What significance do symbols have within a culture? What is the purpose of numbers? These are some of the many questions asked by KidSpirit writers in an issue devoted to the signs and signifiers of our lives.

1. In the Big Question, Sharon Lin takes on the Editorial Board’s inquiry, Are Symbols the Basis of Human Thought? Taking examples from linguistics, literary theory, and even psychology, Sharon says, “Not only would it be unlikely to imagine life without symbols — it would be impossible.” Do you agree with Sharon’s conclusion — can you imagine life without symbols? Are there particular symbols that are especially significant in your life?

Split into four groups and make a list of ten symbols in each group. They could be symbols that people encounter every day (such as stop signs), that represent a particular country (such as a baseball in the U.S.), or symbols found in art, media, or literature (such as heroes or villains). After compiling your lists, share and explain each group’s choices. Discuss what makes these symbols potent and how they could be interpreted in various cultures or time periods.

2. In her Feature article “Color in Art and Life,” Eleanor Goetz describes how colors can evoke powerful emotions. She tells us that the color red brings her back to the moment she scraped her knee as a young child and writes, “It is said that colors do not symbolize ideas themselves, but have become associated with important human events.” Spend a few minutes free-writing about this idea. Is there a color you associate with an event or time period in your life? How do you feel when you see that color now? Does it trigger any emotions, thoughts, or memories?

3. In the Interfaith Connections section, Sanya, a Sikh and Hindu, describes the rich symbolism in both of her traditions. Are numbers or symbols an important part of your faith background or wisdom tradition? Like Sanya learning about generosity from the tradition of adding a coin to a gift, what lessons have you learned through the symbols in your family’s traditions?

4. Paulo Coelho’s PerSpectives article looks at a common phrase: navel gazing. Many people use this phrase to refer to self-absorption, but the navel actually contains ancient cultural references. It symbolizes rebirth, the center of the world, and the universe. As he says, this “small and deep scar” signifies “our connection to each other and the cosmos.” Have you ever encountered a symbol that meant the opposite of what you first thought?

Numbers & Symbols Group Guide

As a young child I remember scraping my knee while riding my bike. I made a sharp turn and fell onto the hot, black pavement.

In that moment, I could not breathe. The bright red of blood caught my eye and I began to cry, even though it did not hurt that much.

The color red brings me back to that moment. The black of the pavement and dirt; the bright white of the sun that beat down on my shaking body. White, black, and red are colors that seem to affect us the most. White is the smoothness of milk, porcelain, a blank, untouched sheet of paper. White is pure and clean. I perceive white as emptiness, yet I know that white light in fact contains all colors. I associate black with the depths of the ocean and the vast expanse of space. I think of black as city grime and dirt, while also picturing the sleek, soft texture of velvet. Red is what you see when you close your eyes and look at light. Red is inside of us. It is love from roses and pain from our first skinned knee. It is the excitement of an empty subway seat and finding Mars in the night sky.

Even during a walk down the street, the color red captures my eye. I immediately notice a red tulip growing in the tree pit and feel awakened by the sudden burst of color. The blinking red of the crosswalk sign catches my attention. Red reflectors on a bike caution us, triggering an emotion to become unconsciously more alert.

The colors in art can cause reactions because colors can evoke certain moods or emotions. Take, for example, Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” This piece is extraordinarily colorful. When we look closer we see it is composed of thousands of colorful painted dots that enliven the canvas. We feel the warmth of the sun and sense the happy, tranquil mood of the park goers.

Artists can convey powerful ideas in their work by using certain colors. These colors elicit emotions and intrinsic, universal themes. It is said that colors do not symbolize ideas themselves, but have become associated with important human events, such as birth and death, life and love. For example, white is associated with milk, angels, and snow. It represents purity, birth, and life. Black is associated with death and darkness, mourning clothing, coffins, the grave. Red is associated with blood, symbols of life, love, and war. Red, white, and black are emotionally evocative colors. Artists such as Kara Walker, Pablo Picasso, and Frida Khalo have used these colors in their work to elicit responses from the viewer.

Kara Walker’s use of the color white in her piece, “A Subtlety” (a subtlety refers to intricate sugar sculptures placed on tables during feasts in the middle ages), is a powerful reminder that growing, harvesting, and processing sugar comes at a human price. The color white, in this case not a universal association, evokes the suffering of slaves who tended and cut, carried and processed, sugarcane. The sculpture is a 75-foot sphinx with exaggerated African features and a mammie’s kerchief. The sphinx is constructed of foam, covered in refined white sugar, even though sugar is brown in its natural state. Perhaps Walker’s sphinx is white, not brown or black, to make a statement that African-Americans were forced to be something they’re not, just as brown sugar is processed into white sugar. Walker may use the starkness of white – sugar removed of all color – so we look at the powerful African sphinx without the bias of color. Or, to use a universal symbol of white, the sculpture may symbolize purity within the African-American woman’s soul.

Picasso’s painting “Guernica,” is a powerful anti-war statement depicting the horrors of the bombing of Guernica, a town in northern Spain, by the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War. This abstract, cubist painting has become an iconic symbol of pain, suffering, and the tragedy of war. The work elicits nightmarish, horrific feelings, and depicts the horrors of the bombing. The bombing happened at night and deathly black dominates the painting, except where there are white, broken, screaming, innocent forms of life. This differs from Kara Walker’s use of color in her sculpture, though both are intense subjects, in that while the black on Picasso’s canvas feels heavy, the eye almost drowns in it, the white used here feels light.

Red affects us much differently than black and white. Black and white appear serious, forcing us to look deeper into the image, while red startles us. In Frida Kahlo’s autobiographical painting, “Henry Ford Hospital” or “The Flying Bed,” six symbolic red ribbons are depicted emerging from her abdomen after her miscarriage. Her unborn son is painted red and depicted as floating above her, and the other objects symbolizing pain, sadness, loneliness, are painted red or in earth tones. The life blood hemorrhaging underneath Kahlo’s body is red. Red represents her love for the lost child and her husband, Diego Rivera, her mortality, and her inability to bear children.

Colors have universal associations for all humans. They can produce emotional responses based on our own personal histories, or that of the artist. Artists are able to communicate ideas by using colors associated with powerful symbols and depict connections with color to elicit emotions or reactions. A person may associate a special aunt with the color lavender or a brother with bright blue. Colors that have such personal meaning – associations with people, things, or events – can bring back memories. Color and art can perhaps stir the soul.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Eleanor Goetz analyzes how artists like Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and Kara Walker have used color to tap into elemental parts of the human psyche.

Color in Art and Life

Symbols are often seen in places we don’t look, hiding beneath the surface, existing in our minds but invisible.

For example, most people wouldn’t even think about the symbolic significance of jeans, seeing them as a simple article of clothing, but a closer look at its evolution throughout our nation’s history reveals how jeans have shaped American culture and what they tell us about the American identity.

Through a variety of symbols one can see the values that shape a complex American identity. The American ethos is encapsulated by inventiveness, innovation, consumerism, materialism, and tradition; these are all values that can be displayed through even a simple, universal symbol. In positive and negative ways these symbols have been important to the American dream since the English Puritans brought their work ethic across the Atlantic seeking escape from religious persecution, shaping American individualism for centuries.

