Date:         Fri, 7 Nov 1997 21:20:29 -0500
From: BARBARA HARRIS <TCZJ32B@PRODIGY.COM>
Subject:      TECH: EXER: Symbols-13: Pearl

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 cc:   Linda Mansfield          \ PRODIGY:     (WQVL02A)

Hi Everyone,
        Today's symbol post is a special request for a future writing project
of Kate's... which I'm hoping she'll post when done so I can read it!
The topic is the Pearl.

From: _An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols_ by J.C.
Cooper:

        PEARL: Lunar; the power of the waters; the essence of the moon and
controller of tides; the embryo; cosmic life; the divine essence; the
life-giving power of the Great Mother; the feminine principle of the
ocean; the self-luminous; initiation; law in cosmic life; justice.  The
pearl was thoughth to be the result of lightning penetrating an oyster,
hence it was regarded as the union of fire and water, both fecundating
forces, and so denotes birth and rebirth; fertility.  It also symbolizes
innocence, purity, virginity, perfection, humility and a retiring nature
..
        The 'flaming pearl' (the union of fire and water) is the 'pearl of
perfection' in the East.  It is the Third Eye of Siva and Buddha, and is
the crystallization of light; transcendent wisdom; spiritual
enlightenment; spiritual consciousness.  With the dragon of China it is
suggested as either the 'night-shining pearl', the moon, which the
dragon of light swallows, or as a roll of thunder from which the flame
of lightning emerges, the pearl being belched forth by the dragon of the
sky.  It is depicted with dragons as masters of the waters and guradians
of treasures.   As the 'pearl of perfection' it is, with the dragon, the
spiritual essence of the universe, also enlightement; it signifies, too,
the unfolding and development of man in the quest for enlightenment.
The 'white pearl' is the 'treasure difficult to obtain'; the spirit;
enlightenment; wisdom; the 'pearl of great price.'  The seed pearl has
the same symbolism as the 'flaming pearl' as the potentiality and
unfolding of the flower of light.
        Buddhist: One of the Eight Treasure; the heart of Buddha, pure
intentions; the Third Eye of Buddha, the 'flaming pearl' is the
crystallization of light; transcendent wisdom; spiritual conscsiousness;
the spiritual essence of hte universe.
        Chinese: the yin, feminine principle; immortality; potentiality; good
augury; genius in obscurity.  As depicted with the dragon, see 'flaming
pearl' and 'night-shining' pearl above.
        Christian:  Salvation' Christ the Saviour; the Word of God; baptism;
the hidden gnosis necessary for salvation, the 'pearl of great price',
for which man must dive into the waters of baptism and encounter dangers
.  It is also virgin birth' purity; spiritual grace.
        Gnostic:  The Fall and subsequent salvation.
        Graeco-Roman: Love and marriage, emblem of Aphrodite/Venus, the "Lady
of the Pearls", who rose from the waters.
        Hindu: The urna, the shining spot, the 'flaming pearl' on the forehead
of Siva; the Third Eye; transcendent wisdom; the crystallization of
light; spiritual consciousness; enlightenment.
        Iranian:  The Saviour; giver of life, birth, and death; logevity.
        Islamic:  The Divine Word; heaven.
        Sumero-Semitic: The generative power of the waters.
        Taoist:  'The pearl of effulgence', the 'pearl of potentiality'; and
the 'night-shining pearl' are the yin powers of the waters and the lunar
control of the waters with all their potentialities.  The 'flaming
pearl' symbolizes man's search for reality; spiritual unfolding; the
experience of Light.
_________________________________________________________

From: _Dictionary of Symbolism_ by Hans Biederman:

