Symbols - What does heaven look like
Four seasons and the hours
There are two routes to life’s journey which can be described using the symbolic chart shown below:
The chart shows a 24 hour clock, but it also shows the Cardinal directions and the seasons.
- Night midnight and the darkness of night is represented as 24 hours. But it is also said to be ‘North’ and ‘Winter’.
- The East is around about 6 o’clock in the morning with dawn. But it is also said to be ‘Spring’.
- The South is midday, Noon. It is also said to be ‘Summer’
- West is sunset, about 18.00 hours. It is also said to be ‘’Autumn’.
The divisions are totally logical - the sun sets in the West and rises in the east all over the world so the symbolism is pretty well universal.
The two routes
There are two paths that can be taken symbolically round this chart:
- The ‘normal’ path – the way of the South
- The spiritual path – the way of the North
Taking the normal route, symbolically Dawn/Spring is birth, Noon/Summer is mid-life and Sunset/Autumn is old age and physical death, the end of life. You then go through the ‘winter’ in disembodied form as your Higher spirit - and reincarnate with a new destiny and a new personality in ‘Spring’. The wheel of life.
BUT if you are a mystic or a spiritual traveller you divide your life up slightly differently. You are born [Spring/dawn], you go through a normal mid life [summer/noon], and get to an ‘Autumn’ stage. But then the mystic traveller adds an extra stage to his life. He undergoes in bodied form what he would have had to go through in death. He or she goes through ‘Winter’ as a living person. It can be quite traumatic as one has to go through ‘the Dark Night of the Soul’ , but if you succeed you appear at dawn free of any need to be reincarnated. You have achieved your destiny once and for all.
If you travel the spiritual path [and succeed] then you unite at the end with your Higher spirit whilst you are still alive – you actually become your Higher spirit during life and thus become a ‘god’ in life.
Blue route/red route
Those who get reincarnated and have to create on earth again are said to be undertaking the Moon’s journey. The Tarot cards provide an ideal pictorial explanation of this. The mystic’s path is the red road to the sun. The normal path is to the moon – the blue water route.
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Had I not seen the sun I could have borne the shade But light a newer wilderness My wilderness has made
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Observations
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- Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius - Sacramentum matrimonii antiquissimum est - 02
- Ahmad Ahsai, Shaykh - Kitab Sharh al-Ziyara - Jabalqa and Jabarsa
- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 07 - 1 A Mad Tea Party
- Ancient Egyptian - The symbolism of the four sons of Horus
- Anna L Barbauld - From Tomorrow
- Armenian Folk-Song - The Stork
- Attar, Fariduddin - In the Dead of Night
- Aurora consurgens - 07 An allegory of dawn
- Bede from Ecclesiastical History
- Beers, Clifford - Light
- Beuys, Joseph - SaFG SaUG
- Bhagavad Gita - Reincarnation
- Bhagavad Gita - The paths of the Sun and the Moon
- Bibliotheca - The myth of Demeter and Persephone
- Billy Joel - The River of Dreams
- Billy Rose - Me and my shadow
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Blue route, Red route
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Circles within circles
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - Spiritual path
- Black Elk - Native American Indians - The Hoop of the Earth
- Blake, William - In Eden Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils
- Böcklin, Arnold - Die Heimkehr (The Homecoming or The Return) 1887
- Braveheart - Warnings of a rebirth
- Bridges, Robert - In Autumn moonlight
- Bridges, Robert - Nightingales
- Browning, Robert - Love in a Life
- Bullett, Gerald William - October
- Burne-Jones, Edward - The Evening Star
- Burton, Sir Richard - THE KASÎDAH 01 1
- Burton, Sir Richard - THE KASÎDAH 09 3
- Byron, Lord - from Don Juan
- Celtic - Spoils of Annwn - 06
- Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz - The First Day
- Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz - The Second Day
- Chichen Itza - Mayan - The Great Ball Court
- Chief Seattle - Native American Indians - To Walk The Red Road
- Chuang Tzu - The death of Chuang Tzu's wife
- Chuang Tzu - The True Man
- Cirlot on the ram
- Cohen, Leonard - Alexandra leaving
- Cohen, Leonard - Ballad of the Absent Mare
- Cohen, Leonard - Here it is
- Concept - Korean mystic shamanism – Sinbyeong
- Corbin, Henry - Mundus Imaginalis
- Corbin, Henry - The celestial pole and the Orient
- Count of St Germain - Dying wool and silk
- Cree - Native American Indians - Cardinal points
- Crowley - 18 The Moon
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - The Sabbath of the Goat
- Crowley, Aleister - Divine synthesis
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - A truly truly special experience
- Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 03 & 04
- Dante - Purgatorio - Canto 28
- David Byrne & St. Vincent - The Forest awakes
- Dickinson, Emily - A house upon the height That wagon never reached
- Dickinson, Emily - Good morning midnight & When night is almost done
- Dickinson, Emily - The Winters are so short
- Dickinson, Emily - ‘Tis not that dying hurts us so ‘Tis living hurts us more
- Dickinson, Emily - ‘Twas here my summer paused
- Eleanor C Merry - The Flaming Door - On Initiation in the Great Pyramids
- Eliade, Mircea - The Moon as the place of souls
- Eliade, Mircea - Thoughts on Earth and Water
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Circles - The life of a man is a self evolving circle
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Nature - The rounded world is fair to see
- Evelyn Lip - Chinese Geomancy
- Evelyn Underhill - Describes what happens on annihilation
- Faithfull, Marianne - Flaming September
- Flamel, Nicolas - Aurora consurgens
- Flamel, Nicolas - Chymische Wercke - Hamburg edition 1681
- Flamel, Nicolas - Uraltes chymisches Werk A Eleazar 1760 5th illustr.
