On having no name

Alice in the forest where things have no names

A little link to a painting I did a few years ago, Alice in the forest where things have no names.

There is an ancient belief that the name of a thing contains its essence, and hence to name something is to have power over it.

Maybe this was once true of the mythical language that existed before the fall of Babylon. Maybe there is still power in the words of a poet or orator. But ordinary words are not the things they point to, and names are not the things named.