Signification

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

-Hamlet

Last night, the post-sunset sky was beautiful.  Overhead was a deep blue canopy with just a few of the brighter starts poking out.  Near the horizion the blue gradually changed to the deep orange which was touching the horizon.  It was lovely in its own right, but I think part of its beauty was it reminded me of when I was in Assisi and how the sky looked just the same that night right after the sun set.  Last night's sky visually quoted what I had seen before.  It's funny how our memories work like that.  I think Fall is one of my favorite seasons partially because there are so many memories which are associated with its sights and smells.  These memories aren't necessarily concrete either, but there is a certain emotional memory that becomes active.  There is something that stirs within me.  But this happens not just with Fall.  All the other seasons, particularly at the change of the seasons, have their own associations and their own different feelings.

Dusk in Assisi, Italy

These feelings are often inarticulate.  You can't really describe them, or why they are so moving.  Explaining them is about as difficult as explaining beauty.  But it's as though when you experience Fall, you experience not just this Fall, but all your Falls.  Indeed, if you stop to think, you might realize that its not just your Falls either, but all the Falls in the history of the world.  For the season are all part of this circle of life, an experience our fellow humans have shared for centuries.  It seems to me that every Fall, not only is the immediate experience there, but implicitly all of those other Falls are present as well.  They are re-presented. 

This phenomenon is recreated in many ways.  At the weddings of others, couples remember their own vows with joy.  At funerals, the sadness of loss is compounded as people recall other loved ones that they have lost.  When you see a wonderful sunrise, you think of other such sunrises.  Certain places have associations, perhaps that treasured place in the woods or the experience of being on a hill or at the seashore in general.  It happens when we see ourselves in someone younger because we were one like that, or when we recognize patterns in our own behavior.

This is the nature of a symbol.  It brings with it not just itself, but all the other things it represents as well.  It shouldn't be surprising that the good art makes heavy use of symbol, for symbols endow life with meaning and significance.  Think even of subtle ways art does this.  In Wagner's Ring, his delightful series of operas, there are musical themes which are associated with different characters or places.  These musical themes not only reinforce the significance of these characters or places, but also work in the opposite direction, bringing the places or characters into the music.  The same thing is used in well written movie soundtracks, such as the Lord of the Rings.  I need not list more overt artistic symbols, but the Scartlet Letter itself comes to mind.  Again, we need not be able to explain how these symbols work, but we somehow know that they bring extra meaning with them.  (P.S. If anyone has ideas about what the deer crossing the tracks in the movie Stand by Me was all about, let me know.)

As I have reflected elsewhere, the Lord of the Rings (the books, not the films) is effective perhaps because of the smallness of the events in the book.  Yes, the War for the Ring is exciting and the biggest thing to happen in any of the characters' lifetimes, but it is set against the background of a deep history of Middle Earth.  Sauron isn't the greatest evil that has even existed, but is a mere shadow of Melkor, the fallen Vala.  Aragorn and Arwen are only fully understood in the light of Beren and Luthien.  But symbols are also dynamic.  They can articipate the future.  One could make the case that Beren and Luthien can't be understood without Aragorn and Arwen either.  The reality goes much deeper than the surface.

As the literary symbols show us, we need not be conscious of the symbolism for it to work.  The characters of a book certainly don't have to know they are acting symbolically for it to be so.  This is reinforced by the fact that symbols are dynamic and can reach into the future.  So while many of my examples suggested that symbols have a reality that is only contained in personal memory and consciousness, this is not entirely true.  I want to suggest that symbols carry a certain meaning, regardless of whether anyone be aware of them.  However, memory is extremely important, because this is the way in which individuals become aware of the deep reality which surrounds us.

Because memory is so important, and I suppose something could be said about the way in which corporate memory can also help to preserve symbols and their meaning.  I mention, as once before, the importance of memory in the Christian and Jewish traditions, in particular giving meaning to the Eucharistic meal or the Passover meal respectively.  These symbolic meals are not 'mere symbols,' but are understood to make present the reality which they symbolize.  But, without taking away from the special significance of these religious memorials, I'm not sure that there is a such thing as a 'mere symbol.'  Symbols all seem to contain what they signify to varying degrees.

I guess the point of all this is that there is meaning all around you, if only you open your eyes and look for it.  Reality runs deep.

(Note: Something should be said about my use of the word 'symbol.'  In most, if not all, instances where I used the word, 'sign' might be an appropriate substitution.  Symbols are strictly defined as things with represent another thing, but are distinct from it.  So language is a symbolic system, where there is no intrinsic relationship between the sound of the word and its meaning (except perhaps in cases of onomatopia).  The word 'cat' could easily have been used to refer to what we call 'dog.'  This stricter use of the word 'symbol' gets blurred and acquires meanings similar to the word 'sign' in more common parlance.  I use the word 'symbol' in this other way. Hopefully, the reader has understood what I meant throughout the post.)