The egg, seen as containing the seed that will give birth to manifestation, runs in all cultures. Indeed the birth of the world from an egg exists in the Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician, Tibetan, Chinese, Hindus and Japanese traditions.
It is the process of how this egg evolves that changes from place to place. In Ancient Egypt as well as in China, the egg is spit by a mythical animal and represents the manifestation of the verb. In Hinduism, the egg is born from primeval waters and when it cracks it creates the earth and the sky.
Mircea Eliade, who worked on symbols, sees in all these traditions a common streak – that the egg is an image of totality, usually appearing as the first principle after chaos.
Now you take the floor, what do you associate with the egg?
Did i mention Humpty Dumpty already?!
the most famous egg of local fairystories for me… (obviously outside the realms of decorated Russian eggs).
“Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall;
humpty dumpty had a great fall;
All the kings horses and ALl the kings men;
couldn’t put humpty together again.”
So I imagine that having learnt this at nursery school, that it is a warning … … for when you need support, not even the greatest army of men shall be able to aid you.
Yet i will leave the interpretation of the egg to the human self open for other’s.
Dear Savita,
Thanks for your reply. I liked so much to read the story you wrote about the Virgin and Maria Magdalena. I remember I said to myself (and I wrote it down) that my Life is the same whether She was the lover of Christ or not but truth is that another part of me felt Joyful and Hopeful after reading about Her. Like if She were closer to me.
I don´t know if you will read this. If so I would like you to tell me the name of some books … This is my email address: lightinmh@hotmail.com. Thanks again.
Love.
i am hats-off on all you’ve written. all are inspiring and very fruitful. i loved the way you use the contradictory spite of the self versus self. you must really be a very very good writer. hope to see you one day. though i’m too far from where you reside.
P.S. i am do sorry for putting this comment here. i couldn’t find where to post this. so hope this will work.
Tell me about it,the only way I could describe it: eggs are just pure ecstasy.Cant wait to crack one now.
Hola, Don Paulo, es gratísimo para mí compartir este espacio con usted y tantos seguidores suyos. Referente a su pregunta, creo que ya hay bastante avanzado en el tema, primeramente, pienso que el hecho de existir literatura y avance tecnólógico llevamos varios pasos adelantados en cuanto al crecimiento cultural y su aporte a la humanidad. Hay que perseverar en la creatividad material como asi mismo en la más importante que es la espiritual. Personalmente trabajo a diario mi parte espiritual, y si la comparto con mi familia, mis amigos, vecinos, en el trabajo, colegio, etc. creo que ya estoy aportando en algo; y así como lo hago yo lo hacen millones de personas más. Por eso insisto que el mundo ha crecido y seguirá creciendo por que veo que cada vez hay más cultura espiritual, y usted es uno de ellos. En sus libros nos transmite lo importante que es estar bien espiritualmente con esta herramienta que usted nos facilita con sus sabia escritura nos vamos enriqueciendo cada día más. Que Dios le bendiga y le siga iluminando para que muchos lectores sigamos disfrutando y creciendo con sus bellos libros. Gracias por darme este espacio para poder expresarme.
The egg for me, represents hope and endless possibility. Part of the great joy of the egg is anticipation and waiting to see what hatches.
I’m a children’s book author/illustrator and one of my characters is SUPEREGG…complete with a cape, cowboy boots and a big smile. The kids love SUPEREGG – partly because he is completely silly and I think partly because he proves that anything is possible.
Dear Love,
I certainly have no “secret knowledge” that is hidden to anyone else. I just love to read, and the books are there in the bookstore for all to buy. They have been even since before all this uproar caused by “The Da Vinci Code.” All that book and movie did was bring the idea to the surface of popular consciousness. The “heresy” as it is called is long lived and far pre-dates Dan Brown’s revelation of it.