How do these symbols affect what people from other countries observe about Americans or how Americans view themselves? Several European exchange students recently visited my school in a leafy suburb of New Jersey. In our school newspaper these exchange students offered insights on their perspective of the U.S. based on their visit. One student remarked, “Everything is bigger in America — houses, lawns, portion sizes.” Symbols serve as models for the way Americans see themselves as well as the way visitors see Americans. Often, these viewpoints do not converge. Connotations are symbols in disguise.

What does Silicon Valley suggest to hundreds of millions of Americans? Getting an iPhone, for instance, is a symbol of moving up in the world, a status symbol. In many countries, including the U.S., an iPhone is a symbol of wealth. It can also represent good design and American creativity, inventiveness, and ingenuity. For others, the iPhone can signify the ill effects of capitalism or poor conditions in the sweatshops in China where they are produced.

McDonald’s has become another truly American symbol that represents abundance and, its darker side, overindulgence. McDonald’s is recognized as one of the first businesses to attempt to bring consistency to restaurants — a stark departure from the variability that defined most restaurants at the time. Richard and Maurice McDonald set up their first hamburger restaurant in 1940. Now, many large, homogenized chain restaurants serve food cheaply and efficiently. This is a distinctly American phenomenon that has since proliferated around the globe. McDonald’s restaurants built in other countries represent a shift to American values and culture. They can also symbolize maturation of the economy and infrastructure in a developing country.

Obesity is an epidemic in the United States, something people visiting from other countries notice immediately. Despite various efforts to decrease portion sizes and to include healthy food in its menu, McDonald’s is still the quintessential symbol of fast food in America; and is equated with the consumption of unhealthy food in large quantities for not much money. As McDonald’s continues to globalize, its golden arches have come to symbolize brand consistency, American culture, and capitalism. McDonald’s restaurants built in other countries are a symbol of “Americanization” as well as modernization. Nelson James, COO of Signs.com, notes in an article about logos, “Outside the United States, McDonald’s represents America. When McDonald’s builds its first restaurant in another country, the word ‘Americanization’ is often bandied about.” McDonald’s is even linked with an “American” lifestyle. The hurried nature and standardized lifestyle associated with America are embodied in the principles of McDonald’s food production. Maoz Azaryahu, professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, adds, “The proliferation of the golden arches of McDonald’s epitomized the Americanization of Israel…” Now transported all over the world, McDonald’s in many ways represents the story of America.

Baseball is a distinctly American activity and can symbolize the American rags to riches story, or entertainment and leisure, or the idea of providing a communal spectator sport. It can also shed light on the issue of racial segregation in the United States. Because of Jim Crow laws and racism, African Americans were excluded from playing on white major league professional teams. They formed their own Negro Leagues and played professional ball throughout the south and Latin America. It was not until after World War II that black players were allowed to integrate into white major league teams. Baseball, as a national pastime, evolved and as America changed, baseball mirrored those changes. It is a symbol of American spirit, a pastime that stands for the American dream and a sport that survived through America’s toughest times.

The American dream is about taking advantage of opportunities. Through sports, people can take advantage of opportunities to further their careers, although not always guaranteeing success. Transforming playing baseball into a career, a relatively new phenomenon during the early 1900s, and only afforded to white men, was possible even if you were poor and untrained. The writer Douglass Walop wrote, “America was the land of opportunity where even a poor boy could grow up to be Babe Ruth.” Baseball has manifested itself as a historical symbol of America’s present mood. In many ways it embodies people’s struggles and ambitions.

Malls are also a symbol of America and its abundance and serve a wide range of functions for different groups. For young people, they can be a place to “see and be seen.” They can be a place for people to hang out, socialize, and sometimes even shop. For some older people, malls are often a place to exercise, as a whole community of “mall walkers” has emerged similar to the way in which elderly people flock to parks in China to do tai chi or yoga. BBC writer Jonathan Glancey writes in an article about American shopping malls, “[they are] a central part of contemporary U.S. culture and a model for much of the rest of a world keen on emulating an American way of life.” Similar to the throngs of people who meander through the bazaars of Istanbul, foreign tourists like to experience going to the mall as a uniquely American activity. Other countries have shopping centers and markets, but the mall culture in the U.S. is like no other. Many Americans are famous for going to the mall.

Jeans have been an important symbol in American culture for more than a century. What started out, when Levi Strauss began making them in the mid 1800s, as basic denim pants for miners, particularly in the American West, over time has become a staple piece of clothing for all types of Americans. During the Great Depression, because money was tight, jeans were popular for the whole family because they were durable and did not wear out. Jeans became the working man’s pants, a staple of the middle and lower classes. They then made their way into more mainstream society in the 1950s, as young people wore them as an expression of rebellion. By the 1960s and 1970s, as the youth culture evolved, blue jeans were dyed different colors, made into bell-bottoms, ripped, seen as anti-establishment clothing; by the 1990s fashion designers had turned jeans into a universal phenomena. Jeans have been a long-standing symbol of America and its values, evolving over the decades. Today jeans mean different things to different people; they can be comfort clothes or a fashion statement. Jeans depict an American culture that both accepts change and emphasizes tradition. As the economy and society changed, so did jeans, but the tradition of jeans as a staple of American clothing remained constant. In a sense, jeans don’t represent a certain aspect of the American ethos as much as they symbolize the process of America changing from an agricultural economy to a consumer economy. They also represented the culture’s change from utilizing clothes for comfort to wearing clothes to express themselves.

For Americans, baseball, malls, Silicon Valley, jeans, or McDonald’s provide models of values around which our society revolves, such as innovation, creativity, consumerism, materialism, tradition, and change; and they also show those values our culture lacks. In a more general sense, symbols are a way to search for meaning where people struggle to define what is important in their lives. People look for symbols to make things matter, to find patterns in an often frustratingly incomprehensible world; a way of putting things together that makes sense and justifies the actions we take and the decisions we make. Symbols are a means of communication: they represent a universal language that has existed since the beginning of man. McDonald’s, iPhones, malls: these are meaningful symbols within the American identity because they were created in response to values or out of necessity or imagination. These are symbols that came about because of American culture, not because symbols made American culture. Symbols characterize history and describe all we perceive in our world, but they by no means define it.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Katie Reis considers how certain symbols structure America's sense of its own history and identity.

Mall Walkers and McDonald's

In today’s world, it is impossible to look at anything without being influenced by symbols.

We have been conditioned from birth to recognize and interpret the constant bombardment of visual and cultural stimuli. From the universal smiley face and heart, to letters and numbers, humans have successfully created a system so remarkably efficient that even lines on a page can represent the deepest of our emotions.

It may seem unlikely to say that symbols form the basis of human thought, given how prone we are to act on intuition or spur-of-the-moment impulses. E​ven if our logical processes work by way of symbolism, how can we be certain that we are acting based on abstract symbolism, and not based on the natural, ingrained processes that we attribute to our animal kin? Before exploring how symbolism can dictate how we think, however, we must determine the true meaning of a symbol.

There are so many ways to think about the various aspects of symbolism. A symbol might be a material object that represents an abstract idea, a character or marking that stands in for some sound, or even an image that holds a meaning separate from its face value. Even within these definitions, however, there are specifications: cultural symbolism, communicative symbolism, linguistic representation, mental symbolism, and icons, to name a few.

One large category, cultural symbolism, describes an object or action that represents a larger, more abstract idea in a culture, depending on the culture interpretation. An often debated example would be the Star of David: ancient beliefs in the Middle East and North Africa attributed it to mean magic and fortune, while today it is known as a symbol of the Jewish people.

