SURROUNDED BY SYMBOLOGY

SURROUNDED BY SYMBOLOGY In "Huck Finn," it was the river. In "Tom Sawyer," it was the cave . In "Moby Dick," it was the whale. In "Roots," it was the slaveship. Symbols reify literature, bring it alive; attach its imagery to reality . Symbols do the same in politics, religion, mathematics, art, music, farming, building, navigating, medicine and all else. Symbols reify, vivify, personify, allegorize, symbolize, algorithmize, animate. Symbols lock in, matching mental images to material embodiments. Giving someone the finger or two symbolizes; as does sticking. out the tongue. Shaking the head, finger or buttocks, also sends silent signals, like grabbing the crotch a la Michael Jackson, or yawning. Symbols speak across languages and time: eating, drinking, symbols are commonly understood when in uncovered ancient art & artifacts. The flag, any flag, is a symbol. The gavel is a symbol as is the gun, the noose, burning cross, the hood. "Whiteness"is an American symbol like its coerced, if colored, condign, correlative "blackness." Both racial--also symbols--their tropes have overspread the earth with allied, often mendacious myths, in their titanic, ritual battle for cultural symbolic supremacy on the earth. The lion is a symbol; so too is the elephant ; the fox; the turkey; the wolf; the donkey; the fish. Theoretically, that is, archetypally, mankind itself is probably mere symbols on a divine chess board, "chess," itself being but another symbolic representation of life. The modern alphabet is a series of successive symbols. The pyramids are symbols, the Great Sphinx is a symbol; so too are hieroglyphics. And the cross. Yin and yang are symbols; as are the star and crescent; indeed all of nature is! Even the stars above. They too are symbols like water. Can we be other than symbols, ourselves? Wisps of cosmic ideas? Smile! (Ha! another symbol!)