The Sun

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The Sun THE SUN.JPG (20567 bytes)

For many cultures world-wide, the Sun is a symbol of male energy, light and warmth, and also death and re-birth (with the rising and setting of the Sun). In many countries the King would often be thought of as a symbol of the Sun. Its correspondences among the metals is gold, and among the colours it is yellow.

The Samoyeds saw the Sun as the good eye of heaven (with the Moon being the evil eye). Lots of countries thought of the Sun as the eye of the supreme God; in India, and Surya as the eye of Varuna, in Persia the eye of Ahuramazda, in Greece and Helois the eye of Zeus (or Uranus), in Egypt the eye of Ra, and in Islam the eye of Allah.

Many religions believed in a Sun God or Spirit. For the oldest Japanese religion, the Sinto, their supreme being was the Goddess of the Sun "Ama Terasu". One of the Native American tribes used a 'sun mask' to represent the face of their Sun Spirit. The Greek God of the Sun was Apollo, the gemstone 'Amber' was sacred to him as it was thought to be congealed sunlight. Clytie was turned into a sun-worshipping flower, the sunflower, as a consequence of her blind love for Apollo. Another flower symbol of the Sun was the thousand-petalled lotus (the Sun emerging from the water, the Sun and the water being vital to growth).

Lots of things could be thought of as being symbols of the Sun - like a lit candle because of its spiritual illumination. Many animals were used as symbols of the Sun, perhaps because of its link to life and nature. Such animals were the eagle, hawk and falcon, the quail (in Russian lore), the peacock, the raven (in China, Japan and Persia), the cockerel (because of its morning 'crowing' while the sun is rising), the horse, the stag, the serpent and the lion…

The Sun was thought of by Jung as a symbol of the source of life and the ultimate wholeness of man.

Kat - Cosmic Red Earth (age 14)

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