Oooh! A poem to inseminate this akenning! I love this! The deeper ache of knowing. Just on that other side of words! Yet you always guide us right to the edge of the ache Veronika! You take us to the door. Once opened knowing always finds us. You are a gift! Thanks for this! AKENNING 🙏❤️
In an 'uncanny akenning' this poem arrived precisely in the way you describe on your poietic posting today, like that swarm of bees I mentioned. That's what akennings do. Creativity comes unbidden but not unwelcome. The muse cannot be forced but needs to be embraced (otherwise she wriggles out of the poet/writer's grip and the words vanish into the distant yonder of unkenning)
I am delighted too that AKENNING has found me/us again. Such an essential way of knowing, lost and now refound... a key to poet's paradise?
“awakening of a new knowing, without full understanding (yet). It precedes the reasoning Intellect, while stirring a heartache, a passionate longing for the full experience of reaching the shore of knowledge, which has come into distant view.”- Akenning.
Yesss. Living into the questions. A knowing just on the other side. The mystery. Ineffable. Yet present. In moments. To observe. To feel into. Once we try to grasp onto it….it slips away. An entity. To be allowed in. Never to search for. To be found. She knows where we are. I love the poetry in your post too! Wow! 🙏❤️
I love this post, Veronika, it’s really got me thinking! You see every time I read 'akenning', my brain instantly jumps to 'awakening', like they’re somehow related, cousins maybe. Maybe it’s the rhythm of the words, or just the way they both carry this feeling of something ‘coming into being’. Anyhow, I can’t shake the sense, which may be non-sense, that 'akenning' isn’t just about knowledge – it’s about that moment when knowing turns into realisation.
The way you trace the roots of this word, is fascinating and makes me wonder – do we ever really learn new things, or do we just ‘wake’ up to, 're-member' what was always there? Either way, your deep language dive is taking me on a journey of discovery. I really appreciate the way it’s stirred something in me – an awakening, or akenning of sorts. Hmm, I’ll be mulling this over for a while! Thanks so much for holding the language lantern high.
Yes, akenning is very close to awakening, not only in sound but also in sense. It is also related to acknowledging, recognising, all ways of knowing, and of course to realising and remembering as you noticed.
Isn't it remarkable how words themselves do as they are ~ I mean act in the frequency of the sense/meaning they carry? This is particularly clear to me from the stirring akenning is doing in you, as it has done in myself too.
Holding the language lantern high! 🙏 what a lovely image. I'm happy to be the language-lantern-holder (among other tasks)
Ah, another word to add to my dictionary! I completely agree, re words carrying their meaning and weight. Soulchronicity is a new word I learnt here last week from Jamie. And I've noticed this is something that happens between writers on Substack. One begins writing about the sea or soul, and by the end of that week, several others have explored the same themes. I love that tuning in, how we inspire one another. Many thanks, Veronika. 🙏❤️
Knowledge, knowing, kenning — I love how language flows and shifts, as we do. Thank you for tracking the journey of words and meaning as we create them, It’s a treat, reading these posts. I wonder about the knowing that is embodied, that which we might not yet fully understand, that which signals to us through our intuition. Is this kenning. These words can be worlds within themselves and it is like adventure — kinship. And the connections across languages and people. There is a magical energy that carries language and awakens something deep within — akenning. The poem, an ode to our human curiosity — to know. Love it. Thank you for connecting us with your words, and wisdom. 🙏 😊 🌀 🌏 💚
As you know by now (or have an inkling of akenning) that these wordcasts come to me in a similar way as your conversations with your 'team'. I feel greatly blessed to be able to have these 'conversations with words'. A magical experience indeed. 🤍 🙏 ✨
Lovely seeding! Veronika, you have midwifed a way to remember, you always do. A deep translator and alchemist. Akenning lands like a myth rediscovered, a root-word rising from the depths of collective memory with sea salt still glued to its syllables. The way you trace back is masterful, I admire you, a reflection of something primal. You’re mapping the sacred geography between gnosis and birth, and all the way, life and history are changing through a word.
