Five Universal Shapes - Symbols of the Inner Life

As in the painting above, many of the paintings in the "Narrative Landscapes of the Heart" series incorporate a line of symbols. I think of these symbols as landmarks along the life journey, indicating significant phases in the person's life. These phases often involve external events, but the symbols are more about the internal life -- especially, what's happening in the heart. When I mark out the life journey on a specific painting, I do it spontaneously, intuitively. I paint the symbols from left to right -- birth to death or to the current phase of life. 

The Preferential Shapes Test offers a unique way to gain insight into deeper levels of your own life journey right now. It’s a way to orient yourself — where you’ve been, what you’re working on now.

This is Part 3 in a series of posts here about the five shapes that archaeologist Angeles Arrien has identified as carrying universal meaning: (circle, square, cross, spiral, triangle).  This article relates the five shapes to the Tarot.

Though I haven’t seen other people discuss this, it seems to me that each of the first five chakras (starting at the base of our body) are also associated quite naturally with five shapes. These are the five shapes that anthropologist Angeles Arrien identified as carrying universal, cross-cultural meanings. (The five universal shapes are the square, cross, triangle, spiral and circle.)

Earlier as an artist-blacksmith, then as a mixed-media vessel sculptor and now as a heart painter, I’ve found inspiration from Angeles Arrien’s research on the five “universal shapes.” Recently I became curious about how other artists are using them. I came across both interesting artwork and useful art activities for personal growth.