The circle is the most used geometrical symbol and its shape reminds the shape of the Sun and the Moon.
For ancient philosophers, such as Plato, the circle represents the perfect shape. It is said that the Temple of Apollo in the land of Hyperborean had a circular shape – which reminds the shape of Stonehenge in South England as well as Plato’s description of the island of Atlantis.
Mystical systems represent God as a circle that has a center everywhere and the circumference is nowhere – proof that God’s perfection is unattainable to man.
The Egyptian symbol of eternity was a string closed by a buckle, in other cultures infinity would be depicted as a serpent biting its own tail (Ouroboros).
Now you take the floor: what do you associate with the circle?
OK, Elliot..
here’s some mathematical reasoning to support the circle.
Circles are simple closed curves which divide the plane into two regions, an interior and an exterior.
The circle is the shape with the largest area for a given length of perimeter. (See Isoperimetric inequality.)
A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane which are the same distance from a given point called the centre.
But I like the idea of the circle as a closed curve best.
;o)
Querido Mestre,
Circulo: Sol, Lua, roda da vida, ciclos, Planeta Terra, olhos, amigos, corrente do bem, ciranda, energia…
Que vc tenha uma otima viagem, um produtivo compromisso, e uma maravilhosa semana!!
Meu amor, meu respeito e minha gratidão
Ca
Embrace
hi candie b,
for me circle symbolize emptiness because ….i cant see anything thats inside it… its empty, it only contains space inside it… not unless you fill it with colors or lets say another shape perhaps. hehehe i dont know its just my point of view.
A circle reminds me a lot of different things.
First of all, many celestial objects in the universe have circular shapes. The Earth, the Sun, glbular cluster, etc. One noticeable thing I’ve realized is that we are living in “round Earth”, but hardly recognize the fact that the planet we are living in is round. To our narrow and limited perspective, it seems true that the horizons of the earth are consisted of straight lines, not circular lines. What a short-sighted human beings are!
Secondly, a circle appears on the national flag of my home country, south korea. It means eternity without any starting points or ending points. The infinite universe.
Finally, it reminds me of a book “Der Zauberberg”. In the story, Hans, the protagonist thought about a circle when he realized about the passage of time. A birth and death. The spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Hello Elliot,
No I don’t agree with it.To me it’s the contrary.It means wholeness.It’s the source of everything and we will return to the source.
Hello,Irina Black:when you say “to reach 10″,is it like the 10’s in the Tarot?The card 10 meaning the end of something and then back to the Ace?
I don’t know if someone said it,but the circle inspires the Zodiac too.
the circle in many letters (a,d,p,o,q,c,g),the circles in the Olympic logo, the surface of a glass we hold (most glasses are rather cylindrical), the cd/dvds have a cylindrical shape, the basketball ball, the football ball and pizzas (men would say! :) ), the plates, lemons, oranges, and i can never stop in fact..many many things around us if we keep notice..
Love and Graditude
Annie
My life is coming full circle
at last!
At times it has felt as if I am in some sort of
a viscious circle
where each point on the perimeter route
has been some downward spiral.. ;o)
My wheel of fortune
spinning no good results.
Thankfully,
there is some hope
at the peak of the circle
as my journey comes to completion. [lap two]
;o)
A circle is a contradictory symbol.
I assosciate it with completeness but at the same time also assosciate it as something never ending as in something that confines at the same time facilitates to accomplish… circle of life,circle of friends,bonds,atoms,universe… the entire universe is a series of concentric circles having a common centre…..and we are trapped in any one of these at a point in time…. :-)
http://www.circular-theory.com/thales-pythagoras/
A source of … wisdom.. Some I understand some … not..;]
I have heard that .. everything is a circle. Reading the above circular theories I have just started realizing it.. Everything in the Universe is a circle.. The movement is the circle.. Ouroboros is a snake eating his own tale .. [ Ουρά + βορά = tail+ eating]
The .. Magic circle used in Magic.. and the Knights of the round/ circle table [Sir ... Lancelot, King Arthur and Camelot, dearest Paul from Austria! I liked the incident with the .. romantic 'knight' on your Road to Santiago, as you have described it.;] Thank you.]
The circle of incarnations.. although I prefer to think, that there is an ..end to it. THEOSIS. The return of the Prodigal Son to his Father’s house!
The Circle into the Triangle.
LOVE,
Thelma.
do you agree that the circle also symbolize EMPTINESS..?
To me a circle is:
-something whole in and of itself, and yet able to embrace much within its center; the individual with the capacity to be full with love or hate, our choice.
