Peace Piece / Bill Evans (Photo by John Fraim)
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Most people are confident they know basics about the symbolism of the cross. It is the symbol for a religion and represents the martryom of the religion’s founder. The cross of his time was composed of two pieces of wood strapped together to form a vertical beam pounded into the ground strapped to a horizontal beam.
The symbol of this cross has a direct association with Jesus Christ. The association to the image immediate so little reflection on it. The fact is that it quickly “redirects” to the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. All other symbols of the cross seem to emulate in the direction of a person.
One of the key truths learned about symbolism is to not look at immediate redirects of one’s mind to a symbol of a particular object, event, place or person in culture.
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Looked at symbolically, a vertical line intersects with a horizontal line. In my Symbolism of Place and elsewhere, I suggested that the symbolism of the cross might really relate to time. In effect, the horizontal line represents the time-line of most dramatic change between a symbol at the beginning of a story and the end of the story. The vertical line of the cross is the viewers experience a moment in time while moving through a story about the cross. Horizontal direction represents the movement of symbols in their cycles. Perhaps the symbols associated with telling via a screenplay or film.
A dark witch at the beginning of a story turns into a good witch at the end of the story. A happy ending. A good witch at the beginning of a story turns into a dark witch at the end of the story. A sad ending.
“And so it goes,” as Vonnegut noted repeatedly in Slaughterhouse Five.
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The story moves left to right across the horizontal line we might draw on a piece of paper or simply visualize in our minds. There is not much to visualize. Just a cross. Stories start on the left side of the horizontal line of the cross. They move forward in linear time of the viewer represented by the vertical pole of the cross moving along the horizontal line from left to right. The vertical line can be laid out in advance in structures of the screenplay form. Basically, the intersection of linear movement of time from past to future and the non-linear time of present wedged between past and future.
Laid out as a progression of symbols within the dynamics of symbolism. A cycle from beginning to ending of the story. Played out in a sequence of moments in time during the hero/heroine’s story’s progression through the story in linear time. A symbolic context of time in its linear movement from past to future. Visualized as movement from left to right along this horizontal line of linear time.
And events, people, places (life) within this context of linear time? These are scenes from daily life stored in our memory. By some process, not forgotten. Paradoxical too. The largest events sometimes almost forgotten while the smallest events of life are remembered forever. Those years with the big corporation in San Francisco. Then, my years in marketing and research into symbolism.
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Having a symbolic correspondence to scenes in a particular narrative is a goal of writing screenplays using symbols and symbolism. The basic acts and plot twists of the narrative might not be at all apparent to the viewer/reader of this. Yet viewed from a symbolic perspective, these milestones of the trip of the characters through linear time are much easier to spot.
In fact, they stand out like that old glow-in-the-dark paint I bought from the early years of Disneyland. Now, they use this luminescence quality the old glow in the dark paint to light up in a dark room the unseen blood of a crime scene.
Times have changed.
“And so it goes.”
The movements from left to right across the horizontal linear line of time. Expressed in the symbolism of a cycle and the sequence of scenes and events in this cycle. I suggested this in my column in Script Magazine called “Script Symbology” on the symbolism of screenwriting. I went on to create a screenwriting group in Palm Desert, California. It was an interesting mixture of retired screenwriters from Hollywood and young people who wanted to learn about screenwriting. Millennials with the leading edge of baby boomers to place age demographics in some type of new, needed, perspective. We would meet in a large conference room at the Palm Desert Library in those days and talk about screenwriting. I loved it. The group continued to grow and I created a website for it.
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But now, it might be a time for a perspective on the midterm elections in America. Maybe now. Maybe later. But a true point on the cycle the nation and its generations are moving through.
The larger dynamics. Battling Via Symbolism. Our strategy for moving forward right now but who knows about the world a few minutes from now. It makes some wanting to act. And others, not wanting to act.
What is some insight about this project that might offer insight about him? At a particular time in American history.
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The nation after the 2026 midterm elections. Many have commented on this event. Is it a good time to comment on this now? Or later when the new legislature takes power. Does it really matter all that much?
Evidently, there is a report on voter fraud due to the president on 12/18/2026. Will this date pass peacefully towards Christmas day just a week later, on 12/25/2026? Will the nation pass peacefully through this time?
Many questions ahead. For me. For the nation.
The greatest movement of a cycle between two symbols in extreme opposition. Times in the movement are scenes of a film or story. Freezing a place in time with a hero/heroine’s mood in the background of the scene. The vertical moment in time: always gone before anyone can catch it. Like faint butterflies of memory from distant boyhood summers.
This another interpretation of ancient symbolism.n In many ways, in my mind, the intersection of time might be the greatest meaning of Christ.