Celebrating My Mother: Ubiquitous Challenges, with Numinous Joys!!

I learned the word numinous from my mother. She wrote a great essay on discovering both the word and its meanings, in one of her college writing courses, at least fifteen (maybe 20?) years ago. It is still one of my favorite things she has written about language.  (Followed closely by the ubiquitous black berries poem.)  Her exploration of the look of the word, how it sounds in your head, how it sounds as you say it, and what it means to have numinous moments and times in your life.  It really is a great essay, with a word nerd hook! 

Take a minute for yourself, and try reading in your head, saying it outloud, maybe even try singing it.
 
Numinous. Numinous. Numinous. Numinous. NUMINOUS! 

It is a delicious word.  Almost as delicious as ubiquitous. Come on, you know that you love ubiquitous too. (Or you will in about 30 seconds.)

Ubiquitous. Ubiquitous. Ubiquitous. Ubiquitous. UBIQUITOUS!

Say it out loud, hear it in your head. Both are just great words, on the page, said out loud, put to a piece!
(Of course I spent 30 minutes searching for the story and, I can't find the link. I am sure someone will send me the link when they reads this post, and then I'll put up the link and you can read it too.)

Back to the title. Do you know what Ubiquitous Challenges, or Numinous Joys would be? I am going with the theory that all of my readers know what joys and challenges are, so we will head to the fun words! 
(Don't forget to click on the words in the green links, in case you didn't already know how to say them. Just take the mechanical voice out, and use your most intelligent teacher, or sexy librarian voice when you say it. Huge grin and wink!)

Celebrating My Mother: Ubiquitous Challenges, with Numinous Joys!!

Just to keep it simple, I decided to use online dictionaries. Less typing for me, and online dictionaries are ubiquitous these days.

 

Numinous:
Miriam Webster's site gives this definition:

Definition of NUMINOUS

1: supernatural, mysterious

2: filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : holy

3: appealing to the higher emotions or to the aesthetic sense : spiritual

Dictionary.com gives this definition:

nu·mi·nous

   /ˈnumənəs, ˈnyu-/ Show Spelled[noo-muh-nuhs, nyoo-] Show IPA

adjective

1. of, pertaining to, or like a numen; spiritual or supernatural.

2. surpassing comprehension or understanding; mysterious: that element in artistic expression that remains numinous.

3. arousing one's elevated feelings of duty, honor, loyalty, etc.: a benevolent and numinous paternity.

Dictionary.com has a thesaurus that is pretty good. For numinous it came up with:

Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	spiritual
Synonyms:	airy, asomatous, devotional, discarnate, disembodied, divine, ethereal, extramundane, ghostly, holy, immaterial, incorporeal, intangible, metaphysical, nonmaterial, nonphysical, otherworldly, platonic, pure, rarefied, refined, sacred, supernal, unfleshly, unphysical, unworldly

It also has numinous in the entries for these words:

Main Entry:	miraculous
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	surprisingly wonderful
Synonyms:	amazing, anomalous, astonishing, astounding, awesome, extraordinary, fabulous, freakish, heavy, incredible, inexplicable, magical, marvelous, monstrous, numinous , phenomenal, preternatural, prodigious, spectacular, staggering, strange, stupefying, stupendous, superhuman, superior, supermundane, supernatural, supranatural, thaumaturgic, the utmost, unaccountable, unbelievable, unearthly, unimaginable, unreal, wonderworking, wondrous
Antonyms:	normal, usual

Main Entry:	sacred
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	holy, blessed
Synonyms:	angelic, cherished, consecrated, divine, enshrined, godly, hallowed, numinous , pious, pure, religious, revered, sacramental, saintly, sanctified, solemn, spiritual, unprofane, venerable
Antonyms:	irreligious, lay, profane, ungodly, unholy, unsacred

Main Entry:	mystic
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	secret
Synonyms:	abstruse, anagogic, arcane, cabalistic, cryptic, enigmatical, esoteric, hidden, imaginary, impenetrable, inscrutable, magic, magical, metaphysical, mysterial, mysterious, mystical, necromantic, nonrational, numinous , occult, otherworldly, paranormal, preternatural, quixotic, sorcerous, spiritual, supernatural, telestic, thaumaturgic, transcendental, unaccountable, unknowable, visionary, witchlike, wizardly

Ubiquitous:
Miriam Webster's site gives this definition:

Definition of UBIQUITOUS

: existing or being everywhere at the same time : constantly encountered : widespread ubiquitous

fashion>

— ubiq·ui·tous·lyadverb

— ubiq·ui·tous·nessnoun

Dictionary.com gives this definition:

u·biq·ui·tous

   /yuˈbɪkwɪtəs/ Show Spelled[yoo-bik-wi-tuhs]

adjective

existing or being everywhere, especially at the same time; omnipresent: ubiquitous fog; ubiquitous little ants.