Knowledge is found in the longing, the seed, the sea: gestation, becoming! Mythopoetic. Erkenntnis as a form of eros, of ache and procreation. We are magnetized toward a truth we don’t fully understand, yet are here to follow, a living process. Thank you for offering this seed, this fruit, this ache of recognition. June is a great month to grow new root, fruits and flowers. May more of us awaken to the work of tending the Tree of Akenning. Thank you!❤️
Thank you so much Katerina. What a lovely resonance and recognition. Erkenntnis as a form of eros... I hadn't thought of it that way, but of course, without eros no begetting, becoming or anything in between.
"We are magnetized toward a truth we don’t fully understand, yet are here to follow, a living process." ~ this sums it up perfectly. It also captures the essence of the connection between the Tree of Akenning and the Tree of Life.
This is wonderful Veronika: "whether we all carry a way of knowing ~ an uncanny akenning ~ akin to an aching." I will carry this with me... I sense a strong aching when I write and when I teach... now you have named it!
Yes, and great comments. I also picked up the parallel with Jamie's poem that I had just read, and like Deborah 'awakening' echoed in my head.
I worked in Scotland for 27 years and the root was in the common tongue, all context and tone, light in the eye. Scots was an old Germanic language that had gone its own way long before the 'Parcel of rogues in a Nation'. 'Ah ken y' now' as in 'I see you, now'.
Thank you Philip for this delightful and informative comment! I didn't know that Scottish 'ken' also means 'to see'... this explains the 'distant view' in 'kenning'...
I also didn't know that Scots was an old Germanic language... this is particularly interesting to me because one of my greatgrandmothers came down from Scotland and married into the Löwen-clan in Germany.
I am not a sufficient historian to provide adequate appraisal of 'Scots', but briefly... The Iron Age clan hereabouts north and south of the present border was Brythonic (Welsh), a people then overlaid with or lost to Germanic incomers after 450 AD in what was to become a kingdom stretching from the Tees (south of the Roman Wall) to beyond the Forth, north into what is now Fife. We can pick up the threads circa 700 AD with Christian 'preaching crosses', inscribed monuments mostly in an arc reaching to the western shore. Subsequent history of the larger Scotland fused the Gaels from Ireland into an aristocracy/kingships, which persisted even after the 'Normans' took over most of the richer agricultural lands of the East and lowlands. Nevertheless, the Germanic language lived on in those areas even into modern times and saw strong attempts at a poetic revival in the 20thC.
The story though of the Gaeltacht is something yet again. Our daughters' mitochondria, to put a long story short, are in a direct line from the Gaeltacht north of the Great Glen. Smile.
Oh! This exploration echos something I heard earlier today in a conversation with writer Kendall Lamb where she said that, for her, a newly discovered truth always feels like a remembering. Like your akenning, “an awakening of a new knowing, without full understanding (yet)… while stirring a heartache, a passionate longing” that maybe is some kind of cellular/ancestral/ecological memory of universal truths.
How fascinating! I always love it when I work on something and then realise that the word (or topic or idea) is 'in the air'.
Yes, I found this wordcast particularly satisfying because it came out quite suddenly and unplanned. I normally spend much more time on a wordcast. This one arrived in a burst, wanting to be written NOW. In retrospect, and in the light of what you are telling me from the conversation with Kendall Lamb, I feel this word has been a long time coming. As mentioned elsewhere, I have been thinking about the word 'Erkenntnis' on and off for some time, feeling a little frustrated that I couldn't find an equivalent in English... and all of a sudden it's there... has been there all along... in Scottish! (hiding in plain sight)
Akenning is a new word for me. I'm not sure I'll ever use it, but now if I read it, e.g., in my daughter's philosophy texts--she writes for the U of Chicago Press--I'll now know what it means. I do wonder how you learned this word, Veronika,
I found it in the Century Dictionary. It is cognate with the German word Erkenntnis (coming from the same root), and I've been looking for an equivalent word in English for some time... The answers come (eventually) when we are holding the question.