There is also communicative symbolism, where certain body cues and expressions are interpreted intuitively, depending on the situation. It is largely agreed and emphasized in pop culture that a bright smile indicates a warm attitude, whereas a frown indicates disapproval or sadness. Similarly, a slouched back reveals discomfort and disinterest, whereas a straight back is a sign of intrigue.

A problem often encountered when discussing symbols is the distinction between the word and other similar ideas. When we hear the word “symbol,” the image ​evoked is a visual image that stands for a greater idea. However, there is a distinct difference between “signs” and “symbols,” as symbols play a far more versatile role in our thought processes than their former.

Signs can be used for linguistic representation, where a language that had previously been solely orally communicated was represented by symbols that stood in place of syllables, letters, or entire words. According to the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, a sign stands for something that is already known. It only carries one specific meaning, whereas symbols are living, breathing ideas. They cannot be clarified as material imagery, instead carrying both sense and meaning. While “sense” refers to the meaning within the society or to the individual perceiving the symbol, the meaning is the greater, multilayered definition that can be agreed on as the definition. Written language, for instance, combines symbols to create words, which stand in place of complex ideas. Humans use these words to form phrases and sentences – to communicate.

Not only have humans created and interpreted symbols since primeval times, but we continue to create and find meaning within the various symbols in our lives. Even serving as patterns, symbols can help us discern what is favorable and unfavorable. Symbols facilitate discussion, allowing different perceptions to connect within one similar set of knowledge. They also take on a life of their own, especially when comparing how the same “symbol” can mean radically different things for different cultural groups. The ubiquitous heart shape, for instance, is a symbol of love and romance today. However, in Roman times, it represented the now-extinct silphium plant, which was a popular contraceptive.

"The same 'symbol' can mean radically different things for different cultural groups."

American literary theorist Kenneth Burke supports the idea that symbols are a necessary form of human communication, describing how we are a symbol-based species. This is made clear in various literary archetypes, such as the “hero” and the “villain”. Drawing from the studies of Sigmund Freud, Burke wrote how symbols could substitute for one another in the form of analogies, where understanding could be reached through the use of different symbols as synonyms.

The pastoral counselor Jean Dalby Clift writes in Core Images of the Self: A Symbolic Approach to Healing and Wholeness that people are not limited to a ​finite set of symbols. This concept applies not only to material iconic symbols, but to body language, words, even abstract symbols. ​Throughout the course of our lives, we create and abandon symbols at will. As a child, I distinctly remember my grandmother buying me Christmas sweaters every winter, despite the fact she didn’t celebrate Christmas. Nevertheless, through my toddler years, the sweaters were a symbol of my grandparents’ love. As I grew up, I discovered that the lovingly bought sweaters of my past had become unfashionable; they began to symbolize something outdated.

Symbols are subject to the whims of the person or people they serve. Depending on the culture or society, meanings of a symbol may change. For instance, the symbolic value of the Greek gods changed over the ages. The ancients Greeks revered and feared their deities, worshipping them daily and offering sacrifices in their honor. Their gods symbolized great power and order. Today, we tend to associate these gods with mythology, or legends. We do not see or worship them in the same way as the ancients Greeks; but many of them still hold similar symbolic representation.

Like symbols, human thought is ever-changing. According to James R Hurford, language evolution researcher at the University of Edinburgh, one of the primary factors differentiating humans from animals is our ability to acquire and use mental symbols. These representations are created in the mind of each individual, used to interpret the incredible complexity of our physical world. They are difficult to describe because they represent indirect realism, where the representation depends entirely on the individual. Nevertheless, we all possess the ability to express these symbols through pictures or words.

Symbols may not have always been a major part of human thought, but it would be foolish to say that they do not form the basis of our thought processes today. All of our communication occurs through the use of ​symbols as vehicles for higher level understanding. They are an element of our ability to interact socially, to perceive and interpret the material world, and to establish our identities. Symbols are occasionally difficult to perceive, perhaps due to their mutable nature. Still, symbols determine so much about how we interact. Not only would it be unlikely to imagine life without symbols – it would be impossible.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Sharon Lin looks to Carl Jung and other cultural commentators to explain why symbols are so fundamental to the human species.

Are Symbols the Basis of Human Thought?

After I first saw The Hunger Games movie, adapted from the novel by Suzanne Collins, I could only describe it as “awesome!”

I watched the movie a few years ago with my friends and dad. On the way home all we could talk about was our favorite death. Mine was probably the multiple stabbings, shootings, and bashings at the beginning of the games. If you haven’t seen The Hunger Games or read the books, this may seem disgusting. What kind of kids’ movie portrays the graphic deaths of kids killed by other kids? But if you ever read The Hunger Games, you will be hooked. In the dystopian page-turner, death, blood, and gore fit right in.

The Hunger Games is set in post-apocalyptic North America, in a country called Panem, which means bread in Latin (I know, very punny) and stars Katniss Everdeen, a girl of 16 who volunteers to take her twelve-year-old sister’s place at the 74th annual Hunger Games. The premise is that every year, each of the 12 Districts of Panem must provide a male and female “tribute” between the ages of twelve and eighteen as compensation for rebelling against the capitol nearly a century ago. Once selected at a public lottery called the Reaping, the tributes fight to the death in a public arena on national television. I’m not going to ruin the ending, even though most of you probably already know, but I will tell you that the movie is full of blood, knife throwing, fireball shooting, explosions, and yes, quite a lot of kissing.

Published in 2008, The Hunger Games almost immediately became a bestseller, gaining praise from many reviewers. The New York Times called it an “exhilarating narrative and a future we can fear and believe in,” and commented on the complexity and depth of the characters, and how the basic writing style makes “nothing stand between Katniss and the reader.”

The series is so popular that I have trouble finding someone who hasn’t read them. In the film adaptation, Jennifer Lawrence plays the heroine Katniss flawlessly, realistically capturing her essence: her little quirks, humor, curiosity, and desire to survive against all odds. Her realization of how messed up it is for kids to kill each other for sport is a crucial point of character development and leads to her becoming the face of the rebellion. Peeta, played by Josh Hutcherson, though a bit of a heartthrob, plays his role earnestly. He is convincing in his love for Katniss and in playing a good person. Liam Hemsworth plays Gale. He got the role because he is Liam Hemsworth, and did an okay, if not so memorable, job. Nobody else is really worth mentioning because – spoiler – half of the cast dies, including Cinna (Lenny Kravitz).

The Hunger Games opens to a child’s sobbing. It is Prim, Katniss’ younger sister on the day of the reaping. I feel like this is the perfect way to begin the movie. It sets the mood, ominously foreshadowing what is to come. As we venture with Katniss from District 12, to the Capitol, to the Arena, not only do we get to see Katniss’s growth, but also the hauntingly dysfunctional society where the poor die of starvation and the rich know only Panem et Circenses (bread and circuses).

What makes the book so good, I think, is that unlike other teen books about dystopian societies, Katniss is so real. She has problems, makes bad decisions, and is not so annoyingly good as other heroines, like Tris Prior in Divergent, Bella Swan in Twilight, or Clary Fray in Mortal Instruments; the list is endless. She has mean and tender moments, moments of love alongside hate.

Katniss starts out as a poor girl who is good with a bow. Through all of her experiences in both the books and movies, she becomes a stronger, better person. As she sees children her age die at the hands of others and does quite a lot of killing herself, and experiences the poverty of the Districts and the gluttony of the Capitol, she retains the essence of herself: a brave, strong, truly good person who volunteered to take her sister’s place in the games. As terrible, yet thrilling, events happen around her, she realizes hope is stronger than fear, that once a spark catches, there is no putting out the fire.

