When I received the report from DNA company 23 & Me that I am 2% Neanderthal, I was a little embarrassed. However, as I stood in El Castillo cave in Northern Spain I couldn’t be prouder. It was discovered that more than 40,000 years ago, Neanderthal drew symbols onto the cave wall, making this Northern Spain location the oldest cave art and use of symbolism in the world.
Ancient symbolism wasn’t just limited to Neanderthal. Shaman, medicine people, mystics, and sages throughout the time have always known that the soul communicates through the use of symbols, metaphors, archetypes, poetry, and mystical imagination. The soul seems to know human language is far too limiting to express the full spectrum of knowledge, insight, and revelation.
A symbol is not just an image; it’s like a door into our inner world through which we can access the energy and meaning that belongs to this sacred dimension of our self. However, a symbol will only reveal its magical nature if we approach it with the right attitude if we have the correct quality of consciousness. Symbolic consciousness is a way of working with symbols that allows their meaning and energy into our consciousness. It is like a key that is needed to unlock the real potential, the energy of a symbol.
The ancient art of feng shui is also the language of symbolism, archetypes, and mystical imagination. Although feng shui is a complex school of thought on how to direct the flow of energy so that it moves freely and organically, feng shui also uses symbolism to balance the yin and yang energy and the chi of any space.
A symbol is a mark, sign, color, word, or object that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by linking otherwise different concepts and experiences and are often used to convey other ideas or beliefs. A symbol becomes significant and represents something beyond its literal meaning when we animate that symbol with our personal beliefs.
Here are some common examples of everyday symbols:
The dove is a symbol of peace.
Elephants represent many things but the elephant with its trunk in an upright position is said to be symbolic for wisdom.
Incense is symbolically based on the scent. For example, rose would be for love and frankincense would be symbolic for money.
According to Irish legends, horseshoes are symbolic of luck especially if they are hung over one’s front door. Finding a horseshoe was considered a good luck symbol due to the value of the iron.
The Tortoise is one of Feng Shui’s four celestial guardians, which makes it an extremely powerful protective symbol. Perfect for the front of any home.
Bamboo is symbolic for many reasons. It represents growth and the number of stalks gives the plant different symbolic meaning.
The color red and the heart are both symbolic for passion, love, and romance.
Examples of Hand of Miriam (Hamsa) in contemporary IsraelThe Hamsa is important to Islamic and Jewish history in culture. It is a symbolic amulet for protection. Also known at the hand of Fatima, the Hamsa is a revered symbol of divine safekeeping, worn to dispel negative energy.
The Cross is a sign of infinite love.
Pigs represent wealth because you had to be wealthy in the Middle Ages to maintain many pigs.
The Lotus Flower is symbolic for an awakening.
Photo by Lerkrat Tangsri from Pexels
Symbolic consciousness has been central to our lives for thousands and thousands of years, dating back to Neanderthal. Consciously and subconsciously we are always striving to make sense of the world and our place in it. Through working with symbols we can have access to the energy and meaning that comes from our inner world while animating the flow of chi in our outer world.
Nelson Mandela was laid to rest. Pope Francis has just been declared the “person of the year” by Time magazine.
Listen to the replay as we discuss mystics, saints, prophets, and sages that have been touched by a divine power. Their defining moments ultimately reveal universal lessons about the true nature of God.
Celebrate Halloween with our popular psychic guest star Christopher Barbour! Chris will explain the difference between a ghost, a dead person, and an angel because he sees them all!
Listen to the replay of what Chris and other’s shared about their own ghost stories!
“A mystic is a man who separates heaven and earth even if he enjoys them both.” G.K. Chesterton, in Tolstoy (1903)
This summer, I’ve decided to spend each day reading the works of different mystics. I’ll probably begin with Thomas Merton and move backward in time to Teresa of Avila and John on the Cross. Then I will rummage through the Middle Ages, to Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure. Then all the way in reverse to Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic.
The word “mysticism” is not only wildly used but also often, wildly abused. Here’s what it’s not: some dark haired, dark eyed, witch looking person who lapses into trances, hears heavenly voices, works miracles, tells the future, has a direct line with the dead, all while levitating on an alien spacecraft. Mysticism has become an overused catchphrase for religious weirdness.
Mysticism from the Greek word mystikos, is the pursuit of communication with, identification with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God, through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or awareness. Differing religious, social and psychological traditions have described this fundamental mystical experience in many different ways. The words “mystical” and “mysticism”, are commonly used by mystics to affirm extraordinary insights beyond all expression, and thus impossible to communicate to others.
Mystics matter. They are pioneers who explore the frontiers and limits of being human. Not all of us can climb Everest or circumnavigate the globe, but explorers show us what is possible for human beings. Mystics are interior explorers, and they too show us the possible.
The mystics provide us with the language of the scared, the vocabulary to articulate our out-of-the-norm experiences. They embrace darkness, the divine darkness, which lies way beyond my field of vision. The mystic with their night vision goggles reminds me that I too could have bat vision. They see and help me to see much more than visions. They have learned to peer into the divine darkness long and hard enough to see a God-drenched world, dizzying in its beauty. They show me that I too have eyes to see those fleeting moments through which most I routinely sleep.
From the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane. The thing that has driven men mad was logic. The only thing that has kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the nightclub and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism — the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.
True mystics simply open their souls to the oncoming wave. Sure of themselves, because they feel within them something better than themselves, they prove to be great men of action, to the surprise of those for whom mysticism is nothing but visions, raptures, and ecstasies.
Mystics represent thematically what remains for most of us unthematic: that we have the condition of the possibility of encountering God.
I enjoy reading about the mystics because in some small way I know what they are talking about. The mystics speak to me with an uncanny and unexpected immediacy – despite the historical gulfs and cultural chasms that divide their world and mine.
Wouldn’t it be great if I discover the mystics are actually the normal ones, they are the norms of what it means to be truly human? It’s the rest of us that are abnormal. The rest of us have in principle the mystical within but we have repressed it because the culture we live in ignores, and even silences the mystical. I have an insane thirst for the mystical, for the diversity of individual mystics and mystical traditions. It will be an interesting summer!