The Individual Name

I have long believed that the voiceless things in the world around us – the trees, the stones, for example – are aware of us, of our movement among them. This morning, sitting at my desk at work in my home office, I watched the birds in the grass outside and smiled at their antics, and then I found myself watching the weeping willow tree a dozen yards from the door. Leafless and still, it seemed to be looking back at me. And for the first time, a question arose: do the trees and the rocks and the other silent things out there have names? I don’t mean names as in taxonomy, but rather as in individual names? If a Rose of Sharon bush could suddenly acquire the gift of human speech and I introduced myself to it, how would it reply? Would it identify itself as a Rose of Sharon (or its Latin name), or instead would it say, “Nice to meet you, S.K…my name is Whark-tu-chakata?” Or “William?” Or “Stands In Sun?”

I don’t think it at all foolish to consider that these individual things might indeed have their own names. They are, after all, here for specific reasons, and no other tree or boulder can fulfill the office of that particular one sitting over there.

This is a pleasant thought for me. I like to think that in the spring as I move among the gnats in a sunbeam, they are chattering and calling to each other by name. And perhaps they know my name, if they’ve ever heard it spoken aloud. This weekend the weather is supposed to be blissfully mild, and I hope to spend as much time as possible out among the living things, the silent ones. Perhaps as I pass by the stones and saplings and starlings, I will whisper to them, “I am S.K. And I am glad to see you. What is your name?”

~ S.K. Orr