Hello again!
Since I’ve been in Tenerife, I have taken on a Global Citizenship Project which partly involves me teaching children about environmental problems, society issues, general knowledge of their local wildlife and history of the planet and inhabitants.
One of the topics I am covering is symbolism around the world. Symbolism is similar throughout many different cultures.
The basis of every design in the universe is said to be the Platonic shapes. They are sacred geometric shapes and are seen all over the world. The design pattern can be broken down into a language of numbers. Galileo once said, “Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe.”
Musicians such as Mozart, artists such as Da Vinci and philosophers such as Pythagoras used the power of sacred geometry in their work. For example, Mozart used the golden spiral (Fibonacci sequence) for his music notes. The Fibonacci sequence is:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610…
In this sequence, the next number is the addition of the previous 2 numbers and when you make out those values it makes a spiral shape:
This symbol is also seen in Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of Mona Lisa:
As well as in the Pyramids of Giza:
Within cultures, many traditional symbols are the same, especially within their symbolic languages.
In Tenerife, the first inhabitants were the Guanche people. These people are thought to have been genetically linked to the North African Berber inhabitants. The Guanche people carved symbols into utensils, terracotta pots, clay dishes and decorative items. These symbols resemble the African Tifinagh alphabet and some even resemble Celtic symbols and symbols within the Great Pyramids of Giza.
I need to do a lot more research on the commonalities between symbolism but so far I think it is very interesting!
Thanks for reading!
Charley x