Category Archives: Quotations

Stamped on the Underside of My Memory

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“Every aurate woman I have loved in my life, and I use the word loved in its widest sense, has left her impression on me, as the old gods of creation are said to have left their thumbprints on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged Ancient Light, John Banville, literature, memory, quotes, the unconscious | 9 Comments

The Rhythm of Silence is the Spring of Words

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Symbol Reader

I.“…thou sweet spring for the thirsty in the desert; it is closed for those who speak there, it is open for those who keep silence there. When the silent man cometh, he findeth the spring.” A Hymn to Thoth from … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged inspiration, language, poetry, silence, Thoth, writing | 8 Comments

The Scent of Autumn Earth

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“September 13, 1907 (Friday) . . . never has heather so touched and almost thrilled me as recently, when I found those three twigs in your sweet letter. Since then they have been lying in my Book of Pictures and … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged autumn, earth, fall, Letters on Cezanne, Reiner Maria Rilke, scent | 12 Comments

Icy Lechery: Art by Tamara de Lempicka

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“Was it true that, according to her final wishes, the ashes of the Polish-Russian artist Tamara de Lempicka were dropped from a helicopter by her daughter Kizette into the crater of the Mexican volcano Popocatépetl? What an Olympian, cataclysmic, magnificent … Continue reading →

Posted in Painting, Quotations | Tagged archetypes, art, eroticism, nude, painting, sensuality, sex, symbolism, symbols, Tamara de Lempicka | 10 Comments

The Attraction to the Divine Unknown

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“I find it relevant to quote here a formulation devised by Dio of Prusa (‘Dio Chrysostom’), a Greek thinker who lived in a period straddling the first and the second centuries CE. In what I am about to quote, taken … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged daimon, daimonion, Dio of Prusa, divinity, gods, Greek myth, myth, mythology, theos | 13 Comments

Clarissa Pinkola Estés on the Animus as a Merchant of Soul

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“By classical Jungian definition, animus is the soul-force in women, and is considered masculine. However, many women psychoanalysts, including myself, have, through personal observation, come to refute the classical view and to assert instead that the revivifying source in women … Continue reading →

Posted in Animus, Quotations | Tagged animus, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, depth psychology, feminine, masculine, Soul, symbols, Wild Woman, woman | 18 Comments

The Lake of Dreams, the Sea of Rains, the Gulf of Dews, the Ocean of Fecundity

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Symbol Reader

“What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and woman? Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged archetypes, James Joyce, Moon, symbolism, symbols, Ulysses, woman | 13 Comments

I Feel, Therefore I Can Be Free: Tribute to Audre Lorde

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Symbol Reader

I.“A self-described ‘black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,’ Audre Lorde dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia.” Via http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/audre-lorde II.“For each of us as women, there is a dark … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged Audre Lorde, Black Mother, Dark goddess, feminine power, freedom | 10 Comments

A Thunderous Epiphany: How Symbols Are Created

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Symbol Reader

“Symbols throw us across a spiritual abyss. When contemplating a sacred work of art, it may feel as if a great divide separated us from the Holy hidden in images. Then, our vision expands, and the image becomes transparent to … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, The Symbol | Tagged archetypes, art, depth psychology, etymology, images, numinosum, numinous, sacred art, symbolism, symbols | 18 Comments

Neptune, Redemption and the Nature of Archetypes

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Symbol Reader

“The longing for redemption is an ancient, strange and many-headed daimon, which dwells within even the most earthbound and prosaic of souls. Sometimes eloquent and sometimes mute, this daimon aspires toward some dimly sensed union with an all-seeing, all-loving, ineffable … Continue reading →