Living a symbolic life: the significance of the sun cross (part 3)

Vivre une vie symbolique : la signification de la croix solaire (3e partie)

from C.G. Jung’s Red Book

Over the days and weeks leading up to the solar eclipse on August 12, 2026, I unexpectedly found myself surrounded by most of my closest women friends. They flew across the ocean to see me, they sent hand-written letters through the increasingly dysfunctional postal system, we connected in texts, video chats, phone calls, and dog walks. The depth of the gratitude I feel for each one of you and for you all for being with me is almost overwhelming. That fullness, that warmth, that love, has become a touchstone for me whenever I seek heart coherence.

Au cours des jours et des semaines qui ont précédé l’éclipse solaire du 12 août 2026, je me suis retrouvée, de manière inattendue, entourée de la plupart de mes amies les plus proches. Elles ont traversé l’océan en avion pour venir me voir, elles m’ont envoyé des lettres manuscrites via un service postal de plus en plus défaillant, et nous avons gardé le contact par SMS, appels vidéo, coups de fil et promenades avec nos chiens. La profondeur de la gratitude que je ressens envers chacune d’entre vous et envers vous toutes pour avoir été à mes côtés est presque bouleversante. Cette plénitude, cette chaleur, cet amour, sont devenus pour moi une référence chaque fois que je cherche la cohérence du cœur.

On August 8, several of us attended the opening of an exhibition of the surrealist painter Jean-Gabriel Jonin’s paintings here in my village in France, Cordes-sur-Ciel.

Le 8 août, nous étions plusieurs à assister au vernissage d’une exposition consacrée aux tableaux du peintre surréaliste Jean-Gabriel Jonin, ici même, dans mon village en France, à Cordes-sur-Ciel.

This particular series of Jonin’s works, the last he did before his death in 2014, portrays the coming together of the Sacred Feminine and Masculine. The symbolism is apparent to anyone versed in Jungian and neo-Jungian symbolism as well as tantrism in its many forms. The Masculine enters in the Feminine over and over. It’s an impressive body of work.

Cette série particulière d’œuvres de Jonin, la dernière qu’il a réalisée avant sa mort en 2014, illustre la union du Féminin et Masculin sacré. Le symbolisme est évident pour quiconque connaît bien la symbolique jungienne et néo-jungienne, ainsi que le tantrisme sous ses multiples formes. Le Masculin pénètre sans cesse dans le Féminin. C’est une œuvre impressionnante.

At 4 in the morning following the opening, I woke suddenly, knowing it was exactly 4, with the image of the form I explored in my previous blogs in this series, an equilateral cross in a circle, shining brilliantly on my inner eye.

À 4 heures du matin, au lendemain du vernissage, je me suis réveillé en sursaut, sachant qu’il était exactement 4 heures, tandis que l’image de la forme que j’avais explorée dans mes précédents articles de cette série – une croix équilatérale inscrite dans un cercle – brillait de mille feux dans mon œil intérieur.

The version of the image below represents four figures in a circle, feet touching, arms open to the outside. It’s my souvenir of February 20, when three woman friends and I were in a Japanese hot tub at the exact moment the Saturn-Neptune conjunction perfected at 1° Aries.

La version de l’image ci-dessous représente quatre personnages formant un cercle, les pieds joints, les bras ouverts vers l’extérieur. C’est mon souvenir du 20 février, jour où trois amies et moi-même étions dans un bain japonais au moment précis où la conjonction Saturne-Neptune s’est réalisée à 1° du Bélier.

In my previous post in this series, I explore some traditional meanings associated with the cross within a circle. The straight line can represent the masculine, the circle the feminine, or the vertical line could the Masculine, the horizontal the Feminine. The center, the point of connection, is the heart. You can see the horizontal line as time, the vertical as space. The six directions, north, south, east, west, above and below are encompassed within it. It is central to my teacher Ganesh Baba’s theory of everything, Cycle of Synthesis.

Dans mon précédent article de cette série, j’ai exploré certaines significations traditionnelles associées à la croix inscrite dans un cercle. La ligne droite peut représenter le masculin, le cercle le féminin, ou bien la ligne verticale pourrait symboliser le masculin et la ligne horizontale le féminin. Le centre, le point de connexion, est le cœur. On peut considérer la ligne horizontale comme le temps, et la verticale comme l’espace. Les six directions – nord, sud, est, ouest, haut et bas – y sont englobées. Ce concept est au cœur de la théorie du tout de mon maître Ganesh Baba, le « Cycle de la synthèse ».

