Re: [Futurework] Holistic

[Ray Evans Harrell]

Well I tried.   I wrote succinct and got bashed.   This is my work so here is the whole nine yards.   REH   Welcome home Keith,   Good to see you in your testy self.   I too served my stint as the editor of the New York Singing Teacher's Bulletin, a society of ex-Opera stars who were so testy that they would excoriate you in 8 languages if you made so simple a mistake.   I realize you don't know the American history behind the use of the "temp-word"  wholistic  or its movement "wholism"  but I will share in a moment.     And Steven,  all knowledge is essentially local in character.    I will accept that mine is as well but you should say the same about yours.   Otherwise we are just talking politics and "who gets to tell the story."   But  wholistic in my lifetime is an interesting story.   So I will share it.    As for the Dictionaries you quoted?    I have copies of most of the English and American Dictionaries in my library although I've stopped collecting some because of the Internet but words evolve in English more quickly and all you have to do to make that happen is state it in the "Preface for your dissertation."     Then you can use it in that fashion all the way through that universe.    If people then quote you, you are on your way to creating a word.    As near as I can tell that happened with "wholistic" and is still evolving as I said earlier.    That you cannot find it in print is no matter.    You couldn't find huntergatherer or fuck in print before  American Heritage II put them there less that twenty years ago.   They were non-words as is the N word which is also in Am Her II.      As for Chris, at first you reflexed to respect and then you went for the throat again.   I would remind you that you made my original point.    As I will explain again the relationship in English between Holy, Heilige and whole but this time with footnotes, I will remind you that history is history and not logical.    However the Swiss Theologian Karl Barth which I read forty year ago, made similar types of statements between the sacred and the secular; or the practical and the transcendant and the paradox that both contained in relation to the concept of divinity.     Perhaps the problem was that I read in English and English may have made those distinctions while the original language did not.     So maybe I'm not truly speaking the Swiss side of this but what translates into English from that side.   But the concepts were there in the Barth translations.     Why aren't you considering temporary endings on words that appear and disappear from professional usage?    You all demeaned the "Wholistic Health" people but they got it from psycho-linguists, anthropologists and educators  who were struggling with the problem in indigeneous languages that encased concepts in different language packets than normal English.    We have the same issue with computer and economics language.   In fact most professions have their own Dictionaries in English.   Is this not true in German or Swiss?   Are there no German or Swiss Music Dictionaries?   (I would add that the question I just used was a necessity not because I don't know the answer but because it is considered an insult to the Creator of all languages, in my culture, to assume that I know more than you do about your own house.   In fact my Father would deliberately mis-pronounce a word in another language or mis-spell it, if written, as a cue to his own ethnicity when dealing in other languages.  That is the reverse of most Europeans who will correct you believing that you are just lazy, careless or stupid for mis-pronouncing a word in their language.   I've saw him more than once refuse to correct it saying "This is the way I say it" which pissed them off even more.   He said "Who would you rather make mad, an arrogant ........ or the Creator of All?"   My own need to explain has grown out of my background with people who were forbidden to teach us or allow us to use our language but who wanted to make sure that we got the Cherokee concepts and processes in English.   That makes for lots of words.)      Back to Chris and our English: English puts temporary endings onto adjectives, nouns, verbs etc. , turns verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs, none of which is mentioned in dictionaries until they become so common in usage that they can't be avoided.   In fact English has always been in a contant state of evolution as one of its cultural desires.    English is flexible.   (Or at least American English is.)   To separate the phonemes you must know the morphemes.   The word "wholistic" is articulated in the following fashion "Whol-ist-ic"   not Who-list-ic as in Who-('s)- list- is this anyway?   But that is not only English.   I have translated many German poems that contain word usages and endings that are not found in German dictionaries.    To find the root and meaning you have to refer to, what in English would be "arcania", but which is "organized" in German, French and Spanish.   Surprisingly Hungarian is a lot easier.    Another interesting point for German is that once translated,  the translation can take you to completely different links from the original language.    So translating for example the Mueller; Die Schoene Muellerin song Der Neurgierige has a general "question" but when sung by the Englishman Peter Pears has much more of the interpretation of English adolescent than Germans usually associate with the song.    When I have questioned German Artists they simply say "we don't think of it in that manner."    I realize there are those who would associate Pears with being Gay but if so then it should be more authentic since Schubert was as well.      If I pursue the differences, they say:  "It isn't German."    Well, it is their  music and the time capsule from their ancestors not mine.  And  I'm there to learn about them, not project myself off onto their reality.    I'm the gardener, they own the house.    English admits that there are many English Grammars while the organization of the German, French and Spanish  Academic approach would be an anethema to English.   