The Hunger Games is a great movie, but as with movies, there are a few downsides. First and foremost is the glaring lack of diversity. Throughout the film series, there are maybe three African Americans with big-ish parts, and the series proceeds to kill everyone with the exception of Beetee. The Asians in the cast, none of whom have lines, die very early on, and there are no Latin Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, or West Indian people to speak of. Although nothing involving race is mentioned in the plot, and it is in no way important to the story, I shudder at this lack of diversity. Further, parts of both movies, are tedious and cheesy. In Catching Fire, the first half of the movie, although interesting at times, has little to no action. But overall, both the movies and books are excellent, thrilling, and dramatic and definitely worth seeing.

The symbols in the books and movies play an important role in the story. There are two recurring symbols. The first is the mockingjay pin that Katniss receives at the black market in the movie and from her friend Madge in the book. The second is the three finger salute.

At my school, my grade has been obsessed with The Hunger Games, and a girl in my class is constantly doing the three finger salute: touch the three middle fingers of your left hand to your lips and raise them toward the salute. It’s sort of annoying, but goes to show how much pop culture affects our society. However, the idea behind the three finger salute is very sweet. According to the book, “It means thanks; it means admiration; it means good-bye to someone you love.” To me, this is very touching.

The mockingjay, though harder to imitate in the real world, is very important to the book. In the books the mockingjay comes to symbolize the rebellion against the Capitol. It is a black and white bird that repeats whatever song you sing, and can even harmonize. Although Katniss received it randomly, the people of Panem rally around it as a symbol of the revolution against the capitol. One, because they love Katniss, but also because they feel their hopes for freedom have been heard. The mockingjay truly represents the idea of beauty surviving in the midst of adversity.

The Hunger Games is a great movie and has tons of fans all around the world. It is funny, intense, violent, dramatic; basically everything people love about movies all rolled up into one. It also is super true to the book, which I think is important to maintaining the integrity of the story. I highly recommend you see it because it is awesome and you will be amazed.

Curious about The Hunger Games from a teen's point of view? Click through to read an engaging review that dives into the film's themes, characters, and action from a fresh, youthful perspective. Discover why this movie resonates with today's younger generation!

Staying Alive: A Teen's Review of The Hunger Games

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer William Lohier discusses The Hunger Games, the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' novel of the same name.

Staying Alive: A Review of the Hunger Games

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a fantastic mystery-thriller.

It is a reflection on the darkness of human nature, depicting lies and betrayals, political power struggles, selfish actions fueled by pride and fear, and murder. But it is also a reflection on joy. Throughout the novel, the values of trust, family, and loyalty are strongly emphasized.

As a philosophical novel, it offers reflections on society and human nature, uncovering a veil which says the power of belief is stronger than the power of truth. This veil is revealed by Robert Langdon, a fictional Harvard professor known for his work with symbols and religious icons, caught in the center of a homicide investigation. He is loyal, intelligent, charming and often criticized by his colleagues for being arrogant and a nonbeliever. As the novel opens, Langdon is awoken in the middle of the night by an officer of the Parisian Judicial Police and summoned to the Louvre, where a horrific murder has taken place. He is told his expertise is needed, along with police cryptographer Sophie Neveu, to help decode cryptic messages to solve the murder. Throughout the novel, Langdon discovers the mysteries hidden in Da Vinci’s most influential masterpieces such as the Vitruvian Man, the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa.

The Da Vinci Code was very controversial when first published, and provoked debates about the beginnings of Christianity. A decade since its publication, it is still subject to vigorous debates about the lives of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and the Roman Catholic Church itself. There were some that said that the ideas presented in the book were preposterous and imaginary. Yet others agreed with the image painted by Dan Brown. For example, Carlos Pedretti, one of the world’s leading Da Vinci experts and head of the Leonardo Institute in Florence, Italy, says that the figure next to Jesus in the Last Supper clearly appears to be a woman. Claims about early biblical history include the eradication of the sacred feminine from history. The novel draws upon certain objects that were once associated with the sacred feminine, although these symbols later became associated with other things. And the book implies that the symbol of a hexagram, or six pointed star such as the Star of David, may be a symbol of the male and female joining in perfect harmony.

But isn’t it just a novel? Is Brown really arguing for anything? If not, why do people take a fictional story so seriously?

The answer is that The Da Vinci Code does not come across as pure fiction. It comes across as possible reality. Although most of the ideas proposed in the book may be convoluted and controversial, they still provide reasons for people to believe in them. Just because an idea isn’t true does not mean it isn’t powerful. Ideas only have power because people believe in them.

Dan Brown claims that The Da Vinci Code contains solid evidence, not only from Da Vinci’s paintings, but from authentic documents and the bible itself. Historians and scholars have devoted their time to studying his argument and some believe it to be true. Others before him have published books on the subject, such as Secrets of Mary Magdalene, by bestselling authors Dan Burstein and Arne De Keijzer. In the acknowledgments, Brown states that the art, architecture, and secret societies he describes are real. The art and architecture do exist, and Opus Dei is an actual institution within the Catholic Church.

The novel presents ideas that could be perceived as an attack on the Catholic Church; points that discredit Saint Peter’s claim as head of the church, or show women as equals in the early church doctrines. The book was banned in some places in the United States and in some other countries. The ideas in The Da Vinci Code almost blur the boundary between Dan Brown’s world and our own.

From a literary perspective, the novel is well-crafted. It is a fast-paced story with incredible descriptions and compelling characters. Throughout, we are presented with a variety of fully realized, believable characters. They represent real people, with each character having specific flaws, living in a real society.

I found the albino character, Silas of the secret society Opus Dei, an intriguing character. His story is presented as one of redemption. As a child, he was repeated abused by his father; by the end of the novel he has learned to understand god’s love, and the love in forgiveness. The Bishop character, who Silas saw as his true father, was also presented in an interesting manner. He realizes too late that Silas is being used for evil purposes, but also loves him as a son. The Bishop’s last words to Silas were, “Forgiveness is God’s greatest gift.” Their stories show the humanity, the power, and diversity of thought within the church and its members.

I gave the novel 4 out of 5 stars. The book is thrilling, so I recommend it to individuals interested in psychology and religion, as well as mystery and conspiracy lovers. While it can be slow to start, it swiftly moves the reader into its characters, setting, and plot. Although the book is a thriller, it can be included in the genre of philosophical fiction. I enjoyed Dan Brown’s writing style, which was exciting during the action scenes, but slowed when discussing the finer points of family, belief, and love.

The Da Vinci Code can be criticized and debated for its ideas, but it shows us that life is not simply painted on a black and white canvas; and more importantly, that art can reveal the power of belief. By the end of the book, it is suggested that Langdon discovers the value and power of faith. If faith is placed in something, it becomes meaningful and true; I believe this is the lesson of The Da Vinci Code.

I’ll leave you to ponder what these words mean…

“The Holy Grail ‘neath ancient Roslin waits.

The blade and chalice guarding o’er Her gates.

Adorned in masters’ loving art, She lies.

She rests at last beneath the starry skies.”

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Rachael Wang shares her thoughts on The Da Vinci Code, a novel by Dan Brown.