        PEARL:  Grouped in symbological tradition with precious stones, the
pearl with its delicate shimmer is thought of as lunar and feminine; its
spherical form is associated with perfection.  Because of the rarity of
perfectly formed pearls, and the pearl's enclosure in oysters or other
bivalves, it symbolized for the Gnostics of late antiquity hidden
knowledge and esoteric wisdom, and for th eChristians the teachings of
Jesus, which were inaccessible to nonbelievers.  The early Christian
text _Physiologus_ tells of a curious bivalve, the "purple oyster",
which "comes up from hte bottom of the sea... opens its mouth and drinks
in the dew of heaven and the rays of the sun, moon, and stars; it thus
produces the pearl from the lights above... The two halves of the shell
are like the Old and New Testaments, and the pearl is like our Saviour,
Jesus Christ."  Other bivalves in the Red Sea "stand near the shore, all
of them with their mouths open, so that something edible will find its
way in... When a storm comes, as is often the case in this region, the
power of the lightning penetrates inside the shellfish, which takes
fright and closes up its shell...  It has the lightning inside it.  That
lightning wraps around the eyeballs of the shellfish, and thus makes
pearls out of its eyes.  The shellfish dies a wretched death, but the
pearls shine in the Red Sea... The divine lightning from heaven entered
the utterly pure oyster, Mary, the Mother of God, and a pearl of great
price came forth from her, as it is written: she gave virth to Christ,
the pearl begotten by divine lightning" (John Damascenus, born A.D. 675)
.  The shimmering white pearl is also, as in ancient Persia, a symbol of
the Virgin.  According to the Book of Revelation, the gates of the
"heavenly Jerusalem" are made of pearl (hence the expression "pearly
gates" for the gates of heaven); a string of pearls is a frequent
analogy for the multitude of God's powers.
        A Gnostic "Hymn of the Soul", attributed to Bardesanes and dating from
the early Christian era, is impressive in symbolic richness: a child
(representing humanity) is sent out into distant Egypt on the long
pilgrimage of life, to fetch a pearl out of a deep well guarded by a
dragon.  But he eats the customary food of the country and forgets his
mission, until a letter (saving doctrine) brought by an eagle reminds
him of it.  Now the task of recovering the pearl (enlightenment, gnosis)
from the well can be undertaken.  "Coiled 'round the well, the dragon
guardian hissed.  I began its lullaby, singing songs, and prounouncing
names rich in magic power -- names of my beloved father, mother, brother
-- until at last the dragon slept.  I snatched up the pearl and fled the
foreign land, leaving my unclean garment (i.e. the body) behind me."
The pilgrim is then taken up to his heavenly home and clothed in a royal
mantle (Schultz).  The medieval collection Gesta Romanorum (ca. 1300)
contains the story of a maiden who possesses a precious pearl (free will
).  Five brother (the senses) attempt to perusade her to give it up, but
she refuses to give up her treasure in exchange for sensual pleasures.
Only when "the king" comes does she give him the pearl, and he in turn
makes her his bride.
        In ancient Greece the pearl was a symbol of Aphrodite (Venus), who was
born o fthe sea-foam.  In the ancient Chinese language of symbols it was
one of the "eight jewels", standing for the precious and the pure; tears
were referred to as "little pearls" (a metaphor echoed in some European
sayings).  In wealthy families it was customary before burial to place a
pearl in the mouth of the deceased (which similarly has its parallel in
Greek antiquity: the "obol" for the ferryman Charon).  The legendary
pearls of eternal youth or seduction of Asian fairy tales -- supposedly
offering access to extraordinary sexual pleasure -- are not actually
pearls in our sense but white "love pills" produced by a form of alchemy
.  real pealrs, by contrast, retain their association with chastity.  In
China, as in the West, we find the belief that oysters are "impregnated"
by storms (Thunder, in this version) and that pearls then grown inside
them in the moonlight.  This poetic fable notwithstanding, it is
reported that pearls were cuttured in China long before the practice
developed in Japan.
        In the Japanese tradition, too, "pearls" play an important role.  The
constitute one of the three impreial insignias (shinki sanshu), along
with the swrod and the mirror; pearls are said to have been the creation
of the god Tama No-oya, and to have the form of eyes.
        In general, despite their association with tears, pearls serve as
symbols of virute which (according to the medieveal scholar Lonicerus)
"fortify the living spirits that come from the heart."  S. Golowin (1986
) quotes a saying of Easter Eupoean jewelers: "The pearls we believe in
bring us moon-silver tears -- but tears of joy."
___________________________________________________________

From: _The Women's Encylopedia of Myths and Secrets_ by Barbara G.
Walker:

        PEARLY GATE:  Entrance to heaven; a Christian borrowing from the cult
of Aphrodite Marina, or the Sea-mother Mari, to who pearls were sacred.
Her own body was the Gate of Heaven, like the Jade Gate of the Chinese
Goddess, through which all men passed at birth (outward) and again at
death (inward).  Various yonic symbols of the Goddess were said to be
bordered with pearls, including even the Celts' sacred Cauldron of
Regeneration.
        When the Goddess appeared in the guise of the moon, she was called
Pearl of the Sea, or Pearl of Wisdom; her seven high priestesses were
the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Pleaiades).  As the moon was the gate of
paradise, so was the Goddess.  Early Christian sectaries copied the
pagans in claiming that the souls of the dead "mount up by the pillar of
dawn to the sphere of the moon, and the moon receives them incessantly
from the first to the middle of the month, so that it waxes and gets
full, and then it guides them to the sun until the end of the month, and
thus effects its waning in that it is lightened of its burden."
        The pearly moon-gate like Mother Earth made no distinctions between
those who could be admitted and those who could not; as all living
things were her own children, so all dead things were her charges also.
When Christian mythology supplied a gatekeeper in the form of St. Peter,
then the Pearly Gate became a barrier where a judgment ws made on the
worthiness or unworthiness of the soul.
        The ancients gave all pearls the feminine connotation, saying they were
made of two female powers, the moon and water.  It was believed that
pearls should be worn only at night, for moonlight would enhance their
luster whereas sunlight would spoil them.
____________________________________________________________

Love & Light, Barbara

--
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Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
                            -John Dryden "All for Love"
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Barbara Harris ~ TCZJ32B@Prodigy.com