THE POWER OF SYMBOLS
‘Signs and symbols rule the world, Not Words nor Laws.’ Confucius I found this quote fascinating from the moment I stumbled upon it. That symbols and signs can evoke such powerful reactions illustrates the depth of their importance. That they rule the world is quite profound but I think there is an element of truth in this. I think of the swastika or the sickle and hammer – symbols that represent to most totalitarian control and terrible evil. Yet for the Hindus, the swastika is a good luck charm – the second most sacred symbol in Hinduism. The Cross is the ultimate symbol of death, suffering and sacrifice. Yet for Christians, it is also a symbol of hope and new beginnings. No words are needed to convey this. This most simple of symbols – two pieces of wood – convey a message that ended up changing the world. When I see a rainbow, I am reminded of the story of Noah. I think that there is always hope despite the storms. I find the fig a most erotic of fruits and can understand why they have become a symbol of sexual desire! Symbols can mean many things to many people however. A forest in the western tradition has been associated with something dark and sinister, an abode of strange creatures. I think of the Forbidden Forest in Harry Potter. Yet for others, the forest is a symbol of the unity that is to be achieved with their deity. The dolphin was linked to the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, and was seen as the messenger of love. Yet for the early Christians, the Dolphin became the symbol of how the church guided the Christians towards Christ. Even the humble ladybug has been imbued with layers upon layers of symbolic meaning; an unlikely love symbol, Asian traditions teach that the ladybug has the potential to lead you to your destined one. Of course, there are those symbols that are universal. Water as a symbol of cleansing and regeneration; the earth as symbolic of the feminine, the butterfly as symbolic of new beginnings and transformations. We always seek symbols to explain what is essentially a mystery. Life is a mystery, the world around us is a mystery yet we are intrinsically connected to this mysterious world. As an avid reader and novelist, I appreciate the power of images to create pictures in our minds, and the importance of symbols to enhance themes and help explain deep mysteries and meanings that mere words cannot always explain. Most would have heard of the Sirens, seductive mermaids that tried to lure the great adventurer Odysseus thousands of years ago. Hear the word Siren today, and you know they have come to symbolise feminine temptation that can ensnare a man. Ithaka, the island home of Odysseus, has come to symbolise the journey of life with all its trials and temptations, and this idea has been beautifully captured by the poet Cavafy in his poem Ithaka. The symbols associated with weddings and christenings are rich and varied. After all, love is central to life. It unites man and woman, thereby providing the foundation of our civilization. The force that is love also leads many to religion where they seek a union with God – the Living Flame of Fire (the divine itself associated with ‘fire’ across all cultures). Religious rites have been with us since time immemorial. Baptism, the most common religious rite in the Western World, uses the cleansing power of water (and in the Orthodox tradition, oil) to symbolise a rebirth – a new life in Christ. In fact, water is the most ancient of religious symbols and it is no coincidence that water is connected to purity, creation and life eternal in many religions. We are surrounded by symbols. We are surrounded by our ancestor’s desire to find meaning and truth and beauty. It is our task to understand this and continue their stories.
