https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=P-tuhnl2mX4
I have been making videos for almost four years now. It’s hard to believe. I’ve noticed when I watched my earlier videos, I can see that my beard is not as gray as it is. And so these last four years have been pretty intense for many reasons. And I’ve been talking about a symbolic structure in different guises through different examples. And I’ve had in mind the idea of trying to condense the vision, the cosmic vision that I was trying to bring to you in a single image. And it took many years thinking about it, trying to figure out how to do it, finding the courage to do it because it’s a very detailed and complicated image. And so finally, I finalized the image. And so what I want to do is I want to look at it with you guys and talk about its meaning. I won’t be able to be exhausted because there’s a lot in there, but I will be able to hint at the different aspects, show to you what it references in terms of meaning, but also where it comes from, where the different images I use come from in the tradition, either in scripture, in the iconographic tradition, or also in different legends and others. So we’ll look at it, try to get through as much as I can. And hopefully this will be a kind of synthesis of the cosmic vision that I’m trying to portray for you guys. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. So of course, this image is available for those who want it. You can find on my social media a pretty good version that you can download, use on your computer. Some people are using it as their phone background. But if you want to also purchase the image, there’s possibility of purchasing prints and also have it printed on different things. I will put the links to that, of course, in the description. And so here we go looking at the image. So of course, when you look at the basic image, you see a mountain that is also an island, and it’s surrounded by a wall. Of course, this mountain is the mountain of paradise, but at the same time, it’s also Golgotha mountain. It’s also the mountain on which Christ was crucified. We’ll get to that a bit later. The basic idea is that it’s the mountain of paradise and it’s surrounded by a wall. Paradise means an enclosed garden. So Senneth from the Syrian talks about how when Adam and Eve were chased from the garden, God put a limit, a wall around the garden. When you look at it, you have to understand it also not only as the wall of the garden, but also the wall of the church, the wall of the temple, and ultimately as an image of the new Jerusalem itself, because this image tries to encapsulate everything. And so you can understand this image as an image of the Garden of Eden, but you can also understand it as an image of the new Jerusalem, which has walls around it and doors, and in which is the Tree of Life and the Water of Life as well. So if we look at it as the garden, we can understand that’s why we see in the center, we see Adam and Eve in that central space with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And so the way that I tried to portray it in general is this movement of unity at the top into a kind of multiplicity at the bottom. And so we have the Tree of Life, which is also the cross at the top, being split into two with the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And that split becomes bigger as we see the fig tree, which is used to cover Adam and Eve. And then at the outside of the walls of the garden, we also have the thorns, which are the ultimate separation. You can imagine that thorns have all these spiky things on the outside to protect people from danger, to protect the garden from the outside. So we tend to think of, in scripture it says that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was in the middle of the garden, and Sanephan the Syrian has a really good way of interpreting it. It’s also good to understand it as the middle in the sense of the center, but he understands it’s in the middle in the sense of the garden as a mountain, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle, between the bottom of the mountain and the top. That is giving access both to that which is above, but also, let’s say, opening up the space to that which is below. And so that’s why if you look at the way that I drew it, I separated the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil into kind of two branches which separate, one which is alive and one which is dead. This has its precedent in medieval images. For example, there is an image called the Tree of Life and Death in which we see the, once again, the image of a tree with Eve and and the Mother of God kind of facing each other as one representing the fall, one representing salvation. We see the cross on one side and we see also death on the other. And so I tried to use this, it’s a more western type, but I tried to kind of integrate it into this image. I’ve also seen some images of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which has two vines interwoven together to kind of represent this relationship between the duality of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. On the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I also put the white bird and the black bird, of course, the white bird on the right side of Christ and the black bird on the left side. The white bird is returning, is coming back up and the black bird is moving away. If you look at the entire image, you’ll see there’s always a relation of opposites all the way through where you have on one side something and the other on the other side it’s opposite. In this case, it refers, of course, to this idea of ascending and descending. The entire image is built that way. If you look, there’s always something going up and something going down. You know, you look at the angel, for example, holding the cup going up and then the angel pressing down the Leviathan. You’ll see that all through the image, this kind of going up and going down. The bird, the white bird, of course, also refers to the bird in the story of Noah. In the story of Noah, Noah sent