Spiritual Symbols Research Articles

Shifting selves: the struggle for identity and spirituality in the work of three young women artists

This essay looks at contemporary art works produced by three young women who took part in a research project that was exploring the spiritual meanings of art in the lives of adolescents. Nineteen students were interviewed and we asked them to tell us about their art works which we then analysed in relation to a set of descriptors that we developed defining spiritual symbols and stories. We developed a central term—Connected Knowing—which seeks to appreciate a ‘spiritual rationality’ in works of art. This essay reports on three of these art works and explores the ways in which the artist understands the connections between self and other, self and world, self and community. We used theory on art perception and gender to understand the ways in which spiritual meaning was produced by the artists. A central theme that emerged from the three works was that identity is a struggle and not a given, and that multiple perspectives of self in the development of identity is experienced as a positive embodied value.

Balancing the Fiddlers on My Roof

The issue of self-disclosure—intentional and inadvertent—is currently receiving considerable attention in the psychoanalytic world. In contemporary relational/interpersonal thinking, we have moved beyond the idea of the anonymous analyst. The analyst wearing an identifiable symbol of religion—indeed the analyst's religious-spiritual outlook—offers special challenges to the analytic dyad. It is at once an intentional and unintentional disclosure of the analyst's inner and outer worlds, multiplicity of selves, and links to others outside the consulting room. This paper considers the analyst's religious outlook and physical symbol of spirituality (in this case, the analyst's outward manifestation of Jewish observance, a yarmulke) as a particular feature of the analytic relationship, with implications for transference and countertransference.

Making Meaning Using Creativity and Spirituality

This article describes two creative techniques utilized when working with clients. With the increased attention on issues of spirituality, multiculturalism, and creativity, the “Give Away Ceremony” and “Spiritual Symbolism” is demonstrated via a case study approach. Additionally, a brief history of the immersion of spirituality in the counseling profession is addressed.

The Role of Popular Music in the Construction of Alternative Spiritual Identities and Ideologies

Setting its discussion in the wider context of the decline of institutional religion among young adults, the rise of alternative spiritualities, and the mediatization of religion, the article explores the significance of popular music in the development of alternative spiritual identities and ideologies. A summary is given of leading research conducted in this field by Christopher Partridge and Graham St. John. It is argued that they demonstrate the encoding of alternative spiritual symbols and ideologies into certain forms of popular music, they fail to give an adequate account of how audiences actively make use of this music to construct alternative spiritual identities or frameworks of meaning. The article concludes that researchers in the field of religion and popular music need to draw more on theories and methods developed in ethno‐musicology and the sociology of music, and suggests that the work of Tia De Nora on music in everyday life raises important questions about the qualities and context of the act of listening to music that could generate more nuanced accounts of how popular music shapes alternative spiritual identities and ideologies.

What It Means to Be Shiite in Lebanon: Al Manar and the Imagined Community of Resistance

This paper is premised on the understanding that the relationship between media and religion is not new. Media, defined broadly as systems as communication, have always been involved in the mediation of religion through the articulation and circulation of a wide range of religious and spiritual symbols, meanings values and ideas, through, among other means, sermons and the spoken word. Using a historically contextualised perspective and preliminary findings of ongoing research with young Shias in Lebanon, this paper addresses the relationship between the Hizbullah-backed satellite television station Al Manar and the everyday politics of Lebanon’s Shias, underscoring that the processes of mediation do not take place in isolation of historical, political and cultural contexts. In detailing the confessional nature of Lebanon and its media, this chapter shows that Al Manar has become one of the de facto voices of the Shias in Lebanon, linking their ethos of resistance to that of the wider Shia community, thus playing a key role in the styles within which this community is imagined.

