect the other. On the contrary, with every decision I make he is in my chest. Although he might not be consciously unaware of it, we make many collective decisions every day.

My grandmother had a different name for this phenomenon. I grew up knowing this process not by the word "Kything" but with the image grandma had made mention of, one of a "silver cord."

I am not sure where Grandma learned the concept or the words from, but she clearly had experienced it enough to feel that it was important and worthy of passing on to her daughter and granddaughters. "Kything" or "The Silver Cord" are attempts to attach language to what is for the most part considered still to be a very mystical and irrational process. Members of my family don't discuss it with those that are not close to us very often because we are by and large, a practical family and are acutely aware that people outside our circle of experience might think we are pretty loopy.

The Silver Cord is how we knew when to call each other, when something was amiss, when someone was pregnant, or when someone was spiritually depleted. We were not quite as good at it as the character Charles Wallace in Madeleine L'Engles book, but we did experience it often as a family consisting mainly of women. It was and continues to be something that is accepted as normal and natural, and we do allow those feelings or impressions to lead us to action.

In my family, we take dreams and feelings seriously and they are given respect and attention. This is not to say that we believe that every crazy dream is literally going to come to fruition, but we understand that somehow we are connected, and even though we might have great physical distances and realms between us, we are still able to receive important information about the others.

Before I worked up the courage to tell my mother that I was pregnant with my son, both she and my grandmother already knew. When my sister Alicia got engaged, my sister Jen and I both knew before she managed to announce it. There would be moments out of the blue when I would have an overwhelming urge to call my grandmother or to send her flowers. After many of these times, I would discover that those were the calls that came right at the right time. The last intense urge I had to call her came weeks before I had scheduled a summer visit home. I know now that her body had gone into distress. After talking to my mother on the phone a week later, I changed my plan and flew home immediately. I made it just in time to share a last glass of sherry, and for her to know that I was there.

Many people have experiences like these. Part of the connection seems to be an ability to empathize beyond our logical minds. Our subconscious pick up cues from the tone of voice, eye contact and movement, body language, the words that are chosen and how they are strung together. One word or one second of watching someone's face is all it takes sometimes to know beyond the words, that something is up. I'm no psychologist, but it would seem that if our higher mind or our subconscious was doing the reading for us, it would make sense that the way it would communicate to our conscious mind is by using symbols in dreams and by causing our bodies to react with an emotion.

Even beyond this enhanced mode of communication, I believe there is a next level that encompasses grandma's "silver cord" and the act of "Kything." Imagine if we were to eventually evolve to the point that we understood the web that we were connected to and had the ability to "tune in" to individual people, or areas of the world consciously. Imagine if we could feel intimately not just a connection to those in our own tribes, but that we could tune into the tribal mind of various other groups and individuals. We would feel a tremendous amount. In fact, we might feel so much that we would not be able to function.

Can you imagine if you had an emotional silver cord or kything experience with a mother in Liberia and were able to step into her body and be present with her as she watched her 11 year old son's hands be severed from his body by a tribal group that feared he would someday grow into a man and hold a weapon? I didn't make that up. Things like that really truly happen in the world we live in today. Perhaps one of the reasons that we have not learned to extend ourselves beyond our own strong relationships is out of self preservation. How could we live knowing and feeling all the horrors that so many people on our planet experience?

It seems to me that instead of mystical, magical and crazy, maybe we should embrace this communication channel as another aspect of our natural way of being and connecting with each other that can help to enrich our lives and enhance our relationships. It shouldn't be a secret that this connection is available to us all. It's always there, our job is to tune into the correct channel to experience it.

How do we do this? I believe, the first step is to acknowledge that connection is not only possible, it is a truth. The next, is to be quiet enough on the inside that we can hear the information and feel the feelings that are available. The last, is that we must respect our feelings enough to take action on them. There is no harm in calling an old friend or checking in with a loved one. Even it turns out that the person we call doesn't need us in that particular moment, we have shown that we love them and that we are paying attention. I don't believe that this information has an "on" and "off" switch. The information is always there. It is us that plugs in or unplugs. Again we see that practice, discipline and action all work together.

Why is this possibility of enhanced communication matter? Turn on the news. Turn on the television. Read the paper. Try to sign into your yahoo, msn, or gmail account. Everyday, we see and read about sad horrible things. This problem of true community understanding and our lacking ability to communicate in a more complete way has contributed many heart aches, wars, and much collective despair among humans. Our mission as individuals to consciously discover our story becomes ever more important when this is taken into consideration.

As we participate in our own unfolding our language changes. We can move beyond words. We are better able to imagine things from another perspective when we consciously recognize our own paradigm and how that paradigm colors our experiences. When we see that we are fallible, caught up in unconscious ways of thinking and processing information, and take steps to change how our story is being written and experienced, we also gain the ability to be more compassionate to our fellow human beings.

We learn that not everything is as it seems regardless of the words we hear another person use. We are able to pick up on other communication cues from that person that were unavailable to us before. We come closer to understanding the other in a more multidimensional and complete way because we recognize that we too, have a multidimensional experience.

We begin to learn that this experience goes beyond what the 5 senses can tell us and includes a certain heart connection, intuitive connection, and spiritual connection to the one we are listening to. All of these connections speak their own language, one that is also available to us as listeners if we are able to tune in to them. Wouldn't life be different if we could add Kything to our regular communication methods?

Ahh...the treasure one rediscovers through childrens literature. Thank you Madeleine!