Up: [[Symbols]] Created: 2025-10-24 If you can say **this is what it means** you are talking about a sign. A STOP sign always means stop. The icon with the triangle shape at the bottom means it’s the women’s washroom. There is absolutely nothing ambiguous about a sign. A symbol is very different. When speaking of a symbol, you’re saying **this is what it means to me**. A symbol brings together something from the conscious and from the unconscious and there is a hidden quality that makes us feel something. For example, when someone else sees a spiral staircase or the spiral in a nautilus shell, they may think nothing of it. But, for me, the [[Spiral]] is an essential symbol imbued with all sorts of meaning and emotion, only some of which I’m able to articulate, only some of which I know. > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] in *Man and His Symbols* > What we call a symbol is a term, a name, or even a picture that may be familiar in daily life, yet that possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning. It implies something vague, unknown or hidden from us. (p. 3)