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VOL. 14
There isn't a greater romance than words.
I have always been a reader. Reading, to me, has always been a friend that I could rely on to provide comfort but also to allow me to explore the depths of myself and to understand the different aspects of myself and who I am. It is only by my love of reading and desire for knowledge that I even went to University. I was never interested in attending University to get a degree to do a specific job. It is the current framework that if you really want to learn about something, University is, in a sense, where you've got to go. As I've gotten older, I realised there was so much more literature out there when one begins to look away from mainstream shops and places and things (read Amazon and The New York Times Bestsellers List, etc.)
As is the case for many readers, the act of reading has been the medium through which I have been transported to completely different worlds. This idea of losing myself in a book may seem ironic if you're familiar with my reading list (which you can find curated and ever-growing on The Senses page of Behind the Veil) since a big part of what I read is actually nonfiction. But, truthfully, I am particularly interested in the human experience, psychology, breaking down and building upon ideas and ideology that open to a broader, more rich way of seeing and understanding the world, of making it bigger, more expansive and beautiful even.
Speech, to me, is an expression of our soul (if you're interested, Carl Jung talks a lot about this in his philosophies). In this way, words are like windows into the soul, and this is why I hold so much reverence for them. Our words have the power to change our lives, and so do the words of others. If this weren't the case, you wouldn't have groups of people following similar ideologies; we wouldn't have religion; we wouldn't have any of these concepts or anything like them if words weren't powerful enough to change people's lives and therefore the direction that they want to take and their belief systems. There's a wonderful quote by an author by the name of Yehuda Berg in which he says:
"Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble."
That quote alone and the potency of its truth is why we need to choose our words wisely. Again, someone else's opinion of me is none of my business, but when you have this mentality of "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me…" we are actually living in a delusion – the saying is simply not true. No matter who that person speaking ill is, whether we know them or not, their words do have the power to hurt and break. This is why it's so important to not only understand that our projection, essentially what we put out into the world, is what we get back (this is a subject that I teach within my Mystery School teachings coming back real soon to Behind the Veil! It's going to be AMAZING). It's the same with our words: the words we put out are the words we get back. So if we're going to speak ill about someone, we are going to have that come back to us. And whether we believe it or not, this will not help us shape the reality that we want – being careless and frivolous with what we say will send us backwards.
Remember, words are energy and power: they have the ability to heal, help, hurt, harm, and humiliate but also to humble one. And this is what I think about when I think about the written word or reading literature. I find the entire experience profoundly humbling: to read and to know and to discover someone else's perspective on a particular topic and to find the similarities in what I think to what they are saying is a completely magical experience. Forget synchronicity, it is a sacred meeting of souls. In some ways, they are taking the words right out of my soul. But, of course, they've put them together and articulated them in a way that I've never thought about before because they are based on their experiences, their thoughts, and their stories... But they invoke, with their words, stories, and perspectives, a sense of connectedness of the feelings within.
This is why words are so powerful: they allow us to tap into this human unconscious, this collective consciousness, and they help us to see other people as different versions of ourselves, to see the other as you. And when we do this, we better understand the mind, and we better understand ourselves, and therefore, we better understand the people around us. We become less reactive, and we act instead based on empathy. We see others through the eyes of compassion, from a place of reverence, while understanding that we are all on our own journey. Reading others' words and stories implies that having different views is OK. And the result of reading is the act of coming closer together, of recognising our similarities at the core, within our souls.
One of the most indulgent, incredibly amazing things that I could ever do in my entire life (and I would want to do it every month if I could) would be to host these incredible supper clubs where different people from many walks of life come together to gather and discuss topic, books, to tell stories. I imagine there would be an English Lit major who specialised in old English poetry and also writes their own, a quantum physicist, a medical doctor, a forensic anthropologist, a Psychiatrist, an artist, an actor, a playwright, a masseuse, a ballet dancer, a pianist, a botanist… It would be like the Knights of the Round Table or The Last Supper but with people from all walks of life. I would indulge in hosting a gathering of brilliant minds. I am truly in awe of people's minds, and I guess that's why I studied the mind because, again, the things they would say, the knowledge they would share is the sound of their soul. In many ways, the way I see it, reading and then gathering and sharing stories is how we enable ourselves to look into one another's souls: the words we choose to speak are powerful, important, and intentional — they, even unconsciously, tell their own story. To share is part of the human experience; it helps us to find meaning, helps us to understand ourselves, it helps us to make our life better.