Believing in Da Vinci's Code

When I was asked by my choral teacher to perform in front of a director and producer for Carnegie Hall’s production of The Sound of Music, I didn’t fully grasp why I had been selected or what it would happen if I received a part.

My choral instructor asked thirty kids to audition for her, and narrowed it down herself. Twenty of us were called in on a Sunday, crammed into a space the size of a broom closet, asked to sing a prepared piece: the iconic Do-Re-Mi. Most of us had no idea how enormous this opportunity was- that we should have some self-confidence. Most were just uncomfortable and nervous to be performing in front of adults. The youngest of us was six, and the oldest seventeen. At ten, I was right in the middle.

I was a knock-kneed, skinny ten-year-old, tripping over my feet as I shuffled to the front of the room. My hands shook, so I clasped them behind my back. I tried to smile and look the director in the eye. I tried to “have fun with it”, a pointless phrase told to you by friends and family to coax you to invest emotion into the song. I was primarily a singer, so I think this part was the most strenuous for me, as I felt I should prove my worth.

When this ordeal was over, six or seven of us were taken for acting auditions. These were quick, as none of the children had many lines anyway. We were informed that the performance was meant to be more of a concert and less of a play. After that came the dancing auditions. As a mentioned before, I had a prepubescent awkward body that struggled to perform everyday tasks, such as walking down stairs and jumping rope.

Looking back, I don’t know how I thought I was a graceful dancer, but somehow I convinced myself that all the gangly and uncoordinated movements that occurred every day did not apply to my dancing skills. I shuffled and tripped my way through a ten-minute audition; I was sure I had the makings of a ballerina. At the end of this almost three-hour process, we were told to go home. Two weeks later, I got a phone call and received the role that I never thought I’d get: Brigitta Von Trapp.

As rehearsals began, I started to hum the music as I walked to school, ate my meals, and went to sleep. I began to see the songs and lines in my daily experiences: waking up was the lonely goatherd, going to sleep was edelweiss, and school was Do-Re-Mi. I started to identify with Brigitta in ways I hadn’t imagined. We both loved to read, were quite opinionated, and both occasionally meddled in the affairs of our parents (and in her case, governess). There were five other children with me. Leisel, the oldest, was played by Mary Michael Patterson, fresh off a role in Anything Goes.

"I started to hum the music as I walked to school, ate my meals, and went to sleep."

I developed a close relationship with the other children, especially in the weeks leading up to the performance. We met with the choreographer once a week, going through increasingly more difficult dance pieces. I wondered why I was always in the back row. We rehearsed our lines, and I realized that I would have to talk to a lot of adult characters, which sent me into an anxiety tailspin, which lasted until I actually met the actors and realized that they were incredibly nice, especially the woman playing Maria, Laura Osnes. She had a warm smile, a gentle, sweet demeanor. She encouraged us during scenes. To top it off she had a beautiful voice, better than anyone I had ever heard. To me, she was a goddess; the other children and I worshiped her.

During the first rehearsal in Carnegie Hall, I closed my eyes and thought I was dreaming. The red and gold fixtures, the velvet seats, the vaulted ceilings made me feel like I was dreaming. We were given seats onstage, to stare out into the cavernous hall and practice. We ran our lines with the director, and he gave us notes. Then came the dance rehearsal, where I was moved further to the back of the group dance. After an almost six-hour day, we began to run the musical numbers. When we sang, the space reverberated. I gazed into the vast space, watching the sea of seats go on and on. They all watched and encouraged me. I wasn’t focusing on anything, just floating through an endless reverie.

Performing onstage is finding a balance between performer and audience. As the actor, you must connect with the audience to help them feel the emotion of the story by using yourself as a vehicle for the character. In that single performance in Carnegie Hall, I shored up every memory about performing and conveying emotion.

Every musical I’d watched, every book I’d read, every time I’d cried or laughed or felt remorse, I stitched these emotions into a tapestry of Brigitta Von Trapp. I remember the shine of the light as I marched onstage, the way the first notes rang in the hall, the way my lone voice sounded when I tripped during the dance number, but most of all, I remember the standing ovation that echoed through the chamber; the joy I felt from the payoff of working so hard.

In the cab ride from the after-party, I had a sense of melancholy and nostalgia that I had never felt before. In a moment like this I should have been rejoicing, but since the show only ran for one night, I would never experience it again. In that moment, my ten-year-old self concluded that some things in life are not meant to be held onto. Moments should be experienced and remembered, even celebrated, but not wallowed in.

My awesome moment may have been singing in front of the director in the audition, it may have been seeing Carnegie Hall for the first time, it may have been when I realized that I had made a lasting bond with the cast members, it may have been singing in the performance. But, really, my awesome moment was sitting in that cab when it was all over, registering that through hard work comes satisfaction and great experiences.

For the past three years I’ve drawn upon this work ethic almost every day. It has lead me to every one of my achievements, to every single time I’ve felt fulfilled. My moment will follow me through my life, and that’s what makes it truly awesome.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Grace Luckett's performance at Carnegie Hall teaches her that even fleeting experiences can leave a lasting impression.

Fulfillment

The world is irrelevant. All focus is on one thing: the present; every aspect and every physical thing, feeling, or emotion that creates every second, of every hour, of every day.

In this particular moment, I am on my boat Totoro, named after my favorite childhood movie. The name brings back memories of the dozens of times my sisters and I watched the animated film, cuddled in knit afghans, embraced in yawns created by being up past 10 pm. Totoro is the embodiment of my childhood; the almost obnoxious yellow of the dorsal surface and the baby blue of the hull mimic perfect sunny days spent outside on the water. As a child I was only allowed to sail across the harbor and back. Now, “all grown up,” I drift towards the vast Atlantic ocean, yet I find myself still sheltered by my beloved little harbor. The tide is going out pulling me to the south. The wind is coming from the north today, strange, as it usually blows from the opposite direction. But it’s perfect. I have a straight shot at open sea. While I usually tack 12 to 20 times to open water, today I’ll tack four times. The tide pulls me further from the Yacht Club — my safe harbor.

In no time my perspective alters dramatically. I look back and see a white speck in place of my whole world. That’s what I love about open water. It doesn’t matter where you come from or where you’re going; everyone comes from a similar, seemingly insignificant, speck. You can strain to find a sign that proves you’re still part of the world, but your boat is the only thing that ties you to reality. It’s interesting to feel this way, like you are no longer in the world. Especially in today’s society, where technology and modern media have us believing the world revolves around the individual. Being constantly available and “in touch” creates a negative connotation around being alone, out of touch. I find it hard to pull myself away from technology and society, but when I do, it’s worthwhile.

I let my mind float into the unusually blue sky. I am drifting alone in the ocean. Although unsettling at first, the more the solitude sinks in, the more comfortable I become. I think about what it means to be alone. If I disappeared right now, who would know? Could they save me in time? Scary thoughts pass through my mind. I find solace in thinking about what is beneath me — yards upon yards of unexplored territory, inhabited by multitudes of species. I’ve never been so alone, but ironically, I’ve never been surrounded by so much life.

I come back; I focus. The subtle pull of the tide and the waves rock me and my boat. It makes me feel as though I’m part of something bigger. I realize the world is alive and constantly breathing. It’s restless, and I’m part of it.

Just after I tack, I watch my mainsail fill with air. I marvel that something can look so full, yet so empty. I suddenly catch a breeze. I breathe in. Salty, humid air fills my lungs. I’m flying. The wind picks up; the boat glides, almost hydroplaning. The salt from the wind coats every exposed surface. I drag my right hand in the water while my left controls of the boat. The water feels refreshing beneath the hot sun.

