Up: [[Shape Symbolism]] Related: [[Circle]] Created: 2026-09-27 Updated: 2026-09-28 Spheres are one of my favourite symbols so I’ve made a spread about them in my Codex, a book of favourite symbols I can refer to when making art. ![[Codex - Sphere.webp|600]] As the three-dimensional form of [[Circle]], another favourite, the symbolism is shared, but each also has their own uniquenesses. Prior to Socrates, the sphere was equated to the infinite. In Plato’s *The Banquet*, humans were androgynous and spherical, in a state of paradise — totality and perfection — before the Fall. Some art experts suggest that this is the meaning behind the transparent spheres containing lovers in the centre panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych, *The Garden of Earthly Delights*. The sphere is identified with the globe, which is an allegory for the world. Globes, particularly desk globes, have fascinated me since childhood. [[Kris Kristofferson]] has a song where he refers to Earth as a *shiny blue marble, spinning in space*. Marbles are another childhood, and adulthood, fascination. Such beautiful little kaleidoscopes of colour. Memory is elusive, but I’m pretty sure I had a soft, leathery bag of marbles that I collected and played with, but only with other girls. When I was young, marbles were a big deal and boys were especially aggressive players for keeps! Another childhood memory, I think, is of playing games with a ball against a wall. I can’t remember what those games were, only that I think I played for hours. The sphere is the primordial form, containing the possibilities of all other forms. If a church has a dome, the dome represents sky and heavens. It is attached to the rectangular form at the base, which is earth. Symbolically, this is squaring the circle, bringing heaven down to earth and uniting the four elements. #### Music of the Spheres In antiquity, there was a belief that the planets were crystal domes nested inside each other over the earth. The domes turned independently and made the “music of the spheres” with their motions. This theory was meant to explain what seemed to be the erratic movements of planets against the background of the fixed stars. Our musical scale was apparently established by the Greek Muses, based on individual sounds of each of the turning spheres. The music of the spheres were considered essential to keep the universe in existence. The corollary to this theory was that there were seven spheres descending under the earth. Dante’s descending circles of hell in *the Comedia* came from this. Early Christians were taught that the human soul descends from heaven, picking up a deadly sin from each of the seven planetary spheres, and then after death, those same sins would be shed one by one as the soul returned to heaven.