The Thorn in the Flesh and The Work

[Joe]

There is also the following that released quite recently, and is a good encapsulation of how Pageau regards the meaning of thorns, OSIT:

Sorry to go a bit off topic here, but Peterson's identification with Jews is just stunning.

 

[whitecoast]

When viewed in this way, the symbolism of thorns can be applied at any level, whether individual (as the example outlined above), or communal (like how this forum is, in and of itself, a technological means of counteracting against the “thorns” of our “fallen world”). The applications are inexhaustible, really.

And when you think about it a phone or screen is rectangular like a walled garden of controlled space where you can focus on whatever you want, so your phone is like a miniature little Garden of Eden. (Am I doing this symbolism thing right?)

 

[Novelis]

Sorry to go a bit off topic here, but Peterson's identification with Jews is just stunning.

Not at all, his baseless assumptions "taints" almost everything the man says/does, so it's good to keep that in mind in order to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

And when you think about it a phone or screen is rectangular like a walled garden of controlled space where you can focus on whatever you want, so your phone is like a miniature little Garden of Eden. (Am I doing this symbolism thing right?)

That's a perfectly normal and reasonable reaction to this "symbolism stuff". There are ways of verifying the acuity of symbolic interpretations, some of which can be found for oneself and maybe even shared here. For me, one of the ways lies with cross referencing a symbolic interpretation with the language your mind speaks during dreams - if they align, then you know you're onto something.

For example, dreams will move between analogous things/places/experiences/people (analogous to the unconscious, though not always to your conscious mind, perhaps): You lose your way in an increasingly unfamiliar city, and water starts to feature prominently... etc. ergo water and being lost are symbolically synonymous.

 

[whitecoast]

That's a perfectly normal and reasonable reaction to this "symbolism stuff". There are ways of verifying the acuity of symbolic interpretations, some of which can be found for oneself and maybe even shared here. For me, one of the ways lies with cross referencing a symbolic interpretation with the language your mind speaks during dreams - if they align, then you know you're onto something.

I’m not sure what you mean by reaction but I did read Matthew Pageau’s Language of Creation and just applied what I remembered from it here. I had to have a sense of humour about it since he just seems to make it so easy.

If it interests you at all, a book on Haualism I read had a lot of interesting ideas about dream interpretation and the cardinal directions therein while dreaming. Moving to the right was equivocates with the east, Quetzalcoatl, and was beneficent. The west was associated with healing and more brutal transformation/crisis, and the South with prophetic dreams. North was I think change more generally and navigation. And you always started out your dream facing North, so going right is going east, which makes some sense with embodied cognition.

Height was associated with levels of consciousness. Going higher was ascending spiritually, while going down as associated more with misfortune or delving into the unconscious shadow realm.

 

[whitecoast]

If it interests you at all, a book on Haualism I read had a lot of interesting ideas about dream interpretation and the cardinal directions therein while dreaming.

Just to clarify this should have said Nahualism.

 

[ivanb]

Thorns have a profound association to aggression, pain, and feebleness, when experienced from the pointy end!. But that may not be the entire description. Looked at or rather experienced from the plants perspective it is its protection, allowing it to thrive in a hostile environment with do cause to inflict on a predator a lesson on boundaries. Within this plants are properties that are sought after for their extraordinary properties. With good reason they have served and continue to serve as medicines and food. Thus this plants require extraordinary mechanical adaptations to insure their survival. This adaptive quality may serve to transfer their defensive spirit through healing modalities like homeopathy as one example. Let's now contemplate on this, would it be possible to invoke this protection by simpithizing or resonating with this unsung hero of creation. Their is a mystery hear to unfold perhaps, their usage as occult symbols go back into antiquity and have garnered many stories of transformation and heraldry. e

 

[ivanb]

Thorns and thistles have a profound association with aggression, pain, and feebleness, when experienced from the pointy end!. But that may not be the entire description. Looked at or rather experienced from the plants perspective it is its protection, allowing it to thrive in a hostile environment with do cause to inflict on a predator a lesson on boundaries. Within this plants are properties that are sought after for their extraordinary properties. With good reason they have served and continue to serve as medicines and food. Thus this plants require extraordinary mechanical adaptations to insure their survival. This adaptive quality may serve to transfer their defensive spirit through healing modalities like homeopathy as one example. Let's now contemplate on this, would it be possible to invoke this protection by sympathizing or resonating with this unsung hero of creation. Their is a mystery hear to unfold perhaps, their usage as occult symbols go back into antiquity and have garnered many stories of transformation and heraldry. e.g. solar crown that protects and radiates the temple (mind, spirit), orders of ancient chivalry, emblems of protection displayed at city gates in some western cities. Celts, Basques, pagans and others used thistles to ward off evil, purify and was a symbol for bravery and strength.

... e.g. solar crown that protects and radiates the temple (mind, spirit), orders of ancient chivalry, emblems of protection displayed at city gates in some western cities. Celts, Basques, pagans and others used thistles to ward off evil, purify and was a symbol for bravery and strength.

 

[ivanb]

Still learning how to navigate this posts, discard the first and third post

 

[Novelis]

I’m not sure what you mean by reaction but I did read Matthew Pageau’s Language of Creation and just applied what I remembered from it here. I had to have a sense of humour about it since he just seems to make it so easy.

I see where you were coming from now, thanks for the clarification. I thought you were just having a laugh by making arbitrary connections, which is a reaction that I've seen many times before.

Come to think of it though (and adding to what you said about the square, cardinal directions, etc.), another way to make cross-references between symbolic structures is to compare them cross-culturally. For example, the Altar in a church is square-shaped because "Heaven is Round and Earth is Square":

Meanwhile, the Chinese have a idiomatic phrase that's been around for a very long time, known as: 天圓地方, which means exactly that: 天=Heaven/圓=Round/地=Earth/方=Square (Please see attached if your device cannot display Chinese Characters). Interestingly, the common Chinese word for "Place"or "Space" is also the latter half of this idiom - 地方.

Just as examples, I also attached two pictures which iterate upon this symbol imagistically, the first being an image of the 64 hexagrams and the latter being this concept embedded into Chinese coins used from the 4th century BCE until the 20th century CE:

Cash (Chinese coin) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org