My parents, my wife, and I were traveling through the sparse Southern Montana landscape. We were driving through the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation and I kept noticing this symbol. It is the tribal symbols of the Northern Cheyenne Native Americans.

The present day flag of Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Southern Montana is emblem of Chief Morning Star, better known as Dull Knife, the Cheyenne chief who led his people to their new home after they had been defeated in the War of the Plains. The morning star glyph was also used during the Sun Dance. Warriors would paint it on their chests for the ceremony.  The ancient version was a deep reddish brown, and a black morning star glyph.

Make your own symbols and make new friends at Mikons.com.

I saw this logo while riding my mountain bike crossing some railroad tracks in Northern Idaho – The Great Northern Railroad. It is a great image representing of the feat that Railroad Companies had to overcome laying track across the Northern Rockies. Although the use of animals is common among logo creators, few use the Rocky Mountain Mountain Goat.

Consider the ubiquity of animals like lions, bulls, and eagles in logos. They certainly share a common meaning with us all. But the risk that companies take when using animal representations in logos is that they compromise uniqueness in branding.  Other companies selling bicycles and outdoor apparel have used the mountain goat image, but none are as strong the Great Northern Railway logo.

Last week I ran the Rock n Roll Half-Marathon in Seattle. The finish line was at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. These symbols are at the North end of the Staduim. 

I looked them up and found this at the Qwest Field website:

Bob Haozous’ installation on the stadium’s North Tower is assembled from four 24-foot-diameter painted steel discs. Although inspired by symbols that are part of his Warm Springs/Chiricahua Apache heritage, Haozous believes that the forms and colors of the artwork have universal meanings.

Specifically, the artwork is intended as a constant reminder of our deep connection to the earth. According to Haozous, the lowest disc, depicting a stylized cityscape, represents our contemporary, man-made world. The green disc above it symbolizes life and growth, but its human figures are flying away, suggesting the loss of man’s direct tie to nature, or in a more hopeful reading, a return to those ties. The third disc honors the sun, highlighting our dependence on the natural world and the redemptive powers of nature. The top disc is a collection of man-made clouds, meant to suggest the immensity of the natural environment.

Bob Haozous is attempting to connect us with our environment and one another. What I love of about Icons and Symbols and the people who create them is that the creators are putting themselves out there. Creators of these symbols are courageous people.

Make your own icons and symbols at www.mikons.com.

CNN posted an interesting collection and discussion of Christian and Jewish cemetary headstones. Tombstone Symbolism.

Read the comments below on the post and you will see the silly discussion about what God does and doesn’t do from both foolish “believers” and non-believers. It always strikes me as odd that since we people cannot be God, we want to own God and pretend to know all about God.  The CNN post title got it right, ”What Headstones Say About the Living”

Make a Mikon and make a Symbol that says something about You!

Who is your Inunnguaq? The Icon of Hope is a Gift of Gratitude for someone who has helped you on our journey.

The Inuit people of Northern Canada build stone structures to point the way across desolate tundra and ice. Sometimes built in the shape of a man, they are called Inunnguaq. These stone sentinels can save a life on the harsh, frozen landscape where few survive alone.

These stones are called INUNNGUAQ (pronounced EEN-NON-WOK). They are  used by the Inuit people of the icy tundra of  Northern Canada. Stacked stones “in the shape  of a man” – the meaning of Inunnguaq – are a landmark and survival guide for travelers on a journey.

They are placed from one horizon to the next.  The Inuit erect these stones out of love for fellow travelers – people they may never know.  They say, “You are on the right path…you arenot alone.

Express your appreciation to that person who has shown you the way.

Join the movement. Share the Icon of Hope. Let there be 1,000,000 Icons of Hope in the World.

Yes, I LOVE Basketball.  My dad was a basketball coach. I love the headiness of the game. Basketball is a sport where game knowledge, savvy, and scrapiness will trump talent. I am not an raw athlete – I can’t jump and I’m skinny. When I walk on the court with a bunch of other players who don’t know my game I barely get a look. I know the fundamentals and I am a disciplined player. My wife will say I am very aggressive; I say that I just play hard. I give a crap. I don’t like being a lazy player.

Over the years I have come to enjoy that kind of “disrepect” because I often flip it into being the go-to guy. Many aspects of life are like that. People judge the outside because they can’t calibrate the head and the heart. You gotta be in the game before they know the real you.