And as to why this idea of Mary Magdalene as Christ’s wife was not “kept from me” as it was from so many in the church: Well, to start with, I don’t let others tell me what to read. I don’t subscribe to censorship. If a book or an idea is “forbidden” to me, it is likely the first thing I am going to explore.
The Church is, after all, a living entity, much like an individual, and as such, it is just as resistant to change. “Heresy” is simply the term the Church uses to label anything that threatens to cause change, particularly in the internal structure of the Church itself (i.e. the idea that women might be just as suited to be teachers as men, therefore equally suited to assume positions in the priesthood). Therefore, when the Church labels something as a “heresy,” I don’t necessarily equate that with falsehood or evil. It may simply be an idea that is going to bring about a change that the Church is not yet ready to accept.
From a personal perspective, I love the idea of Mary Magdalene, not as a prostitute, a “fallen temptress,” but as a Priestess, as Christ’s consort and equal – a renowned Rabbi in her own right. This, I think, is one of the most beautiful and powerful ideas of our age, as this points to a wholly new approach to spirituality, one in which the feminine side of the psyche is nurtured and encouraged to develop alongside and equally with the masculine.
Somewhere on this blog, in the past few days, someone asked why we need to develop the feminine side – what is wrong with the masculine? Nothing is “wrong” with the masculine at all, but if one reads a bit into Jungian psychology, it becomes apparent that the two are essentially inseparable, at least in terms of the development of a healthy psyche, and by extension, a healthy society. They are two sides of the same coin. If only the masculine is developed, and the feminine ignored or inhibited, not allowed to develop equally alongside the masculine, the result is not the fullness of the Divine Revelation. All we have is a xerox copy – like the image of the one side of a coin after it is run though the copier. A flimsy replica of the sacred, not the sacred as it was intended to be experienced in the fullness of the mystery.
And you are so right, Love – nothing changes. My life hasn’t changed because I encountered this idea, or because I subscribe to it. And yet, particularly as a woman, the concept of Mary Magdalene as Christ’s lover, as his most beloved and gifted disciple, and as a teacher to others – this makes me feel enormously empowered. I don’t have to be ashamed in the depths of my soul because I am a woman – the eternal “temptress,” the root of all evil in this world, the inheritor of Eve’s sin. I can be myself, sensual, even sexual – I can be as God created me to be – and yet I can know God and I can speak of God, or if I were so inclined, teach of the paths to the sacred, as well as any man.
It pains me that this is not a realization that the Church is prepared to accept at this time, but it is an idea whose time has come. Thanks to brave soul’s like Paulo Coelho, the idea is being sent forth into the public consciousness of modern society.
Love to all!
Savita
When I think about it an egg for me is a warm, safe place. It’s protection and security. It’s a tranquil and calm place away from the chaos in the outside world. When ready to face the world you can just crack the shell from the inside in order to get out.
a “clue”.
Dear Savita Vega,
Thanks for sharing your comment. You said María Magdalena the wife and lover of Christ. I have only read this in a book a few years ago, so seems to me I am the last one in getting to know about things that everybody already knows.
How did you get to know that She was the wife of Christ and not a prostitute as the church say?
What was the meaning to hide that to us?
Well, truth is in my Life nothing change with this knowlegde. My life is the same whether She was the wife of Christ or not.
The egg is the symbol of birth, eternity; it is something tht prtects life, and, at he same time cuddles it in a place with no corner.
In graphology (I’m a graphologist) the corner means that you braek your gesture, so it’s a sing of separation. The round shape of the egg means the contrary: there are no sparations, but everything is the same.
have a nice day
Patrick -
You must be of Irish origin I guess.
The sensitive ones –
It is all about feelings isn’t it? It travels across very well.
e=mc2
In reply to dr phil — and I swear I never thought I’d be so captivated and entertained by a blog forum, but we are all rippling from a master’s thought process … I am flattered and only sort of surprised by the simularity with Einstein. I honestly just wrote those words because they were shorter than I’ve been able to get posted previously. The prune response is not something I would have said, which may explain why Albert changed the world as we know it, and I’m simply having fun on a great web site.