There are a lot of psycholinguistic texts written about this  but one of my favorites is a book intitled English Grammar and English Grammars by Robert L. Allen (Scribners) which makes this point cogently and positively.    Chris, why am I telling you this?    You know it and why would you make my point (as if you weren't) by using the secular noun for a word that in English is occasionally used as a noun but usually is an adjective?    Of course ganz is also an adjective which should say something about the way Germans are thinking this whole issue, yes?    Was it this confusion that made Heidigger swear that philosophy couldn't be written in any language other than German?   Well, I will be happy to share with you the house I live in on this one and it "don't matter beans" how the Germans think of it except where they parallel the American and Canadian First Nation's experience, in this case.  But more about that in a moment.      And for Brian and his labour the amusing bit to this story of "Wholism."     More than likely "wholism" began in Canada.    The earliest writings I have seen about "Wholistic" or "Wholism" was from First Nation Psycho-linguists struggling to work with the separate distinctions in English between secular and spiritual.    English is very difficult on this issue because it doesn't define differences linguistically but assumes them instead.    There are whole classes of words that depend solely on context for whether they are one thing or another.     Traditional EA thought breaks up Canadian and American Society into fragments of various types and then acts as if the sum total of those fragments equalled the Whole  (was adjective now noun).    In a language with such words as productivity, empirical and value you have whole different meanings depending upon the profession using those words. Dictionaries give the common meaning and then list what it means in the professions which may or may not have anything to do with the original meaning at all.    Max Planck Director Robert Jarvella sat with me one whole afternoon explaining how our languages were so much more clear than English because of what English doesn't say but assumes.   English decorates nouns endlessly but is almost mute about what those nouns do.       Where the concepts of Sacred and Secular are so important,  it is strange to find that words like Holy, holistic not to mention other co-words like integrity and integrate have so little connection to their roots.    I once took the Preamble to the American Constitution and used my original Samuel Johnson 1828 English Dictionary to prove that the Founding Fathers really meant for us to fund the Arts based upon the meanings of the words and their grammar as was used in 1776.    Remember Johnson wrote the first English Dictionary in the late 1700s using the common usage for the meanings of things and not their roots.   I've often wondered what they used for "whole" before the word was canonized in the 1600s.   Who knows?      Understanding the meanings of texts from one era to another is a part of what it means to be a Teacher of Voice and Elocution which I've been for 43 years, 33 in the New York City "Art Mart."    I've worn out most of my dictionaries and am greatful for the Internet but you have to watch it because it will lead you astray due to the cost of bits.    And if they have a bit tax anytime soon you are likely to find the Dictionaries even MORE sparse.    But I've kept my hard copies.       As Brian points out first there are certain words that have multiple spellings, or spellings from one English nation to another.   Labor and Judgment for example.    If you look for the English spellings of those words in your Micro-soft speller you won't find them.    I've downloaded many English, Canadian and Australian writings in order to work with and comment upon.   Once I punched the spell-check for my comments it continued into the paper itself and changed all of the English to American.    But there is no big difference between labor and labour or judgment and judgement.    Wholistic is different.     The first use I know of it in print was with American Indian Educators and Psycho-linguists and EA Anthropologists who chose to use it as I described, however in reverse.   The Internet is replete with more contemporary references to this use of the word "Wholism" and even ties it to anthropolical work earlier in the 20th century for example the late Ruth Benedict's study of the Indian people of the American Southwest uses the term.     On the other hand, the term  "Holistic" which was tied to Holy (from the Teutonic term hailoz, the root for Heilige* as well.)  was considered to be limited to the European American's (EA) version of religion which had, according to those same EAs,  the purpose of making men and women accept their lot in life rather than expanding the human consciousness through growth in the Universe.    Holy-ism was not, therefore a grand exploration in nature of the flow of life and consciousness through every particle of the Universe but instead was percieved as being tied to the limitations of religious manuals and community control.     *Keith found the root in "olos" from the Greek.   Chris found that more likely but wouldn't hear anything from Keith so he heard Steven.    Well folks, German and English are Teutonic.   There may be a similarity but such things are found all over the world for example the root (ama) is found around the meaning for Mother, water, earth, and in chinese "wet nurse" but does that mean that they came from each other?    Maybe but just as likely not.   Or  Teotehuacan,   City of the Gods sounds like the Lakota word for Holy "Wakan"  but such parallels may seem real but more often they resemble the belief that plants will look like what they are supposed to cure.   Arrowroot cures an arrow wound?    Anyway if you don't believe then look on pages pgs 275 (Holy) and 714 (Whole) of the Oxford Etymological Dict. where there is no mention whatsoever of the Greek connection but chooses instead to take it into the areas of Islandic, Scandinavian languages, etc.     "Wholistic and "Wholism"  were used in published lesson plans for teaching English to Native Speakers and was used as I described to define the difference in English between the concepts of the temporal whole and the transcendant one.    Indian Americans may even have invented that usage but I can't prove or disprove that.   But it is fairly common usage for such things amongst native scholars.   In the sixties people like Fritz and Laura Perls, Barry Stevens and others began to talk to native peoples about therapy and our psychological healing practices.    I suspect these Gestalt Therapists from Esalen Institute and elsewhere used the term that the Indian people used.    You can find a record of these dialogues in the works of Fritz Perls but more so in the book "Don't Push the River" by Barry Stevens.    The fashionable "Gestalt Prayer" grew directly out of these dialogues in the sixties.   I believe there is a record of this in Perls "In and Out the Garbage Pail" and I know that the "Crack in the Cosmic Egg" book as well as another book that I dearly loved called "Stalking the Wild Pendulum" also shared this exploration of material "wholism."      They also loved to constantly explore the "nodule" between "Wholism" and "Holism" or the place where the material reaches into the "numinous" or "the great wild blue yonder."       One of my teacher's Ilana Rubenfeld was a Juilliard trained conductor and Director the the 92nd Street Y School of Music here in New York City.    She had a back injury which was treated by followers of F.M. Alexander and she began studying the psychological side of somatic injuries as well and turned her considerable talents to the Art of Healing.    She studied with all of these Gestalt folks and developed a program of psycho-physical movement and verbal techniques that has won her academic and health awards all over the world.    I got in on the "Wholistic" work amongst these EAmericans almost at the beginning so I saw it happen in the early 1970s and picked up a degree in the techniques along the way.   Ilana was the other side of the somatic work that I printed with Elaine Summers a couple of days ago.         As I stated before and earlier in this little paper, the root of "Whole" and "Holy" and "Heilige"  is the Teutonic hailoz however English seems to be taking the same route as its cousin by making "wholistic" more like the profane ganz or at least secular.   The Indians on the other hand took "Wholistic" to mean the true whole that would include the EA version of what constituted religion and sacredness.    Indian people are reluctant to even use the word religion to define their spirituality because of that limitation noted earlier in this post.     Since there is no proselytizing amongst Indian people and the social processes are built around the worth of every individual as well as the oneness of all reality the idea of separation of church and state is not relevant.    No church exists that tries to do what churches do in Non-Indian society.   It is up to every individual to work out the vision for their own life with the Creator of All.   You don't even have to acknowledge the Creator except to admit your own limits before the unlimited.   This concept is so strong that when the men were fighting the EA men in the 1700s the women were trading with the EA women.    Spirituality is not about control or written creeds but expansion with the belief that an expanded talent, awareness and consciousness can only be good for all if you include it in your community life.    So the idea of "Wholism" as originally said by the First Nations and Anthropologists like Benedict is contrary to what it is becoming today in the EA society with the separation of the "Profane" government from the "Sacred" Church.    "Wholism" has moved away from the Indians and is no longer inclusive of both but seems to be moving more in the direction of the German as explained by Chris.   But they certainly don't mean the same thing as explained by Steven and is being sold by the current Dictionaries on the Internet.   I double checked with a local Rabbi from one of the major synagogues who studies elocution here.     She basically went for the W spelling and the H as having different meanings as well since she is involved in writing, and speaking (as you pointed out)  makes no distinction in the sound.     But come on guys there are a lot of words that do not have those distinctions in sound but are written a certain way for specific reasons.   I k-no-w there are and you k-no-w it as well.    Could we be running into the old scientific arrogance here?    Things are a lot more complicated than that and I make my living daily in this stuff.    So all of that huffing and puffing is just old science.    I have a question for you?    Does the profane word fuck come from the Puritans or from the Latin?   (Yes there is something hidden and there is a point.)   Ray Evans Harrell     ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 9:45 AM Subject: [Futurework] Holistic > Back from holiday among the Berbers of the Atlas Mountains, I notice that > there's been a bunch of learned dissertations on the origin of "holistic". > > It's quite simple. It comes from the Greek word " 'olos ", meaning "whole". > > It became a buzz-word about 30 years ago and was, quite simply, mispelled > by those American and English writers who wrote for magazines such as > "Resurgence", had heard it spoken at alternativist workshops, etc, but had > never read it -- and had certainly never realised its Greek root. Being an > editor myself at that time, receiving many articles containing the > mispelling, I did my little bit to correct the mistake, but it was probably > the most rampant fashionable term that I've yet encountered and, in the > end, "wholistic" became too common to be stopped in its tracks.   > > The correct word is "holistic". "Wholistic" is a barbarism. > > Keith Hudson > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------------- > Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________________ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework