.When our hearts are closed, we live within a shell. To extend the egg metaphor: the shell needs to be broken open if the life within it is to enter into full life. What we need is a "hatching of the heart” -- the opening of the self to God, the sacred….
Marcus J Borg, The Heart of Christianity
.
When my father died sixteen years ago, I went with a friend to a beach near San Francisco. It was very soothing to watch the pelicans as they glided right above the waves.
In my quest to understand these images, I talked last week with Stan Marlan, a Jungian analyst who writes about alchemy. He spoke of the pelican as an alchemical symbol of renewal, of the pelican's part in an alchemical stage having to do with breaking open the outer shell to reveal the inner person. In the times of alchemy, the pelican was seen as digging into its own heart to provide nourishment for the young, an act of self-sacrifice.
.
He also talked about how it was critically important for the alchemist to regulate the heat of the process. Clearly, this pelican was being heated; the green behind the pelican was cooling the process off, protecting him.
When I made the drawing, I was only thinking of how much I liked pelicans.
.
.