Big fan of sea turtles and gnosis... (I thought I was the only one who looked at them in such a way...) Going to write a poem "Aching Awakenings". Nicely done.
Thank you and welcome to the wildwordwoods of Symbiopædia. Lovely to meet you in the space between sea turtles and gnosis! I look forward to reading 'Aching Awakenings'.
I found this to be a particularly clear and concise Wordcast, Veronika. I suppose the pressure was on when explaining akenning! 😅😉Well, congratulations, because you did it! Wonderous poem, too. You never cease to amaze me 💖🙏
I’m reading Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman, and lo and behold, what is the word that I read? Ken. Ken was used (in a knowledge sort of way, the Welsh men were too terrified to go against their lord, etc.)! And I knew what it meant, thanks to youuuuu! Synchronicity 😁💯
As Philip has pointed out (it may not be fully clear in my wordcast), 'ken' means both 'to know' and 'to see'. The same is true for the German word 'erkennen', to recognise mentally and physically.
“Stirring the dawn of understanding,
aching to give birth to wisdom.
A seed of the species fallen,
sprouting the ominous Tree of Akenning,
once upon a paradisiacal shore.”
Oooh! A poem to inseminate this akenning! I love this! The deeper ache of knowing. Just on that other side of words! Yet you always guide us right to the edge of the ache Veronika! You take us to the door. Once opened knowing always finds us. You are a gift! Thanks for this! AKENNING 🙏❤️
Thank you, Jamie, for the 'rekenning'.
In an 'uncanny akenning' this poem arrived precisely in the way you describe on your poietic posting today, like that swarm of bees I mentioned. That's what akennings do. Creativity comes unbidden but not unwelcome. The muse cannot be forced but needs to be embraced (otherwise she wriggles out of the poet/writer's grip and the words vanish into the distant yonder of unkenning)
I am delighted too that AKENNING has found me/us again. Such an essential way of knowing, lost and now refound... a key to poet's paradise?
“awakening of a new knowing, without full understanding (yet). It precedes the reasoning Intellect, while stirring a heartache, a passionate longing for the full experience of reaching the shore of knowledge, which has come into distant view.”- Akenning.
Yesss. Living into the questions. A knowing just on the other side. The mystery. Ineffable. Yet present. In moments. To observe. To feel into. Once we try to grasp onto it….it slips away. An entity. To be allowed in. Never to search for. To be found. She knows where we are. I love the poetry in your post too! Wow! 🙏❤️
🙏 ❤️ humming in resonance... 🐝
I love this post, Veronika, it’s really got me thinking! You see every time I read 'akenning', my brain instantly jumps to 'awakening', like they’re somehow related, cousins maybe. Maybe it’s the rhythm of the words, or just the way they both carry this feeling of something ‘coming into being’. Anyhow, I can’t shake the sense, which may be non-sense, that 'akenning' isn’t just about knowledge – it’s about that moment when knowing turns into realisation.
The way you trace the roots of this word, is fascinating and makes me wonder – do we ever really learn new things, or do we just ‘wake’ up to, 're-member' what was always there? Either way, your deep language dive is taking me on a journey of discovery. I really appreciate the way it’s stirred something in me – an awakening, or akenning of sorts. Hmm, I’ll be mulling this over for a while! Thanks so much for holding the language lantern high.
Thank you so much, Deborah, for this recognition!
Yes, akenning is very close to awakening, not only in sound but also in sense. It is also related to acknowledging, recognising, all ways of knowing, and of course to realising and remembering as you noticed.
Isn't it remarkable how words themselves do as they are ~ I mean act in the frequency of the sense/meaning they carry? This is particularly clear to me from the stirring akenning is doing in you, as it has done in myself too.
