In one word, what the sun means to me as a symbol: hope.
I've dedicated a couple of pages to this subject in a new journal/sketchbook that I started recently. I've written a few things on the page...
Giver of Life
A future
Hope
Light
Renewal
Rebirth
"Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise!"
~Les Misérables
"Darkness must pass
A new day will come
And when the sun shines
It will shine out the clearer"
~J.R.R. Tolkien
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| The page in question...with suns, text, and spirals |
The page is still under construction, possibly halfway to completion. There are a lot of pages where I start an idea, memory, question, or whatever...and spend some time sitting on it before I decide where to go. It turns out to be very therapeutic, and I find it particularly satisfying to write about something painful and then draw a nice sun over it. Since, you know, tomorrow will (hopefully) be a brighter day. Or, at least, I know the sun will rise again. (Until it eventually dies and in the process devours the earth...sorry, did I just get a bit morbid? Fortunately we don't have to worry about that any time in the near future.)
Oh yes, and as to the Tolkien quote...I made the mistake of trusting something online claiming that it's Tolkien, and I assumed it was a poem of his. It's actually from the movie The Two Towers, something Sam said...but I don't think that Tolkien actually wrote those words, simply based on using this nifty site to search for keywords in his books. So...yeah. Don't trust the internet. (I write on the internet.) Also, the Les Misérables quote was attributed to Victor Hugo, but at least I did do my research there and found that while it's from the musical/opera/whatever (which I freaking love) it doesn't seem to be something Hugo wrote himself.
But back to the subject of suns...or symbols...
Is there something in particular that means "hope" to you? What? And why, if there is a why?
2 comments:
This is almost totally unrelated to your post (sorry), but you reminded me of a very specific memory:
When I was very small, I was sitting on the front porch with my mother. I said to her, "I love fall. I feel like this is when everything is most alive." The sun was very bright, shining down through orange leaves in our yard.
And she laughed and said, "Your grandmother used to be sad every fall. She said watching the leaves change made her remember that everything dies."
I looked crest-fallen.
And then she said, "Don't be sad! It's like I told her, the trees aren't dying, they're just falling asleep for a little while."
And now that I'm not so very small, I feel this way about it:
I still love the fall. I still feel like it's the time when the world is most alive. Everything is so beautiful, rushing so eagerly toward winter. It always gives me hope. If nature can run so quickly into the end of its season, confident that spring will come again, then who am I to balk from any struggle?
(Deep thoughts for a Tuesday, eh?)
Maybe not entirely unrelated, since my question was about something that means "hope"...
Early fall is my second favorite time of year. I don't know why, I just love the feel of it. My favorite is its exact opposite, early spring. Apparently I go for opposites? :)
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