The Circle: Symbol of Holistic Awareness?

In an earlier paper (Butcher, 1983), I described a case study of an individual who during childhood, adolescence and adulthood, had experienced a number of spontaneous, positive, expanded states of consciousness. The study focused on a six-month period during 1975 when the subject underwent a disorienting change in his way of understanding the world. The change was interpreted as a major shift in a wide range of primary personal constructs, particularly those related to describing the world in terms of opposites. His states of consciousness at that time as well as the eventual resolution of the crisis was analyzed through a content analysis of his dream diary and the sculpture he was creating.

At the time of the crisis, he had just begun carving a circle of twelve stone figures. These figures represented an image of oneness and took the form of a creation myth. With the crisis other themes emerged. He introduced new images in the form of three primitive, open-mouthed, self-devouring idols, a family of man—representing stages and initiations from birth’ to death—and a half-child, half-woman who was known as The Changeling. Unlike the orderly, stable process of change apparent in the circle of stone figures, the family of man and the threatening idols reflected the more fearful and possibly dangerous nature of genuine psychological change. At the center of the circle, in the midst of the idols and family of man, he placed another sculpture as a symbol of orientation. This oval-shaped abstract work fused the image of an egg with the image of an eye: a symbol of both creation and seeing. In his dreams at this time, the symbol of the center eventually emerged not only as an image of orientation but as a symbol of balance and harmony.

With the resolution of the disorientation and the feelings of inner chaos, other changes took place in his art work. One of the first new works resulted from considering how he