Saturday, May 4, 2013

Egg

 
This orthodox icon of Mary Magdalene depict her holding a red egg. According to christian legend, during a dinner with the emperor Tiberius Caesar, Mary was speaking about Christ’s Resurrection. Caesar scoffed at her, saying that a man could rise from the dead no more than the egg in her hand could turn red. Immediately, the egg turned red. Also, this is believed to be an explanation for dyeing eggs red at Pascha (Easter).
All over the world the egg represents life and creation, fertility and resurrection. Thus the egg became an important symbol in creation stories.  
The Hindu Upanishads describe the first act of creation as an egg breaking in two. The Rigveda speaks of Prajāpati, Lord of Creation, who fertilizes the waters of creation, which change into a golden egg. Inside sits the golden figure of Brahma, floating in the primeval waters for a thousand years, his golden light shining through seven shells. Land, sea, mountains, planets, gods, and humankind are all inside the egg with him.
The hatching of all things out of an egg was noted in the Finnish Kalevala:
From one half the egg, the lower,
Grows the nether vault of Terra:
From the upper half remaining,
Grows the upper vault of Heaven;
From the white part come the moonbeams,
From the yellow part the sunshine,
From the motley part the starlight,
From the dark part grows the cloudage;

The concept of a world egg that hatched the first creator appears in many early myths. The Harris Papyrus contains the earliest known reference to a world egg emerging from the primeval waters.
In Chinese legend Pangu, the first man is emerged from the cosmic egg.
The Pelasgian of Greece explained that the Goddess of all things, called Eurynome, was impregnated with the Universal Egg and from this egg all the universe sprang.
In Africa there are many cosmic egg myths. The Dogon creation myth begins with a primordial body called Amma’s Egg, a conelike structure that is said to have housed all of the potential seeds or signs of the future universe. According to the Dogon priests, some undefined impulse caused this egg to open, releasing a silent whirlwind that spun and scattered the seeds of matter in all directions and to all corners of the universe. The stars, the sun, and the planets were thrown out like pellets of clay.
A wedding song of the Tibetan Bon tradition tells of the union of two deities at the beginning of time, a union that re-sulted in three eggs.
So, various traditions can treat differently this symbol but they are united by single value - a potentiality and the creative power in us. And this egg may be a great symbol of overcoming for the hatching the Self.


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