Knowledge, fundamentals, discipline, and effort. That is a great recipe for success. However, you don’t gain knowledge unless you play the game.  You don’t perfect the fundamentals unless you play the game. Discipline and effort are not exercised until you are in the game.  If you are serious about what you want to do with your life then GET IN THE GAME and give it everything you have. Then someday you might be a champion.

Go Butler!

Make a symbol about something you love at Mikons.com. Then share with others how your love made you a champion.

The Easter Egg represents rebirth for a new life as represented by the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Early Christians painted the eggs red.  It was to symbolize the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, the egg shell symbolized the tomb in which he was buried, and cracking the egg on Easter morning represented the resurrection.

The teachings and spirit of Jesus has been a guide millions over the centuries. Share a gift to someone who has guided you in your life. Give a gift of gratitude, give an Inunnguaq to your Icon of Hope at www.IconOfHope.com.

The Christian Cross is bleeds with symbolism.  Today, this Friday, is called Good Friday.  It is the day that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.  The cross now symbolizes the atonement of man to God. 

However, it’ adoption has a rich history of politics, lust, goodness, and holiness. Below is an excerpt of an interpretation called the “Cross of Christ”.  Click on that title to read the full article.  It is well written and even provocative.  Consider this: Jesus lived the crucifiction leaving us the symbol to metaphorically die to our selfish selves to be at one with God – atonement (at one ment). 

 There is a long history of Christians using the symbol of the cross in superstitious and mystical ways.   The earliest Christians seem to have repudiated the use of the cross as a symbol. This because the cross was a despised execution instrument. Would we want to wear a gold-plated noose or gallows had Jesus been hanged, or a gold-plated guillotine had Jesus been beheaded, or a gold-plated electric-chair had Jesus been electrocuted, or a gold-plated syringe had Jesus been lethally injected? It is not difficult to understand their aversion to using the cross as a symbol.
Mankind has always utilized symbols to give expression to their abstract ideas. Early Christians developed a symbol of the fish because the Greek word for fish, ichthus, was used as an acrostic for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” The dove was used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The first two letters of the Greek word for Christ, Christos, were formed together as a chi-rho symbol for Christ. The primary emphasis of early Christian preaching was the resurrection-life of Jesus Christ, for which a symbol was difficult to find. The empty cross became a symbol to show that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and it eventually became the predominant Christian symbol. The first record of its use is found during the second century. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “we mark the brow with the sign of the cross.14 There is also evidence that the gesture of the cross and material objects in the form of a cross were used as early as the second century as ritual fetishes to ward off evil, a practice which was condemned.

   The cross as a symbol was further entrenched as the primary symbol of Christian religion after the Roman emperor, Constantine, claimed to have seen a flaming cross of light in the sky with the words, “By this sign conquer.” He henceforth merged Christian religion with his political aspirations using the symbol of the cross. Constantine’s mother, Helena, is alleged to have travelled to Palestine in 325 A.D. and she claimed to have discovered the original wooden cross on which Jesus was crucified. The criteria for the claim was that a sick person had grasped the wood and was allegedly healed. Small fragments were transported back to Rome and sold to wealthy believers as priceless relics. There were not enough to supply the demand so they claimed “the miracle of the multiplication of the cross” whereby many more splinters from the cross were allegedly formed. It is reported that wood fragments existed in Roman Catholic churches around the world sufficient to construct many crosses.

   The problem with symbols is that since they are more tangible than the abstract reality, religious people tend gradually to superstitiously worship the symbol and lose sight of the reality on which it is based. This, of course, is the essence of idolatry. Symbols become amulets, magical charms, holy hardware. They are used as fetishes, believed to have magical power to aid or protect when rubbed, worn, or otherwise utilized. Symbols can also become conceptual fetishes, mental objects of irrational reverence and obsessive devotion. A.W. Tozer remarked that idolatry “begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place.” It is this latter practice of using the cross as an ideological idol that we shall continue to explore.

   For many centuries the idea of the cross and the action of Christ’s crucifixion have been considered as if they were an on-going living reality. The concept of the cross has been enlivened, empowered, personified and deified…. click here to read more of this article.

The Cross has had many treatments over the centuries of fissures and factions.  Look here at many styles of crosses explained in Wikipedia.