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Hear Your Inner Voice

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Symbol Reader

Image of the Self from Carl Jung’s Man & His Symbols

I am in a mood for a self-indulgent post. I just wanted to share my joy of inspiration. Someone was inspired by me today to create a haiku (http://martsart.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/water/) and this really made me happy.

I looked into the Online Etymology Dictionary:

inspiration (n.)

c.1300, “immediate influence of God or a god,” especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiracion “inhaling, breathing in; inspiration,” from Late Latin inspirationem (nominative inspiratio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin inspirare “inspire, inflame, blow into,” from in- “in” (see in- (2)) + spirare “to breathe” (see spirit). Literal sense “act of inhaling” attested in English from 1560s. Meaning “one who inspires others” is attested by 1867.

Ever since I started this blog, I have been feeling more and more inspired. This can be explained astrologically: the transiting Jupiter is approaching my Sun among other things. When I moved to Zurich, the Swiss city of bankers, two years ago, I hit a very dry spell inspiration-wise. I was almost completely stuck in and devoured by the material plane. It was as if the spirit had left me. There is a movie for children called the Golden Compass, in which the characters have their own dæmons, which basically are their souls in the form of animals. Dæmons and their humans are not of the same gender, which to me is a neat allusion to Carl Jung’s theory of anima and animus – the male and female soul respectively. Anima and animus literally animate our inner spirit by sending us on a spiritual quest and guiding us through the world of the unconscious forms. In the film Golden Compass the separation from one’s dæmon caused severe pain and trauma. The evil Magisterium constructed a special guillotine which separates people from their dæmon. A person whose dæmon has been separated loses creativity, intelligence, will and any traces of a divine spark, thus becoming empty and lifeless, in short: uninspired. It is a very Gnostic concept: robbing humans of the Divine Spark and separating them from the Divine Light. This is how I felt for quite a while but I am pleased to say that not any more. My Socratean dæmon has come back to me after years of exile.

Who or what is that Socratean dæmon? We hear it via the inner voice. The dæmon is a powerful archetypal call of something larger than us. Jung wrote that it had an autonomous force and was able to make demands on a person ‘possessed’ by it. It is supposed to be a powerful creative process that individuals get caught up in and which is beyond their conscious control. As a natural force it cannot be stopped by ego consciousness. The main role of the dæmon is to make the individual whole again by forcing him or her to integrate the split fragments of the psyche and to find connection with a larger, divine Self archetype. The dæmon releases all the buried unconscious energy and that’s why it should be handled with caution because of its destructive force.

I am grateful to experience this feeling of renovation of spirit.

“Le Triomphe de l’Art”, 1894, by Léon Bonnat

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged anima, animus, archetypes, astrology, C.G. Jung, Carl Jung, film, individuation, inspiration, psychology, Self, Socrates, spirituality, symbols, the daemon, The Golden Compass | 13 Comments

Thinking of Ishtar

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Symbol Reader

the magnificent Ishtar gate

Ishtar gate lion

A shop assistant in my local grocery store wished me “Schöne Ostertage” (happy Easter days) but what I heard was the name of the goddess Astarte, which is a counterpart of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. I found myself thinking of her today. Some scholars speculate her name is at the root of our Easter, but as far as I know this has not been proven beyond doubt.

I found two fascinating links today that I want to share.

The true origin of Easter

Ishtar myth

A link to a great post by a fellow blogger that I stumbled upon just today.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Astarte, Christianity, Easter, Ishtar, myth, mythology, religion | 8 Comments

Musings on the Symbol of the Cross

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Symbol Reader

Salvador Dali, Christ of Saint John of the Cross

The symbol of the cross has held a fascination with me for a very long time now. I don’t wear a lot of jewellery but the Celtic cross is something I wear very often. Both the Ankh (juxtaposing the eternal circle with the four arms symbolizing the material plane; an Egyptian symbol of life and fertility) and the Celtic cross hold an evocative power for me.

image via http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Ireland/South/Kerry/Muckross/photo1258736.htm

I remember seeing Salvador Dali’s painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross for the first time during an Arts lesson at school. It had a tremendous effect on me, which only now I can rationalize. All its elements: the dark sky, a body of water and a fisherman’s boat emanate with a primal archetypal force. It is a crucifixion but it is not an image of physical suffering, at least not with the usual gory display. Apparently, the vision of the painting came to Dali in a dream, in which he was admonished not to present Christ with the crown of thorn or blood. The lighting used in the painting is extraordinary and so is perspective. We view the painting from above, so to speak, which to me emphasizes its eternal quality and shows the significance of Christ’s passion for the whole humanity. Nevertheless, the sea below is not shown from a bird’s eye view, which makes this painting quite unique and surreal, creating a mixed perspective and a feeling of vertigo which I get looking at it. To me the essence of this image is the following: the earthly perspective is juxtaposed with the heavenly one. The transcendent is overlooking the mundane. The mystical dimension pointing towards the earth cannot be ignored; it has urgency about it and affects the viewer on a physiological level, making his or her head spin. The cross in this painting is the axis mundi, the world axis connecting Heaven and Earth. Dali himself wrote:

In the first place, in 1950, I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in colour and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom.’ This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it ‘the very unity of the universe,’ the Christ!