Holding the language lantern high! 🙏 what a lovely image. I'm happy to be the language-lantern-holder (among other tasks)
Ah, another word to add to my dictionary! I completely agree, re words carrying their meaning and weight. Soulchronicity is a new word I learnt here last week from Jamie. And I've noticed this is something that happens between writers on Substack. One begins writing about the sea or soul, and by the end of that week, several others have explored the same themes. I love that tuning in, how we inspire one another. Many thanks, Veronika. 🙏❤️
Hi Veronika,
Knowledge, knowing, kenning — I love how language flows and shifts, as we do. Thank you for tracking the journey of words and meaning as we create them, It’s a treat, reading these posts. I wonder about the knowing that is embodied, that which we might not yet fully understand, that which signals to us through our intuition. Is this kenning. These words can be worlds within themselves and it is like adventure — kinship. And the connections across languages and people. There is a magical energy that carries language and awakens something deep within — akenning. The poem, an ode to our human curiosity — to know. Love it. Thank you for connecting us with your words, and wisdom. 🙏 😊 🌀 🌏 💚
You're most welcome, Simone 😊
As you know by now (or have an inkling of akenning) that these wordcasts come to me in a similar way as your conversations with your 'team'. I feel greatly blessed to be able to have these 'conversations with words'. A magical experience indeed. 🤍 🙏 ✨
And we are blessed that you share the magic 💚
Ah Ken fine. Ah ken ah ken nought. Beautiful thought provoking piece.
Lovely seeding! Veronika, you have midwifed a way to remember, you always do. A deep translator and alchemist. Akenning lands like a myth rediscovered, a root-word rising from the depths of collective memory with sea salt still glued to its syllables. The way you trace back is masterful, I admire you, a reflection of something primal. You’re mapping the sacred geography between gnosis and birth, and all the way, life and history are changing through a word.
Knowledge is found in the longing, the seed, the sea: gestation, becoming! Mythopoetic. Erkenntnis as a form of eros, of ache and procreation. We are magnetized toward a truth we don’t fully understand, yet are here to follow, a living process. Thank you for offering this seed, this fruit, this ache of recognition. June is a great month to grow new root, fruits and flowers. May more of us awaken to the work of tending the Tree of Akenning. Thank you!❤️
Thank you so much Katerina. What a lovely resonance and recognition. Erkenntnis as a form of eros... I hadn't thought of it that way, but of course, without eros no begetting, becoming or anything in between.
"We are magnetized toward a truth we don’t fully understand, yet are here to follow, a living process." ~ this sums it up perfectly. It also captures the essence of the connection between the Tree of Akenning and the Tree of Life.
A pleasure 💗🙏
On ways of knowing,
treatise teaches, teases our
imagination.
thank you Marisol 💗🙏
I’m in awe of the way you delve into words and this one ending with your poem is stunning! This:
kindling insight,
breeding dreaming,
deepening awareness,
dreaming an awakening,
stirring the dawn of understanding,
aching to give birth to wisdom.
Thank you! I’ll take this into my dreams tonight! 🙏💕💤
How lovely 💗🙏
This is wonderful Veronika: "whether we all carry a way of knowing ~ an uncanny akenning ~ akin to an aching." I will carry this with me... I sense a strong aching when I write and when I teach... now you have named it!
Beautiful! Thank you Colin 💗🙏
Yes, and great comments. I also picked up the parallel with Jamie's poem that I had just read, and like Deborah 'awakening' echoed in my head.
I worked in Scotland for 27 years and the root was in the common tongue, all context and tone, light in the eye. Scots was an old Germanic language that had gone its own way long before the 'Parcel of rogues in a Nation'. 'Ah ken y' now' as in 'I see you, now'.
Thank you Philip for this delightful and informative comment! I didn't know that Scottish 'ken' also means 'to see'... this explains the 'distant view' in 'kenning'...