Kautilya on Ethics and Economics

Sages and seers in ancient India specified dharma, artha, kama and moksha as the four ends of a moral and productive life and emphasised the attainment of a proper balance between the spiritual health and the material health. However, most of their intellectual energy was directed towards the attainment of moksha, the salvation from birth‐death‐rebirth cycle. Kautilya, on the other hand considered poverty as a living death and concentrated on devising economic policies to achieve salvation from poverty but without compromising with ethical values unless survival of the state was threatened. Kautilya's Arthashastra is unique in emphasising the imperative of economic growth and welfare of all. According to him, if there is no dharma, there is no society. He believed that ethical values pave the way to heaven as well as to prosperity on the earth, that is, have an intrinsic value as well as an instrumental value. He referred the reader to the Vedas and Philosophy for learning moral theory, which sheds light on the distinction between good and bad and moral and immoral actions. He extended the conceptual framework to deal with conflict of interest situations arising from the emerging capitalism. He dedicated his work to Om (symbol of spirituality, God) and Brihaspati and Sukra (political thinkers) implying, perhaps, that his goal was to integrate ethics and economics. It is argued that the level of integration between economics and ethics is significantly higher in Kautilya's Arthashastra than that in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or for that matter in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.

Picturing Peace: Local and Universal Symbols in Three Cultures

Picturing Peace is an ArtsBridge collaboration in which K-12 students learn to use digital cameras to communicate their feelings and ideas about peace. The photographs of three student cultures were analyzed. Both local and universal symbols of peace were found, such as nature, light, community, environment, peace signs, play, spiritual symbols, diversity, body and innocence.

屯田兵村空間の地域形成における変容(農村計画)

When we review the modern settlements in Hokkaido began in Meiji Era, Tondenhei-muras are considered to be composing the first among the layers of developments. By the method of overlay mapping analysis with fiald survey and reference of documents, we succeed to reveal the character of spacial structure of Tondenhei-mura and evaluate how it worked up and change to now. The character can be described of the composition of territorial orders of land use, oriented by the axis with the careful setting of central zone, creating spiritual symbol as a Shinto shrine, preparing visibility of proper domain.

Concepts of the heart in Ancient Egypt

The heart was regarded in Ancient Egypt as the organic motor of the body and also the seat of intelligence, an important religious and spiritual symbol. It was considered as one of the eight parts of human body. Counter to other organs it had to be kept carefully intact in the mummy to ensure its eternal life. In Ancient Egypt, the concept of heart included three constituents: heart-haty, heart-ib, and the spiritual seat of intelligence, emotion and memory. The hieroglyphs representing the heart early in the first dynasty were drawn with eight vessels attached to it. Egyptian doctors have elaborated an original conception of cardiovascular physiology which endured 30 centuries.

Spiritual Development and Cultural Context in the Lives of Women Adult Educators for Social Change

This paper reports the results of a qualitative research study where the purpose was to examine the spiritual development of a multicultural group of women adult educators who are teaching for social justice and are motivated to do so because of their spiritual commitments. Findings reveal 4 themes of spiritual development. It may be described as a spiral process of moving beyond and re-membering spiritual values and symbols of the culture of origin, it includes a deepening awareness and honoring of the Lifeforce, it facilitates authentic identity development, and it requires social action.

Den erotiska frigörelsen i Karin Boyes roman Kris

Feministic literary reception research has shown how political and philosophical issues in women's texts have been regarded literary as transformed personal and private problems. The more well-educated, intellectual and independent awoman writer is, the more urgent it has been for critics to move the focus of interest from ber thoughts and ideas to her body and character. Even in the case of Karin Boye, literary critics have one-sidedly focnsed on her gender identity. Even today's literary studies on Karin Boye see the quest for a solution to her own enigmatic personality as the prime driving force of her literary work. The reviews in the capital conservative press rejected all attempts at a modernistic way of writing when Karin Boye's novel Kris (Crisis) was first published in 1934. Anders Osterling reviewed it in Svenska Dagbladet, questioning the credihility of the protagonist, "a highly-strung woman". Margit Abenius, in her monography Drabbad av renhet (Stricken vvith purity), discusses the novel from a quite differenl angle. She dislikes the mixed styles of the composition. Since she maintains that only a harmoniously structured work of art can symbolize an ordered world, she deprecates the disorderly aesthetics of modernism. Kris is a novel about a young woman's rebellion against society. chttrch, school and family. At the same time it is a tale of her quest for her own identity, and for the identity of love. Her eyes are opened to a new Life when she recognizes and accepts her feelings for another young woman. Before, she tes seen nature only as filled with spiritual symbols. Now, she sees the image of her beloved in all that lives and grows, and she herself is part of the new creation. The story shows that the support by another woman is eruciål for the protagonists actions. By focusing on women's relations with other women and to their work, Karin Boye violated the sexual morality of her time, and advocated ways of living together based on the new knowledge of man.

