Symbols - What does heaven look like
Hair
You will not get a hippy to cut his hair, because by doing so he breaks – symbolically – his links with heaven. In effect, hair has considerable significance symbolically, it denotes the link to the spiritual world, hair is viewed as a sort of final thread in the communication channels between the spiritual world and the physical world.
The longer the hair, the better the communication, which is possibly why we subconsciously like to see long hair, and why people grow their hair – men and women. It is why the Sikhs don't cut their hair – symbolically it would destroy their links with the spiritual world.
The current fashion amongst some men of shaving their heads is almost a statement of spiritual defiance by contrast, symbolically it shows [and how sad this is] a break with all forms of spiritual input/output.
Hair occurs numerous times in myths and legends, with the same significance, for example, ….
- NISOS – Had a purple hair in the middle of his head
- PTERELAOS – was described a being ‘immortal’ because of the golden hair direct line to the gods
When hair is braided it becomes symbolically a half way house between a ladder or stair and hair. It carries similar symbolism to a Thread or cord. The same is true of dreadlocks.
A Dictionary of Symbols – J E Cirlot
Hairs then, come to symbolise the concept of spiritual energy. Phaldor, in his Libro d'Oror del sogno comments that they 'represent the spiritual assets of Man'. Abundant, beautiful hair, for both man and woman, signifies spiritual development. To lose one's hair signifies failure and poverty'
Hair colour
Red hair takes on the symbolism of Fire
Blonde hair takes on the symbolism of gold
Brown hair takes on the symbolism of Earth and brown
White hair takes on the symbolism of Aether and also of course denotes wisdom
Black hair can vary but is often either the colour of the Intellect and Conscious self [using the symbolism of Darkness and Light] or it can mean instinctive and more primeval urges – the Autonomic system. It does not mean evil!
Body hair
In contrast to the hair on the head, any form of body hair is symbolically describing the subconscious and specifically the more instinctive and ‘earthy’ urges. It can also of course symbolically represent the Autonomic system with its instinctive urge for survival and sexual fulfillment………..
A Dictionary of Symbols – J E Cirlot
Whereas hair on the head, because it grows on the top of the human body, symbolises spiritual forces and can be equated, within the symbolism of water, with the Upper Ocean, body hair is equivalent to the Lower Ocean, that is to say, it denotes the proliferation of the irrational power of the cosmos and of the instinctive life.
This explains why the priests of many religions, the Egyptians among them, shaved off all their body hair. And it also explains why the god Pan was depicted with hairy legs.
Observations
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- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 02 - 2 Know thyself
- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 05 - 1 Advice from a Caterpillar
- Alice in Wonderland - Ch 07 - 1 A Mad Tea Party
- Anacreon - And Now With All Thy Pencil's Truth
- Appendicitis produces an NDE
- Apuleius and Isis
- Arifi of Herat - The Ball and the Polo Stick - From every side other riders
- Arifi of Herat - The Ball and the Polo Stick - In his locks he had a thousand hidden curls
- Aubrey de Vere - Sun god
- Bacon, Roger - The Mirror of Alchemy – Chapter 03
- Benjamin, Walter - On Hashish - Out of the cracks grow great tufts of hair
- Blithe spirit - Strawberries and blackberries
- Bouguereau - The Birth of Venus
- Braveheart - A long shamanic journey
- Braveheart - An island hut and pencil case
- Braveheart - Bridge to the tunnel
- Braveheart - Crossing the bridge
- Braveheart - Flying on pencils
- Braveheart - Islands, bridges and pencil cases
- Braveheart - Meets demons
- Braveheart - Parallel bars
- Braveheart - Pencil case soldier and YORK
- Burne-Jones, Edward - Phyllis & Demophoon
- Burne-Jones, Edward - Pan and Psyche