- Flamel, Nicolas - Uraltes chymisches Werk A Eleazer 1760 7th illustr.
- Frost, Robert - A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
- Frost, Robert - Nature's first green is gold
- Frost, Robert - That far off day the leaves in flight
- Frost, Robert - The house had gone to bring again
- Frost, Robert - They spoke of the sun and moon and stars
- Gardner, Ingrid - The big wet bathroom
- Genesis - That's me
- Genesis 01 - The Creation
- Gentling the Bull – 01 Searching for the Bull
- Gentling the Bull – 02 Finding the Traces
- Gentling the Bull – 06 Returning home on the back of the Bull
- George Harrison - Beware of Darkness
- Gershom Scholem – On the Kabbalah and its symbolism - Tikkun Hatsoth
- Goryeo sijo - Yi Chonyon
- Grandma Moses - A solemn thing within the soul
- Grieg - Peer Gynt Suite - Morning Mood
- Heine, Heinrich - The North Sea - Shipwreck!
- Henley, William Ernest - from Echoes
- Herbert, George - The Call
- Herbert, George - The Flower
- Herbert, George - Virtue
- Hickory dickory dock
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 1 Spring
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 2 Summer
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 3 Autumn
- Hockney, David - Lady Midnight songs - 4 Winter
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 1 Swallow terrace, Spring
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 2 Swallow terrace, Summer
- Hockney, David - Li Shangyin - 4 Swallow terrace, Winter
- Hockney, David - Trees
- Hodler, Ferdinand - Spring 1901
- Holderlin, Johann - The course of life
- Holderlin, Johann - The Ister
- Holmes, Oliver Wendell - The chambered nautilus
- Holst, Gustav - Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, Op. 26 and Two Eastern Pictures (1911)
- Homer - The Iliad - The Hours
- Homer - The Odyssey - Asphodel fields
- Hood, Thomas - The Sea of Death
- Huai nan tzu - The great Light
- Hyangga of Korea - Prayer to Amitayus - Kwangdok
- Hyangga of Korea - Requiem for the Dead Sister - Master Wolmyong
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Three Tunnels
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - Halt at the abodes and weep over the ruins
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - They left me at al-Uthayl and an-Naqá shedding tears
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - They mounted the howdahs on the swift camels
- Ikkyu - My hovel
- Incas - Macchu Picchu - The Power of Three
- Intelligences - ELEMENTS Nergal and Ereshkigal
- Jacques Cambry - Voyage dans le Finistère - A Celtic legend
- Jami - SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL – from 04 The Story
- Jami - SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL – from Part II
- Jami - SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL – from Part III
- Jardin Majorelle
- Jefferies, Richard - The Story of my Heart - Begin wholly afresh
- Joseph Epes Brown - Native American Indians - Blue route, Red route
- Joseph Epes Brown - Native American Indians – Death
- Joyce, James - Ulysses - Nirvana
- Kabir - A certain bird sits in the tree
- Kabir - The woman who is separated from her lover
- Karnataka and South India - 03 Airavatesvara Temple
- Kaushitaki Upanishad
- Kepler, Johannes - from Somnium - Spirit helpers
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1424
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1836
- Kipling, Rudyard - Song to Mithras the Sun God
- Lalla - Forgetful one, get up
- Lalla - We’ve been here before, we’ll be here again
- Lame Deer - Native American Indians - The Cardinal Directions
- Larsson, Carl – And a poem by Lars Gustafsson
- Led Zeppelin - Battle of Evermore
- Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
- Led Zeppelin - The Rain Song
- Lethbridge, T C - A Step in the Dark – Using the pendulum and colour symbolism
- Lethbridge, T C - A Step in the Dark – Using the pendulum, correspondences
- Levy-Dhurmer - Autumn
- Levy-Dhurmer - Le Silence
- Li Ho - Lament That the Days Are So Short
- Li Po - Early departure from White King City
- London Bridge is falling down
- Lowell, James Russell - O dwellers in the valley land
- Matisse - the Dance I and II
- Mayan - Popol Vuh - 13 Hymn to the Creators
- Meister Eckhart - Selected writings - It is the Sun that has burnt me
- Mellery, Xavier - Les rondes des heures
- Michelangelo - 1508 Sistine Chapel - 07 Separation of Light from Darkness
