SYMBOLISM & MYTHOLOGY
The power of symbolism
Symbols have been used since antiquity as a means of expressing that which cannot be expressed.
Myths deal with transformations of consciousness - transformed by trials and revelations
We use symbolism and colour to affect peoples subconscious mind. Simplify the meaning so that these ancient secrets can be applied to modern day issues
Solis seeks to bring solace through connecting people with ancient ideas, concepts and symbols which help support people in their lives, give meaning and promote growth beyond materiality.
A hero's journey always starts from a negative life event
Become a hero and overcome your depression
Square - male
Circle - female
Use imagery of the wheel
Death and transformation
Butterfly
Depression as the underworld
Hero vs foe
Foe is depression
Journey is being true to your heart and your self, battle against ego.
Mentors - need to accept outside help to not try and beat it on your own
Masculine - eGO. King, phoenix
Feminine - spirit. Queen, pelican
Water and sea are symbols of the soul
The King, the conscious mind, becomes aware of his feelings, his instincts, not as something inferior to himself as he has been taught, something that he has to dominate and subject to his will, but as something like his own mother, something that he is born out of, that he has separated from and now needs to reunite with as his bride
Peacock - symbol of flowering of this new kind of consciousness. Awakened state. The flowering of the imagination and capacity to feel related to the while of creation.
Alchemists union - body, soul and spirit. Can obly be brought about gently and gradually.
Need to slay the Dragon of eGO
After darkness comes light
Manichaeism, the most widespread Western religion prior to Christianity, was based on the belief that god was, literally, light
At its core, Manichaeism was a type of Gnosticism—a dualistic religion that offered salvation through special knowledge (gnosis) of spiritual truth. Like all forms of Gnosticism, Manichaeism taught that life in this world is unbearably painful and radically evil. Inner illumination or gnosis reveals that the soul which shares in the nature of God has fallen into the evil world of matter and must be saved by means of the spirit or intelligence (nous). To know one’s self is to recover one’s true self, which was previously clouded by ignorance and lack of self-consciousness because of its mingling with the body and with matter. In Manichaeism, to know one’s self is to see one’s soul as sharing in the very nature of God and as coming from a transcendent world. Knowledge enables a person to realize that, despite his abject present condition in the material world, he does not cease to remain united to the transcendent world by eternal and immanent bonds with it. Thus, knowledge is the only way to salvation.
The saving knowledge of the true nature and destiny of humanity, God, and the universe is expressed in Manichaeism in a complex mythology. Whatever its details, the essential theme of this mythology remains constant: the soul is fallen, entangled with evil matter, and then liberated by the spirit or nous. The myth unfolds in three stages: a past period in which there was a separation of the two radically opposed substances—Spirit and Matter, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness; a middle period (corresponding to the present) during which the two substances are mixed; and a future period in which the original duality will be reestablished. At death the soul of the righteous person returns to Paradise. The soul of the person who persisted in things of the flesh—fornication, procreation, possessions, cultivation, harvesting, eating of meat, drinking of wine—is condemned to rebirth in a succession of bodies.
conflict between the spiritual world of light and the material world of darkness