The sun beams down on everything for as far as I can see. In the distance, I see the mountains and greenery of Acadia National Park. Turtle Island is to my right and Schoodic Point is to my left; I never forget how fortunate I am to be able to live in such a beautiful place. I close my eyes, feeling the warmth of the rays on my eyelids. The sun warms while the breeze cools; I feel neither cold nor warm.

I am in the Atlantic, maneuvering a fiber boat. Why? Because I want to. Isn’t that reason enough? Yes, things are happening in the world, but sometimes, if only for a moment, it is nice to breathe and remember how it feels to not feel. The highways will still crowd with cars and the cities will pulse. Whether I’m in the ocean or not, life goes on.

I open my eyes and jump into the frigid waves of the water without thinking. The moment my toes hit the water and my head submerges, I am alive again, fully aware. I am engulfed in something lovely and new. As soon as I fall, the water catches me, seems to embrace me as I sink. I’m sinking. But as soon as I want to reappear, the water buoys me. When I surface, my mind is renewed and awake. I catch up to Totoro as she drifted away during my ridiculous plunge.

Now I am freezing, but I don’t mind. I head to the harbor and moor the boat. I do this effortlessly, it’s such a habit. My life is a habit. But it’s nice to do nothing for a bit.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Celie Johnson takes her sailboat out into the open ocean and immerses herself in newfound feelings of freedom and clarity.

My Safe Harbor

Levelheaded mess
with outlooked
intentions. But there was
an artistic boy, who had visionless
looks directly
to the observant
secretly collecting hope. Excluded
from the inclusive, the girl
had a pressure against
ubiquity. A beauty who
never met attention
she was stripped comfort.

But there was an artistic boy
deep into no one’s reality
seeing the crowd
fixating on the
unattainable. Continual
disappointment inside her
unknown barrier,
she was an unsolvable mystery
flooding the air.

Collecting her heart, returning
it nervous,
sick with bliss.
Hands filled with words
temporary tattoos of
what to remember.
She wouldn’t want
a poem for her, stupid
with nativity.

The girl was under-appreciated
voluntarily trapped
but there was
an overrated artistic
boy, with the shocking desire
to be needed.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Charlotte Rauner evokes the uneasy relationship between a girl and an artistic boy who notices her.

Outlooked Intentions

When the night comes
Time has stopped
The air gets thicker
My vision fogs

If I try to fight it
No, I will not try to fight it
That is one battle I cannot win
Better to not even start

So, if you my dear friend
Who walks among the light
See the sun going down
Run like the wind and chase the sun

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Maya Mesh cautions us to chase the sun instead of succumbing to the fog of night.

I See The Night

And the chameleons like blankets
are lullabies in the sky,
the clouds are dreams
bestowed upon you.

The universe is a language
decoded in your system,
and you are made up of syllables
to poems.

A soulmate will understand your literature,
will heal your tear stained pages.
A soulmate will
read your poems
and converse in silence
with the pores
filled with your language.
This language will be born when
someone understands it.

Every little piece of your heart
is weaved with silver lining
in a cloud that has just finished weeping.
Your blood is flowing
from valleys
that are pregnant
with bloom.

You are made up of recovery, recovery
and purely discovery.

This is the human mind,
the human soul,
a mouth filled with
a wild and blooming garden,
flower seeds left aghast,
assortments of little
pleasures, wide and vast.
A work of art is etched,
every time you
collate your emotions,
drawing that gifted smile.

You are a human being,
you breathe like the forest.
Always full of the night,
wounded and in fright,
closed cocoon of the moon,
but you know how to take flight.

The sky is just a roof to you!
you are so much more than a wonder,
you are a line of God’s poem,
an expression to which
reality would surrender.
Within this line of your existence
is a metaphor,
that holds another poem,
a fragrant sustainer.

Mystery, mystery,
you are breathlessness
and a significant piece
of something
that will soon be history.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Niti Majethia imagines us as syllables in a poem or pages in a story, deeply connected to the language of nature and the universe.

When the Universe Sings Goodnight

First, the plastic tractors.
Once, they raced, wheels churning excitedly over asphalt—
Down the hill,
Mounted by me and my whooping friends—
Now the tractors sit,
neglected and forlorn
In the artificial dusk
Beneath the great fir tree.
Wheels sunk into black mulch
Rancid water pooling
in their plastic seats.
Draped with cobwebs,
Like a plastic sheet.
Sitting, dead, in the great shadow

Of the fir tree,
With the rest of my childhood.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Will Hodgkinson reminisces about the tractors he raced as a young boy, which have since fallen into neglect.

Plastic Tractors

Cosy and warm
A fire blazing
A cup steaming
Luxury unbound
Yet demands
More and more lives
Given to save
Ten thousand here
Twenty thousand there
One by one they drop
Still the cup steams
The fire blazes

Futile tears are shed
No meaning, no feeling
Just for show
While those who really cry
Are quiet, uncomplaining
Power and more power wanted
Victory and glory achieved
But the superficial shine fades
Into deeper, darker shades
For what is the price of power?
Of the victory and glory hard-won
Losing humanity
Wasting lives
A price too high for some
Meagre to the rest
Death and devastation all around
Pain and agony reign

In a KidSpirit poem, teen writer Sunwrita Dastidar examines the hypocrisies of power and social status — and the toll they take on those who possess them.

Still, the Cup Steams

Spinning lights into darks,
While the crowds swell below,
Not pleasant as a lark,
My song is one of woe.

I suffer, the grim sentinel,
The usher of the blind,
And yet I do not exist —
a child of the mind.

The underground I hold,
With a hand of steel,
Metal monsters leashed below,
Devouring hordes at my peal.

But I remain, eternal,
Through spring bloom and winter snow.
My wooden frame collects dust,
My days of tyranny lose their glow.

My hands yearn for a role more sublime,
Conducting music with sweeping strokes,
Not to enslave with worrying chimes,
Then my peals turn feeble croaks.

I’m lost in visions of eternity,
In stations empty of activity,
Then a hand reaches up to me,
And from my socket I am freed.

And replaced with another clock,
Much like me when I was new,
Ambitious and punctual,
Proudly ruling its purview.

I’m free to roam pleasant fantasies,
My existence a blip in eternity,
But beneath runs an unavoidable truth,
For that’s all they’ll ever be — delusions.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Nimai Agarwal writes from the perspective of a clock that longs for a more refined existence.

The Clock

My spirituality revolves around the use of numbers and symbols, a cloud of reasoning and a bit of mysticism.

I believe in numbers and that brings me comfort. It comforts me to count the stars, understand why they exist, and how they came to be. It comforts me to think of adding and subtracting, equations and notations, that make sense of this crazy and complex world. However, I didn’t always feel this way.

I was raised Jewish, but my father is Christian. There has always been an underlying tension about what to believe for my two sisters and me. Every year, we celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah. There was always a candy-filled basket on Easter Sunday, as well as a Seder to host when Passover came around. It’s not that our parents were trying to persuade us one way or another, it’s just that it was confusing to seemingly belong to two religions, while spiritually not feeling like belonging to one at all. I felt conflicted about the role that religion should play, if any, in my life.

What did I believe in? It is still something I think about fairly often. If I had been raised strictly Jewish, what would be different about me and my outlook on the world? Each time I think about it, I conclude I would feel differently about faith and religion – not in a worse or better way, just different.

