Ties back and other linguistic connections

If one follows the word ‘religion’ to its linguistic roots, it is assumed that it is probably a word formation to Latin relegere ‘to go through anew in thought’, actually ‘to take together again, to take back, to read again, anew’ (cf. Latin legere ‘to pick up, collect, select, read’).

Another etymological view traces the word formation back to Latin religio to Latin religāre ‘to tie back, to tie up, to fasten’ and Latin ligāre ‘to bind, to tie on, to bind tightly, to join, to unite’.

There are many gestures of attachment among people and, for believers, of attachment to God. They are all united by the desire to create a common ground, to establish a connection, to find obligations. But this desire simultaneously encounters meanings that gestures have in individual cultures. And already, alongside new connections, entanglements also arise. Art is always also a process of developing entanglements – and gives them form.

Robert Krokowski