Wednesday, July 2, 2008

With a sting in it's tail


Over the last couple of months I've noticed a strange little phenomena - from time to time when I'm reading, the letters in words seem to rearrange themselves & suddenly I'm confronted with something quite different.

Two words in particular have stayed with me.

One day the word empire became vampire - I paid attention because it seemed to convey a truth - think of the British Empire - a monster that sucked the wealth & resources out of many a foreign land.

The other word that struck me, though in a slightly different fashion, was the word money - that devastating little word that runs backwards, forwards, sidewards & everywhichwaywards through our lives. The little word that seems to hold more power than almost any other.

Somehow when I looked I saw the word venom - 'money' reversed - no, no silly, it ends in a y not a v you cry, observing my embarrassing mistake, but no I saw venom. The letter Y with the sting in it's tail removed is a V - and in this case it doesn't matter that the sting was removed because the poison is contained in the word itself.

So lets have a look at venom:

"c.1220, from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. venim, from V.L. *venimen, from L. venenum "poison, drug, potion," perhaps ultimately connected to venus "erotic love" (see Venus), in which case the original meaning might have been "love potion." The meaning "bitter, virulent feeling or language" is first recorded c.1300"

I'm sure you're not so different from me when it comes to money - especially if you're on the trail to wholeness - probably not particularly interested because somewhere in that whole caboodle something is missing - the satisfaction of exchange that comes with sharing items or services similarly valued. The swapping of goods for coloured paper or coins or bits of plastic is lacking in all sensuality & I've got to a point where sensuality is becoming very important - for me that means the essence of what it is to be a human being as opposed to a machine - all the things that make us different from machines - that's our sensuality - laughter, kindness, chatting, touch, imagination, friendship are just a few.

Somewhere along the way one or many spells have been cast. When I saw the etymology of the word venom, I felt that I was looking at one of them.

The power of words. So how often do you wish for more venom, & how much would it take to make you really happy?


A love potion & a drug - what do you think? It's funny in a way to think that this drug, whose caress we must endure, even if we loathe it, is what we slave away for week after week so that we can hand it over to others to feed their habit. You can't even buy the recognised forms of drugs either, prescribed or obtained without this seductive & conscienceless philtre.

Is this why people who have so much are often so toxic? The drug of choice of the elite.

I end with a little synch. I'd decided on the title for this post early on today, then I thought I'd use a picture of a scorpion - not liking what I found, I typed in Scorpio & found the image at the top. What I also found was the astrological symbol for Scorpio - the letter M as in money & it really did have a sting in it's tale (no offence meant here to any Scorpio's & I certainly don't believe that thing about all Scorpio's being murderers).

Cheers & may you have plenty of every good thing.