The following is a discussion of what inspired the logo design. Here I
present the myths or stories about the Greek God of Medicine, Asclepius,
which inspired the logo. I recommend that they be considered in the
trans-rational sense, which means not to consider them as literal truths,
but rather consider them in an “as if” metaphorical sense. When taken in this way new meanings and a new image emerge. I also include other symbolism and some of their interpretations for musing.
Coronas is the Greek word for “crow.” Apollo, the Sun God, fell in love with Coronas, the mortal Crow Maiden. Apollo gave her a white crow to accompany her and be her guide. She became pregnant with Apollo’s son and while she was pregnant, for no explainable reason known to the logical mind, she involved herself with a visiting stranger, named Fiscus, thereby betraying Apollo. The crow flew away to tell Apollo. Out of his anger and pain, Apollo first turned the crow black.
Next Apollo called upon his twin sister, the Moon Goddess and Huntress, Artemis. She shot an arrow into the heart of Coronas. While Coronas was on her funeral pyre, Apollo became remorseful and wanted to rescue her but it was already too late for Coronas. He was able to reach into her womb and pull out his son, Asclepius. The newborn had a badly burned leg. As Apollo held him in his arms and saw his irreparable wound, he declared, the child a healer. He handed his child over to Chiron, a centaur. A centaur is half-beast and half-man, representing a balance of cognition and instinct, of wholeness, and therefore, of healing. The centaur raised Asclepius and taught him the arts of healing, so that he might rightfully become the God of Healing. ( 1 )
One day, while Asclepius was contemplating the care of a young man he had been called upon to heal, he noticed a snake coiled around his staff. He killed the snake. Another snake appeared with a leaf in its mouth and revived the dead snake. Asclepius kept the leaf and healed the young man who was dying. He then became known as a healer who could steal souls from Hades, which made him unpopular with the Greek Gods. Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt as punishment for a mortal attaining this capability. (2)
These are the myths that are incorporated into the logo design. The first snake, which was killed, is silver, representing the feminine, less conscious aspects, in alchemical symbolism. The second snake which revived the dead snake is gold, representing the masculine element, the more conscious aspects. The snakes meet to form a heart and share a leaf in their mouths. The leaf is the healing herb (in this case Salvia divinorum), and its color corresponds to the green of the heart chakra (4 th chakra). The staff of Asclepius is ancient wood, also representing the spine. Chakras would be best represented along the staff as the alchemical substance cinnabar, which symbolizes transformation. In its flowing state, cinnabar is silver; in its stagnant state it is red. Zircons at the top and bottom of the staff, or spine, point to the energy coming in from heaven and earth. (Each chakra has a representative color; together these are the colors of the rainbow.)
The yin/yang-like symbol below the snakes incorporates the union of opposites, black and white, representing the white and black crow feathers. The white crow being transformed to a black crow presaged the birth of Asclepius, the Greek God of Medicine. Bringing the white and black into a dynamic circular whole symbolizes the mind-body dichotomy, and represents the struggle Coronas enacted between the rational and instinctual aspects of being. The healer emerges when these aspects transcend opposition and are accepted as aspects of wholeness.
The Eye of Horus is represented as a six-part figure with each part corresponding to the receptive inputs of sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing and thought. The Eye of Horus also represents a measuring system used in Ancient Egypt to quantify parts of a whole. In the basic duality of phenomenological experience we have two eyes and can often see two equally valid, though conflicting points of view. The Eye of Horus is not part of the traditional yin/yang symbol. It is part of this piece in order to depict measuring and sensory aspects of experiencing duality, and also evoke the protective and healing properties ascribed to this symbol. (See information below.)
The wholeness of the circle embodies the duality of opposites and emerges out of fire and water commingling. This is related to 5-Elements of acupuncture, and represents harmonizing of heart (fire) and kidney (water) energies. Out of the creative dynamics of this harmony emerges the manifestation of ancestral energies. Hence the DNA strands flow from this point to differentiate into the snakes which heralded the emergence of Asclepius as a healer who stole from death. Consider that there is an Asclepius in each of us.
The energy field surrounding this piece is torus in shape, with the staff at the center (torus described by Arthur M. Young, The Reflexive Universe, pg. 265). It is green to resonate with the heart chakra, giving the heart chakra its rightful dominance.
The following is a quote regarding the Eye of Horus from http://www.virtual-egyptian-museum.org/Collection/Content/FAI.VS.00286.html : "Instantly recognizable, the Udjat Eye (also wedjat, uzat) remained one of the most popular amuletic symbols from the Old Kingdom to Roman times. Although Egyptians designed countless variations on the theme over this 2500 year period, the basic design remained constant: the eye of the God Horus, drawn as a human eye with a cosmetic line extending from the outer corner of the eye, an enhanced eyebrow line, and a stylized marking below the eye evoking the cheek of a falcon.
The Udjat eye (the Egyptian word means “sound”, “whole”, “undamaged”) was reputed for its great healing and protective power. But, as noted by Hart (1986:93), it has many meanings, including “The strength of the monarch, the concept of kingship, protection against Seth [chaos], royal purification agent, wine, and offerings at the festival of the waxing moon.” The tales that account for the source of this extraordinary power are varied and colorful.
Egyptian sources document the protracted relentless fight (both in a court of law and in violent physical encounters) between Horus and Seth to settle who should inherit Egypt . Said to have lasted 80 years, this brawl yielded countless anecdotes. In one of them, Seth gouged out Horus’ left eye (you can hardly blame him, as Horus had assaulted his mother for refusing to harpoon him while they were transformed into hippopotamuses). Fortunately, Goddess Hathor intervened and healed the eye with the therapeutic application of gazelle milk (an alternate version makes the god Toth the healer, and another indicates royal saliva as the therapeutic agent of choice). However it really happened, this conveniently restored eye thus became a symbol of miraculous healing. For good measure, a later epilogue describes Horus offering his healed eye to his dead father Osiris, immediately bringing him back to life.
While the unscathed right eye of Horus symbolized the sun, the plucked and then restored left eye symbolized the moon, with the phases of the moon reflecting the damaged, plucked, healing, and healed conditions of the eye over time. Strangely, despite the symbolic importance of this healed left eye, Udjat eyes can be either left or right eyes, and often are a pair."
From www.sangraal.com/library/eyesofhorus.htm :
"The Right Eye of Horus represents concrete factual information controlled by the left brain. It deals with words, letters, and numbers and those things which are describable in terms of sentences or complete thoughts. It approaches the universe in terms of male oriented ideation. The Left Eye of Horus represents abstract aesthetic information controlled by the right brain. It deals with esoteric thoughts and feelings and is responsible for intuition. It approaches the universe in terms of female oriented ideation. We use the Left Eye, female oriented, right side of our brain for feeling and intuition."
- Marcia A. Liberatore, MD
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1)
(as told by David Richo, PhD: From his tape series Befriending the Shadow, Tape 4, Just Timing tapes available at www.davericho.com)
2). (Jeffrey M. Jones, MD, Medical Symbols: One Snake or Two?Michigan Medical On-Line, February 1998; Vol. 96 No.2; and Edelstein and Edelstein, Asclepius, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
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Copyright 2005 / All Rights Reserved / Marcia A. Liberatore, M.D.
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