Greetings & Salutations

I’m thinking about the often unconscious energies we invest into our words.

I’m currently in Belize as part of a 2-3 year fact finding mission on where a Black Queer woman can settle after fleeing the racist toxicity of the United States in a world where anti-Blackness is global. This is my 5th trip to Belize & these last 3 multi-month visits have been spent in a town on the Western Border, about 15 minutes from Guatemala.

I’m renting half a 2 BR apartment from a Black lesbian US couple who are now residents (“I am not an expat, I am an immigrant” one declares). They run an arts center & are very tied into the local community. They know everyone and are quite popular, and they like to host parties. At my first party at their place, which happened at night, I noticed that I kept hearing people say “Good night” as they were arriving & it kept throwing me off. I found out that yes, in Belize a greeting includes the time of day, so “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “Good evening”, & “Good night”. But I am used to “Goodnight” being what you say when you or someone else is leaving, an alternate to “Good bye”.

So recently I’ve been saying “Good night” when I go about my nightly errands (so much cooler at night, so I do all of my non-produce shopping & fresh meal acquisition after dark). And I noticed how challenging it was to feel like I was saying “Hello”, rather than “Goodbye”. When I let myself feel it, I noticed that “Goodbye” invokes a closing of my heart energy, a preparing to sever a connection. So instead of feeling open to people as I greeted them in the evening, I was actually closed off to them & their energy. I’d never noticed it before because it’s so subconscious that I didn’t notice what was happening in my heart, in my energetic connection with the humans around me.

Which led me to wonder: what kind of subconscious energy am I investing in other words & phrases, and how congruent is the energy I want to be sending with the words that are coming out of my mouth?

I’m currently in a fishing village to celebrate my 52nd birthday & one of the national celebrations of the Garifuna culture. And each night as I stroll the main drag I say “Good night” to each person whose path I cross, and remind myself that I’m saying “Hello there stranger, I delight in your humanity & wish you well.”

Have you noticed what sort of energy you unconsciously infuse into your words? Is it the energy that you want to be sending?