THE AURYN JOURNAL
Notes on jewellery, materials, memory, style and the small details that make an object feel personal.
LATEST FROM AURYN
What does Agyindawuru mean? The Adinkra symbol of a gong, recorded in 1927 as 'the agyin tree's gong' and today read as faithfulness, alertness and...
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What does Kintinkantan mean? The Adinkra symbol Rattray recorded in 1927 as 'bent and spread out', a warning against boasting and arrogance.
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What does Mate Masie mean? The Adinkra symbol 'what I hear, I keep', a sign of wisdom, knowledge and the prudence to consider what others say.
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What does Kramo Bone mean? The Adinkra symbol whose proverb warns that false people make it hard to recognise the genuine, and its roots in Asante ...
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What does goldenrod mean? Explore the symbolism of Solidago, its late-summer golden flowers, the history of its botanical name and its associations...
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What is the Seed of Life? Seven overlapping circles, a pattern found in art for thousands of years, and the modern sacred-geometry name it now carr...
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What does the daisy mean? The 'day's eye' flower praised by Chaucer, and the compass-drawn daisy wheel, the most common ritual protection mark in E...
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What does vervain symbolise? Verbena officinalis, the sacred herbs of Greek and Roman ritual, and vervain's long life in European tradition.
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A guide to flower symbolism: the chrysanthemum, daffodil, daisy, forget-me-not, goldenrod and vervain, and where their meanings come from.
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What does the forget-me-not mean? Remembrance and faithful love, the flower in medieval art, and the romantic legend of a knight's last words.
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What does the daffodil mean? The herald of spring, the national flower of Wales worn on St David's Day, and the Welsh name 'Peter's leek'.
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What does the chrysanthemum mean? Longevity and autumn in China, the sixteen-petal imperial crest of Japan, and why it is a flower of remembrance i...
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Where does the seven-chakra system come from? From Sanskrit Tantric texts and The Serpent Power to the rainbow colours of the twentieth century.
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What is Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen? The Reiki Level II distance symbol, its origins in Japanese characters, how practitioners use it and where it comes from.
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What are Zonar, Harth and Kriya? The symbols of Karuna Reiki, a system developed in the 1990s, and how practitioners use them today.
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What is the Shem ha-Mephorash? The 72-fold divine name drawn from Exodus 14 in Jewish tradition, and how later Christian and occult writers linked ...
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What does the High Priestess tarot card mean? Card II of the Waite–Smith deck, its symbols from the B and J pillars to the Tora scroll, and Waite's...
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Who are the Yoruba orishas? An introduction to Yemoja, Obatala and Babalú-Ayé, and how their worship changed across the Atlantic.
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