The deeper we go the less words there are to describe what we feel and know. This is why symbols play such an integral part in understanding the experiences in our lives. They express those things we are unable to say or make logical sense of. There are the more familiar symbols like a wedding ring, graduation cap, or baby blanket that welcomes a child into the world. These rites of passage help convey the deep emotions we have around the most meaningful experiences in life. We build elaborate rituals around these intense emotions of love and awe. Then there are the symbols we can barely grasp, the yin-yang, the mandala, the cross. These point to the mysteries that live within but still defy logical articulation.
It’s the same in physics, describing the unknown nature of the universe with a symbolic alphabet. It’s a shortcut to talk about the things that are so deeply mysterious they can’t quite be spoken out loud. But as I was pulling a tarot card this morning I caught a glimpse of the subtitle of the book I’ve used forever, “Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols.” Tarot is just another language, in a long line of languages, that talks about a mystery that can’t exactly be spoken about outright. In this case it’s the natural cycles our psyches grow through and our conscious awareness at each level. The symbol helps point us toward a subterranean feeling and then we follow it down and integrate it the best we can. We don’t know what we don’t know, we need sign posts to point us in the right direction until something ancient in us remembers.
Symbols are not ready-made answers, they do not unfold deeper understanding in a step-by-step logical fashion. It’s messy and confusing and requires sticking with it, especially during the times when we feel utterly lost. Symbols contain pieces of the mystery we are working to unravel so naturally they are imbued with the numinous. We can be thrown off track if we let this otherworldly feeling run our lives, we miss the down to earth connections being offered. The symbol is meant to ground us until we see more fully. It’s a life raft when things get peculiar.
There are symbols all around us that offer the key to what remains hidden, the thin crescent of the moon, repeated sightings of a particular animal, a phone call out of the blue. We gravitate to what we need most, the things that knock at the door of our soul day after day. Then we unlock these pieces of the mystery and integrate their energy or ideas deep in our bones. This conscious deciphering allows us to live a bigger, more connected life filled with meaning that goes beyond our wants and desires and opens us up to what heals and realigns us. We begin to tap into that level of life that’s exploding with creativity and vitality.
It’s all there if we’ll only look at the symbols that speak to our soul and let them grow us home.
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