About Symbolism

The power of symbolism is a potent language and gives purpose to my being an artist. Symbols speak directly to the sub-conscious and are instantaneous. In manifestation work, sigils are preferable to word phrases because of this instantaneous and sub-conscious effect.

It also reminds me of gestalt psychology. Simply explained, when we see something like a tree, we know it instantaneously, we do not need to parse that it is green, with bark and branches and leaves, and is growing upright and THEN figure that it is a tree. We know it instantly. When we see another human being, we don’t need to think “there is the right width to height ratio tolerance, there is an oblong orb with eyes, nose, ears, lips, hair (or maybe no hair), there are some legs and arms … I think that is a human right there because of all this informational data”. NO!!! This shows the power of the subconscious ability to instantly know something without having to go through lengthy deduction and parsing of data.

Back to sigils…
Symbols debatably have no power until you program them with personal meaning. When you draw your own sigil, you put intention, emotion and thought behind it. Everytime you engage with it, you repeat these feelings and thoughts. Eventually when you look at or visualize your symbol, it manifests these feeling naturally.

Another example … the swastika symbol used to be a sacred symbol of Native Americans but is now the symbol of Nazis. This illustrates how our conditional programming can change the original meaning.

As a a side tangent, one can also say there is a collective unconscious element to symbolism. Where there is an innate understanding of symbols that transcend our individual lifetime’s programming. A baby seeking a nipple for nourishment is an example of this inherent knowing. Many animals have a natural knowing for what plants to eat without being trained. There is often an instinctual element to symbolism.

Thus our understanding of symbolism is a combination of consciousness, sub-consciousness, and the collective unconscious.

What symbols are you drawn to?

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