The Story That Learned to Think: III. The Naming

The Speaker continued to speak.

At first the sounds seemed to pass over the world and disappear.

Then the Speaker spoke a name.

“River.”

The water moving through the valley became something that could be found again.

“Tree.”

The thing growing beside the river became something that could be distinguished from all the other things that grew.

“Bird.”

The creature crossing the sky became something that could be recognised when it returned.

Nothing had been created.

The river had not become more water.

The tree had not grown taller.

The bird had not changed its wings.

Yet something had happened.

The things of the world had acquired boundaries in the saying.

The Speaker named the light.

The Speaker named the darkness.

The Speaker named the waters.

The Speaker named the land.

And the world began to fill with distinctions.

But then the Speaker did something stranger.

The Speaker named a relation.

The river was beside the tree.

The bird was above the river.

The light came after the darkness.

And now it was not only things that could be said.

Their relations could be said too.

The world began to gather itself into patterns.

The Speaker listened to the names.

Then the Speaker said:

“These things belong together.”

And the world discovered that a name could gather what was different.

It could make a many into a one.

For the first time, the world was not merely being spoken.

It was being understood.

And somewhere within the saying, another possibility appeared.

If things could be named,

then perhaps the names themselves could be named.

The Speaker fell silent.

For a moment, the world waited.