Three times to keep my mouth shut:

When angrily accused of something

When invited to share a confidence

When I am unwilling to accept the consequences of my speaking

Words have power.  We all know that.  We’ve all been hurt by another’s word, flayed and skinned by words.

Words have power.

We give the words power. We do. We give power when we speak the words and when we hear them. It’s a two-way street that can rip us both ways. We’ve all said words we’ve regretted. We’ve all heard words we regretted. We’ve all given away our right to serenity… just over a few careless words.

It’s no wonder then that the ancients used words in magic, wrote them down in grimoires and guarded them from casual gaze. Or made them holy and stuffed them together into books of power, or forbade others from speaking the holy words and stole that power for their own corrupt ends.

And no one ever taught us this when we were young. That we have the power to hurt and heal and to change others forever, through words. We are left to harsh experience to learn this lesson.

No one survives childhood unscathed. No one is innocent of using magic. We are all wizards and witches and thoughtlessly cruel and astonishingly loving with words.

And sometimes we learn what we’ve done to others and we are ashamed. We feel diminished and endangered by what we cannot take back. And we hardly ever say the words we most need to say as we look into the magic mirror,

“Yes. I did that. Yes, it was wrong. But, yes, I forgive you, I love you, broken and beaten as you are. You are my wonder.”

Words have power.

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