Human Values and Consciousness: Towards a New Social Order in the Light of Sri Aurobindo

This paper attempts a systematic presentation of the ideas of Sri Aurobindo, India's foremost sage- philosopher-nationalist, in two parts. This, the first part, encompasses a time span of approximately four decades (1872-1910) when Aurobindo was an activist and a frontline leader in India's freedom struggle. This period has been identified by the author as the pre-Pondicherry days when the keynote of Aurobindo's social, economic and political writings was nationalism. This paper sheds light on how Aurobindo's views on India's social and economic upliftment were inextricably linked with his clarion call for the resurgence of the spiritual identity of her citizens. Thus, the author argues that Aurobindo was not just a narrow-visioned political scientist who saw India merely as a geographical entity. Rather, his vision was engrossed with the quintessential spiritual symbol that India has been and is. The second part of the paper will appear in the next issue of this journal.

Photocopying permitted by license only dialogues of the heart: Norodom Sihanouk and Mahatma Ghandi as portrayed by Helene Cixous

In 1985, Helene Cixous’ eight‐hour play, L'Histoire terrible mais inachevée de Norodom Sihanouk, roi du Cambodge (The Terrible but Unfinished Story of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia), opened in Paris at the Théâtre du Soleil. Two years later, in 1987, Cixous presented a second major play based on recent history: L'Indiade, ou l'Inde de leurs rêves (The Indiade, or India of their Dreams). Unlike Cixous’ earlier plays, which featured female protagonists and few characters, these two revolve around strong male figures, Sihanouk and Ghandi, and a cast of some fifty other personalities ranging from powerful men such as Chou‐Enlai, Jawaharlal Nehru, Henry Kissinger and Lord Mountbatten to simple peasants and ghosts. Cixous portrays Sihanouk and Ghandi at dramatic historical moments, when their countries are being torn asunder. She captures the essence of each man as the spiritual symbol of a people in crisis. Focusing on their “dialogues of the heart,” this article examines comparable elements in the portrayal of Sihanouk and Ghandi against a background of political intrigue and fratricidal struggles.

Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe (review)

174 Reviews lefttocreate their own debate. Given that Ousterhout has provided introductions to each paper, perhaps a litde more editorial intervention could have been used to expand this argument and forward the analysis of the role of pilgrimage in late antique society. Of the remaining papers in the second section, Cynthia Hann in 'Loca Sancta souvenirs: sealing the pilgrim's experience' emphasises the spiritual symbolism of the decoration on ampuUae and tokens. Gary Vikan in 'Pilgrims in Magi's clothing: the impact of mimesis on early Christian pilgrimage art' demonstrates how appropriate it is that those archetypal travellers, the Magi, are the figures most frequendy represented on pdgrim tokens. Robert Ousterhout in 'Loca Sancta and the architectural response to pdgrimage' discusses the motives and varying symbolism behind the construction elsewhere in Europe of architectural copies of the Anastasis Rotunda of Jerusalem that culminated in the numerous 'round churches' of the Templars and HospitaUars. There are useful points raised in aU these papers, though some, for example, Wilkinson's, Holum's and Vikan's read like footnotes to their authors' more substantial pubhcations elsewhere on similartopics.Others, especially Sivan's, cry out for more extensive treatment All reveal the constraints of their original twenty-minute format usual in the annual meetings of the American Byzantine Studies Conference. Despite one or two places where the computer has devoured lines, the book is nicely produced and well illustrated. Elizabeth M . Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Paxton, Frederick S., Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe, Ithaca & London, C o m e U University Press, 1990; cloth; pp. xiv, 229; R. R. P. US$31.50. The encounter with death is so fundamental to human society that it is perhaps surprising how little effort medievaUsts have made to understand the emergence in the early Middle Ages of elaborateritualsintended to cope with this moment offinalrupture. Paxton's book remedies this deficiency admirably. Liturgical texts present daunting problems of identification and interpretation to the nonspeciaUst and tend as a result to be ignored by aU except the assiduous liturgical scholar. Combining the great progress made in the last twenty years by liturgists in the identification and classification of sacramentaries with anthropological insights into the nature ofritual,Paxton documents and analyses the profound shifts that took place in the Church's attitude to sickness and death in the early medieval period. Only in relatively recent years have 'the lastrites'been re-named by Roman CathoUc authorities 'the sacrament of the sick'. A profound change in attitude Reviews 175 to sickness and death is involved. Paxton's book unfolds with great precision the process by which praying for and anointing the sick, a practice originaUy quite distinct in the early R o m a n Church from prayers for the dead, became fused together into a singleritualfor the dying by the ninth century. His chapter on the Mediterranean background to these subsequent changes, demonstrates how, in the R o m a n liturgy, prayers for the sick were intended to restore people to health. The central act of preparation for death was reception of the Eucharist. Only in the fifth century, above all with Caesarius of Aries in the early sixth, does Paxton see a shift away towards an emphasis on deathbed penance and the welfare of the soul. The Irish liturgy in particular, a strong influence on that of the Frankish Church in the seventh and eighth centuries, seems to have been responsible for combining prayers for the sick with prayers for the dying. In the more violent and less secure environment of the barbarian kingdoms, the Church was more concerned with devisingritualstoincorporate the dead into a wider community of saints than to restore the sick to life. The subject matter of Paxton's book is dense. H e does not skip over delicate and vital questions about the dating of individual manuscripts. Valuable tables Ust the contents of individual sacramentaries. As is inevitable in such a study as this, there is more one would like to know. What documentation do we have of actual ministry to the sick and the dying in the early...