But I’d thought about all these things before. What came to me at 4 in the morning was the difference between the symbol of the cross in the circle and the symbolism in Jean-Gabriel Jonin’s work.

Mais j’avais déjà réfléchi à tout cela auparavant. Ce qui m’est venu à l’esprit à 4 heures du matin, c’était la différence entre le symbole de la croix dans le cercle et la symbolique présente dans l’œuvre de Jean-Gabriel Jonin.

Both represent the coming together of the Sacred Feminine and Sacred Masculine. In most traditional esoteric understandings, and in Jonin’s work, the Feminine is seen as the physical, the earth, the body, matter, and the masculine is the spirit, the unseeable, the unknowable. A single, tiny, nearly invisible sperm enters the egg. The active man shoots his life-force into the receptive woman, who holds and carries and nurtures their creation into adulthood. In Jonin’s work the Feminine Principle is depicted as the female body. The Masculine is a ray of light. His work is luminous, delightfully geometric, and rich with symbolism. The curves of the Feminine play with the lines of the Masculine.

Ces deux éléments représentent l’union du Féminin sacré et du Masculin sacré. Dans la plupart des conceptions ésotériques traditionnelles, ainsi que dans l’œuvre de Jonin, le Féminin est considéré comme le physique, la terre, le corps, la matière, tandis que le Masculin incarne l’esprit, l’invisible, l’inconnaissable. Un seul spermatozoïde, minuscule et presque invisible, pénètre dans l’ovule. L’homme actif projette sa force vitale dans la femme réceptive, qui accueille, porte et nourrit leur création jusqu’à l’âge adulte. Dans l’œuvre de Jonin, le principe féminin est représenté par le corps féminin. Le principe masculin est un rayon de lumière. Son œuvre est lumineuse, délicieusement géométrique et riche en symbolisme. Les courbes du féminin jouent avec les lignes du masculin.

The unencumbered cross in a circle offers a different interpretation of the same idea.

La croix libre, inscrite dans un cercle, propose une interprétation différente de cette même idée.

The lines are the Masculine, and the circle the Feminine. In this powerful image that has gripped my imagination for months, the Feminine is holding the Masculine.

Les lignes représentent le Masculin, et le cercle, le Féminin. Dans cette image puissante qui occupe mon imagination depuis des mois, le Féminin tient le Masculin dans ses bras.

And, at the heart of the image is the heart, the point of connection, and the doorway to other dimensions. It’s where fertilization and creation take place, where the new is born and where the old dies. It’s the ultimate möbius twist, the coming together of the opposites, the looking glass, the black hole and the newborn star.

Et, au cœur de l’image, se trouve le cœur, le point de connexion et la porte vers d’autres dimensions. C’est là que s’opèrent la fécondation et la création, là où le nouveau naît et où l’ancien meurt. C’est la torsion de Möbius par excellence, la réunion des contraires, le miroir, le trou noir et l’étoile naissante.

No wonder it’s called the Sun Cross.

Pas étonnant qu’on l’appelle la « Croix du Soleil ».

The astrological symbol for the sun is a circle with a dot at the center.

Le symbole astrologique du Soleil est un cercle avec un point au centre.

I began this piece three days before the solar eclipse, when the shadow of the moon crosses the sun.

J’ai commencé cet article trois jours avant l’éclipse solaire, lorsque l’ombre de la Lune passe devant le Soleil.

The eclipse was 92.3% complete in Cordes À Cordes, l’éclipse a atteint un taux de couverture de 92,3 %.

May the Feminine and Masculine Principles, manifest as the women and men on earth now, connect, hold each other, and work together to create a better balanced, more just, and more loving new world.

Puissent les principes féminin et masculin, qui se manifestent aujourd’hui sur Terre sous la forme des femmes et des hommes, se rapprocher, se soutenir mutuellement et œuvrer ensemble pour créer un monde nouveau, plus équilibré, plus juste et plus aimant.

Peace, love and magic: some reflections on transitioning to fourth and fifth dimensional awareness

The dawning of the Age of Aquarius

A couple weeks ago, in response to a friend’s distress over the heart-wrenching news, I responded, “Maybe we’re moving from the three dimensional world into the fourth and fifth dimensions.”  

