Nature, water symbols, and the human quest for wholeness

Abstract

Few words so commonplace in everday vocabulary are so elusive to grasp as “the whole.” Like mirrors, notions of what constitutes a “whole picture” may reflect quite as much of what is in the eye of the beholder as they do about reality. Herein lies a profound dilemma. Once a person, group, or culture articulates its own conception of the whole, immediately antennae on other possible wholes become fixed; receptors to foreign insights become restricted to those categories which are familiar and, therefore, limited.