symbology | The Direction of Intention

All Feminine [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 7, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

If the sun is symbolic of male energy, Apollo and his chariot, then the moon is all feminine. Artemis. Selene. Isis. Parvati. Yemaya. Durga. Cihuacoatl, Kali. Mary.

The moon provides a symbolic-something that the sun does not: it changes.

While we use both the sun and the moon to mark time, the moon shapeshifts in her cycle-path around the earth. She waxes and wanes. Hers is a more complex symbology. She will have you listen to your intuition. She will ask you to close your eyes and feel. She will point you in the direction of your heart. She will receive your yearnings and your whispered prayers and hold them close until you are ready to live them. She will slip through your fingers. She will have you drop the reins and allow the horse to run.

Not so much the sun. He’ll send you outside to play. He’ll send you to school to develop your reason.

I wonder at the long-ago people who looked to the sky and understood the direct relationship between their survival and the primal forces called sun and moon. The stars. They slowly developed their relationship and participation with these energies, recognizing the movement of the celestial forces that also moved within their bodies. They associated. They identified. They engaged.

They symbolized, assigning identities and attributes that aligned the deep mystery of their existence with the celestial bodies that oriented them to the seasons and cycles of life. They mythologized. They worshiped. They personified, projecting themselves into the dance of it all. Storying.

Yin and yang. Outer focus and introspection. Birth and rebirth. Male and female in balance.

Theirs was an experience of direct connection. Their symbols were not intellectual abstractions like ours. Their symbols were alive, open gates to the mystery. They cast themselves as part-of rather than as removed-and-above-it-all. Their relationship with the crescent moon or the summer sun would not allow them to treat the earth as resource to be exploited. They had more respect for themselves than that.

They did not fear the power of the feminine moon. They did not fight to control the tides.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE MOON

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Touch The Immensity [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 27, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve always felt a kinship with birds of prey, especially hawks and owls. If I fully comprehend the concept of a “blessing” then I feel blessed when one of those great birds cross my path. A sign. A message. An acknowledgement.

A guide.

Last fall we were with a hawk when it died. From my office window I saw it struggling. It was laying in the middle of the street. I grabbed a thick towel so I might pick it up and move it off the road without harming it. Just as I was ready to placed the towel over the bird, like a rocket it shot into the sky landing in the tree above me. We watched it. After several minutes, it suddenly flapped its wings and then fell to the ground. With the towel, we bundled it and put it into a box. We called Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital and the DNR to ask what we should do. By the time we reached someone, it had passed.

It is possible to Google anything so I searched for the meaning of the experience according to the good-god-google: Something new is about to begin. Let go. Move on. Good advice and useful every single sunrise.

Searching for meaning. Making meaning. What could be more human?

I thought about the hawk when we came across an owl feather on the trail. At first we thought it was a hawk feather but the good-god-google instructed otherwise. They are easy to confuse since the feather markings are remarkably similar.

It was important to discern the difference since the meanings according to the good-god-google differ. If an owl feather, then wisdom is the theme. If a hawk feather, then the gift of power and courage to overcome obstacles.

Or, it’s simply a beautiful feather that brings to us the great gift of appreciation, no good-god necessary.

Mostly, the pursuit of meaning from our bird encounters plucks the bass string of human yearning: connectivity to something larger. Something much larger than the good-god-google, a numbers god by definition, sporting 100 zeros. Something much larger than prayers or mantras. The resonating recognition that comes when gazing into the infinity of a midnight sky. The briefest touch of immensity when standing before the rolling endless waves at a beach. The vibrantly alive blue ball of earth as seen from the moon.

Pay attention. This bird carries a message meant for me.

Being – beyond the limitation of words, like the feeling of kinship with a passing hawk. The awe of a midnight hoot from an owl. The driving necessity of making meaning of something as precious and passing as life.

read Kerri’s blogpost about OWL FEATHER