Tag Archives: nature

A Hymn to Plant Life

Posted on July 4, 2021 by Symbol Reader

While listening to a talk of Alan Watts recently, I was struck by one of his observations. He said that in Daoist inspired landscape painting was a statement against anthropocentrism, which sees humans as the crown of creation. In a … Continue reading →

Posted in plants | Tagged Alan Watts, archetypes, breath, C.G. Jung, dao, death, desire, East, Emanuele Coccia, ideas, life, logos, nature, Olafur Eliasson, philosophy, plants, prana, psyche, rebirth, seasons, Soul, symbolism, symbols, tao, unconscious, West | 2 Comments

Gender and the Cosmic Shift

Posted on April 18, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Natural History Museum of Bern, Switzerland is currently running an exhilarating, colourful exhibition called “Queer – Diversity is in our Nature.” The thesis of the curators seems to be that the animal kingdom is rich and diverse with numerous examples … Continue reading →

Posted in LGBTQ+ | Tagged androgyne, archetypes, Chaos, gender, gender bending, gender fluid, Greek myth, Hermaphroditus, identity, LGBT, love, Metamorphoses, nature, non-binary, Ovid, Plato, quantum entanglement, Salmacis, shifting identities, symbolism, symbols, Symposium | 7 Comments

Gilgamesh: He Who Saw the Deep

Posted on May 3, 2020 by Symbol Reader

If you happen to have some time on your hands, I strongly recommend that you take a look at Ancient Masterpiece of World Literature (https://www.edx.org/course/ancient-masterpieces-of-world-literature), a course which Harvard University is currently offering online free of charge. You can also … Continue reading →

Posted in Gilgamesh, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, Carl Gustav Jung, cedar, culture, death, deluge, depth psychology, Divine, Enkidu, epic, flood, Gilgamesh, goddess, human, humbaba, immortality, Inanna, Ishtar, Mesopotamia, myth, mythology, nature, Rilke, Sumer, Sumerian, symbolism, symbols, Underworld, Uruk, Utnapishtim | 12 Comments

Jung on the Light of the Darkness

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Symbol Reader

The following passage from Jung’s Alchemical Studies (volume 13 of CW, par. 197) struck me today: “They [alchemists, seekers after truth] discover that in the very darkness of nature a light is hidden, a little spark without which the … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations, Uncategorized | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, C.G. Jung, Democritus, depth psychology, disease, healing, light of nature, lumen naturae, nature, paganism, Paracelsus, symbols, transformation | 7 Comments

From Lascaux Cave Paintings to Greta Thunberg

Posted on December 15, 2019 by Symbol Reader

It fascinates me when similar ideas come to me simultaneously from completely different directions. The first revelation was a must-read article in The Guardian on how the cave paintings of Lascaux remind us that “in our self-obsessed age, the anonymous, … Continue reading →

Posted in Psyche, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, earth, ego, Ferdinand Hodler, Freud, Greta Thunberg, humility, landscape, Lascaux, narcissism, nature, painting, psyche, subject, symbolism, symbols, unconscious, Yeats | 7 Comments

Beauty and Wonder in Olafur Eliasson’s Art

Posted on September 13, 2019 by Symbol Reader

The Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson is perhaps most known for his stunning The weather project (2003). In a giant hall of the Tate Modern gallery in London, viewers were mesmerized by an installation which consisted of a yellow sun shining through … Continue reading →

Posted in Olafur Eliasson, Uncategorized | Tagged archetypes, art, environment, myth, mythology, nature, Olafur Eliasson, symbolism, symbols, The weather project | 5 Comments

Land Art by Andy Goldsworthy

Posted on January 31, 2018 by Symbol Reader

“I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in … Continue reading →

Posted in Andy Goldsworthy, Uncategorized | Tagged Andy Goldsworthy, archetypes, art, documentary, earth art, land art, Leaning Into the Wind, nature, stone, symbolism, symbols | 16 Comments

In Defense of the Primeval Forest

Posted on August 6, 2017 by Symbol Reader

“The edge of the cancer Swells against the hill-we feel a foul breeze-And it sinks back down. The deer winter here A chainsaw growls in the gorge. Ten wet days and the log trucks stop, The trees breathe. Sunday the … Continue reading →

Posted in Bialowieza, Uncategorized | Tagged Bialowieza forest, ecology, EU, European Court, logging, magic, nature, Poland, primeval forest, self-regulation, shamanism | 8 Comments

The Holiness of Trees

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Symbol Reader

“Trees in particular were mysterious and seemed to me direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of life. For that reason the woods were the place where I felt closest to its deepest meaning and to its awe-inspiring workings.” C.G. Jung, … Continue reading →

Posted in trees, Uncategorized | Tagged C.G. Jung, communication, environment, life, nature, Peter Wohlleben, psychology, Soul, symbolism, Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Life, trees | 43 Comments

Earth Day

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Symbol Reader

“The word ‘nature’ derives from natura, a philosophical term derived from the verb for birth, which was used as a translation for the earlier Ancient Greek term phusus which was derived from the verb for natural growth, for example that … Continue reading →