I said it lightly—and, sadly, I doubt that my friend was any less upset after I said it—but I do take refuge in the thought. It gives me comfort to imagine that, as the world as we know it becomes less and less sustainable, there’s more out there than meets the eye. 

After sending the idea into cyberspace, I spent the week reflecting on how such a shift might unfold. I stopped listening to the news, I focused on internal work, and I reflected on how the 3-D world might intersect with the 4 and 5 dimensional worlds.

It’s an area that’s interested me for as long as I can remember. Even as a child I had extraordinary dreams. I’m prone to synchronicity. I was more at ease in the world of make-believe than in the real world for many years. I love fiction, especially fiction with magical elements. Speculative and science fiction appeals, too, as do the edges of science and philosophy. It’s where I usually go, along with increasing my time in meditation and contemplation, when the world is too much.

So, for a week or so in mid-July, I paid more attention to my posture and my breath, I meditated more, and I tuned into the cosmic hum more often. Instead of the news, I listened to archetypal astrology—Richard Tarnas, Heather Ensworth, and Rick Levine—and I took lots of time for reverie.

In 1969, when the Fifth Dimension told the world about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, astrologers believed it had already been happening in fits and starts for a long time. And the sun did shine in the late 60’s and early 70’s—for a little while anyway.

A whole generation of kids and young adults valued peace and love over money. I was in my late teens then, and I was completely swept away by hippie values. I still am. It’s heartbreaking that the promise often attributed to Jimi Hendrix, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace,” hasn’t yet happened.

What astrologers are saying these days is that the transition to the age of Aquarius, which is indeed upon us, involves a major shift in consciousness, a change in essential values, and ultimately, a move from focusing on gathering goods to generating good.

Whether any of us alive on earth today will live long enough to enjoy such a world seems doubtful to me, but I see great value in releasing the expectation that life will return to the state it was in when we grew up. Opening one’s heart and mind to some of the infinite possibilities the future could bring seems like a much better option than hanging onto a vision of reality that’s crumbling into the past.

I love the idea that our perception of the measurable world will soon be enhanced by a greater understanding its more subtle aspects, as well as its place in the greater, less dense whole. 

The pull of the three-dimensional world 

Imagine my surprise then, when, in the midst of my dedication to exploring higher dimensions, the 3-D world intervened with an invitation to appreciate, if not acquire, a genuine treasure. 

Tom had recently come into a small inheritance. At the time, that money wasn’t three dimensional at all—it was some numbers on a screen. It occurred to me that rather than putting it in the bank, we might make it more productive by buying a building here in Cordes-sur-Ciel. Tom could move his little chocolate shop there, and an apartment or two would provide us with some income. I took time out from my reverie to look at what was on the market.

Who knew a magnificent piece of untouched old Cordes just 200 steps from our front door would immediately turn up? Such an opportunity! Unoccupied for 50 years but clean and sound, the owner had maintained it more or less as a memorial to her parents. Embossed wallpaper, plump feather beds, wool mattresses, lace curtains. And an old bakery.

Tom’s shop would go in this room. That’s a kitchen behind it. Perfect.

It is very, very charming, a magical place.

Filled with stuff like this.

And that that ancient bakery!

Of course there are more a few black holes that would need to be dealt with, like the low wooden shelf or seat in the downstairs bathroom that I thought might be a well. When we lifted the top off, layers and layers of newspaper, paint, and rust showered down. No point in looking in.

But it would be possible for someone to live in that house almost as is. Some plumbing would probably have to be done, but the first floor has 25-year old decent wiring and lighting. The bedrooms are delightful as they are, and so is the upstairs bathroom. A temporary kitchen of some sort could be set up, though the old wood and gas cookers, gems themselves, are there.

With tax and fees, the house and bakery would cost roughly 100 000€. Tax is 950€/year. So appealing! I almost couldn’t resist.

The morning after we saw it, however, the weight of the project hit me. We live so lightly now: small house, very small electric car, and everything we need in walking distance. 

Why would I even consider taking on a huge stone building, no matter how beautiful it is?? Then I realized how much of my mental and physical energy had already gone into that place over the last three days! 

I went back to listening to astrology and contemplating existence outside the confines of time and space.