The blessings of pilgrimage (review)

Reviews 173 Ousterhout, R., ed., The blessings ofpilgrimage, (Illinois Byzantine Studies, No. 1), Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1990; pp. xii, 149; 54 ill.; R. R. P. US$24.95. The nature of the 'blessings' referred to in thetitleof this collection of conference papers changes as one reads the book. They are not so much the intangible spiritual benefits that pilgrims might hope to acquire from their travels as the smaU souvenirs and tokens that were to prolong the spiritual experience on the traveUers' return home. The book falls into two sections, of which the second deals with these objects while the first is concerned with the development and theory of pdgrimage. The temporal focus of the book is on the early Byzantine period, with most emphasis on the fourth century; although Maggie Duncan-Flowers in 'A pilgrim's ampulla from the shrine of St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus' and Ch. Bakirtzis in 'Byzantine ampuUae from ThessaloniM' extend their discussions to middle Byzantium. Not surprisingly, given the book's concentration on the early period, the physical focus is on the Loca Sancta and the Holy Land, though the two papers already mentioned deal with the role of Ephesos and Thessaloniki, lesser centres of pilgrimage within the later Byzantine world. Also, perhaps inevitably, the iconographic and symbohc values that are adduced come largely from within the practices and thought patterns of eastern, rather than western, Christianity. Of the 'theoretical' papers, Sabine MacCormack in 'Loca Sancta: the organization of sacred topography of late antiquity' develops Peter Brown's arguments on the role of places sanctified by the presence of holy men both in their Ufetimes and after death. John Wilkinson in 'Jewish holy places and the origins of Christian pilgrimage' sets theriseof Christian pilgrim routes within the Holy Land in the context of Jewish practice while Hagith S. Sivan in 'Pdgrimage, monasticism and the emergence of Christian Palestine in the fourth century' argues that, from their role in connection with Mount Sinai and Mount Nebo for example, monastic communities moulded the identification of Biblical sites, using both Jewish and Christian sources, and thereby encouraged pilgrim visits. Kenneth G. Holum in 'Hadrian and St Helena: imperial travel and the origins of Christian Holy Land pilgrimage' argues that the concept of pilgrimage was barely formulated until Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, made an imperial progress (female version) to the Holy Land and inaugurated lavish building programmes in Jerusalem. It is in this paper that the disadvantages of collecting conference papers, not all of them even given on the same occasion, become apparent. Holum disagrees with the assumption implicit in MacCormack's and Wilkinson's essays that pilgrimage was a phenomenon whose origins go back to before the earliest phases of Christian practice. However, there are no cross-references nor any attempt at a dialogue. Readers are 174 Reviews lefttocreate their own debate. Given that Ousterhout has provided introductions to each paper, perhaps a litde more editorial intervention could have been used to expand this argument and forward the analysis of the role of pilgrimage in late antique society. Of the remaining papers in the second section, Cynthia Hann in 'Loca Sancta souvenirs: sealing the pilgrim's experience' emphasises the spiritual symbolism of the decoration on ampuUae and tokens. Gary Vikan in 'Pilgrims in Magi's clothing: the impact of mimesis on early Christian pilgrimage art' demonstrates how appropriate it is that those archetypal travellers, the Magi, are the figures most frequendy represented on pdgrim tokens. Robert Ousterhout in 'Loca Sancta and the architectural response to pdgrimage' discusses the motives and varying symbolism behind the construction elsewhere in Europe of architectural copies of the Anastasis Rotunda of Jerusalem that culminated in the numerous 'round churches' of the Templars and HospitaUars. There are useful points raised in aU these papers, though some, for example, Wilkinson's, Holum's and Vikan's read like footnotes to their authors' more substantial pubhcations elsewhere on similartopics.Others, especially Sivan's, cry out for more extensive treatment All reveal the constraints of their original twenty-minute format usual in the annual meetings of the American Byzantine Studies Conference. Despite one or two places where the computer has devoured...