-something that is capable of perpetual movement, such as a wheel, and yet forever remains the static in its integrity of shape; like life in that it remains in a perpetual movement forward one day after the next, and yet each day has the same amount of hours and minutes in which to live. “The only thing that remains the same is change”
-something that represents no end; true love, the human spirit, the creator.
Melyssa
I read almost all the comments, curious about how many things people came up with. Although I knew that reading the comments might influenc my answer, I read anyway…As I reached the end of the page, I smiled…
I was glad that although I read 70 something comments I still had the same answer all a long, then I discovered how committed I became!! How insistant I am..
A circle always and will always remind me of the EYES.. the door to the soul :)
and sometimes it causes me to tremble
Ouroboros,eternal cycle of life.
Love KL.
Thanks Savita. Very interesting stuff. I will enjoy to read.Have a nice time,Love
Alexandra
I have another vision, a circle made by kids or by adults dancing or playing, keeping hands .Not nice?
I think of the pupils and irises of the eye. The human body is so oddly shaped and irregular, but our eyes are perfectly round…i think that’s interesting.
It also reminds me of blowing bubbles as a kid. They’re also perfectly round (except when you make huge ones that undulate and wiggle :) )
‘Circles are simple closed curves which divide the plane into two regions, an interior and an exterior’
You enter a circle:
sacred space… sanctity is there.
peace also.
peace also presents potential.. perhaps?!
standing in a circle
- opportunity
;o)
Dear Alexandra,
I think that the mandala you were referring to is the Celtic Tree of Life, by Welsh artist, Jen Delyth.
Here is the homepage of the site where I found the image:
http://kelticdesigns.com/
And here is more info on the symbol itself:
http://www.chalicecentre.net/celtictreeoflife.htm
http://www.fantasy-ireland.com/Celtic-tree-of-life.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Celtic-Tree-of-Life&id=2090875
I’ve been reading a lot about this myself lately in several books that I have at home. My current obsession: tree lore and mythology (Celtic, Norse, and other), sacred trees, the “World Tree,” the “Guardians” of trees, trees themselves as guardians of this world or doorways to Otherworlds, sacred groves and forests, the magical properties of certain trees, the origin of Runes and the Ogam, etc.
Hope enjoy reading about it as much as I do!
Love,
Savita
On first thoughts a circle reminds me of the sun but later on I thought: going around in circles and getting nowhere. The same thing over and over. We are stuck.
I have been thinking about cycles lately: the circular notion of time held by some cultures, the circular moon and the cyclical phases of the moon, and the diurnal recurrence of the events of our daily routine. The latter cycle is a maddening one and cured only by the sweet release of death.
I have been thinking of infinity and the possibility that the inverse of infinity is a singularity. In our world, they appear to be at odds with one another, two extremes. They vector out in opposite directions from where we are. But I think they join in some way. Infinity is pulled inside out or inverted in the singularity so that it too is infinite, infinitesimal, infinitely dense. And the circle is unbroken.
Hello Everybody!
If you happen to visit Budapest, do not miss a restaurant called
CAFÉ KÖR
(kör = circle in Hungarian)
Here you can eat really good, traditional Hungarian food. Not one of the cheapest places in the town – but here the price is worth the quality.
Have a nice day!
András.
Thank you Breda and Lily!
LOVE,
Mirela(the woman in elevator)
Eu acho o círculo um símbolo de complemento, de fusão eterna.
Quase todas os símbolos, sinais, …. está inserido dentro da letra um ponto, redondo. É interessante porque de um pingo que também é redondopode haver Luz.
beijos,
Mari
wheel = in Sanskrit means Chakra
Circle of life… it never ends… as simple as that.
DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. It represents the perfect symmetry in the human body and, by extension, the natural universe.
hmm.
gold ole Wiki..
.. wheels, compasses and a halo.
A circle is a simple shape of Euclidean geometry consisting of those points in a plane which are the same distance from a given point called the centre. The common distance of the points of a circle from its center is called its radius. A diameter is a line segment whose endpoints lie on the circle and which passes through the centre of the circle. The length of a diameter is twice the length of the radius.
Circles are simple closed curves which divide the plane into two regions, an interior and an exterior. In everyday use the term “circle” may be used interchangeably to refer to either the boundary of the figure (known as the perimeter) or to the whole figure including its interior, but in strict technical usage “circle” refers to the perimeter while the interior of the circle is called a disk. The circumference of a circle is the perimeter of the circle (especially when referring to its length).
A circle is a special ellipse in which the two foci are coincident. Circles are conic sections attained when a right circular cone is intersected with a plane perpendicular to the axis of the cone.
Early science, particularly geometry and Astrology and astronomy, was connected to the divine for most medieval scholars, and many believed that there was something intrinsically “divine” or “perfect” that could be found in circles.