out two birds. The white bird went out and ultimately came back with life, brought back a branch to the ark. The black bird went away and never came back. There are some images in iconography which seem to come from some extra biblical tradition which shows the black bird feeding on a dead carcass in the water. You have this bird of life and this bird of death. This bird which comes back, which returns, which comes back up, brings life up towards the center. Then you also have the bird which goes away. You can understand it somehow as the scapegoat, you know, the goat that is, you put the sins on and the goat goes away. This idea of coming in and moving out. Of course, the sheep and the goats, which are also there in the image. If you look at the bottom, you see that structure of the sheep drinking the water at the bottom of the mountain and the goats as well. I’m kind of moving around all around this image, but hopefully you guys will be able to follow. As we’re already talking about the sheep and the goats, you can see the sheep and the goats at the bottom drinking the water of the mountain. St. Ephraim has a very beautiful image about the waters of paradise. He talks about how as the waters come down the mountain and get further and further out, they become mixed and they become less, they still water the world, but they become less pure, you could say. The influence of the garden, the influence of the center is mitigated as it gets further and further away. That makes sense in terms of any form of identity, any form of thing. Even a wheel physically, as you get further, the spoke get longer and longer, the influence of the central spoke, the central axis will be diminished and there’ll be less power kind of influencing the periphery of the wheel. I had the waters coming out of the wall of the garden through gargoyles. The gargoyles obviously represent this liminal aspect, the apotropaic imagery of the gargoyles on the side of the churches, but also the griffins who protect, this idea of the protector. There’s a relationship between the gargoyle, the griffin, and of course the cherub as well. They don’t play exactly the same role. The cherub has a more spiritual aspect as a guardian, but there’s a relationship in terms of this creature, this kind of mitigated, mixed creature on the outside which protects the inside, but also is bringing the water away from the center. So it represents the mitigation of the waters, but also the, but it’s not bad, right? The waters are also still good. They’re just, let’s say, further away from the center. So you see both the sheep, which are on the right side, and the goats on the left side, both drinking from the water, which is outside. If you look at the basic idea, the garden itself has flowers on it, and it’s more kind of geometric, it’s more regular, the shape of it, and as you move away, as you get, as you’re outside of the garden, then you see that the earth is cracked, and I’m using the trope of the desert, which we find in iconography, where we show this kind of deserted land, which is cracked and dry, and so I use that image there as well to kind of emphasize the difference between the garden and the outside, and also to show this notion that the outside is a place of a schesis, a place of lack. So as we’re on the outside of the garden, maybe we can talk about the things that are there, and then we can slowly move back in as I’m kind of going all around this image. Now, of course, when we look at the image, we can see Adam and Eve in three different places in the, well, you see them really, Adam and Eve directly, but let’s say stand-ins for Adam and Eve are there all across the two sides, but you see Adam and Eve, of course, you see Eve giving the fruit to Adam, and you see the beginning of the fall, then we see Adam and Eve running down the mountain and using the fig tree to cover themselves. I really wanted to put the fig tree as a separate tree because Sanephram the Syrian really mentions that, and I always thought it was such a beautiful image, this idea of the relationship between the fig tree and the curse. We see in the Gospel that Christ curses the fig tree because, and Sanephram talks about how it’s because it’s related to the fact that the fig tree was used to cover Adam and Eve, and so as Christ is moving towards his crucifixion, he’s kind of moving up, and he is dealing with the fig tree and, you know, removing the covering of the fig tree and then going up. So we see Adam and Eve coming down, and in iconography, we often have a more condensed image where we see Adam and Eve at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, holding the fig trees in order to hide themselves, whereas in this image I wanted to separate the different aspects and show the different levels, and so the fig, you see Adam and Eve running down the hill with the fig tree, and then on the outside of the garden, now you see Adam and Eve wearing the garments of skin. They have taken on fully the animal aspect. If you see that they’re at the same level as the sheep and the goats, there’s also this fleshiness which I’m trying to bring about where you see the outside as this fleshiness in terms of seeing this image as an image of a person, which is also is also an image of a person, and so then we see Adam and Eve running away wearing the garments of skin, and under the cherubim, under the cherub, which has its four faces and is holding the flaming sword, then we see an image of death. The skull of Adam, which is now underground, so what it’s doing is usually in images of the crucifixion, we see at the bottom of the cross, we’ll find an image of a skull, which is this idea of the death of Adam, the death of Adam, which is at the bottom, and usually what you’ll see is the blood of Christ coming down the cross and covering the skull, and so what I wanted to do is stretch out the entire image and make this whole image like an image of the crucifixion, but at the same time a cosmic image, and so we see in the place where Adam and Eve are chased from the garden, you see this image of his skull as well, the skull of