On the Power of Symbols: Notre Dame
The Fire at Notre Dame
Like millions of people, I am viscerally feeling the loss of the Notre Dame fire.
I felt that throb in the solar plexus of a heart hurt, a soul hurt, when I saw the first pictures of the spire engulfed. I stand at a distance from Notre Dame as a place and as a religious structure. And yet, I felt gutted as the fire gutted the cathedral, just as so many others are around the world.
I got into a conversation on social media (not a fight; I was shocked, too) with a friend about it. He was mystified by the response. He got that it was sad, but couldn’t understand why it felt so much more important than other events of the day, that mattered far more in tangible ways.
As I tried to answer him, it got me to thinking about the power of symbols. They capture our imaginations and open us to a sense of our infinite faculties, to borrow from Shakespeare. They can encompass and surpass the limitations of the people who have created them, so they become greater than the the imperfections of their origins.
On the Power of Symbols and Wild Ideas
And this got me working two more ideas:
First, the power and the beauty of the essence of a wild idea as a symbol. This symbol, this deep metaphor, drives us to reaching towards a big idea we have. It’s bigger than us. It’s bigger than our egos and insecurities and all of the myriad irritations and frustrations that going after what we’re dreaming inevitably entails. This drives me when I am not sure I can continue as we are creating Spillian. Making a place where imagination matters really, genuinely matters, as imperfect as my attempt to make it continues to be.
And second, how genuinely soul-wrenching it is when it feels as if that essence has been obliterated. (I think, really, this is the deep existential part of the fear thing we feel when we’re going after big ideas. We might inadvertently kill it by trying to birth a version of it.)
But here’s the thing – Notre Dame, as a symbol, hasn’t ceased to exist. While I am grieving those 12th centuries trees that made up the forest of its roof, I also know that Notre Dame has been rebuilt more than once. As it will be again.
And maybe, with that knowledge, we can learn a little about how we have dreamt it as a metaphor, and how we dream the metaphors that matter to us in our lives. So we are not obliterated when our ideas get burned down, but instead understand them as something that will continue to live on. We can rebuild them, if we choose.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!
Thank you.
I just find myself wishing that humanity would take this degree of concern over the loss of our natural resources and environmental devastation caused by our influence on climate change. I also understand that it’s hard for people to get behind that kind of action because it requires a global effort and the results aren’t as immediate as rebuilding a structure. Just the same, I feel that we need a story or more significant symbols to represent what we are losing due to our “lack of faith” in science.
Oh, I agree! Thanks, Meghan!
Beautiful analysis, Leigh. Though it certainly was heart-wrenching on one level to see such a beautiful structure engulfed in flames – which I had the pleasure of visiting in 2015 – I found myself interpreting the significance of it in just the sort of symbolic terms you described! I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the massive transformational shifts that have occurred in my life, from early indoctrination as a child in Roman Catholicism – with a mediator placed squarely between the self and the source of creation – toward venturing ever deeper into spirituality, learning to commune with that force of nature in a more direct way, with less and less intercession required. For me, the strange silver lining in this image was a suggestion of a certain rite of passage into the next level of personal growth and spiritual evolution … inwardly and therefore outwardly. For new structures to emerge that enable a greater sense of individual empowerment, certain rigid edifices inevitably need to crumble and fall away first. When viewed in this light, this blazing image can actually become a symbol of great hope.
Oh, this is powerful stuff, Nikki. Thank you.
I’m still resonating to Nikki’s comment! Thank you Leigh for creating this forum for an exchange of such deep and personal ideas. It’s so wonderful to be able to see and respect different points of view I cannot say it better than Nikki….especially the aspect of eliminating the need for ‘intercession’. I’d trained as a spiritual director in the 1990’s …..and never liked the term ‘director’ but have come to acknowledge it as participating in a path to a more direct relationship to creation. As a symbol for the need to mourn the evolutionary passing of so many rigid edifices, I too see it as a symbol of hope.
I am so glad you’re here, Gail! thank you!