It happened last Sunday morning, following the Sunday morning zoom service at Don Heights Unitarian Congregation. We were having our small “break-out” group discussion with just 6 participants, when I caught sight of the Blissymbol for “feeling, as an adjective”!

(The “indicator” appearing over the heart symbol denotes the grammatical category.)

“Feeling” appeared in the backdrop behind Peter Lister.

I was wondering why the symbol appeared to be layered on a “grid”, but not properly positioned…. 

I just had to ask Peter where the symbol came from! His response….

“What symbol?” 

“I’m sitting in front of a picture of a table with a checkered table cloth!”

With a little detective work, we discovered that the “feeling” symbol was a great example of ‘meaning being in the eyes of the beholder’.

Only, I, would perceive “feeling” in the back of a wrought iron chair!

It could be said that I’m “seeing things” that aren’t there. I prefer to believe that I bring the language of Blissymbolics to many aspects of my life – with enjoyment!

Leads me to a great book, for anyone wishing to delve more into perception. It’s one of my favourites!

Graziano, Michael S.A. (2010). God Soul Mind Brain. 

Massachusetts: Leapfrog Press.

I invite anyone who sees a Blissymbol in an unexpected place to share your finding with readers of Blissful Thoughts! You can do this by sending an email message to shirley@blissymbolics.org

It is always wonderful to learn about the experiences of those in our Bliss community! Rebecca was happy to share her “masking” experience with her grand-daughter, Iris Hannah. My thanks goes to Iris Hannah’s parents, Caitlin and Jordan, for permitting us to enjoy seeing Iris Hannah as she newly discovered more of what her grandma looks like! 

From Rebecca

A thoughtful friend gave me this see-through mask, concerned that the baby was only ever seeing half my face.

August 5th picture shows the very first time 5-month old Iris Hannah saw the lower part of my face. Not counting the first (pre-Covid) 3 weeks of her life, when she was still in an infant “fog”, she had only ever seen me with an obscuring mask on, hiding my mouth.

She first enthusiastically grabbed at my mask, perhaps drawn by the pretty gingham. After I pried her fingers off, we looked at each other…that’s when she reared back and started looking a little uncertain. In the second picture, you can see her arm is a blur as she “wind-mills” them in an attempt to get to her mother (and away from me). 

Note

The meaning of the elements in the Title symbols.

Masked = combine symbol + mask (face + make-believe) + nose + mouth + adjective indicator + combine symbol. [Rebecca and I had to create a new “combine” symbol for mask to accommodate to Covid-19 masks.]

Emotions = emotion (heart shape) + plural indicator

The Blissymbol Alphabet Song was written by me in the early eighties to help Bliss instructors and students look up symbols by their Bliss alphabet components and determine their meaning.

The first authorized vocabulary of 1400 Blissymbols was published in “Blissymbols for Use” (Hehner, 1980). We now have over 6,000 Bliss-words in our BCI Authorized Vocabulary.

In this 1980 publication, learners could look up symbols in three ways: (1) their English gloss, (2) the semantic category to which the symbol belonged (3) their Bliss alphabet “spelling”.

Having an alphabet song, helped make the ordering of the symbols memorable. Today, this same ordering is used in drawing symbols by those using www.blissonline.se. 

I invite anyone who would like to sing the alphabet song and totally master “isosceles triangle” to contact me for a zoom session recording! I would be happy to add an additional performance to this entry!

This song was sung at Bliss Workshops around the world by enthusiastic groups of Bliss instructors. I have a memory of one rendition on the steps of a large railway station. I don’t remember the city! Our last effort was in St. Catherines, Ontario, at Brock University in 2016. Not many of us remained who remembered the 80’s!

On Tuesday, August 11, I was interviewed by Chris White for his radio program, ‘Special Blend’, on station CKCU, FM. Joining us was his sister, Sheila White, music director at Don Heights Unitarian Congregation. We had an hour of conversation about my experiences with Blissymbolics and those who have used ‘Bliss’ for their first expressive mode of communication. In response to their thoughtful questions, I was able to do lots of reminiscing about the Bliss program we developed in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s in Canada, and I described a little of what is happening with Bliss today. Near the end of the hour, Chris included the Bliss i-Band playing the ‘Blues with Margareta’ – a recording we made when Margareta Jennische, President of Blissymbolics Communication International, visited Canada from Sweden last November, and joined us in making music in our Wednesday afternoon session.

You can hear the interview by going to https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/158/48713.html, with my interview starting at 1:01.

After our conversation, as I reflected on what I had said, I found three mistakes! Memory can play tricks as one looks back over 49 years!

1. I stated that our first Blissymbol Program in 1971, began with six children, “meeting once a week”. Really, it was the clinical team that met once each week (on Fridays). The children met Monday through Thursday, in two groups of three.  
2. I attributed the Halloween combine symbol for ‘vampire’ to John Dowling. Terry Martin should have been recognized! He was the vampire! Terry always liked to be known at gatherings as “Mr. Combine”, competing for first place with Valerie Cruse of Brantford, who claimed the title of “Ms. Combine”! John had an Indian costume that Halloween, back in 1972 or 1973!
3. I said there were 150 Kindergarten children in my Ph.D. research project. There were only 107 children in my study, although the amalgamated school in Effingham, Illinois, where I did my testing, did have 150 Kindergarten students all in the same location. I was correct in saying there were 32 adults with severe congenital physical and speech impairments in my study.  My thesis can be read:                                              https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Reading-acquisition-of-adults-with-severe-speech-McNaughton/dc16cf141539c7a48221f9078dc2b6c5d47d6ea5#paper-header

Now I have a little task for you to do:

When you listen to the i-Band playing, try to identify which improviser was a person with no physical disability. There was only one! Then click the link to watch the video. See if you were correct. I would love to hear from those who correctly identified the improviser who had no physical disability. I would love to know how you knew!

If you discover any other memory mistake, i invite you to write and tell us all!

COMMENT IN BLISS

Look below to see Gabriel’s Comment (sent by his dad, Jimmy), translated into Blissymbols.

As we have been exploring the best way to make digital performances of the Bliss i-Band, we made a series of 3 recordings. First Aaron played the piece; then I added my part; then Sam and Julie added their part. I love watching this version – with both Aaron and myself receding into the background, and viewers really able to see and hear Sam’s enjoyment. Her singing is very special! Sweet Caroline is a favourite piece for her. I hope Sam will share the reason with us, some day!