I love reading about the history of the cross symbol throughout the ages. Long before Christianity the symbol of tau (the letter T) was allegedly drawn on foreheads of mystery initiates. The Pagan roots of Christianity are compelling to anybody who just takes a cursory glance at world mythologies. Death and suffering of a god was not invented by Christianity. Tammuz, Orpheus, Osiris, Mithra and other ancient deities also died and some were even resurrected.

What is the synthesis of the meaning of the cross? The Ankh symbol shows how the divine principle (symbolized by the circle) descends to the material plane via the vertical line of the cross. The vertical line is an active principle descending on the passive horizontal plane. The vertical line of the cross symbolizes what is active and positive, the horizontal what is passive and negative. The cross is a very dramatic juxtaposition of opposites, complete opposite to the symbol of uroboros (the divine serpent eating its tail), which shows the dynamic interplay of opposites, the chaos preceding the order of creation. The cross is a symbol of the human drama connected with being incarnated into hard matter, where the opposites create conflict, tension, pain and suffering. It is a symbol of human existence on the material plane here and now.

image via http://crossandcosmos.blogspot.ch/

Posted in The Cross | Tagged Ankh, archetypes, art, C.G. Jung, Christ of Saint John of the Cross, Christianity, Dali, mysticism, paganism, religion, spirituality, symbols, the cross, uroboros | 14 Comments

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Symbol Reader

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What Maslow Surely Missed

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Symbol Reader

A Favela drummer, image via http://www.veezzle.com/photo/1141733/favela-drummer

I was reminded today of the opening scene of The Lord of the Rings. In it, Galadrielle says, ‘The world is changing. I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth and I smell it in the air.’ I could sense it today. What inspired me was a poor man, in rags, whom I saw at my local railway station in Zurich, Switzerland. There are hardly any beggars in this country because they are neatly weeded out by the efficient, Virgoan law enforcers. But this man was not begging. The elegant crowd of commuters, each tapping away at their latest model of a smart phone, looked at this man, who was holding an old-fashioned tape recorder, blasting some rock and roll and moving his body rhythmically. He was happy and he did not need anybody’s spare change.

‘Maslow was so wrong,’ I thought to myself. The basic needs of a human being are not food and shelter. Our basic needs are much more soulful and our soul needs must and do always come first.

In a book Poor Economics. A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee write about a poor Moroccan peasant who can hardly afford to feed his family. He says that a TV set, however, is an indispensable item in his household, more important than food. A TV may not be the most soulful object I could think of but it nevertheless ensures a deprived individual some kind of connection with the collective psyche. Maslow’s pyramid of needs suddenly appears irrelevant. Even the hungry or the destitute will seek to nourish their souls and transcend their existence. You cannot reduce an individual to his biological needs.

I was born in Poland, where there are still people who survived the second world war and its ordeals. The Angel of Hunger (this is the title if a magnificent novel about Soviet labour camps) lived in my land. I was particularly uplifted when I read about Otto Dov Kulka, a Holocaust survivor, who says that what kept him alive in the concentration camp was a children’s choir that he was engaged with. They were learning to perform Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in secret. This shows that pure biology, the naked instinct was not enough to survive the ordeal of labour camps. Human needs do not form a hierarchy but a complicated organic system where the instinctual and the symbolic are intertwined and equally important.

The change I hinted at in the introduction has to do with a growing global understanding that the Bible quote ‘Man does not live by bread alone’ describes a pressing, basic and urgent human need of higher meaning.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged hierarchy of needs, Maslow, meaning, mysticism, psychology, spirituality | 18 Comments

Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Symbol Reader

Posting with my deep gratitude to Sindy http://bluebutterfliesandme.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/i-am-brahman-2/, who made me aware of this film. The full Moon in Libra seems to be having a truly illuminating effect on me.

Not that which the eye can see, but that whereby the eye can see: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which the ear can hear, but that whereby the ear can hear: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which speech can illuminate, but that by which speech can be illuminated: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore;

Not that which the mind can think, but that whereby the mind can think: know that to be Brahman the eternal, and not what people here adore.