Peace and Love
i like eggs. one thing about the egg… once it receives a sperm, it never lets go! LOL. just playing. take care all.
To me, the egg means the female seed of life. We stem from the egg, and in turn, the egg stems from us. Eggs are like people wearing masks; from the outside they are all the same, but from the inside, some are awaiting a life to hatch, some are fresh, and some are rotten.
Sarà l’ ora ed il rum ma l’ uovo mi à venire in mente lo scherzo che si fa ai bambini sulla testa con la mano… :))) cosa è oltre l’ uovo duro e fragile allo stesso tempo?
é una cosa che riguarda tutti..
Possibly life ….one day, and eternity as well…possibly.
Patrick you sound like Einstein.
What do we get for breakfast? His answer was prunes that’s the difference.
aside from breakfast,noodles an exam results the one egg-experience that stands out is that it was a medium that one quack doctor in our town used to know the illness and diagnose his patients with. at my mother’s wits end she took me there to know why i couldn’t sleep (i’ve been taking sleeping pills… but it wasn’t quiet effective). i can only remember 3 objects she used on me… glass, egg and a leaf. she crack the egg put it in the glass and examined it for sometime (like a doctor does with the x-rays) then said something to me and my mother which i can’t remember now and i also can’t recall what the leaf was for. but we never came back to her and personally i don’t think it was her treatment that cured me either. that’s that…
The egg, cake, kitchen, home, love….
Egg for me is something very fragile in a way that if you are not very careful in handling it, it will crack. And once it cracks, you are now obliged to make an omelet and eat it, (lol).
Egg is the beginning of everything! Which comes first, the egg or the hen?
An egg is not just an egg. The egg is pure. It is completely untouched, it has yet to be tainted by what is waiting on the other side. I agree, when I think of the egg, the first thing that comes to mind is the birth of existence. I don’t mean an egg that you eat, but even that is the birth of life: since it is vital to our nourishment, without it how can life exist?
Egg in my opinion,represents formation of a new life…a pure soul…just when it cracks 2 give birth to a new being…it is touched by the pure and impure air of the world…since the egg’s formation its shell protected the very clean essense inside…which whenever displayed to the world would deifinitely make it impure
Les couilles, en français.
Nuts ;-)
Hi,
Also in the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a diving duck on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:
One egg’s lower half transformed
And became the earth below,
And its upper half transmuted
And became the sky above;
From the yolk the sun was made,
Light of day to shine upon us;
From the white the moon was formed,
Light of night to gleam above us;
All the colored brighter bits
Rose to be the stars of heaven
And the darker crumbs changed into
Clouds and cloudlets in the sky.
It it fascinating, how similar the origin tales are all over the world!
Chance and change?
If you gaze at an egg and focus on its shape, color and smoooth outer texture, you are likely to find a serenity that you would never imagine an inanimate object could ever evoke. Try it, its fun.
And if it doesn’t work — breakfast.
Peace and Love
I have always been fascinated just aesthetically by the egg. It is so perfectly beautiful. It comes in so many different sizes and colours – a real work of art.
I find the Japanese are very adept at showcasing simple shapes with simple colours and their work just exudes beauty.
God chose such a delicate casing to encompass and protect the life within, in that way it reminds me of vulnerability, innocence, trust.
Kathleen xx
While I very much appreciate the larger symbolism…any child of the 80s in the US knows: the egg is your brain & the egg in the frying pan is your brain on drugs…any questions?
Sometimes eggs freak me out. When you think about what you are eating….an unfertilized egg. The same thing that my body produces and passes through me each month. The beginning of a life. I tell you, don’t look at them too close.
On the other hand I like mine over medium with dark german toast…
I forgot to wrote …I use a golden egg in my meditation :-)
Thank you Savita for your story about Mary Magdalene, she has turn up in my life a lot of times lately in different ways!!!