And so, when you think about words and negative self-talk in this way, it's not surprising that we currently live in the reality that we do. Of course, there will always be things around us that we're not going to be 100% happy with, but by choosing to read someone's words for x reason, we find the things that we are happy with and make something beautiful out of them by changing, altering, improving our own stories and our own lives. As a result, there is a richness of life that naturally forms.
In many ways, this idea parallels the power sound has on our lives and our existence because music has the same ability. Music is another form of the written word, and it has this way of prompting remembrance from within. So, if you think of literature, of print, books, and these pieces of wisdom passed down from person to person, we might liken the experience to how things were once shared by the ancients through the way of storytelling — the coming together to tell stories, share wisdom, and take part in apprenticeship learning to understand ourselves and the world around us better.
Storytelling is vital to keep traditions alive, which is why it is a huge part of what I do. Storytelling is sharing information that has been around for thousands of years and explaining it in a way that doesn't tell you that you have to do XYZ but instead sharing what has been passed down and shared by someone. In hearing and listening to it, you might receive it in a different way than the person next to you, but it will still move you in some way because at its core is that wisdom of the soul that reminds us that we are experiencing this life together.
In this way, stories and the imprints they make on our own lives have the power to change our perspective and even our mindsets: they can spark inspiration, they can be used as guides to alter the whole course of our life. For instance, if I hadn't found Carl Jung when I did, my life would not be what it is today. I have always found the right stories at the right times in my life, and they have guided me to where I am now.
I want to be able to share the power of books as one of the main parts of what I have to offer you all. There is, of course, what I have to say from my own experiences in the form of these musings and my own story, but there are also some pretty amazing people out there who collectively come together to write some pretty amazing stuff.
Once upon a time, you would have had to travel thousands and thousands of miles to find a secret little occult bookstore, and now we have access to vast amounts of mind-blowing content all at the click of a button. I have found some incredible publications that I have purchased for The Ritual, and slowly they are arriving from all corners of the globe, ready to share with you all. In this community, within The Temple tab in Behind the Veil, I envision creating a space where we can converse and change each other's lives with our words, with our stories, a connection of souls. It is something that Alessia and I are working hard on because there is a magical connection that happens when we share our souls and our stories.
If I were to average the number of books I buy in a month, it would come out to two or three books a week. Of course, I have yet to get to them all, but they're looking at me, and I know that I own them, and I am satisfied. I see each book I own as a soul, as a sentinel being whispering, "I have so much to tell you. There's so much inside me waiting to bring out different parts of yourself and guide you along your journey". I truly enjoy owning books. I don't go to libraries, and I don't lend my books to anybody, and I don't borrow books from others. I buy books because I want to own them – this is basically what I am like, a slight idiosyncrasy of behaviour if you will.
Books are always, more or less, affordable. Compared to the money you spend for an online course, journey, or immersion, you can always gather the funds for a book, and then you sit, and you read it, and you get transported and taken away. Books open you to new ideas, transport you, transform you, and open up a whole new way of being. When we read, we rewire our brains. Reading changes the Neuroplasticity in our brain - it alters our mind by shifting what is unknown to us and changes the lens through which we observe particular things in our lives. As I said earlier, it helps us step outside of ourselves and exercise empathy and, therefore, adopt a new perspective.
To read is to constantly be in the mindset of growth. Forget about Botox! If you want to look youthful and live longer, if you want to connect to youth throughout your later years, and feel useful, read a bloody book! Just keep reading!
I have this insatiable thirst for knowledge and this insatiable love for learning. I believe that is what created a vast resilience within me. And having this resilience in me has been essential to my capacity to accomplish things. When things don't go my way or when they appear to take too long or seem difficult, my resilience comes from continually exercising my brain to learn things. We are all capable of this – it is simply a shift in mindset, a shift in perspective. It doesn't matter what our story is. It doesn't matter what our past is. It doesn't matter where we've come from. It doesn't matter what our cultural background or socioeconomic background is, you can always afford to read, you can always afford to learn, you can always find a way to open yourself to a new way of seeing, thinking, and understanding the world that will create ripple effects in your own life.
The reason why I teach the way that I teach, why I speak the way that I speak, and why I write the way that I write is because I want you to see what is coming through my soul – I want to share my experiences and the collective consciousness from those I admire in my life and around me. And I hope that these musings and all of this stuff that we're working on, literally until midnight every night, somehow opens you to see life through a different lens, that it changes your mindset just a little bit and changes the course of one little action to help you be on a path where you to fill this insatiableness for love and beauty.
There is no greater romance than words, and I want The Ritual and Behind the Veil to reflect this. It is my honour to share my own words and bring in some very incredible voices to share theirs. Stay tuned as we bring this to life within this space for you.
With much love and gratitude for being here,
Brooke x
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