- Michelangelo - 1520 The Medici Chapel - Dusk and Dawn
- Michelangelo - 1520 The Medici Chapel - Night and Day
- Michelangelo - 1534 Sistine Chapel - 04 Last Judgement
- Mirabai - Today your Hari is coming
- Mircea Eliade - Meeting a water spirit
- Miro - The Nightingale's Song at Midnight and the Morning Rain
- Miro - The Red Sun
- Misc. sources - Native American Indians - Head dress
- Moody Blues - Departure
- Morrells, Luce and the angel of annihilation
- Mucha, Alphonse - Dawn
- Mucha, Alphonse - The Slav Epic
- Music Bureau - Sun emerges and sinks away
- Music Bureau - Watering horses at a spring beneath the Great Wall
- Neiye - Verse 05
- Nizami - Laili and Majnun - 01
- Norse - The Night journey
- Novalis - Hymns to the Night 1
- Novalis - Hymns to the Night 2
- Novalis - Hymns to the Night 3
- Novalis - Hymns to the Night 4
- Novalis - Hymns to the Night 5
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - Dreaming when Dawn's left hand was in the sky
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - Magic Shadow Show
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - The flower that once has blown for ever dies
- Ou-Yang Hsiu - Autumn
- Parmenides - On Nature - 01
- Parrish, Maxfield - Sing a Song o' Sixpence
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Dream of 23rd January 1938
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Dream of October 1949
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Dreams of Rings, Circles, Eggs and Stars
- Pauli, Wolfgang - Letter [Zollikon-Zurich] 28th October 1946 [Handwritten]
- Pauli, Wolfgang - The World Clock Vision
- Plutarch - De Iside et Osiride
- Po Chu-I - The Grass
- Poussin - Dance to the music of time
- Poussin - The Triumph of Flora
- Prasna Upanishad
- Prasna Upanishad
- Reichel-Dolmatoff – The Tukano Indians - The paths on death
- Rig Veda - Death
- Rig Veda - Sun and Chariots
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 23 Fifth Elegy
- Rimbaud, Arthur - O seasons, O chateaux, Who possesses a perfect soul
- Rimbaud, Arthur - There; the little dead girl, behind the rosebushes
- Rolling Stones - Child of the Moon
- Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
- Rolling Stones - The Lantern
- Romano, Jacques - The Snow Man
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Dantis Amor
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Marie Spartali
- Rubens - Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria
- Rumi - Misc - Festival of Spring
- Rumi - Misc - Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
- S'RÎMAD BHÂGAVATAM – Canto 10, Chapter 20 – Autumn in Vrindâvana
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 18 from The Morals of Dervishes
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 24 from The Morals of Dervishes
- Sacred geography – Picts – Wheelhouses 01
- Sacred geography – Picts – Wheelhouses 02 - A’ Cheardach Bheag South Uist
- Sacred geography – Picts – Wheelhouses 03 - A’ Cheardach Bheag South Uist
- Sacred geography – Picts – Wheelhouses 04 - A’ Cheardach Bheag South Uist
- Saint Brendan - 02 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 03 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 08 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 13 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 15 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint Brendan - 17 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Saint-Martin, Louis Claude de - Quote
- Saint-Yves d’Alveydre – The Archeometer – Revelation 06
- Samavedas – 01 Book 05 Chapter 01, DECADE III Indra [extract verses 8-10]
- Samavedas – Book 07 Chapter 03, X Soma Pavamana
- Samavedas – Book 07 Chapter 03, XII Soma Pavamana
- Schelling, F W J - Clara or On Nature’s Connection to the Spirit World – Spring
- Schwabe, Carlos - The Three Wise Virgins
- Schwabe, Carlos - Les Champs-Elysées 1903
- Segantini - Frühmesse
- Shaku, Soyen - No more heavy burdens on your shoulders
- Sibelius - Nightride and Sunrise
- Sibelius - Spring Song
- Sikhism – Japji 34
- Silene capensis & Nicotine - by Sabje
- Silesius - The Cherubinic Wanderer – 03 The Still Wilderness 056
- Sing a song of sixpence
- Song of Solomon 2
- Soustelle - Aztecs and Mexica - The three routes on death
- Spencer, Stanley - 1945 to 1950 Resurrection pictures
- Spencer, Stanley - Symbolism 05 - The Nativity
- Spilliaert, Leon - Example later works
- Sri Airobindo - Savitri - A Message from the Unknown Immortal Light