Some highlights in the history of the circle are:
1700 BC – The Rhind papyrus gives a method to find the area of a circular field. The result corresponds to 256/81 as an approximate value of π.[1]
300 BC – Book 3 of Euclid’s Elements deals with the properties of circles.
1880 – Lindemann proves that π is transcendental, effectively settling the millennia-old problem of squaring the circle.[2]
Properties
The circle is the shape with the largest area for a given length of perimeter. (See Isoperimetric inequality.)
The circle is a highly symmetric shape: every line through the center forms a line of reflection symmetry and it has rotational symmetry around the center for every angle. Its symmetry group is the orthogonal group O(2,R). The group of rotations alone is the circle group T.
All circles are similar.
A circle’s circumference and radius are proportional.
The area enclosed and the square of its radius are proportional.
The constants of proportionality are 2π and π, respectively.
The circle centered at the origin with radius 1 is called the unit circle.
Thought of as a great circle of the unit sphere, it becomes the Riemannian circle.
Through any three points, not all on the same line, there lies a unique circle. In Cartesian coordinates, it is possible to give explicit formulae for the coordinates of the center of the circle and the radius in terms of the coordinates of the three given points. See circumcircle.
concentric circles
repetition
protection
;o)
For me the circle is not exclusive, not even between humanity and God. It is more than a perfection of which we are no part.
We are enfolded in the perfection of God, perfecting us, too. Arms clasped around someone make a circle, but the circle means nothing without the love and compassion binding them together.
Feci un sogno. Su un trono vidi seduto il papa, e subito dopo, sullo stesso trono, era seduto Hitler, che accarezzava i bambini come un’anima innocente, come si può vedere in certi documentari. Qualcuno fece il segno del CERCHIO infiammabile, e mi chiese se volevo rimanere dentro o proseguire. Se decidevo di andare avanti non potevo più tornare indietro. Io cercavo mio “marito” e mio “figlio” (maschio), e decisi di proseguire la ricerca perché ritenevo che la mia vita senza di loro non avrebbe avuto alcun senso.
Come uscii dal CERCHIO le fiamme si alzarono dietro di me. Vidi, allora, in avanti, un pesciolino rosso che nuotava nell’aria. Rimasi meravigliata. Il pesce però cominciò a gonfiarsi e a salire sempre di più fino a scoppiare. Sulla terra cadde un portafoglio pieno di soldi. Mi piegai per prenderlo, tirai fuori la foto di mio “marito” e mio “figlio”, e mi misi a mostrarla alla gente per chiedere se li avevano visti…” [Gina Re; FU ALLORA CHE CAPII]
Wow! it couldn’t be more surprising :) Almost everyone have identified circle with “life”. Its strange enough, I had a realization today itself that life is a CIRCLE, when all you dreams, aspirations fits in nicely within the incidences taking place in your life. And, as I always do, I wanted to share this in this blog… and it suddenly occurred to me that we are having an entire discussion on this issue!!!
Life is really a big CIRCLE!
I have always taken the circle to mean a state of nothingness, empty space.
If I were to translate “circle” into korean, the word can transform to mean zero, and I understand it to mean, in spiritual terms, unmanisfested-the source of pure energy.
-Sunhay
Não sou especialista em astronomia, mas falando como leigo, na minha visão, o universo funciona em formas de círculos. Olhando para o nosso planeta terra, para outros planetas do sistema solar, ou para o próprio sol, podemos perceber que tudo tem a forma circular.
Olhando um pouco mais longe. Já vendo as vias lácteas, podemos observar que os seus movimentos também têm uma trajetória circular.
Olhando ainda mais distante, já quase de um prisma espiritual, da para sentir que o que conseguimos observar nas galáxias, faz parte de um grande ser vivo que pulsa sob a forma circular.
Qual o nome que poderíamos dar a esse enorme/infinito ser vivo que pulsa sob a forma circular???
Hi Thelma,
I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free.
Nikos Kazantzakis.
I like this !
One facet of being a prisoner inside your own brain.
Prisoner of expectations.
Worse, in life, people become prisoners of things that are even less worthy than expectations. Like … things.
Things that … which is really ridiculous, they pay for :-)
They pay with the work, that takes their time, and that can trigger expectations from their work that might never materialize. Like a promotion, or fearing being laid off during a recession.
So if we look at it this way, here is how the VICIOUS CIRCLE, is closed :-)
Another way of describing the not so nice aspect of the circle.
A link that joins another link to team with a group that will unify the planet for the betterment of mankind.
or maybe a tube….
what is the earth souronded by ?
truth or something else…..