Persian Carpet Garden

"Modern depth psychology has established that [we] long to realize [ourselves], to actualize [our] potential for wholeness and freedom. [We] are goaded on in this endeavour by unconscious projections of that wholeness; images and symbols that are ciphers for the unity and plentitude of being. This innate longing is reflected in the nostalgia for Paradise which is present in one form or another at all levels of culture.

It is evoked here in an image from Islam: the centre of a Persian 'carpet garden', which represents the heavenly gardens with the four rivers of Paradise radiating from their centre."

Garden carpet, Persian, 17th-18th c.
Text and image from The Tree of Life: Image for the Cosmos, by Roger Cook