Tag Archives: nature

Black Madonna: An Icon of Mystery

Posted on December 30, 2021 by Symbol Reader

“There is a grave aura about many of the Black Virgins, an expression of utter solitude so intense that the child on her knees or in the embrace of her left arm seems strangely appended. She sits, solitary, weighted, at … Continue reading →

Posted in Black Madonna | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, black, Black Madonna, blackness, C.G. Jung, chaosorder, Christianity, creation, Dark Feminine, Dark Virgin, depth psychology, earth, enlightenment, feminine, God, goddess, matter, mysticism, nature, nigredo, religion, Soul, symbolism, symbols, transformation, transmutation, Trinity | 7 Comments

Reading The Red Book (39) – Seven Sermons to the Dead

Posted on December 12, 2021 by Symbol Reader

We are still focusing on The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which are part of Scrutinies, the final section of The Red Book. In my previous posts, I looked at sermons one and two while this one is dedicated to the third sermon and … Continue reading →

Posted in The Red Book by C.G. Jung | Tagged Abraxas, archetypes, C.G. Jung, darkness, depth psychology, devil, dualism, evil, Gnosticism, good, Hermes, Liber Novus, light, Mercurius, nature, opposites, rooster, samsara, Seven Sermons of the Dead, Soul, summum bonum, sun, symbolism, symbols, The Red Book, Time, wheel of time | 6 Comments

Autumn

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Symbol Reader

Whenever autumn is in full colour, I always remember the alchemical dictum “Nature rejoices in nature, nature conquers nature, nature rules over nature.” In volume 13 of Collected Works, Jung explained it in the following way: “This principle is pagan … Continue reading →

Posted in autumn | Tagged alchemy, archetypes, autumn, C.G. Jung, cauda pavonis, citrinitas, evolution, Hillman, individuation, lumen naturae, metamorphosis, nature, plants, psyche, psychology, rubedo, symbolism, symbols, trees | 6 Comments

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 | 9 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 | 8 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 →