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Author Archives: Symbol Reader
“That’s just who I am”: Is that Kafka? 99 Finds by Rainer Stach
Originally posted on roughghosts:
“Now I’ve taken a closer look at my desk and realized that nothing good can be produced on it. There’s so much lying around here, it creates disorder without regularity, and with none of that agreeableness…
Sublime Music in the Face of Tragedy
“Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings begins softly, with a single note, a B flat, played by the violins. Two beats later the lower strings enter, creating an uneasy, shifting suspension as the melody begins a stepwise motion, like the hesitant … Continue reading
Posted in violence against women
Tagged domestic violence, Natalia Strelchenko, violence against women
4 Comments
The Black Madonna of the Darker than Dark Forest
The place closest to my heart in the whole of Switzerland is the Monastery of Einsiedeln. “Einsiedeln” is a German word for “hermitage.” Surrounded by a dark, mysterious forest, situated near a scenic lake, adjacent to glorious mountain peaks, the … Continue reading
Posted in Black Madonna
Tagged alchemy, Black Madonna, Dark goddess, Einsiedeln, Mary, nigredo, ravens, Saint Meinrad, symbolism, symbols
22 Comments
“Perfect Woman” by William Wordsworth
She was a phantom of delight When first she gleam’d upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment’s ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged "Perfect Woman", poem, poetry, William Wordsworth
11 Comments
Shakespeare and Goethe on Love: from Despair to Hope
“She had a wildness in her eyes and into it I plunged.” Goethe, “Sorrows of Young Werther” In January 1778 Christel von Lassberg drowned herself in the river Ilm, the reason most probably being unrequited love. A copy of Goethe’s … Continue reading
Posted in love, Uncategorized
Tagged bear, freezing, Goethe, hibernation, literature, love, passion, rebirth, regeneration, Romanticism, Shakespeare, spring, suffering, symbolism, symbols, trauma, Werther, Werther effect, winter, Winter's Tale
10 Comments
Shadow Inhales and Illumination Exhales Light
In his book The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses, Juhani Pallasmaa argues that our culture privileges the senses of vision and hearing as the most sociable, while the sense of smell, touch and taste are deemed archaic … Continue reading
Posted in darkness and light, Uncategorized
Tagged body, chiaroscuro, darkness, Juhani Pallasmaa, Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, light, senses, The Eyes of the Skin
6 Comments
No Such Thing as Woman
“What I saw, with jarring clarity, was that there is no such thing as woman. Woman, I realised, is a thing of legend, a phantasm who flies through the world, settling here and there on this or that unsuspecting mortal … Continue reading
Black Holes: A Silent, Secret Essence
I.“He had begun by speaking of mines and metals, of gold and diamonds and all precious elements buried deep in the earth, but now, without my knowing how, he had ranged out into the depths of space, and was … Continue reading
Posted in Black Holes, Uncategorized
Tagged archetypes, Big Bang, black hole, Edgar Allan Poe, emptiness, Eureka, form, gravity, heart sutra, mysticism, science, singularity, spirituality, symbolism, symbols, universe
19 Comments
Chaos, Harmony and the Birth of Alphabet
One of the most beautiful Greek myths, which fascinated Carl Gustav Jung because of its alchemical underpinnings, is the story of Cadmus and Harmony. It is beautifully retold in The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso, who begins … Continue reading
Posted in Cadmus, Uncategorized
Tagged alchemy, alphabet, Cadmus, Carl Gustav Jung, Dionysos, Greek myth, Greek mythology, harmony, Mercurius, Phoenicians, Roberto Calasso, snake, Thebes, trickster, Typhon
11 Comments
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