Adam, the image of the death of man. So I put three doors on the the wall of the garden, it’s mostly to emphasize its relationship to a church or to kind of like the older, older churches and the churches that we find in the west as well. The older churches in Rome have three doors, of course it’s not just a traditional church or an ancient church that has three doors, but also the iconostasis in an orthodox church also has three doors, and so you can understand the entrance into the garden also as the entrance into the church, but also the entrance into the holy of holies, and those three aspects go up all the way to the top because each part of the mountain has a central aspect which would be the trunk of the tree, either the fig tree or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the tree of life, and then on each side you see the two sides of the mother of God and Saint John or of Adam and Eve. Ultimately I wish I would thought I might wanted to put like to have doors all around like you see in the description of the New Jerusalem, but I ended up just just doing three which reminds us of the of a church. Around the central door of course are two pillars which are more emphasized as pillars and those of course are the the pillars of the temple or the the pillars that we find at the door of the temple in the description of the temple in the Bible. It’s the Yakin and Boaz which is this image of I’ve talked about this in some talks these two pillars that you find in scripture really are this left hand and right hand you have this notion of the the just or this idea of the foundation and then Boaz who is the one who married the foreigner and so this idea of moving out right just like the black bird is moving out towards the outside the goat is moving out towards the outside you have the pillar that is also let’s say the inner pillar and the outer pillar in the in the image. So of course all of this is moving out and outside of the main island you see of course the waters of chaos the primal waters which are described in scripture are there and I tried to emphasize this kind of chaotic turning that we find in the in chaos this kind of pointless turning you could say you know and at the edge of the image of course the way you see the Leviathan the serpent which I wanted to do it in a way that you can imagine it kind of coming under the whole thing right as if it’s he’s he’s almost like a u-shape which is under the the whole structure and so it’s kind of laying down at the bottom of the ocean and it really is this limit of chaos which is there and which tends to want to come up and ultimately we see the the relationship between heaven and earth that let’s say there’s different relationships of heaven and earth one of them is a relationship of holding earth down and that is where we see that in the angel which is spearing the Leviathan and refers to all the traditions we find in in scripture which talks about how the Leviathan will be will be cast down the Leviathan will be destroyed in the end and ultimately moves towards the image of Saint Michael killing the dragon Saint Michael killing the Leviathan so this is obviously a reference to that so as we move of course you can see the rivers of paradise which come I tried to hint at the fact that there are four if you look at the bottom of the cross you can see that there are two more coming towards the outside I wasn’t sure how to do it visually sometimes you see the four rivers lined up like this in order to show that there’s four but I just thought it would be better to to have the two and then suggest the two other ones that are moving towards the back so as we move up one of the things I want to point to is of course I tried to create echoes between the top and the bottom and so there’s a sense in which there’s a mirror in the middle and that which is above is reflected in that which is below and so for example a small example is I wanted to show the flowers on the mountain and so you have all these flowers this kind of multiplicity of glory on the earth and then if you look above then you also have the stars in the heavens above which are drawn something like flowers and those stars resemble the stars that you usually find on the image of the mother of god you have stars on her forehead and on her shoulders so I wanted to have this kind of reflection of this glory above and this glory below the stars above and the flowers below and so you’ll see several examples of that as well of course the ultimate example which I can already mention right now is that I put around the bottom of the wall I put the thorns which also act as a kind of knotted ornament and so if you think of like a greek key or if you think of something like a you know a celtic knot I wanted to kind of suggest this idea of like a celtic knot but which has thorns at the bottom and so it ends up being like a band or a border around the whole garden if you read a description of the altar in scripture and I think even the ark of the covenant not sure but I know for sure if you read the description of the altar in scripture there is a band an like an ornamental band which goes around the altar and so that is also what I wanted to suggest this ornamental band which is around the altar which is around everything really this kind of ornament on the edge of the world and but what I also wanted to bring about and also its relationship to death and I wanted to show how that is flipped above and you can see above christ kind of like the highest his highest glory is the crown of thorns and I’ve talked about this in several videos the amazing thing about the crown of thorns is that it joins together the lowest and the very highest it joins together death with glory in a way that I’ve never seen as powerfully done as in the story of christ where you really do have this image of the very result of the fall being transformed into glory and you can see that on the cross there is a crown above him in the the headboard usually there we will write Jesus Christ king of the jews or sometimes in orthodox circles they now tend to write the king of