CENTER AND PERIPHERY: THE SAAMI SOLAR SYMBOL AND THE SACRED LANDSCAPE
These matters have been in my mind and heart for years. I have meditated on them, but not in a structured or methodical way, it simply repeatedly arose within as echoes of living with the sacred land, generating a continuous need for deeper understanding.
I have of course along the way read or heard about many different teachings regarding medicine wheel or mandala. Hardly any of these have made much sense to me, beyond giving the impression of being related to this or that specific culture or visionary, and therefor probably carrying certain connotations that is not easy to grasp from outside.
These are symbolic matters, not scientific facts. Diversity in interpretation is enriching. Still, it seems obvious that certain general aspects must be similar from one model to another. And, from what I have seen, sometimes they are and sometimes not.
Note that the names of the four cardinal directions in this text exclusively refer to the points of the sun symbol.
The Sun
The saami sun symbol is in the center of many of the old drums. Symbols are rich in meaning, much is lost when we limit them to one or two interpretations. Interpretation is in it self a step away from the original Seeing, but at the same time often necessary.
The four directions marked from the central sun are basically cyclical pointers. East: spring/morning/childhood; South: summer/day/adulthood; West: autumn/evening/elderhood; North: winter/night/death or better: the space between death and new life.
The horisontal and the vertical lines are two axis of polarity. These polarities reflect basic forces, also inside human life
The beauty of symbols is that they are not factual. Even these basic, seemingly logic pointers to the directions are completely reversed in the southern hemisphere. South of the ekvatorial line one will have to view this in it`s opposite; the North being Day and South Night, the sun rising in the West (morning) and so on. This can of course make everything totally confusing, and so we're gonna leave things there and return to our original premises. It just had to be mentioned to underscore the fact that though symbols are the way to envision and realize great truths, they can never be facts in a rational or scientifically accepted way. Making the symbolic into facts are actually the foundation for dogmatism and fanatic belief systems.
The two axis of the Sun
The background for this text is this: I already had a wellrounded and functional understanding of the North/South axis in the solar symbol (more about that a little later). Then, after a couple of years of trying to figure out the horisontal line, I suddenly saw that this East/West axis can be understood as the two minds: Rationality/Thought and Mythology/Image. The Conscious and the Unconscious.
Many people into New Age-spirituality want to "see images" and receive channeled knowledge. This means they are predominantly in the West. About the more extreme of these, one of my teachers would say "They have fallen in love with the unconscious". They might even have aversion to rational, skeptical thought. Then there are those who ONLY relate to intellect and thought and are not in touch with the older pictorial mind. This is another kind of limitation.
As already mentioned; symbols/images/mythology are not "facts". They are not actual truth like "2 + 2 = 4". Misunderstanding of this can create dogma and religious fanaticism. If you believe the world was created in 7 days or that the mother of Christ actually was a virgin, you obviously have a gap in understanding between the symbolic mind and the rational intellect (and to the disadvantage of the intellect...)
But we cannot understand or truly grasp the Whole, the connection of all things, through the analytical mind. It happens through images, symbols and mythology. It is a intuitive "felt thought" or "thinking-feeling". Therefore, rationality/intellect is linked to the direction East. It is young. Necessary, but limited.
In the West is the old mind; pictorial, mythological. But in reality both sides of the polarity need each other to have optimal function. This is the return to the center, to the heart of the Sun.
West can be said to denote Faith, and East Skepticism, and the integration of these is Knowledge. The shaman must know the Center. The center is where the real understanding of the periphery is found.
The East also represents, at worst, dry intellectuals and the paradigm of modern society that does not see or accept the hidden "inner" side of existence.
There are some who are so heavily invested in "belief" that it seems they have an aversion to rational thought (Too much West).This brings to mind the old norwegian philosopher Arne Næss who asked "Does it hurt to think?"
The vertical duality
North is Night, Winter, Sky, Death/Infinity and thus a mental or spiritual energy. South is Day, Summer, Earth, Life/Sex and bodily.
Too much North is lifelessness, theory but no action, and even escape from life into monkhood. Too much South can be material, superficial, to do/act without insight.
All the extremes represent possibilities, values ​​and phases, but the shaman is the one who can consciously and deliberately put himself in the center and act, understand and see from there.
He/she will have some strengths and weaknesses on one or sometimes both axes. Mental/spiritual (North), physical/material (South), rational/analytical (East) or symbolic/figurative (West). This reflects the personality. It is a map for selfreflection and growth.
The sacred natural self
According to scholars, the norwegian christian missionary Thomas von Westen (1682 – 1727) famous for his dedication to destroy the traditional saami shamanism, once had a conversation with a noaidi (saami shaman) about the devil. The shamans reply was: "We know him, but we've never heard anything unfavourable about him".
There are some uncertainties to this story. Presumeably they spoke in saami, which Von Westen knew. And so "the devil" could have been described picturally or maybe understood to be one of the traditional saami gods. Exactly who is hard to know for sure. Not much use for speculation, maybe another time.
Gurdjieff, respected for his contributions to esoteric knowledge and also known for his love of "wine and women", wrote a book called "Beelzebubs tales to his grandson". In my native northern Norway, we speak of "Old Eric", a less fearful way of refering to the devil. Like some old uncle.
What I'm pointing to is an inner level of integration. Earth and Sky. Body and Spirit.
Our general appreciation of the sacred today is through heavenly archetypes and its human representatives. The great saints, ascetics. But an honest perspective is that such folks are a minority. Most of us are content to be natural, both earth and sky. The "ruler", the archetype of "the god below", is much like gods of the ancient worlds. Life is sacred, and there is no life without fertility, the body, sex. Humans can make good or bad use of all things, and so it is our understanding and inner level of maturity and compassion that matters, more than the specific question concerned.
Integration
The "dark god", the forest god & the sky god, the higher self diety should integrate, work together, unify. This is a symbolic or mythic representation of selfrealization. And it is the optimal balance of the North and the South. Mountains and clouds mutually attracting each other. To make the subtle more solid and the solid more subtle, wedding the coarse and the delicate, the finite and the infinite.
Without this we swim around in a strange soup of "sin" and "salvation", where those most rigidly fearing the natural self, the body, and "sin" often are the ones who do actual harm.
In a more provocative way one could say it like this: Christ is good, but don`t forget the devil! Focusing solely on one of these, makes it's polar opposite stronger, but in a shadowy way. It is an unhealthy path. Bring the two of them together like the archetypical twins of mythology.
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The North and South need to work together.
In the same way should the analytic intellect and the archaic mind which works through images and symbols be in a mutually beneficial relationship. This is the integration of the East and West.
When these four different points - the four winds, cardinal directions - corners of the ancient Sun symbol, are all active and in relation, as symbolic forces and energies, a fundamental experience opens up to us. To enter the center, merge with the Sun of our Being, which is the Sun of all beings. Shining, yet endless bottomless dark, yet blindingly brilliant.
The experience is for each of us to make and make again. And the map too. Build, remake, construct based on aquired knowledge merged with felt discoveries, visions and illuminations. Over and over.
To be alive, the process of living, is refining and transmuting ones view, ones mind and realization along a path like this. The path of the World Tree, the Anima Mundi, symbolized through the Sun and the four directions.