I was raised how I was raised. I am who I am. So what now?

I attended synagogue from age five up until my Bat-Mitzvah, at 13 years old. My family and I belonged to a great community of people who leaned on each other and God for comfort and support. Through attending synagogue once a week and studying the Torah with others my age, I witnessed several people around me fall under the spell of faith. They were so involved in prayers that they would murmur to themselves, eyes closed, subtly rocking back and forth. Some with tears, as they looked to God for a healing prayer. By giving 100% of themselves to the religion, they were able to ground themselves in what Judaism had to offer. Each service, by singing prayers and praising Him (who seemed to float just beyond the stained, sloped roof of our newly-built prayer room), many people found themselves.

While I, on the other hand, found myself agape at what belief could do for believers and anxious that I couldn’t relate. Now I feel grateful for this experience. In that moment, I longed to feel such connection to something so life changing and inspiring. I wanted the hope that a divine figure offered; but I never could connect – something was always amiss for me.

At thirteen I became a Bat Mitzvah, an adult in the eyes of the Jewish community. Yet, after a three-hour ceremony, I didn’t feel the clarity or relief as I had hoped. Instead, I felt lost. The book from which I read didn’t make as much sense to me as it did to those around me, those who lived by it. Instead of feeling comforted by the symbols and stories that graced the text, I felt confused. I couldn’t grasp the ideas or religious teachings that a group of people had written so long ago. I couldn’t relate to the books of the Torah at all, not to mention the men who had written them. I was hoping that I might have some sort of religious clarity during the ceremony that would clear my doubts – but I didn’t.

My Bat Mitzvah was a pleasant memory of family, friends, and great food. Afterward, I thought about what it meant that I didn’t feel a spiritual connection to Judaism. I still think about this disconnect today. For one, life today is completely different from ancient biblical times and I was never able to embrace those differences. Instead, I grappled with them. Technology has altered our perspective on everything from last night’s gossip to major world discoveries. We are now able to understand our place in the universe and have a better idea of how small we are in relation to it; how insignificant in the scheme of things. I know that for some these realizations can be daunting. But for me, the realization brings me comfort. Just as some find hope in a higher power, I find hope in numbers.

I’ve always been a literal person. To believe something I have to see it. I want to hold an idea in my hands: an image of a problem or a diagram. Maybe because I am a visual learner, I don’t mesh well with concepts. Science and math have always made sense to me. I find these topics easy to comprehend. Exponential cell growth, for example, has an equation to explain how life duplicates and grows. This is what I believe in. Maybe this makes me unimaginative, but it works for me.

Numbers, symbols, and equations are, for me, the keys to the universe; they give me hope. Through equations and patterns, even the most complex mysteries can be solved. Though it may seem I have dispelled religion from my life, numbers represent faith to me. In this sense I am most definitely religious. Call me devout.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Celie Johnson discusses how she finds hope, faith, and a sense of the mystical in her passion for numbers.

Finding Comfort in Numbers

India is a composite culture, an amalgam of heirlooms left by the various civilizations, empires, and religions born here.

Aside from the rich cultural heritage, there are priceless pearls of wisdom that continue to be passed down through the generations, even today. These heirlooms have grown to be an important part of our lives.

The diversity of my country’s populous has exposed me to religions such as Islam, Christianity, and Jainism. Over the years, my interactions with friends following different religions has made me question the superstitions I have grown up accepting. Though India is a secular country, each religion has given us superstitions and traditions that impact every aspect of our lives – marriages, gifts, and names.

Maternally, I’m a Hindu; paternally, a Sikh. All my life, both of my parents have eagerly conferred their traditions on me: a pragmatic, semi-agnostic teenager. While I initially accepted these traditions, the idea of blind faith began to trouble me over the years, pushing me to find out more about their histories. I began to collect nuggets of information from the elders in my family and the internet so I could understand more about the rich culture of my country.

One Hindu superstition is the concept of ‘shagun’. Shagun is the addition of one rupee to any monetary gift – be it a hundred rupees or a thousand. This was born from the tradition of gifting only one rupee in ancient marriages, a custom followed so that there would be no disparity between the rich and the poor. Over time, people began to add whatever sum they wished to the one rupee. Although today it may seem insignificant, the shiny rupee coin is added as a symbol of generosity and abundance, to show that we are willing to go beyond our means. As well, giving an even number is considered inauspicious.

Some Hindu beliefs revolve around numerology. I have friends who have added and removed letters from their names because a priest said that one more or less was unlucky. It is also said that important tasks should not be carried out by four people because traditionally, this is how many usually carry a corpse to the funeral pyre. It is also believed that bad luck comes in threes. ‘Teen tigada kaam bigada’ literally means that working in a trio ruins the work. Be it while traveling or handing out sweets, we try to avoid the number three.

Hinduism is abounding in superstitions, some with background stories based on the historical texts, others of more ambiguous origins. Sikhism, on the other hand, has relatively simpler beliefs. I learned from my grandmother that Sikhs don’t support superstition all that much. They have five simple rules regarding what a Sikh must carry at all times, but besides that, their superstitions are few.

Sikhism strictly advocates the belief in one God or ‘Ik Onkar’. While Hinduism, being a polytheistic religion, is replete with myriad superstitions, each stemming from a different God. For example, during wedding ceremonies, the bride and groom take seven revolutions or ‘saat pheras’ around the holy fire, joined together by a piece of cloth. The seven rounds symbolize the seven vows they have taken together, praying for a lifetime of wealth and prosperity. At the age of five, the first time I saw the ritual, I was fascinated. My grandmother explained that after seven lives together, the couple would finally find peace. Sikh marriage rites are not too different, with their four revolutions or ‘laava phere’ around the holy book, from which, four hymns are sung.

Aside from numbers, India has multitudes of monuments, temples, and pillars inscribed or embossed with symbols, each with its own purpose. Of these, one of the most prominent is the swastika or, as most visitors would know it, the symbol tilted and appropriated by the Nazis. Where half the world associates it with murder, massacre, and manslaughter, in India, it is considered auspicious, sacred, and sacrosanct. Swastika, the legacy left to us by the Indus Valley Civilization, literally means ‘it is auspicious’. Having grown up seeing the swastika at the entrance to my grandparents’ house on festivals as an invitation to Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and fortune, I automatically associate it with spirituality and superstition. It is incredible how the same symbol can have two completely contradictory associations in different parts of the world.

Possibly the most universally recognized religious symbol is ‘Om’, known as the yogic or meditation chant. Some may know it from Adam Levine’s tattoo or as the lyric of a Beatles song, but in India it has a deeper, more spiritual meaning derived from Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. I have seen Om in every single Hindu temple, and have chanted it before and after every prayer as an invocation to God. Om has come to symbolize more than just religion - it is used world over to build inner peace and reach out to one’s consciousness. Even for those who do not see a deeper meaning, myself included, the symbol has a calming effect. Taking a minute to chant Om three times, listening to myself breathe, often snaps me out of stress before an exam.

"Om has come to symbolize more than just religion - it is used world over to build inner peace and reach out to one’s consciousness."