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THE WALLS WE BUILD
With no consideration, no pity, no shame, they have built walls around me, thick and high. And now I sit here feeling hopeless. I can’t think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind- because I had so much to do outside. When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed! But I never heard the builders, not a sound. Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world. (C.P. Cavafy, translated by Keeley and Sherrard) What are these walls that the Greek poet Cavafy talks about?! I love this poem. It encapsulates the walls that we live within, walls that we in fact allowed to be built around us, without us realising. We didn’t hear the builders, we heard not a sound – and alas – we are now closed off from the outside world – enclosed within our own hopelessness. Walls: they can be physical, emotional or spiritual. They are the ‘Walls’ we build in our quest for materialistic success, with our obsession with status and how we are seen in the eyes of others. Walls that see us drowning in selfies, designer handbags, vanity, snobbishness – walls that close you off to those who are not like you. The walls we build can also be the societal, cultural and economic expectations of those around us. Get married, have children, live in a suburb, work for a wage slave that brings no fulfillment. Yes, all of these validate us, make us seem more mature, sophisticated and accepted, but do they make us happy? Are all of these institutions, all of these expectations, a reflection of your true self? Is there something else you would have rather done ‘outside’ that could have brought you fulfillment and true happiness? This poem shows that we ourselves are the creators of our walls – the builders of our own prisons. Yet we try to justify these walls through various means: we deny the walls exist, we accept it as normal and what we want, we attempt to chip away at it through partying, alcohol, and keeping up the pretence that we are happy because we are like everybody else. That this corporate job that we have – with its nihilistic monotony – a job that sees you staring blankly at a computer screen at numbers, figures, names, abbreviations, statistics – is the perfect job. It pays a good wage, it means I can buy that brand-new car, go on that overseas trip, and live in that beautiful house which, in itself, becomes another prison – another wall. And then there are those walls we build around us to emotionally shield us from hurt and pain. How do we smash these walls? Indeed, can they be destroyed? Walls are thick, solid structures; they take hard work to put up – can they so easily be torn down? They suffocate us, drive us mad, in many ways spiritually destroy us – and deny us the freedom to be who we really are. Breaking down the walls that existed long before we were born takes a leap of faith. It takes courage and daring. Only a few can break free from the stifling monotony that kills wisdom and beauty; that kills the spirit, that kills truth, that kills creativity. Only a few have the boldness to step into the outside world that symbolises life as it should be. I have my own walls; do I have the courage to break them down completely? AN INTERVIEW
I had the honour of being interviewed by Smashwords, a major eBook retailer and distributor. OK, I am exaggerating - Smashwords allows authors to interview themselves as a way to get readers to learn more about authors. I think it's a great tool so I thought I'd share it with my readers. Please enjoy. Interview with Vasiliki What inspires you to get out of bed each day? That I have been given the gift to have a new day! That this is another opportunity to achieve my goals, to grow and develop as a person, to hopefully make a difference. And sometimes, to just BE. When you're not writing, how do you spend your time? I live a pretty quiet, uneventful life. So how do I spend my time when I'm not writing? With family and friends. I read a lot, I volunteer at an animal shelter (one of the greatest joys in life!) and I also love to knit - it brings out the grandma in me. How do you discover the eBooks you read? it could be either through recommendations or just browsing. Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? To be honest, no. I'm sure I wrote some sort of story in primary school then high school but I have no recollection of these so perhaps they weren't so great. As an adult, I did attempt a novel where I explore the theme of 'racism' that has its origins in World War Two but it was way too complicated and touchy a topic and have left it, for now. What is your writing process? Ummmm, not sure if I have one. With Daughter of Odysseus, the process was simply - I am writing as therapy, as I explain on my website: www.vasilikim.com. I'll have an idea and start to jot down notes, work out the structure and themes and take it from there I guess. Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you? Unfortunately no, but I do have some memory of a book where children discovered a magical world via a cupboard that I am sure I read when I was young. This is of course C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. This story took me into a world full of excitement and adventure away from the mundanity of everyday life and I realised - this is the magic of writing and storytelling. How do you approach cover design? I prefer simplicity but at the same time something that reveals what the novel is about and its theme. My cover for Book One of the Daughter of Odysseus Trilogy was intentionally simple yet I believe striking. I am pleased with it. I think the cover design must be a story in itself. What are your five favorite books, and why? Firstly, the Life of Pi. Just wow, brilliant and the ending was an amazing twist. Secondly, The Mirrored World by Debra Dean. This is a story of a Russian Saint, St. Xenia and it is told in such a beautiful way that I fell in love with the novel and the saint herself. Thirdly, The Odyssey by Homer, of course. I've read it countless times but the imagery, the detail is simply incredible. I can honestly say I still need to read the book another hundred times to fully understand it - if