Signs of Life-The Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them

by Angeles Arrien

1992

Description

"The soul never thinks without an image," claimed Aristotle. Indeed, as Angeles Arrien displays in this reissued edition of Signs of Life, shapes have significant psychological and mythological meanings embedded in our minds. Understanding the messages they convey and our attraction to them opens up a door to the secret workings of our inner selves and to a fuller appreciation of the art itself.As in her widely popular The Tarot Handbook, Arrien applies her background as a cultural anthropologist to the import human beings attribute to shapes. Examining her results, she has developed an effective tool to determine the connection between a person's preferences for certain shapes and the same person's inner, subjective states. In the course of using Arrien's book, individuals, parents, teachers, and therapists will experience the universal processes of growth embodied in images and myths. Life, we discover, is art, and through Arrien's fascinating journey in Signs of Life, we gain a new perception of the omnipresent patterns and symbols that surround us. Illustrated throughout with drawings and photographs… (more)

Library's review

'Angeles Arrien has dawn upon the visual power and beauty of architeypal symbols of peoples worldwide. Her invitation to readers to open up to broader, cross-cultural meanings is conveyed with her characteristic insightfulness and warmhearted vitality.'-Michael Flanagin, Ph.D., Curator, Archive for
Show More
Research in Archetypal Symbolism, G.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco

'A fascinating exploration of symbols that reveal universal patterns of perception.'-Frances Vaughan, Ph. D., Psychotherapist and author of The Inward Arc: Healing and Wholeness in Psychotherapy and Spirituality

Angeles Arrien leads us to discover the elegant simplicity at the core of all human creations. Here we are taken on a journey to deeply shared origins-the common seeds-of our richly diverse and complex cultures.'-Hugh Redmond, Director, Transformational Arts Institute, Redlands, California

'Signs of Life reminds us that life itself is art: and that we all speak the same language and draw from the same deep place...'-Susan Seddon Boulet, Fine Artist.

Contents

Part I The singificance of the five shapes
Part II The preferential shapes test
Interpreting the test results
Part One-Meanings of the positions
Interpreting the test results
Part Two-Meanings of the five shape
The circle
The equidistant cross
The spiral
The triangle
The square
Part III Personal integraton and professional applications
Personal integration
Mandalas
Professional applications
Prt IV The making of this book
Part V Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustration credits
Show Less

ISBN

916955109

Publication

Arcus Publishing Company 752 Broadway P.O. ıox 228 Sonoma, CA 95476

Awards

Benjamin Franklin Award (Winner — 1993)
Page: 1.6805 seconds