The Book of Symbols 5...

Kiss

Over the doorjamb of the womb-chamber of the Konārak temple in Southern India, and among the images in niches on its facade, are small, erotic sculptures of ardent couples, or mithuni. Their flowing bodies melt together in a passionate embrace, evoking the sexual play of both gods and mortals, and, paradoxically, the release from it in the union of the self and Supreme Self within a single being. Rapturously, the figures kiss. And here, under the arched brows and interlocked noses of two who are one, the lips merge in a state of bliss that knows nothing of a within or without, and in which there is no longer separation, desire or grief (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad IV:3:21; ARAS, 7Ao.044). 

A kiss of passionate longing may be shunned on the 

chaste movie screens of contemporary India, but it is

openly depicted in the sacred temple sculpture of the 

13th century. Sandstone, Surya Temple, Konārak, 

Orissa, India. 

Behind sealed lips, we protect one of the most personal spaces of the body; we part our lips to draw in the breath of inspiration or to speak intimate feelings into the beloved's ear, finally surrendering the private self in the loving convergence of one's own lips with the lips of the other. Even when not romantic, the kiss implies affection, blessing, recognition and reconciliation. Thus the psalmist intones, "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Psalm 85:10). The comparable climax of the Muslim hajj to the Grand Mosque in Mecca is the pilgrim's kiss upon the Black Stone of the Kaaba, an act of reverence first performed by Muhammad. In these religious traditions, kissing is a ceremonial act, a sign of the bond between kin, or respect to holy relics, prayer shawls or altars or homage to one's ruler (kissing his feet) or to one's conqueror (licking the dust beneath his feet). With the bridal kiss, Western culture bridged the sacred and the romantic, although such European fairy tales as "Sleeping Beauty" or "Snow White" mark the approach of true love by a kiss that awakens the soul, rather than kindles sexual libido. 

Through the identity and meaning of many of the 

characters in Bronzino's mannerist allegory are still

debated, this detail is unequivocally of Venus and her 

adolescent son Cupid engaged in an amorous, 

incestuous kiss. Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, detail, 

oil on panel, 1544-5, Italy.

However, the sensuous, unseemly kiss between Bronzino's Cupid and Venus, his mother-  slipping the tip of the tongue into her son's lips- portrays a sly, incestuous carnality. To some cultures, the public display of kissing is considered scandalous, for its signals the opening act of coitus, and casual, devouring tongue-kissing has even suggested cannibalism. Jung, in fact, disagreeing with Freud that all libido was sexual, noted the pleasure infants take in sucking and observed that "kissing derives much more from nutrition than from sexuality" (CW 5:652). The empty "air-kisses" of celebrities or the shallow "spit-swapping" of teenagers can seem to cancel out any encounter between two halves of a single soul that we can still feel in the secular sculpture of Rodin's The Kiss. The songbirds whose crossed wings surrounded Aengus, the Celtic god of love, deteriorated into the banal "x's" that close sentimental love letters. Modern Valentines- whose puckering smooches even use kisses to veil hostility- anticipate the chilling intentions of such phrases as "kiss off" (to dismiss a stale lover), "kiss up" (to display shameless obsequiousness) and "kiss and tell" (to betray matters shared in confidence). More stunning is the submissive "kiss of shame" upon the devil's anus (or that of his masked proxy). Here, the disciple kisses the "nether-lips" at the opposite end of the body than the mouth, a practice of medieval Satanists at their black Sabbaths, which often inverted conventional ritual. Similarly, the "kiss of death," such as Judas kissing Jesus, reverses, in the perfidious intimacy of betrayal, all that is signified by the kiss of love. The kiss can also convey a different kind of reversal. Francis of Assisi placed squarely on the lips of a fearsome leper the "kiss of peace," communicating a spiritual love that drew the most reviled being of the age into the saint's most personal interior. 

~Bella

The Book of Symbols 4...

Shell

From time immemorial, we have held conch shells to our ears to hear the surflike sound - the eternal tides of life that engrave their markings upon us. The human ear resembles a shell, gathering vibrations of air in its outer cavity called the "conch," and directing them through the winding passages of its shell-like inner ear as sound, symbolically evoking an interior listening. "He who has ears to hear let him hear," said Jesus of the hidden meaning of his parables. Images of the Buddha with elongated ears suggest that listening with the inner ear includes keeping silent, meditating on what has been said and opening ourselves to the resonance of the source. 

Shell-shaped and oversized, the ear of the Grand

Buddha suggests wise listening. Detail from a carved

cliff face, 713 C.E., Leshan, China

We have also raised the conch shell to our lips, trumpeting as gods of the sea might have, for the sound of the conch was said to lull the tumultuous waves of the sea.That the conch comes from the deep associates it with the underworld. The Mayan deity Quetzalcoatl mythically descends to Mictlan, the abode of the skeletons, as a dead conch that has fallen silent, so that worms may bore into him in order that he come to life again inside (Moctezuma, 138-9).

Figure, perhaps a deity, emerging from a shell,

showing whorls a growth. Effigy vase, painted

terra-cotta, Mayan, 600-800 C.E.

Shells are mysterious sea treasure, in beautiful shapes, sometimes symmetrical, often ridged and whorled, reflecting stages of growth. The recesses of a shell are reminiscent of the sacred spiral, labyrinth, and center. The intimation of marine life is also an allusion to the hidden life of our interior world, sometimes surfacing, leaving its evidence in consciousness, sometimes not. A shell is an exoskeleton serving to protect the vulnerable creature that dwells within. But shells are also delicate, easily broken, not the tough carapace of defensiveness. We speak of coming out of, or going into, one's "shell," suggesting a gradual, tenuous exposure to the world, or of retreat from it, in privacy, refuge or withdrawal.

As if incised by the waters of eternity- a stone conch 

shell. Aztec, ca. 1486-1502, Temple Mayor, Mexico.

The shape and depth of some shells, the lush pink of their coloring, brings to mind the female vulva, associating the shell with the allure and mystery of the feminine, and with incarnation and fertility. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love (to the Roman Venus), materializing out of the ocean's foam, is borne ashore on a seashell. In his celebrated painting, Odilon Redon depicts the open, vulva-shaped shell, its soft opalescence infusing the sky and the goddess lying, yet standing, asleep and yet waking, as in a vision. We adorn ourselves with shells, remembering the goddess and her beauty, her seductions. The shell and its evocation of the uterine salt-sea, the moon, tidal ebb, and flow imparts a sense of birth and rebirth; early Christian art made the empty shell an image of the soul's departure to immortality. 

The Birth of Venus, by Odilon Redon, oil on canvas,

ca. 1912, France. 

~Bella

Little note: I won't be able to post on Friday so I'm going to post tomorrow instead. Sorry about that, but you'll still get a post :)