Signs of the Cross: Cruciform Symbolism In Wolfram Von Eschenbach’s Willehalm

(1983). Signs of the Cross: Cruciform Symbolism In Wolfram Von Eschenbach’s Willehalm. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory: Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 33-39.

On the Term Phylacteries (Matt 23:5)

Although it is widely agreed that the phylacteries mentioned in Matt 23:5 aretĕfîllîn, this equation has not gone entirely unquestioned. L. Blau stated that only the wordstěfîllâ(singular) andtĕfîllîn(plural) are used in Talmudic literature, and that conclusions based on the word phylacteries are without foundation, “since this name was not used in truly Jewish circles.” G. G. Fox argued that since Greek phylaktēria refers to charms or amulets, and since for the Pharisee thetĕfîllînwere truly spiritual symbols rather than magical amulets, Matthew's use of the term must be a misrepresentation, probably intentional, expressing his contempt fortĕfîllîn.

Toward A Biblical Theology of Marriage and Family Part 3: Gospels and Acts

Spiritual symbolism emphasizes with dominance in the New Testament as a major purpose of marriage and family. God teaches us truth regarding the Church by reminding us to study the relationship between husbands and wives, parents and children. In the New Testament also we encounter a uniquely Christian view of divorce from the teaching of Jesus and major segments of the Gospels deal with the relationship between the Father and Son establishing the Deity of Christ by establishing the family relationship in the heavenly Trinity. The sin of adultery comes in for particular condemnation in the teaching of Jesus as recorded by the Gospel writers. We quickly learn in opening the pages of the New Covenant that God intends to reaffirm all that He said of the family in the Old Testament while adding relatively few new concepts. No fewer than 13 indications of family terminology identify spiritual truth regarding the relationship between God and man. It remains for the writers of the Epistles, particularly the Apostle Paul, to clarify many of the concepts but the ground rules are established from the lips of Jesus Himself.