- Burne-Jones, Edward - Sea Nymph
- Burne-Jones, Edward - Tree of forgiveness
- Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz - The First Day
- Codex Azcatitlan - Aztecs and Mexica - Adepts
- Copan - Mayan - Stela D
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Law - Behold! These be grave mysteries
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - Samson
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - Steeped horsehair
- Da Vinci, Leonardo - Beautiful men - Salvator Mundi
- Daniel 07
- Degas - Woman combing her hair
- Delville, Jean - Portrait of Mrs. Stuart Merrill
- Delville, Jean - Satan's treasures
- Delville, Jean - Parsifal
- Delville, Jean - Plato’s disciples
- Dickinson, Emily - Good morning midnight & When night is almost done
- Dickinson, Emily - The soul has bandaged moments
- Dürer, Albrecht - Portraits - Self portrait
- Dürer, Albrecht - Religious works - Adoration of the Magi
- Eizon - The Ganmon - excerpt
- Euripides - The Bacchae - First they let their hair fall loose
- Flaming red hair
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Arguing with my imaginary friend in the alley
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Brothers hand mirror
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Chance meeting 'hind the shrubs
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Dawn in the greenhouse
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Please don't go - floating tears
- Grant Gronewald - HTML flowers - Virtual candle
- Hadewijch - A vision of her Higher Spirit
- Hafez of Shiraz - Thirty Poems - For that amber scented strand
- Hafez of Shiraz - Thirty Poems - In the snare of your locks
- Hair
- Han Shan - Encounters with Cold Mountain Translated by Peter Stambler - WITH MY HANDS DANGLING FROM MY CUFFS
- Hawker, Robert Stephen - The Quest of the Sangraal - The Queen, The Queen how haughty on the dais
- Heine, Heinrich - The North Sea - A woman lives in the North
- Hodler, Ferdinand - The Dream 1897
- Hokusai - shunga
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Flying Chariot
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - As I kissed the Black Stone
- Ibn Umayl - Al-Durra al-Naqīya
- Jami - SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL – from 04 The Story
- Karnataka and South India - 07 Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple
- Khnopff, Fernand - Head of a Woman
- Khnopff, Fernand - Study of a Woman
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1124 [extract]
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1148
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1151
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 249 [extract]
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 417 [extract]
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 490 [extract]
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 74
- Klimt - Nuda Veritas
- Klimt - Danae
- Klimt - Water Snakes
- Knut Ekwall - The Fisherman and the Siren
- Leighton, Frederick Lord - The Fisherman and the Siren
- Levy-Dhurmer - Eve
- Levy-Dhurmer - La Bourrasque
- Lowell, James Russell - He hath cleared mine inward sight
- Maeterlinck, Maurice - Concerning the spiritual in art - Wassily Kandinsky
- Manley Hopkins, Gerald - The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
- Michelangelo - 1516 Tomb of Pope Julius II - Moses
- Millais, John Everett - Christ in the house of his parents
- Millais, John Everett - the Return of the Bridesmaid
- Mircea Eliade - On the shaman who met the reindeer women
- Mircea Eliade – The Goldi shaman and the Succubus
- Moreau - Dead poet born by Centaur and Victim
- Moreau - Jason 1865
- Moreau - The Sphinx 1864
- Moreau - The young man and death 1865
- Mucha, Alphonse
- Mucha, Alphonse - Zodiac
- Mucha, Alphonse - Dance
- Mucha, Alphonse - Maud Adams as Joan of Arc
- Munch, Edvard - Ashes 1894
- Munch, Edvard - Jealousy
- Munch, Edvard - Sin 1902
- Mutus Liber 06
- Myths and legends - Maol a Mhoibean
- Near death blind woman sees
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - A span breadth from his goal, to languish!