Kena Upanishad

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds | 1 Comment

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Symbol Reader

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Images of the Zodiac: Contemplating Aries

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Symbol Reader

I am beginning my symbolic journey through the twelve Zodiac signs as depicted by Johfra Bosschart. At the beginning of Spring I am contemplating the Aries painting. The twelve Zodiac paintings by Johfra are contemplative symbols, showing the highest, most sublime and purest expression of the energies of Zodiac signs. They are “doorways in the mind for spiritual awakening,” as Caruana wrote. I find these images fascinating and strongly evocative of the power of symbols. Translating them into words will not do them justice and that’s why it is important to remember that they are meant to be contemplated on first and foremost.

Aries. The sheer energy, speed, passion and desire are striking and palpable without any symbolic knowledge. A warrior, riding a ram (none other than a famous ram from the myth of the Argonauts), is taking the plunge, blindly and innocently. He certainly did not look before he leapt; with no expectations, he was simply driven by raw and blind impulse. This is an image of sheer speed. The warrior is completely oblivious to his surroundings.

The figure of a blind woman appears to be quite significant. I am certainly drawn to look at her. Acording to Johfra himself, this is Avidya (ignorance), whose blindfold represents her lack of experience of life. But to me she is more than that. She is hope and trust in new beginnings, the feelings which always come with the Spring. It is important to remember that the twelve Zodiac paintings are interconnected, no sign can be interpreted separately from the others. It is clear to me that the woman has emerged from the twelfth house of Pisces (the collective unconscious – hence the blindfold as a symbol of unconscious knowledge and a torch symbolizing illumination). The warrior is inspired by her inward vision, and his heroism has roots in collective heroic stories shared by all humanity. She is his Anima, as Jung would want it, i.e. his feminine part or the guide to his divine self.

Ram is a popular symbol of innocence. In his Dictionary of Symbols, Cirlot notes that the Latin word agnus (ram) is closely related to the Greek agnos, meaning unknown. Also agnus and agni (fire in Sanskrit) are closely related. An innocent ram makes a headfirst leap into the unknown. Babies are usually born head first, which is a clear Arian symbol of a new life emerging from the unconscious. The sign Aries rules the head, it cannot be any other way.

Let us look closer at the Martian warrior. He is not a destroyer because his sword remains in its sheath. Instead, he bears the fire of passion and enthusiasm. As a pioneer, he leads the way to the new. He is wearing a red cape, red being the colour of Aries symbolizing its activity. The emblem on his shield is an angry beast, Phobos – the god of fear (son of the Greek war god Ares), often depicted with a lion-like head.

The Magician on the left (the first trump of Major Arcana) has a closed door behind him, which is inscribed with twelve stars (signs of the Zodiac). His red cloak radiates life force, majesty and authority. He symbolizes source activity and creative powers, being a master of the four elements. He is pointing a staff (the element of fire) towards the sky as a sign of higher consciousness and inspiration from the divine while his left hand (left meaning unconscious) points to the earth, the realm of manifestation. With that gesture he directs cosmic powers down to the earth. He uses his will to master the four elements. He is the creator commencing his grand opus. He stands at the gate to the twelve stages of human development through the Zodiac.

The basilisk, a legendary guardian of treasures whose look brings death, sits on a rock. It is an ancient icon of fear. It could also be a salamander, the spirit of fire.

From a holistic viewpoint, fire is the dominant element of the painting. Fire brings life and warmth but also destruction. The basic truth about grand symbols and archetypes is that they are always contradictory in nature. The warrior epitomizes the physical energy of fire, the magician its spiritual aspect. The smoke from the volcanoes in the distance signifies fertility on the one hand (the land near volcanoes is often very fertile) and destruction on the other. The volcano itself is yet another symbol of the prime power of nature and a furnace where the four elements of fire, water, air and earth connect and transmute. A volcanic eruption is also a depiction of a process in which great powers and forces act in its depths for a long time before they explode suddenly and spectacularly. This explosion marks a transition from a passive sign of Pisces, a sign of gestation and hidden possibilities, into the active realm of Arian manifestation.

The frame of the painting is iron, representative of the planet Mars, ruler of Aries. Iron is an essential mineral for plants and animals but too much of it can be extremely toxic. Once again the dual nature of the archetype, the light and the shadow, are shown here.

The official sign of Aries is represented in the red pentagon at the bottom of the painting. The four elements plus ether (spirit) are brought in one in this structure. It is yet another symbol of the manifestation of the divine in physical matter. Aries marks a threshold from the unmanifested to the manifested. In numerology, the number five has competitive, dynamic and chaotic vibrations. How interesting that the American headquarters of the Department of Defense should be also thus shaped. The god of war must have had his hand in it.