glory and so in order to emphasize the imagistic version and I wanted to also show how you have this kind of king aspect which is very high but you also have a higher aspect which is the manner in which God joins his kingship with his descent as a servant the way in which christ joins the very highest with the very lowest and that appears I think more most powerfully in the image of the crown of thorns so I already mentioned a little bit about the angel which is pressing down the leviathan but if you look at it you see there’s another angel on the other side and that angel is carrying a cup this refers of course to many iconographic images where we see an angel gathering the blood of christ into a cup usually you see the angel next to the cross with the with the blood going into the cross now the reason why I put them opposite to each other is of course this relationship that I talk about of gathering in but also pushing away and so you can see that here where the the chalice is there to gather in and the lance is there to push away there’s also an idea of a kind of fluidity on one side and then and also a fixing on the other right spearing something is also fixing it to the wall right making it definite you could say and so there’s a relationship this is also one of the great thing about images is that you’re able to show the opposites in a more balanced way because there’s always aspects of opposites which are let’s say reversed from each other so when I talk let’s say about the left hand and the right hand there’s an aspect of the left hand which is a dissolving aspect and there’s an aspect of the right hand which is a fixing aspect and the same thing with the right hand there’s an aspect of the right hand which is a dissolving aspect and an aspect of the right hand which is a fixing aspect just depends at what level sometimes you can say right hand right foot or left hand left foot you there are different ways to talk about it but you can see in an image you can really š you can really show the different aspects, you know, at the same time. And so this angel is coming to gather the blood of Christ. I showed him kind of in the process of going to gather the blood of Christ. Of course, as in most crucifixion images, there is an image of the sun and the moon. And here, of course, I also wanted to, the sun on the right hand of Christ and the moon on the left hand of Christ, the greater and the lesser of the lights, the source and the mirror, you could say, the sun, of course, as the source of light and the moon as the mirror of light. And I wanted to emphasize it in the way that I drew it by having the sun as this light on the inside and darkness on the outside and the moon as having light on the outside and darkness on the inside. This kind of complementary relationship which we see in the birds and we see in different aspects of the image. Now, of course, standing next to the cross is the mother of God and St. John the apostle. So now it really becomes an image of a crucifixion. And there really is an aporia. As you reach the top of the mountain, there really is this aporia where I tried to join the tree of life with the tree of death. The tree of life in the sense of the cross is really a powerful thing. It’s really, in a way, the opposite of the tree of good and evil. If you understand the tree of good and evil as the tree of life and death separated, as the separation of life and death, you could say, the tree of life in the sense of how the cross becomes the tree of life is a place where those two are joined together in a way which is paradoxical, but which is also transcendent. The tree of the cross, which is the place of death, also becomes the source of life. Of course, with the blood and water coming out of Christ, you can see the reference and you can see the relationship between that blood and water coming out and seeing the four rivers coming down the mountain and watering the world. It’s as if those rivers are coming from the side of Christ Himself. Next to Christ, of course, is the usual image of the lance and the sponge. Once again, emphasizing the two opposites, the one piercing and the water comes out, the one coming up to Him and trying to gather the water into Him to feed and to remove, to give in and to take from. You can see that in the image of the lance and the sponge. Of course, around Christ, I put a kind of sun, which is also, let’s say, a sun which joins together the more cosmic sun and the moon, which is also a sun which has the two opposites in it. You can see this image all around. It’s a very powerful image. Every time you see that, when you see a sun represented with straight and crooked glory, where there is a point, but there’s also a curvy point, it really is this representation of both the straight and the curved, the direct and the indirect, these two opposite join together into one glory. Of course, in the center of the sun is the darkness, which is now the divine darkness, and echoes the death which you see below. At the bottom of the mountain, you see there’s a dark space and then there’s the skull of Adam. Then at the top, there’s a dark space. Then in the center is the head of Christ. You see that there’s this this relationship, but this transcendence, and joining both, like I said, life and death and glory and death together in one place, which is the place of the cross. Of course, next to the cross, you see the angels. Often, we find the angels in a position of mourning, but here, because I’m also joining the image of the cross with the image of this kind of cosmic center, with the image of the temple, because this wall around and this image, this structure, this tiered structure, is also the image of the church and the image of the temple. You can imagine the wall of the temple and then the different sections of the temple as different veils or different, you know, the outer court moving up to the fig tree, and then the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as the veil of the holy place, and then reaching up to the top and the cross being the entrance into the holy of holies, the tree