Love again
The egg for me is a shelter where I can rest in between the battles, before we transform into a master eventually ;-)
I use the egg in my meditation recieving healing from my guides for an example. If you are interested I can explain it a little bit more so you too can use that method for meditating.
And a little funny story to think about :
What came first the egg or the chicken *LOL*??
Love and light Jessica
A humble reminder of the beauty of the natural world – something so simple and yet so complex can be the beginning of a life… it’s quite remarkable.
Eggs also make a tasty meal. Ironic? I think not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5A3Oo_zj5c
Salvator Dali- The egg!!
Egg is the symbol of primordial chaos, the great Deep, the Virgin Mother and also for the cosmos or World Egg. As chaos or space, it is the virgin egg, unproduced this is fructified by the spriritual ray and from it issues the Logos.
It is the emblem of eternity and infinity. ‘The promise and potency’of all the Universe. It is used as a symbol of generation, birth and rebirth.
In Easter celebrations it is used as the symbol of the renewal of life. Sometimes the word is used for the circle or zero, because it combines the senses of fertility and sphericity in one symbol.
Love,
Thelma
I have never ever thought of the egg as anything but an egg. I have never given much attention to the life growing inside the white shell, and therefore i was surprised and fascinated when I read this description.
What I associate with an egg, is something totally different. I think of my childhood, my family and my best friend. When I and her were five years old, we often arranged sleepowers where we stayed up really late, and had loads of fun. For some funny reason, I never ate eggs at that time, unless it was breakfast eater at hers or my place(depending on where we slept).
Later, I sometimes ate eggs with my family at our mountain cabin before we went out skiing.
For some reason, I never eat eggs anymore, we never arrange sleepowers and our cabin is sold. Funny, huh?
When I hear word EGG, it reminds me a story from my life. Once I visited the ancient cemetary of our city. There one man closed to me and asked if I was a student. Our conversation continued in such way, that I understood that he was not a simple man. He said that he burned all his books, because “I did not find the truth within all these letters”, he said to me. Then he turned to the city and looked at all buildings, and then he said those words which my memory integrates with EGG. “Look at this world and people who live without knowledge and sence of truth. They think that their life is consisted only of this world and live according to their wrong thoughts. They resemble the fetus of bird inside the EGG, which thinks that whole its life/world is consisted only of EGG. But when the bird breakes the eggshell and understands that world is more wider than it had seemed before, it flies to the sky, towards the light of truth.”
So for me, EGG means the position (unawareness) of person who exists in sub-world, without even imagining that he/she is a part of more wider world.
Formless life …growing in the scale that breaks through the vitality given by the heat of the earth, the womb of life.
Birth is love which constitutes the vibration of light in unity with the beating heart that opens the door for the breath of life.
All life comes from the same source…
Love
Hildegarde
X
Omelet. Because an egg is just an egg. All those symbolical, metaphysical connotations of the egg in the different cultures are true, but who really can point what was the world before his creation? Those religious figures are just small particles of essays of explanation. I think sometimes we are trying too much to explain things that can’t be explained just because they are far over our capabilities of comprehension and we forget that the happiest man is The Fool – a man who don’t knows anything anymore, who don’t try to explain, to understand, to ask, who don’t need anything… the nobody man from nowhere who simply Is. The greatest things are the simplest things. So what about a bacon in the omelet?
I grew up on a farm, and often some eggs had to be incubated. What fascinated me was how this sterile, oval, smooth, seemingly lifeless cocoon of an egg (it just looks almost man-made) would one day crack open, and produce an adorable little chicken. I thought it was quite miraculous. Even before they hatch, if you put the eggs close to your ears you hear the beedee beedee beedee of the little chicks. To this day, I think there is something so magical about the process.
In Love and Light
Protein, cholesterol, vitamins and minerals.
