Tag: symbolism

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What Does it Mean to Be Ordinary People?

Sunset at Horsehoe Bay, Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia. A 2-section panorama of twilight colours and crepuscular rays, taken with Canon 60Da and 10-22mm lens.

What does it mean to be ordinary people? G.K. Chesterton famously said,

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” G.K. Chesterton

Dante was regarded as a poeta popolare—a poet of the people—and he took pride in that title. He was read and loved by ordinary people rather than intellectuals. When I first read The Divine Comedy in the early 2000s, most of it went over my head—except for a few haunting images from Inferno.

In the 14th century, however, ordinary Florentine citizens gathered money to establish a Dante cathedra (a professorship dedicated to Dante’s works) at Santa Maria del Fiore. Giovanni Boccaccio was the first one to occupy that cathedra and read Divine Comedy to common city folk passing through the cathedral on the way to work.

Somehow, culture has little to do with intelligence but everything to do with mysticism. Pure intellect is incapable of the one thing from which culture emerges—love. Intellect shuns emotion and filters out what it cannot see, touch, calculate, or predict.

“If it can’t be measured, it doesn’t exist.” Intellect is very good at constructing but very bad at creating.

“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.” Charles Dickens

Ordinary people are extraordinary because they are lovers. They are never professionals but always amateurs (from Latin amor — love). They love, and that’s why they are capable of creating. What is not loved, cannot be created — it can only be constructed. Constructed reality is artificial. It lacks the Love and Life that all mystics delight in, because they tread on earth and wander in fairyland at the same time.

“The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland.” G.K. Chesterton

Ordinary people permit twilight. They understand that what they see are particles of light scattered through the atmosphere at a certain angle. And yet, they see twilight. They are mystics; in the scattering of light, they see marriage between heaven and earth. For them, there is no contradiction.

Their mystical gaze pierces through the veil of the physical as an arrow of Cupid pierces the heart with love and desire. They understand that to truly dwell on earth, you must have one foot in fairyland. Without fairyland, there is no earth. With fairyland, there is both heaven and earth.

God himself is a lover, not a professional. He loved twilight before it emerged—that’s why it emerged. The ordinary person, through their love of twilight, recognizes the essence of twilight. Particles of light is not what it is but only what it is made of. To love is the highest form of sanity. To be in the right mind is to delight in the twilight — in everything where heaven meets the earth.

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What is the Truth Behind Optical Illusions?

What is the truth behind optical illusions? “My Wife and My Mother-in-Law” is a well-known optical illusion that presents two different images in one. It was created by the British cartoonist W.E. Hill in 1915. The drawing cleverly shifts between two perspectives: you can either see a young lady looking away or an older woman with a large nose and chin.

The paradox of all optical illusions is that the viewer’s mind cannot see two images simultaneously. It has to switch. This presents a huge philosophical conundrum — if people can look at the same thing but see two different pictures, how can we tell if there’s an objective reality? It all depends on what you focus on.

The “aha” moment comes when we discover the two pictures. Of course, we can’t see them simultaneously, but we can switch between them. The very act of switching seems magical in and of itself — after all, we see that every line in every image is exactly in its place. Yet, the brain cannot perceive two things simultaneously — no matter how much we try.

So, what is objective reality? Can I look at something and definitively say, “This is…”? Unless I question how I see before I decide what I see, I don’t really see. The “how I see” always precedes “what I see.” Unless I question my semantics and see how I see, I will be under the illusion of seeing. As Jesus said, “Though seeing, they do not see.”

If I absolutize my way of seeing — my semantics — I will create an idol. I will say, “There’s nothing else to see here besides what I see.” The absolutization of one perspective is the end of true seeing. It is semantic idolatry. An idol always arrests our gaze and does not let us see beyond.

The opposite of semantic idolatry is semantic transcendence. The moment I realize there are at least two pictures to see, I stop absolutizing my own. I start switching between the two. But I don’t absolutize the second one either. Both are but shadows of reality, not reality itself.

When I realize that the “real switching” is not between the two pictures (or two cultural semantics) but between shadows and Truth, I start seeing. My eyes open. It’s not just a young lady or just an old woman. These are but shadows of reality. They are symbols that must be transcended. When I realize that my way of seeing is symbolic, I realize that all the symbols are real inasmuch as I see through them, not at them.

Shadows are not absolute. The Absolute lies beyond the shadows. In the Absolute, opposites converge.

“God is the coincidence of opposites.” Nicholas of Cusa

In God, all contradictions converge and are reconciled. Now we see partially, as in a mirror. Then, we will see face to face. In God, we see two (or more) pictures at the same time without having to switch between them because we see with the heart, not the mind. The heart perceives an old woman in every young lady and a young lady in every old woman. It doesn’t mistake a symbol for reality. It transcends the shadows and becomes sane.

“The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic… He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland… If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. His spiritual sight is stereoscopic, like his physical sight: he sees two different pictures at once and yet sees all the better for that.” G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)

In God, we see two things simultaneously. The mind cannot grasp the Whole — it has to switch. The heart can. Mystical vision is stereoscopic. It allows me to see the Whole without sacrificing either part. The moment I see God, I start seeing The Face behind every face.

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What Do Plato and C.S. Lewis Have in Common?