I also didn't know that Scots was an old Germanic language... this is particularly interesting to me because one of my greatgrandmothers came down from Scotland and married into the Löwen-clan in Germany.
Nice to hear of your heritage!
I am not a sufficient historian to provide adequate appraisal of 'Scots', but briefly... The Iron Age clan hereabouts north and south of the present border was Brythonic (Welsh), a people then overlaid with or lost to Germanic incomers after 450 AD in what was to become a kingdom stretching from the Tees (south of the Roman Wall) to beyond the Forth, north into what is now Fife. We can pick up the threads circa 700 AD with Christian 'preaching crosses', inscribed monuments mostly in an arc reaching to the western shore. Subsequent history of the larger Scotland fused the Gaels from Ireland into an aristocracy/kingships, which persisted even after the 'Normans' took over most of the richer agricultural lands of the East and lowlands. Nevertheless, the Germanic language lived on in those areas even into modern times and saw strong attempts at a poetic revival in the 20thC.
The story though of the Gaeltacht is something yet again. Our daughters' mitochondria, to put a long story short, are in a direct line from the Gaeltacht north of the Great Glen. Smile.
Oh! This exploration echos something I heard earlier today in a conversation with writer Kendall Lamb where she said that, for her, a newly discovered truth always feels like a remembering. Like your akenning, “an awakening of a new knowing, without full understanding (yet)… while stirring a heartache, a passionate longing” that maybe is some kind of cellular/ancestral/ecological memory of universal truths.
How fascinating! I always love it when I work on something and then realise that the word (or topic or idea) is 'in the air'.
Yes, I found this wordcast particularly satisfying because it came out quite suddenly and unplanned. I normally spend much more time on a wordcast. This one arrived in a burst, wanting to be written NOW. In retrospect, and in the light of what you are telling me from the conversation with Kendall Lamb, I feel this word has been a long time coming. As mentioned elsewhere, I have been thinking about the word 'Erkenntnis' on and off for some time, feeling a little frustrated that I couldn't find an equivalent in English... and all of a sudden it's there... has been there all along... in Scottish! (hiding in plain sight)
Akenning is a new word for me. I'm not sure I'll ever use it, but now if I read it, e.g., in my daughter's philosophy texts--she writes for the U of Chicago Press--I'll now know what it means. I do wonder how you learned this word, Veronika,
I found it in the Century Dictionary. It is cognate with the German word Erkenntnis (coming from the same root), and I've been looking for an equivalent word in English for some time... The answers come (eventually) when we are holding the question.
TY!
yes. divine entelechy.
Big fan of sea turtles and gnosis... (I thought I was the only one who looked at them in such a way...) Going to write a poem "Aching Awakenings". Nicely done.
Thank you and welcome to the wildwordwoods of Symbiopædia. Lovely to meet you in the space between sea turtles and gnosis! I look forward to reading 'Aching Awakenings'.
A superb investigation, intriguingly written, and with a poetic closure for delight. 💜
💗🙏 This poetic closure came as a surprise 'bonus'. A true gift
I found this to be a particularly clear and concise Wordcast, Veronika. I suppose the pressure was on when explaining akenning! 😅😉Well, congratulations, because you did it! Wonderous poem, too. You never cease to amaze me 💖🙏
Oh I found exactly the same! I wish I could always write like this... I think I amazed myself here 😅 💖🙏
I’m reading Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman, and lo and behold, what is the word that I read? Ken. Ken was used (in a knowledge sort of way, the Welsh men were too terrified to go against their lord, etc.)! And I knew what it meant, thanks to youuuuu! Synchronicity 😁💯
Thanks for sharing 😅 💖🙏
As Philip has pointed out (it may not be fully clear in my wordcast), 'ken' means both 'to know' and 'to see'. The same is true for the German word 'erkennen', to recognise mentally and physically.
My pen my muse nothing to loose 💥
Thank you Geraldine 💗🙏 and for restacking too xx