The Hero, Life and the Creation of the Sun
Author: Siobhan FarrarJanuary 21, 2024
The wisdom tradition and religious thought of the ancient Aztecs is shrouded in mystery. Whilst we cannot completely ‘know’ how these people encountered life, we can intuitively enter an understanding of how they thought, using symbolic language to decipher what remains perceivable through the shifting sands of time. One such remaining treasure is the myth of Chicovaneg and the Creation of [...]
Solar Festivals in Tibetan Buddhism
Author: Giulia GiaccoJuly 21, 2020
The qualities of the summer solstice: stillness, light, clarity, openness, warmth and abundance, parallel in many ways the factors of enlightenment in the teachings of the Buddha. However, Buddhism has no celebration around the summer solstice. Summer solstice celebrations don’t seem to synchronise well with the concept of the “middle way”. One of the reasons summer solstice has [...]
The Spring Equinox
Author: Nataliya PetlevychApril 17, 2020
We all are cheered by days full of the renewing energy of spring – a beautiful time when nature awakens, the days become longer and everything living rejoices. There is a special time in the year when the Sun is exactly above the equator, hence the Earth’s axis neither points toward nor away from the Sun and day and night are approximately 12 hours long everywhere on Earth. This is known [...]
The Sun in Celtic Mythology
Author: Pinar AkhanNovember 30, 2019
“There is an earthly sun, which is the cause of all heat, and all who are able to see may see the sun, and those who are blind and cannot see him may feel his heat. There is an eternal sun, which is the source of all wisdom, and those whose spiritual senses have awakened to life will see that sun, and be conscious of his existence; but those who have not attained full spiritual consciousness [...]
The Solar Hero
Author: Natalya PetlevychAugust 29, 2017
During these days of sunlight’s fullness, it is good to remember the symbolism of the sun and its connection to our inner centre, our Higher Self. This connection appears most frequently in the stories of solar heroes. These myths tell us that a human being has something of the transient and something of the eternal, and that the power of the sun – the courageous and creative force, the [...]
The Eternal Sun
Author: Janki ShahJanuary 31, 2016
"All that exists was born from Surya, the God of Gods. Of what is and has been and is to be, and what moves or remains still – Surya alone is the source and the end.” -Rig Veda Almost every ancient culture thought it important to somehow preserve, communicate and transmit mythology related to this supreme God from generation to generation. Amon in Egypt, Apollo in Greece, Surya in India, [...]
The Summer Solstice
Author: Matina KarastatiraDecember 27, 2015
The period between the 20th and the 22nd of June is the Summer Solstice. "Solstice" is Latin for "sun stands still". In the Northern hemisphere the sun reaches its most northerly position and we experience the longest day and the shortest night. The summer solstice is often associated with change, nature and new beginnings, a time when people celebrate the Sun and life. Many cultures throughout [...]
The Man in the Moon
Author: AnonymousMarch 21, 2014
There was a blacksmith once who complained: "I am not well, and my work is too warm. I want to be a stone on the mountain. There it must be cool, for the wind blows and the trees give a shade." A wise man who had power over all things replied: "Go you, be a stone." And he was a stone, high up on the mountain-side. It happened that a stone-cutter came that way for a stone, and when he saw the [...]
The Symbolism of the Scarab
Author: M.A. Carrillo de Albornoz & M.A. FernándezFebruary 22, 2014
The scarab is the most venerated, the most common and the most familiar of the Egyptian symbols. Its symbolism is twofold: with its folded wings, it represents the disciple, life that has not yet come into existence, that starts its journey trying slowly to unfold its wings until it can flap them quickly. Then, this heavy mass, stuck to the ground, this animal that crawls leaving tracks as if the [...]