Think of a hateful word or phrase. Notice how it feels in your muscles, your jaw, your gut, your heart. Notice how the energy of those words affects you.
Now think of words of beauty, perhaps a Rumi or Jane Oliver poem, a description of a loved one’s touch or smile, words that evoke a gorgeous landscape, a favorite tree. Feel those words in your body.
Words have power.
Language can be wielded as a weapon; perhaps it was the first human weapon.
Language can be wielded as a magic wand, conjuring beauty and love.
Language can inspire introspection, wonder, intrigue, many layers of meaning.
I take great care with language in my writing and teaching, yet I know what I strive for is more a process than a perfect product: striving to be just and truthful with my words, striving for cultural sensitivity, for words that build community, consensus, connection, understanding rather than fear, hate, ugliness, disconnection. 
Nope, doesn’t mean I always paint rosy landscapes. Speaking truth can sometimes appear harsh.
Word Shortcuts
As careful as I think I am, I use shortcuts for complex issues that cause my words to leak their potential power for truth, justice, insight. For instance, after meeting Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Cheyenne River Lakota Nation, host of First Voices Indigenous Radio) at a recent interfaith climate change training, I changed my twitter profile from “saving our planet” to “protecting the Earth” because he and other Original Nations people spoke about the harm of language used carelessly (or maliciously) by dominant, dominating culture–not a new concept for me–and sparked me to examine my language sloppiness. It’s not our world, we live with the world. Acknowledging our connection, thanks-giving, honoring are better ways to be with the Earth than “saving” the planet.
As a Witch, I know that we humans are inseparable from the natural world. I hold the paradox that I am nature and that Mother Earth is much greater than and distinct from me. It’s the Unknowable between these concepts where we enter Mystery and find wisdom and insight, ways of being and connecting.
Witches know the power of paradox. Paradox helps us reach into and align with the Unknowable, an expansive way of being. The two poles of paradox create a dynamic state and, like in a battery, energy flows. In this frenetic energy, we dance with Mystery. Here is the place of deep knowing that is difficult to put into words, and ripe for taking language shortcuts.
Will I continue to use the shorthand “our planet?” Not without a sharp bell ringing, making me cringe, did it again, oops. (Forgive me Mama Earth.)
Even “protecting” the Earth: does She need my protection? Another paradox, within which truth vibrates. For truth and wisdom are not static.
Note that I’m way oversimplifying (above) what Tiokasin said. American English doesn’t allow the nuance and meaning of most First Nations languages–languages that assume interconnection among all beings. English and many other colonizing languages don’t easily allow us to de-center humans in relation to the All. (I’ll discuss de-centering in part 2.)
Dominion
Talk about a word having power! Power over: Earth and its land and water as resources; animals and “lesser” beings; taking and controlling all resources needed for growth and wealth regardless of harm and impact . . .
Do you know of the doctrine of discovery? While there’s a movement among Christians to dismantle it, it has caused so much harm and annhilation over centuries–it justified colonizing Indigenous people and wiping out sovereign nations: weaponized language at its finest. There’s a very informative and important film unmasking that doctrine, a collaboration between a Dakota and a Shawnee/Lenape filmmaker. The latter, scholar and author Steven T. Newcomb offers an overview of this European doctrine’s use in the U.S. that begins
. . . few people are aware that [Columbus’] act of “possession” was based on a religious doctrine now known in history as the Doctrine of Discovery. Even fewer people realize that today – five centuries later – the United States government still uses this archaic Judeo-Christian doctrine to deny the rights of Native American Indians.
And Witches
The fifteenth century papal bulls codified and ordered the conquering, killing or forced assimilation of Muslims and Pagans. Those practicing the Old Ways–Witches–were all but wiped out. Witches are Indigenous Peoples of Europe. Yes, pockets of indigeneity remain in Europe, though disjointed, pushed into secrecy, and often syncretized with Christian religion. The Samit in the far North are not the only Indigenous Europeans.
In Part 2, I discuss the power of language vis-a-vis the dark/light binary. I’m contemplating Part 3 to discuss de-centering as relevant to the language we use. See you then.