What do Plato and C.S. Lewis have in common? One curious thing about Platonic ideas is that Plato used the Greek word for idea (εἴδω, eidō), which means “to see,” to denote something one cannot see. For Plato, the idea of a thing is its invisible essence. A carrot can be seen; the idea of a carrot cannot. “Carrotness” is invisible.

And yet, Plato uses the word “εἴδω,” which means “to see,” to point to the invisible. Why? How do you see the invisible? In Plato’s mind, a thing is not in one of two states — existing or not existing. It can be in a wide range of states depending on how far it is from the Idea of the thing. The closer a thing is to the Idea of the thing the more it “exists.”

That’s why Plato uses the term “anamnesis,” which means re-collection,to suggest that learning is essentially the soul’s act of remembering something that it has always known from its existence in the realm of Ideas. The soul is from that realm. It recognizes the perfect Ideas behind the shadows of this world — or it doesn’t.

That’s why human consciousness is symbolic. Whatever it looks at, it tries to “see” (εἴδω) — or rather “see through.” Its question is, “Do I recognize what’s behind this thing or not?” For the soul all things are symbolic. It strives to see the primal creative Logos (the perfect Idea) behind all things.

When it doesn’t it feels bad — the soul abides in the realm of symbols. When it does, it feels good because it recognizes its homeland. When the soul reads the pure poesis off the creation, it thrives. In Hebrews 8:5, it says about priests:

“They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’”

When the soul creates, it always re-creates. It strives to remember what it saw in heaven before creating something on earth. It wants to create things that “truly exist.” The more symbolic meaning it imbues in a thing, the more it reminds us of heaven.

“Creation happens when the conscious mind allows the deeper, unconscious forces to emerge and manifest in the form of symbols.” Carl Jung

That’s why C.S. Lewis says in The Four Loves,

“The most important thing a mother can do for her child is to show him that he does not need her.”

The best form of parenting is to gradually redirect the child’s gaze from shadows to realities. The role of the mother (and father) is to show the child that they are not their real mother and father. They have Another Mother and Father. Human parenting is at its best when the child’s gaze is not tied to their earthly parents but sees through the parents to catch a glimpse of the real Mother and Father.

What do Plato and C.S. Lewis have in common?

A shadow is good only when it points to heaven and bad when it blocks the view of heaven. We think we live among things, but we live among symbols. If we are surrounded by things that cannot be recognized as symbols, we feel dead inside. When we recognize things as symbols, we come alive. Our eyes sparkle. We recognize the primordial poesis (the making) behind the world of shadows. We return home.

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What Does “Swallow” Mean in Greek Mythology?

What does “swallow” mean in Greek mythology? In Ancient Greece, swallows were a symbol of the soul and were closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Experts in the Greek lore say that if you look for an explanation of this metaphor in ancient Greek literature, you won’t find much. It’s just there. Without any explanations.

However, if we look at the swallow closely, we might deduce the answer. Swallows are the fastest birds in the world, flying at record speeds of up to 45 miles per hour. But what’s even more intriguing is that they are mostly aerial birds — that is, they spend most of their time in the air.

Landing is dangerous and landing on the ground is deadly. If a swallow lands on the ground it can’t take off. It is doomed. It must start its flight by falling from a high place. That’s why swallows build their homes in riverbanks so they can take off immediately after falling out of the nest.

In other words, a swallow can only fly if there’s a possibility of falling. If it’s impossible to fall, it is doomed. It must be at some elevation always, and this place should be high enough to make the fall possible.

The human soul is like a swallow. When it stops flying, it dies. It lives in the air. Its wings must be spread most of the time. For the soul to fly, there must be a possibility of a fall. However, the soul cannot land in a low place. Low places are dangerous and fatal unless the soul is lifted by an outside force.

It is dangerous for the soul to be in a place where no flight is possible. The soul lives in the air. When it knows that no flight is possible, it dies. The “low place” is when the soul realizes that it will never fly again. The soul must avoid low places for a good reason — that’s how it’s made.

The soul is made to fly. When it knows it can’t take off, it’s too depressing to continue living. What makes the soul fly is love and beauty. The soul must be in the presence of Aphrodite most of the time. Love and beauty elevate the soul. When it doesn’t see love and beauty, it risks landing in a low place.

The soul needs love and beauty like air. That’s how it’s made. When it doesn’t see Aphrodite, it shrivels up. It can’t fly.

We must build our nests in a high place. There must be some possibility of a fall there, otherwise there’s no possibility of a flight. But we must always have love and beauty before our eyes to remain in the air. We must never land. The soul can only rest on an elevation. When the soul is low, it’s restless.

Restlessness is a sign that the soul is low. It’s a sign that it needs to be elevated by love and beauty. Love and beauty lift it up and give it enough space to fall and soar. That’s when the soul is at its fastest. When the soul is full of love and beauty, it moves at record speeds. It becomes alive.

The soul’s restlessness is a sign of too much hate and ugliness. Hate and ugliness kill the soul. They bring it too low. The soul is not made to live in hate and ugliness. It instinctively looks for a riverbank where it can nest and rest. It wants to see the river, the sky, the clouds, the trees, the flowers. These things inspire it to fly.

It falls out of the nest and is carried by the wind across the vast expanse just like the newborn Aphrodite was carried by Zephyrus to the shores of Cyprus.

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