- Nietzsche - Thus spake Zarathustra - LIX The Second Dance Song
- Nizami - Laili and Majnun - 02
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from The First Seclusion 01
- Nizami – Makhzanol Asrar (The Treasury of Mysteries) – from The Second Seclusion 01
- Norse - Idunn
- Norse - Staraya Ladoga
- Nuremberg Chronicle - 'The Hairy Woman'
- Ovid - Metamorphoses - Glaucus and Scylla
- Ovid - Metamorphoses - Old Aeson restor'd to Youth
- Palenque - Mayan - The 'top knot' initiate
- Palenque - Mayan - The use of the flail
- Palenque - Mayan - Wall panels and inscriptions
- Peake, Mervyn - The Wings 000141
- Poe, Edgar Allen - The Sleeper
- Pythagoras - Iamblichus's Life - The Mysteries
- Rassenfosse, Armand - Nudes various
- Red
- Reichel-Dolmatoff - South American shaman initiation
- Reichel-Dolmatoff – The Tukano Indians - Hair
- Renoir - Girls combing their hair
- Revelations 01:13
- Rig veda - Those who know have wings
- Rig veda - Rudra with braided hair
- Rochas, Albert De - Levitation of the human body – 10 Françoise Fontaine
- Rolling Stones - She's a Rainbow
- Rops, Felicien - Lady with Puppet
- Rops, Felicien - The Social Revolution
- Rops, Felicien – La Sorciere
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Golden Water 1858
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Prosperine
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Damsel of the Sanct Grail
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Dante's Dream
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Lilith and Palmifera
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Marie Spartali
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Portraits of Fanny Cornforth 1
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Regina Cordium
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - The Blessed Damozel
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Venus Verticordia
- Rubens - Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria
- Ruzbihan Baqli – The Unveiling of Secrets – A Vision of Mecca in the Bath
- Saadi - The Gulistan of Sa‘di – 03 from the Panegyric of the Padsham of Islam
- Saint Brendan - 16 The Voyage of Saint Brendan
- Schwabe, Carlos - Lotte and Nude amongst Flowers
- Schwabe, Carlos - Ange
- Schwabe, Carlos - L'Homme et la Mer
- Schwabe, Carlos - Les Fleurs du Mal illustrations
- Schwabe, Carlos - Pelleas and Melisande
- Schwabe, Carlos - Spleen et Idéal 1896
- Segantini - Die Eitelkeit 1897
- Segantini - Engel des Lebens 1894 [L'angelo della vita]
- Segantini - Mermaid
- Shabistari, Mahmud - The Gulshan-i raz - Long and twisted are the tales of the Beloved tresses
- Shenxian zhuan - Fàn - 饭—“Diet”
- Simon, Paul - Song about the Moon
- Siren of Cannossa
- Song of Solomon 4
- Song of Solomon 5
- Song of Solomon 6
- Song of Solomon 7
- Spencer, Stanley - Symbolism 12 - The Woolshop
- Spencer, Stanley - Symbolism 19 - The Lovers (The Dustman)
- Spilliaert, Leon - The Posts
- Spilliaert, Leon - Magic stairs
- Sting - The Lowest Trees have Tops
- Surdas - Fatephur Sikri manuscript - NPS 1744
- Surdas - Fatephur Sikri manuscript - NPS 2415
- Surdas - Fatephur Sikri manuscript - NPS 3122
- Surdas - Fatephur Sikri manuscript - NPS 792
- Symbolism - Korean mystic shamanism – Costume: Hair and jewels
- Symbolism - Korean mystic shamanism – Costume: Plaits and bows
- Taq Bostan 02
- The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead
- The Louvre - Cast terracotta funerary figure made in Myrina, 1st century BC
- The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 16 Being naked in the sun
- The Mithras Liturgy - Lines 620 to 655
- The tall men of Kham
- The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine - Key 06
- There was a little girl
- Thomas, Dylan - From Love's First fever
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 02 - 3 Running like the wind
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 05 - 1 Wool and Water
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 08 - 3 Falling off
- Tibetan Buddhism - The Lachen mystic
- Tom Tom the Piper's son
- Uruk – Miscellaneous artefacts
- Von Stuck, Franz - 1927 Judith and Holofernes
- Von Stuck, Franz - The seesaw
- Von Stuck, Franz - Water and Fire
- Waterhouse, John William - A Tale from the Decameron
- Waterhouse, John William - Diogenes
- Waterhouse, John William - Hylas and the Nymphs
- Waterhouse, John William - Miranda
- Waterhouse, John William - Ophelia
- Waterhouse, John William - Ophelia
- Waterhouse, John William - Saint Eulalia
- Waterhouse, John William - The Mermaid
- Waterhouse, John William - Windflowers
- West & Southern France, Italy - The trial of witches
- Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass - Long enough have you dreamed
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - My mother dandled me and sang
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - Of golden king and silver lady
- Yeats, W B - Selected poems - Cap and Bells
- Yeats, W B - Selected poems - His Bargain
- Yu Xuanji - Free of all those hopes and fears
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Mushaf as-suwar - 3rd Book of the Weights