Research in Western American Literature

R I C H A R D H. C R A C R O F T Brigham Young University Research in Western American Literature The following lists of scholarly works completed or in progress have been gleaned from responses to letters sent to Departments of English across the country and from Dissertation Abstracts. Please send data on any uncited works to Richard H. Cracroft, Associate Professor of English, A-215 JKBA, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84601. I. COMPLETED THESES AND DISSERTATIONS: Aadland, Daniel Arthur “Indian Country, A Novel” (Ph.D.) University of Utah, 1972-73. Allen, David Arthur “Willa Cather: A Critical Study” (Ph.D.) University of Denver, 1972. Allred, Jared Rulon “A. B. Guthrie, Jr.: The Artist in the Wilderness” (Ph.D.) University of Utah, 1972-73. Avery, Charles Wayne “Mark Twain’s Racial Attitudes in Huckleberry Finn and PudcL’nhead Wilson" (M.A.) Wichita State University, 1973. Bolton, Richard Russell “Portrayal of the Garrison Military in American Fiction, 1946-1970” (Ph.D.) Washington State University, 1972. Brauer, Ralph “The Horse, the Gun, and the Piece of Property: Changing Images of the TV Western” (Ph.D.) University of Minnesota, 1972. Briggs, Arlen John “Nathanael West and Surrealism” (Ph.D.) University of O regon, 1972. Burkhardt, Peggy Craven “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Defenders” (Ph.D.) University of Iowa, 1971. Cameron, Alexander J. “The Image of the Physician in the American Novel: 1859-1925” (Ph.D.) University of Notre Dame, 1972. Western American Literature 189 Carpenter, David “Alberta in Fiction” (Ph.D.) University of Alberta, 1973. Cherewick, Janice “Elements of Romance in Selected Fiction of the Canadian West, 1920-1970” (M.A.) University of Alberta, 1973. Codiga, Christopher Robert “The Relationship between Man and Nature in America’s Southwestern Deserts, 1941-1971” (M.A.) University of Oregon, 1972. Coon, Gilbert Dennis “A Study of A. B. Guthrie, Jr., and His Tetralogy” (Ph.D.) Washington State University, 1972. Corser, Cristin D. “The Indian as Symbol of Transcendent Spirituality in Oliver La Farge, Frank Waters, and Edwin Corle” (M.A.) Brigham Young University, 1973. Decker, Sara Josephine Ferris “Violence and Identity in The Deerslayer and Absalom, Absalom!” (M.A.) Wichita State University, 1973. Digbold, Robert Kent “A Critical Edition of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative” (Ph.D.) Yale University, 1972. Dinn, James M. “ ‘Only Two or Three Human Stories’:Recurrent Patterns of Action in the Major Fiction of Willa Cather” (Ph.D.) University of Notre Dame, 1973. Dunnivant, James “Ken Kesey and the Fictive Image of the Western Male in Contemporary American Fiction” (M.A.) Sonoma State College, 1973. Evers, Lawrence Joseph “The Literature of the Omaha” (Ph.D.) University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1972. Farrington, Thomas Arthur “The Control of Imagery in Katherine Ann Porter’s Fiction” (Ph.D.) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1972. Harver, Hyla Hope “The Influence of Scientific Theories of Expression on G arland’s Main-Travelled Roads” (Ph.D.) University of Tulsa, 1973. Hood, Charles E. “Hard Work and Tough Dreaming: A Biography of A. B. Guthrie, Jr.” (M.A.) University of Montana, 1969. Homer, Taunalee “The Reconciliation of Opposites: Universal Patterns in Five Novels Characterizing the American Indian” (M.A.) Brigham Young University, 1973. 190 Research Ifkovic, Edward Joseph “God’s Country and the Woman: The Development of an American Identity in the Popular Novel, 1893-1913.” (Ph.D.) University of Massachusetts, 1972. Jain, Suevita Gael “John Steinbeck’s Concept of Man” (Ph.D.) University of Nebraska, 1972. Jenson, Sidney LaMarr “The Middle Ground: A Study of Wallace Stegner’s Use of History in Fiction” (Ph.D.) University of Utah, 1972-73. Johnson, Kenneth “The Lost Eden: The New World in American Nature Writing” (Ph.D.) University of New Mexico, 1973. Junzels, William J. “The Use of Motive:American Mythologies in the Poetry of Gary Snyder” (Ph.D.) State University of New York at Buffalo, 1973. Justin, Jeffrey Arthur “Unknown Land Poetry: Walt Whitman, Robert Bly, and Gary Snyder” (Ph.D.) University of Michigan, 1973. Karnath, David Leigh “The Lying Contest (The Meaning of Form in Mark Twain’s Fictions)” (Ph.D.) University of Minnesota, 1972. Kogelmass, Harold “The Search for Identity: The Development of the Protean Model of Self in Contemporary American Fiction...

Pasteboard Masks: Fact as Spiritual Symbol in the Novels of Hawthorne and Melville

Pasteboard Masks: Fact as Spiritual Symbol in the Novels of Hawthorne and Melville