Up: [[Symbols]] Created: 2025-03-21 In many creation myths around the world, the universe is hatched from an egg. In Indian mythology, the egg’s shell splits in half to become earth and sky with the yolk as sun. It’s often a bird or birdlike deity that lays and broods the cosmic egg. In myths of ancient Egypt, it’s the Great Cackler (wonderful name!), a kind of celestial goose, or it’s the [[Ibis]] form of Thoth, god of the moon and wisdom, that lays the cosmic egg. That egg contains Re, a solar bird whose heat creates the world. Before that even, in the Upper Paleolithic period, around 12,000 B.C.E., painted egg forms began to appear as symbols of rebirth and regeneration. Words connected to the egg: simple, beginning, source, centre Alchemists depicted the germ of the egg, contained in the yolk, as the ‘sun-point’ from which everything begins. At an individual level, it’s the ‘fire-point’, *the soul in the midpoint of the heart* says Jung (CW 14:41). In Christianity, the egg is a symbol of resurrection because Christ burst forth from the grave like a chick hatching from an egg. In Buddhism, breaking through the “eggshell of ignorance” means attaining enlightenment.