of life being the last entrance. So there’s a three tiered structure, the same three tiers that you find in a church, in the temple, in the tabernacle, you know, the basic cosmic three tiered structure, which you actually find in almost every culture, but that is what is also represented on the inside. So usually, we show the angels mourning around the cross, but what I wanted to do was to show the angels fanning, you know, like so that they also become like the cherubs on the top of the altar, this idea of, you know, this kind of gl… this fanning in the sense of this kind of manifesting the spiritual aspect. You can imagine the fanning from the wings, this idea of fanning the central space, but we also often show them with liturgical fans to also remind you that this is a liturgical image, that this is an image of the cosmos, an image of yourself, an image of everything, which I kind of joke about, but it’s also a liturgical image. That is, the place at the top of the mountain is also the altar, which would have the fans as we come to the liturgy, if there are liturgical fans, the fans will be held above the holy communion. And so, we’re coming to the end, but the last thing maybe I want to talk about is, of course, the circles. And so, this was tricky because I really wanted to kind of show the cosmic aspect of it, and so I wanted to have these circles in a way to show the heavens. You often see in the… in iconography, any kind of traditional imagery, this notion of the heavens described as these concentric circles, but I also wanted it to do it in a way that would hint at the same time at the days of creation. And so, if you look at the number of the rings, you can see that there are, coming from the angel on the outside, there are one, two, three, four, five, six rings, right? And so, those six rings would be the six days of creation, and then you have the seventh day, which is represented as this kind of sun on the inside. But the best way to understand it is mostly to understand the sun on the inside as the first day moving towards the outside. But there’s a strange joining of the first day and the last day in the mystery of the cross, you know, in the death and resurrection of the cross. And so, I wanted to leave that kind of a dual interpretation so that you can understand the central sun as the first day, but then also the central sun as the Sabbath as well. And so, you see this, that’s why you have these six rings and then the seventh, which would be the central one. But then I also wanted to separate the central one into two so that you have also the eighth day, which is the day of eternity. And so, the central sun is separated into basically two rings again, and therefore you also have the darkness in the middle, which is the the glory, the invisible aspect of God or the divine darkness, and is related to this notion of the eighth day or the day of eternity. But there’s also a way to see these as the seven heavens, you know, the seven heavenly spheres, the planetary spheres as well. That’s why there ends up being seven. I also wanted to leave a last possibility, which is also to represent the circles not as six, not as seven, not as eight, but even as nine. If you take the halo of Christ around his head as the last inner circle, then we also have the nine spheres of heaven, which are which are represented in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is something that I care much about, and I thought it would be good to also have a reference to that as well. So it’s also a way to understand, I usually don’t go into numerical symbolism, but it’s especially, I don’t try to talk about it because it’s difficult to talk about, but it can also show you how there are ways to represent things in a manner that has multiple interpretations, but all those interpretations are coherent within a basic symbolic structure. So by differentiating the basic six circles from the inner one and then in the inner one, also separating the different elements so that they could be interpreted as a whole, but also interpreted separately is a way to kind of hint at those different numerical symbols. So I think that I’m pretty much at the end of my interpretation. Hopefully this will be helpful to give you some hints. There are other aspects that I didn’t talk about. I didn’t talk about the snake. I didn’t talk about the relationship of Christ to the shape of the snake. There are many things that I haven’t talked about just because I don’t think you want to listen to a two-hour video describing an image, but it can give you a sense of how powerful the structure of the Christian story is, how powerful the scriptural synthesis can be, and why I’m so excited about these iconographic images and the possibility of a sacred language of art. So as I said, if you’re interested in this image, there are ways to get it. Just look at the description. You will find links to those different places. And yeah, so thanks for your attention on this very complicated subject, but in a way it does point to the basic structure of all my videos. So if you listen to one of my videos, you can have this image in front of you and you can think about which aspect of this drawing that I’m actually talking about. So everybody, thanks for your time and I will talk to you very soon. Hope you enjoyed this discussion on the symbolism of everything, trying to get everything into one image. As you know, everything I’m doing is thanks to your support. And so if you are interested in supporting what I’m doing, go check out thesymbolicworld.com support. Supporters have access to a monthly free monthly video for supporters only. And this month’s video will be on the story of Alexander the Great who built that wall to stop the barbarians from coming in. So there’s bound to be some interesting aspects to look at and to think about. So as you know, it always helps if you enjoy what I’m doing to share this, to subscribe, to like, to do all the things that YouTubers ask you to do. And so once again, I thank you for your support in these very, very strange times and I will talk to you very soon.