Another emblem I have grown up seeing is the Sikh ‘khanda’ – a double-edged sword with a round circlet in the center flanked by two identical interlocked swords. Khanda has many interpretations, but in my family it is said to signify strength, freedom, and truth’s ability to cut through illusion. It is used to stir the nectar given to Sikhs in their baptism ceremony. The round circlet represents eternity and unity of God. As circles have no beginning or end, the meaning is of timelessness, and therefore, eternity. The twin interlocked swords, piri’ and ‘miri’, signify the coexistence of spirituality and secularity. Each of these objects once belonged to a Sikh guru (spiritual leader). The same symbol that means nothing to me, compels my father to join his hands in respect whenever he sees, even a sticker on a passing car.

Another important Sikh symbol is the ‘Ik Onkar’ sign. It comprises two letters in Punjabi, the first is the number one and the second is ‘urha’ which means God. Ik Onkar is the concept of unity of God, which is one of the core beliefs of Sikhism. These words are the first two recited in the morning prayer that I have grown up hearing in school, one that I can recite without thinking or fully understanding. Yet somehow, I find myself associating these words with inner peace and reflection.

Being semi-agnostic, these practices and beliefs sometimes seem impractical to me. Although I follow them too, I could not identify with them until I learned more and understood their roots. The idea of blind faith based on family tradition make no sense to me without knowing the significance of such things. I feel like such small acts do not truly define one’s devotion to God or religion. Why add a silent letter to your name, reschedule your entire five-day wedding, or even call it off because the priest said the numbers and the stars do not align? What becomes of the families who cannot afford the fourteen diyas or bring their life to a standstill for the thirteen-day mourning period after the death of an extended relative? Are they any less devoted because they lack the means?

Although I may not actively support a lot of these beliefs, I do find that they some taught me important lessons. The tradition of adding a coin to a gift taught me about generosity; the seven rounds of the holy fire taught me about the commitments carried in our words; chanting Om three times when my mind is in a downward spiral of stress not only calms me down but also gives me strength.

Belief systems give some direction, others a sense of security. For many, including my parents, these traditions are symbols of continuity. For me, beliefs may govern small things like the lucky pen I carry for an exam. For others, they can be the basis of their entire lives. This is not the case just in India – each religion has their own version of beliefs disguised in individual dress, but fundamentally the same. For Hindus, there is Saat Pheras. Muslims have three vows of acceptance of the marital responsibilities, and Christians have ‘Till Death Do Us Part’. Where Sikhism considers the number thirteen as lucky, Christians sees it as unlucky and Hindus associate it with death.

Regardless of religion, region, or generation, ultimately what matters is what each individual believes. My mother will always light fourteen lamps and my father will always add that one extra rupee to my birthday gift. For me, it makes no difference if I take one wedding vow, four, or even thirteen. Superstitions are entirely subjective. Like beauty, faith is in the eye of the beholder.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Sanya Kochhar examines an assortment of Sikh and Hindu traditions that revolve around numbers, repetition, and superstition.

Two Traditions: A Multitude of Symbols

I have a confession to make: I have never been to confession. I have never gone to a church, a synagogue, or a mosque. My holy trinity is Newton, Einstein, and Sagan. I am decidedly an atheist.

My journey to atheism was a coming-of-age moment. I was not raised as a Christian stereotype, but I participated in my church socially. I volunteered at the church-run preschool and held church fundraisers for secular causes. Even after my conversion to atheism, I continue to volunteer in these activities, because the Christian value of charity also happens to be a human value.

The logic of church doctrine fails me, however, when it intersects with social issues. It is difficult for me to believe in a God who condemns certain kinds of love as “unnatural,” when science tells me all love is governed by the same set of neurotransmitters. When in love, high dopamine levels and low serotonin levels are universal.

My beliefs could be described as less atheism and more a belief in ‘Something’ with a capital S. Rather than a strict cause and effect relationship between actions deemed “good” or “bad”, the universe tends towards progress rather than entropy. Progress evolutionary, progress socially, even progress towards equal rights. The vindictive God I knew as a child is dwarfed by the massive and benevolent workings of a natural universe ruled by some unknown force.

"The universe tends towards progress rather than entropy."

Biology is great for answering those abstract questions like, “Will I be eternally damned for living unnaturally?” However, for more practical questions, we must turn to physics.

In April of 1960, a radio astronomer named Frank Drake began a three-month long experiment. Tucked in the mountains of West Virginia, far from any major cities, Drake embarked on a scan of radio frequencies from two nearby stars, Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. His goal was to find aliens. He did not succeed. Drake pioneered the field of extraterrestrial research, and hosted the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) meeting, with other notable scientists, such as neuroscientist John C. Lilly, inventor Barney Oliver, astronomer Carl Sagan, and radio-astronomer Otto Struve. Out of this meeting grew the Drake Equation.

The Drake Equation measures the probability of discovering other forms of intelligent life by estimating the number of planets with species with radio capabilities. It is a “back of the napkin” summary of the main characteristics used by scientists to find extraterrestrial life. It finds by multiplying the probabilities of various events.

A similar process is behind the Tang Prom Date Probability Equation, which I invented in a fit of black humor to describe my situation. The number of prom dates, P, equals the number of people someone is regularly in contact with (the number of students in your school); multiplied by the percentage of the population with the gender someone is searching for (50%, or 100%), multiplied by the percent of people in the target age range (25% in a four-year school), multiplied by the eligible percent (50%), multiplied by an attractiveness quantification. By multiplying this attractiveness percentage with the overall number of people who are eligible dates with similar interests, we find the final number of potential dates.

The Drake Equation is the multiplication of discrete probabilities to find the composite probability to find alien life (N) rather than potential mates. At both a practical and theoretical level, it uses the same process. The equation begins with the average rate of star formation in the galaxy. As far as we know, stars like the sun are the ultimate beginning of all energy for life. About seven stars are formed in a year. The number of stars formed annually is multiplied the percentage of stars with planets in range to receive its energy. This is the famed “Goldilocks zone,” which is neither too hot nor too cold to support life. This is about 70% of all stars. This is where consensus ends in the Drake Equation.

Followers of the Rare Earth Hypothesis believe the Drake Equation proves that Earth is alone in supporting life in the endless black depths of the universe. The 200 million square miles that I, and you, and everyone else you have ever known and ever will know, call home, is only a speck of light in an otherwise dark infinity. We are a mere statistical anomaly, a chance event.

But I’d like to believe differently. I want to believe that there are other forms of life, somewhere — and I’d like to believe that that they are somehow better than us accident-prone humans; that they, against near insurmountable odds, have discovered both advanced technology and the ability to use it without killing each other.

There is little evidence to support my belief in finding life with the Drake Equation, as there is little data that the Tang Equation will yield any prom dates. The probability that any of dozens of factors has a probability greater that zero is infinitesimal. The inescapable truth of our flawed lives, maybe even fatally so, opposes my beliefs. And yet I still believe. Even when I am alone, as the sun sets on prom night.

There are some who say the Drake Equation is meaningless. The variety in its values can lead to a universe populated with billions of thriving populations, or one where Earth is alone. This ambiguity is the beauty in the Drake Equation. The essential premise of both the Drake Equation and the Tang Equation is that they can quantify the uncountable. By finding the probability of all the above factors happening simultaneously, we can gauge our chances of finding life and love in the void; we can make meaning out of the meaningless. The desire to not be alone — whether on prom night or in the universe — is irresistible.

The equations that describe the natural world empower us, either as a society or as individuals, to see the possibilities. The equations are hope, and it is upon this hope that the cornerstones of innovation are built. Astronomers will continue to search the skies for life, and I will continue to search for love. May the odds be ever in our favor.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Opal Tang finds common ground between the search for extraterrestrial life and her search for a prom date.

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