that's possible. Fourthly, George Orwell's 1984. I see this book as somewhat prophetic and the whole concept of Newspeak and Big Brother is eerily too real in our world today. Lastly, I will have to choose 'Christ Re-crucified' by Nikos Kazantzakis. This tells the story of a rural Greek community in Asia Minor still under Turkish control where the main character becomes a Christ-like figure with Kazantzakis using the Gospel story to reveal the hypocrisy and corruption of too many of the Greek people. What do you read for pleasure? Mainly fiction, but I love to read good blog posts and on occasions, poetry. I must read poetry more though. What is the greatest joy of writing for you? The greatest joy is the art of writing itself, which I see as something divine and beautiful. It is the ability to inspire and edify and even change people for the better (and of course, for the worse). I love creating characters with all their idiosyncrasies and I love playing with imagery. Writing is also very therapeutic for me. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing? I grew up in Australia but of Greek descent so this has strongly shaped who I am and hence, my writing. I see myself as stranded between two cultures but not really belonging to either. So I'm kind of in limbo, which is reflected in my character Christine. I also have a strong love of history which I'm sure I developed from my father so historical information features very strongly in my novel. Published 2017-09-21. BY ANONYMOUS
‘I have a feeling that inside you somewhere, there’s somebody nobody knows about.’ (Alfred Hitchcock and Thornton Wilder, Shadow of a Doubt) I came across this quote in a book I recently finished reading: The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous and it resonated with me. In fact, the book itself left a deep impression on me. This quote not only encapsulates the book perfectly; it also reveals the power and danger inherent in the art of writing. The book itself is described as an explicit look at the sexual desires of women and in this case, a woman who is seen as ‘the good wife’ by her husband and by society at large. Yet her diary, to be discovered and read once she disappears (at the end of the book) reveals a woman so radically unlike the image she presents to the world that the question is asked ‘whether it is ever possible to know another person.’ Her writing reveals who she truly is behind her mask: a woman with deep-seated sexual longings that take fruition when she meets a younger man, Gabriel. Her language is brutally honest, pornographic even, yet expose what is hidden within the deep recesses of her soul. Central to the storyline and the character’s development is another book that itself was written anonymously in the 17th century: Womans Worth. The writer of this treatise declares that a wife should take another man if her husband isn’t satisfying her, that a woman in all her badness is still superior to a man in his goodness, that indeed, Adam was more sinful than Eve. The heroine of The Bride Stripped Bare feels a bond with the above writer, the book having been in her family for generations, and she imagines a woman who is seen as both good and chaste writing in secret; this 17th century woman is a rebel, a subversive wanting to challenge traditional gender roles. Her ‘Elizabethan friend’ has been pushing the heroine of The Bride Stripped Bare on in her journey of self-discovery. By choosing to publish The Bride Stripped Bare anonymously, the author stated that she was able to write with honesty and with a sense of liberation. This anonymity, thus, enabled her to write a sexually graphic story of fantasy and fulfillment; a story that could easily be a memoir of her own life and the lives of her female friends. The writer of this book had been ‘outed’: she is no longer anonymous. I was tempted to write my first novel Daughter of Odysseus under a pseudonym or even under anonymity. Why? I think partly it was due to fear; fear of people finding out who I truly am, of people judging me and my work, in turn stifling my creative freedom. Fear of being analysed and scrutinised – fear that the enigma that is ‘me’ will be revealed to people I don’t know, people I may not even like. However, I found the strength to write under my name, but I chose my Greek name – Vasiliki. This too, in a way, is a form of anonymity because this is not how people address me or know me. Writing anonymously has its advantages, of course; as we can see from the above example, it is liberating and also therapeutic. But could it also give us too much freedom in how and what we write? Social media, for example, is a good example of how anonymity and ‘freedom of expression’ are intimately linked. Oh, what joy when we, hiding behind our computer screens – fingers tap, tapping away – respond to a comment we deem ‘offensive’ or ‘wrong’ on Facebook because it doesn’t fit in with our worldview. This response, written in the ‘heat of the moment’ – is all too often scathing and dripping with rage and sarcasm. Who cares who you offend – who you hurt - whose self-esteem you shatter as long as you tell a complete stranger – often on the other side of the world – that what they said was ‘wrong, stupid, moronic, pathetic,’ – that the writer of such comments is an ‘idiot, fuckwit, snowflake, fascist, moron,’ and this is the reason why. I have been guilty of all of the above. I have been a victim of all of the above. And as I slowly move away from the toxic trap of social media and its ‘freedoms’ I have come to realise that writing needs to be treated as a gift that brings joy and meaning to others. As the reader unwraps the layers of the words, the images and rich literary symbolisms, they find within something that will build them up, make them a better person, edify them, make them think deeply, give them truth and beauty, bestow on them wisdom both ancient and modern, make them laugh and yes – make them weep. ‘All writing is revenge…’ says our heroine from The Bride Stripped Bare and I can’t help but agree to some point. But it is more than that, and I hope my writing enriches your life, even in an infinitesimal way. |
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