Dictionary.com has a thesaurus that is pretty good. For ubiquitous it came up with:

Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	ever-present
Synonyms:	all-over, everywhere, omnipresent, pervasive, ubiquitary, universal, wall-to-wall
Antonyms:	rare, scarce

It also has ubiquitous in the entries for these words:

Main Entry:	omnipresent
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	all-present
Synonyms:	everywhere, infinite, pervading, pervasive, ubiquitary, ubiquitous , universal
Notes:	omnipresent means present in all places at the same time; omniscient means infinitely wise or all-knowing; omnipotent means having unlimited power

Main Entry:	pervasive
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	extensive
Synonyms:	all over the place, can't get away from, common, general, inescapable, omnipresent, permeating, pervading, prevalent, rife, ubiquitous , universal, wall-to-wall, widespread
Antonyms:	light, limited, narrow

Main Entry:	prevalent
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	accepted, widespread
Synonyms:	accustomed, common, commonplace, current, customary, established, everyday, extensive, faddy, frequent, general, habitual, in use, latest, latest word, leading edge, natural, new, normal, now*, ongoing, popular, prevailing, rampant, regnant, regular, rife, run-of-the-mill, state-of-the-art*, stylish, swinging, trendy, typic, typical, ubiquitous , universal, up-to-date, usual, with it, wonted
Antonyms:	isolated, limited, uncommon

As an author, poet, editor, English teacher, reading specialist, curriculum developer and long-time trainer for the state writing assessment, my mother works/plays with words everyday.  She uses them to type or write on the computer, dry erase board, and paper too.  (Hard to believe people still write on paper, huh?)  She also uses punctuation, verbal and non-verbal language and her huge vocabulary daily.  She assesses whether her students are using them correctly every time she grades a paper, and so she is passing on the fundamentals of writing to the next generation.  She uses all these tools to convey the things she teaches, the ideas she wants to transmit.  She does all of these things with grace and skill. 

My mother loves words for their power and she loves words for their shades of nuance. When she crafts an essay or poem, it is with all the love and care that a master furniture maker takes with each cut, each joint, making sure that the language is solid and well made and that it will support the ideas sufficiently, so that it will stand the test of time.  Then, she starts the painstaking process of sanding and buffing the material she as she edits, carefully shading the piece until it is smooth, intricate and each curve is perfect,  She does that refining and polishing by playing with the language, using just the right word, placed so that there is no mistake of its meaning.  Or, she might purposely leave a patch that is not quite so smooth, with a roughness that brings you back to it, to read again, to see if there are additional insights, to find which shade of grey most represents the blemish that she has chosen to us, or the imperfect design, perfectly copied each time, from the original "mistake."

I grew up watching my mother craft words when she was talking to women in the La Leche League group that she led for ten (10) years.  I didn't always know why she changed the phrasing when giving advice, or why she went into a much more in depth explanation with one woman, while another would be given a simple suggestion and encouragement to call her and give an update on how it was going. What I was learning as I watched those conversations is that all human interactions have a degree of "greyness" that is useful, helpful, even needed, in the interactions we have with others, and as we find ways that make information meaningful to the person receiving it.  There was no black or white, no perfect way to teach every mother to bond with her child through breastfeeding.  Each circumstance is different, and so each person's needs are different.  Watching her first as an oral story teller and someone wrote personal essays and persuasion pieces in the air.  As they came up from her lungs, my mother taught me to see the grey, and to love it.


My mother and several of her students
were published in this tribute to Oregon

Thirty years later, I am still using the lessons I learned from my mother about how to tell stories, craft them in a way that is compelling, and always to remember that audience that you will presenting your work to.  Whether it is a poem, speech, creative non-fiction, personal essay, short fiction or blog post, (and almost all bloggers write most of these forms at some point) what makes your writing or speaking interesting, the hook that draws people in, is the shades of grey, and how they are presented.  A good author can show you the main perspective, while still admitting and even embracing other views and other readings of a situation or experience.  The absolute worst writings are ones in which the entire writing is all in one voice, with one perspective, with a black and white answer or resolution.  Life gets lived between the polar ends of black and white.  Great writing finds the ways to move through different shades and moves from one area to the next, seamlessly showing the movement of characters from lighter or darker grey, to another shade, somewhere between black and white.

So to my extremely talented mother, who successfully defended her thesis this last Friday, I say thank you.  My gratitude is in part for all of the editing, encouragement, brainstorming and other critical thinking skills you taught me growing up.  A good portion of that thanks is for teaching me that it is okay to live and write in the grey spaces, that even someone who is brutally honest with themselves, must consider that somewhere there is some self deception.  I am grateful that you taught me to ask the questions that seem to already have answers and to pass on the gratitude for a life lived not in total light or darkness but whose shadows are omnipresent.  The most ubiquitous part of life, is that each day we have challenges, make choices, and live in the beautiful, crazy, wonderful, numinous world of grey.