- Sri Aurobindo - To Weep Because
- Ssu-Kung Tu - Despondent
- Ssu-Kung Tu - Return of Spring
- Ssu-Kung Tu - The Colour of Life
- Sterry, Peter - At our Birth, our Soul and Body are joined as Horses are put into a Waggon
- Stobart, Henry - A view from the Bolivian Andes – The Animu and soul loss
- Suhrawardi - Book of Conversations - Xvaranah
- Symbolism - Korean mystic shamanism - Taegeuk and taegeukgi
- Symbols – Picts – Sacred site - Trefoiled cross [Wheelhouse]
- Symeon the New Theologian - How are You at once the source of fire
- Symeon the New Theologian - In the midst of that night, in my darkness
- Tarot - 00 Minor Arcana - 10s The Trigger
- Tarot - 01 Minor Arcana - 09s The Tests
- Tarot - 02 Major Arcana - 08 Justice
- Tarot - 02 Minor Arcana - 08s Learning
- Tarot - 03 Major Arcana - 07 The Chariot
- Tarot - 03 Minor Arcana - 07s Redemption [Rebirth]
- Tarot - 04 Major Arcana - 06 The Lovers
- Tarot - 04 Minor Arcana - 06s Union
- Tarot - 05 Major Arcana - 05 The Hierophant
- Tarot - 06 Major Arcana - 04 The Emperor
- Tarot - 07 Major Arcana - 03 The Empress
- Tarot - 08 Minor Arcana - 02s Balance
- Tarot - 09 Major Arcana - 01 The supporting cards of the Aces
- Tarot - 10 Minor Arcana - 00 The Court Cards introduction
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - In Memoriam A H H - Tis better to have loved and lost
- The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
- The Big Ship Sails
- The Book of Taliesin - Kanu y Byt Mawr
- The Book of Taliesin - Torrit anuyndawl - Llyfr Taliesin XXV
- The Calculation of the Sigui - By the Dogon, the Bambara, the Bozo and the Minianka
- The Homeric Hymn to Demeter - 01
- The Homeric Hymn to Demeter - 03
- The Manuals of Taoist Sexual Practise – Ten Questions 06
- The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 06 Enacting ritual and ceremony - Festivals and processions
- The Mithras Liturgy - Lines 475 to 535
- The North Wind doth blow
- The Owl as the Vahana of Lashmi
- The Papyrus of Ani – Spell 77 - To Assume the Form of a Hawk of Gold
- The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine - Key 07
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 01 - 1 Kitty and the Mirror
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 04 - 2 The Walrus and the Carpenter
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 06 - 5 Jabberwocky explained
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 06 - 6 In Winter when the fields are white
- Tibetan Book of the Dead - Wheel of life
- Tissot - Jesus Carried up to a Pinnacle of the Temple
- Tom Berman - Storks
- Tranströmer, Tomas - A Few Moments
- Tranströmer, Tomas - Midwinter
- Tranströmer, Tomas - The Cuckoo
- Tranströmer, Tomas - The Man awakened by a Song above his Roof
- Twelve drummers drumming
- Various examples - 19 The Sun
- Von Stuck, Franz - Evening star
- W.Y. Evans-Wentz - The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries - The Narrow Bridge
- Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry - Morituri Salutamus
- Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry - The Two Angels
- Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry - Thus the Seer
- Waits, Tom - You can never hold back Spring
- Waller, Edmund - Divine Poems - 06 Divine Love
- Waterhouse, John William - A Song of Springtime
- Wee willie winkie
- Wei Boyang - The Canton of qi
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - This day before dawn I ascended a hill
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - A Lover's Quarrel
- Williams, John - Sunrise sunset from Fiddler on the roof.
- Xam bushmen - The sun's penis
- Yeats, Georgie - A Vision - Civilisation is hooped together
- Yeats, W B - Anima Hominis - The Path of the Sun
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- Yeats, W B - Selected poems - Cap and Bells
- Yeats, W B - Selected poems - The New faces
- Yeats, W B - The Wind among the Reeds - Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns
- Yerka, Jacek and Shuwen - Heaven
- Yerka, Jacek and William Ernest Henley - Margaritae Sorori I M
- Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter - Chifu
- Zhu Zi - The Complete Book of Zhu-Zi - An essay on regulating the breath
- Zohar - Bamidbar 121A - Union
- Zohar - I 092b – Midnight
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Letter Omega - 09 and 10
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 5th Book of Magnesia picture 6