Potential
xxxx
I have of recent thought that the egg represents the sun in the sky; the beginning and end of all life on this planet
Sometimes I like to eat boiled eggs, sometimes I enjoy of eating omelet.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg. A friend posited that it was the lizard which suggest to me that the egg itself is only a stage in the evolution of live, of the cosmos, the exhalation of Brahma, a beginning which had a beginning before and which brings other beginnings…
When I think of the egg, I always think of Mary Magdalene:
http://www.oceanru.com/magdalene/Mary_Magdalene_and_Egg.jpg
And when I think of Mary Magdalene, I am not thinking of a prostitute or “sinner”; rather, I think of Mary Magdalene, the lover and wife of Christ, as well as his disciple and a teacher (Rabbi) in her own right.
It is said that, at the time of the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Christ, brought a basket of eggs and set it at the foot of the cross. There, the once white eggs became stained red with Christ’s blood. This is the origin of the tradition of the Easter basket full of dyed eggs.
I do not know what that original basket of eggs represented in the minds of those two women at the time, but I can only imagine that it must have had some connection to the notion of rebirth or reincarnation. After the fact, it came to be a symbol linked to the phenomenon of the resurrection.
There is also a story about how Mary Magdalene, after the crucifixion and resurrection, gained an invitation to a banquet being held by Emperor Tiberius. As she was introduced before the Emperor, she held up an egg in her hand, pointed to it and exclaimed, “Christ is risen!” to which Tiberius replied that Christ’s reputed resurrection was about as likely as that white egg turning red. At which point, the egg that Mary held in her hand turned bright red right before the Emperor’s very eyes.
I think it is interesting that these two Mary’s – both the mother and the lover of Christ, the one who bore him from her womb and the one who’s womb would have been the pathway of his offspring – are both linked with the egg, or more precisely, the basket of eggs laid at the foot of the cross at the time of the crucifixion. Somehow the idea of “Mother” is very strong here: Mary, the mother to Christ himself, and Mary, the mother to any children that he might have produced. Somehow this seems to point to the concept of the Great Mother of all and her essential role, despite her absence and the taboo against mention of her in the Christian tradition. Somehow, the Mother is there, even in her absence. This egg is her symbol.
Personally, when I see depictions of Mary Magdalene holding that egg, the one thing that comes to my mind above all is the idea: All things are possible! In fact, if I were an artist and were intent upon creating my own iconographic depiction of Mary Magdalene, I would paint also a little scrolling ribbon around that egg, and on it, the inscription: “C’est possible!”
Thank you for mentioning a writer dear to me,Mircea Eliade.I like him in a way similar to you.I have read about symbols,and the egg is considered something pure,because is not yet born,without sin.It contains the germ of life,asleep.From it might get out awedding,as well a funeral,that is the most imortant step in life.Is a mini-universe.The yellow is gold and light,and the white part,the primeval whater?hmmmmmmm.I am only trying some ideas.I think has something common with the akon,mean both are little worlds.
As I read your blog, I thought of the egg, or rather, the eggshell, as one’s perceived illusion of reality. However, if the true inside content is revealed too soon (cracked open), all you see is the chaotic mess; the formless potential. Not a pretty site.
So, until the inside of the egg is ready, we can paint it, decorate it, and hunt it on Easter as we like… but the unborn true being is within.
Or something like that. ;)
How fascinating to hear of legends of the egg… I have never placed it in any other context than that of Russian art or home baked cuisine: both of which seem to hold the egg in a state of currency. However, saying that… the egg demonstrates one of life’s most remarkable and mysterious complex theories: the chicken or the egg question… which came first?!!!
An egg is something unhatched… with potential… waiting to spring into life. It IS complete, in that there is self-sufficient life already existing beneath a shell – part of and yet not yet belonging to an ‘outer’ world.
Thus an egg might also represent innocence.
The fight and struggle for life and survival, means that the living creature inside the egg must take its greatest leap into life right at the start, and push through the shell – leaving protection if it is to live on.