Beyond the confines of the 3-D World

Einstein identified the fourth dimension as time, already a stretch to envision as a dimension, but the fifth is even harder to understand. Our civilization is so thoroughly engrossed in the gross world of matter that we can barely imagine it. Subtler worlds, if our physical science-based understanding gives them any credence at all, are only very slowly being discovered. Ganesh Baba often pointed to the discovery of electricity when talking about increasing understanding of subtle energies.

On the second day I spent with Ganesh Baba, he drew a diagram on a paper napkin that he told me encapsulated his entire cosmology. In brief, in an endless cycle, consciousness creates matter, and matter evolves into consciousness. 

(To align with the yogic teaching that good posture is essential to conscious evolution, he placed “Homo Erectus,” meaning having a straight back, above “Homo Sapiens.” The spine running up the center is replicated in the human body as the chakra system.)

Ganesh Baba described eight fields functioning in eight dimensions: matter, energy, space, time, life, mind, intelligence, and consciousness, each more subtle than the last. He identifies the fifth dimension as life. Indeed, neither time nor life is understood very well at this point of human evolution, and mind is an even greater mystery.

The Cycle of Synthesis is an attempt at a 2-D representation of an 8-D cosmos, a fractal universe, microcosm in macrocosm and vise versa. It is not static—rather, it is constantly in flow, twisting and turning, expanding and contracting, in an infinite number of directions, smaller and smaller, greater and greater, replicating itself in an infinite number of manifestations, each one connected to all the others.

As in a Moebius strip, the twists in the helix at the center of the drawing indicate shifts from one dimension to the next.

Passing through them is like water going down a drain. The water turns more and more quickly until suddenly it’s somewhere else. I think the transition human consciousness is going through is like that.

It’s interesting to consider that the perspective of the lower dimension is always subsumed into the perspective of the higher one, as when a point becomes a line, a line becomes a square, and a square becomes a cube.

If the point moves, a line exists. The line moves into a square, and the square moves to become a cube. Move the cube, and time exists. But beyond that?

What comes first? Consciousness or matter?

In most non-Western perspectives on existence, consciousness precedes matter. Even in the bible, God creates the earth. Assuming that only what can be measured is real is a recent twist in human understanding. It’s a limiting conception, though certainly a useful one in the practical world. If the great god of civilization, Science, wants to survive the coming twist, it will have to let go of the shores of time and space and greet the coming age of immeasurability with curiosity and eager anticipation.

I have less hope for the other worldwide religion of our era, the Economy, and its god, Money. I can easily see Mr. Moneybags falling off the edge of the earth to become a monster. An idea that particularly struck me during my studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute is that as dominant mythologies shift, for example from the “pagan” religions to Christianity, the old gods are forced underground, or off the edge of the earth, where they’re perceived as devils. It happens every time.

In Ganesh Baba’s model, following the downward arrow on the left, consciousness condenses into matter. Then, as it evolves back toward its source, more and more of the whole becomes comprehensible. As well as being reflected in the human body as the chakras, the Cycle of Synthesis mirrors Indian theory of the Yugas, a cycle of epochs in which the understanding of subtle things recedes as the earth moves away from the center of the universe, and increases again after it reaches its nadir and moves toward the center again.

So, if, as many astrologers are now saying, we are moving out of the Kali Yuga, the period of least understanding, into an era in which subtle energies will become more apparent, we will have to learn to navigate in the bio-psychic and intello-conscious fields in Baba’s diagram, the dimensions beyond space and time.

One way to do that is to begin by paying more attention to the interface, the twist, the liminal place, where fourth and fifth dimensional events show up in the 3-D world.

That’s why the dramatic incursion, in the form of that very attractive, very large three-dimensional stone house, into my fourth- and fifth-dimensional musings struck me. It was magic. That opportunity came into my physical world via a current of synchronicity. Its appearance overrode the laws of time and space, and I was very nearly beguiled.

What’s next?

Now, I’m on the lookout for magic. I’m asking a question before going to sleep, hoping for a response in my dreams. I’m actively looking for coincidence, actively seeking synchronicity.

So it was that I noticed some writing in blue chalk on the cobblestones of Rue Saint Louis as I walked Mocha one morning this week, when I had just begun this essay. The message is a little hard to read, but the words are in English, even though I found it in our beautiful French village.

Rue Saint Louis

PEACE AND LOVE

It’s still the answer.