Soul Talk: Contemplating America's Garden of Symbols

By Robert E. A. Daley

In 1976 (the US Bi-Centennial year), when I first began seriously looking at Americas collection of state and national symbols, it felt like I was peeking into the nations dream-journalbecause symbols are the language of the soul and talk to us on that level. Symbols are the language that the soul uses to communicate with our consciousness. It happens every night in our dream-time. Politically, we use symbols to memorialize ideals and events for posterity and in elementary school we were taught what our political symbols mean on the superficial level. But what do these symbols say to us on the deeper, metaphysical level? Our Federal & State symbols were established through deep soul-searching by our elected legislators, so they have the quality of dream-symbols. Collectively, they are the Nations dream-journal. Is there a cohesive message within them? If so, it was fostered over a span of many centuries from a level of reality beyond our ownby the powers that inspired everyone from Columbus to the current voting-block of American citizens. This book is a reading of their collective conversation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 5, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462814466

Robert E. A. Daley

About the Author The author, Robert Eugene Andrew Daley, is still the same guy who compiled Soul Talk, except now hes a few years older and moves and thinks slower. The author now lives alone in a senior apartment complex in Northern California.

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Copyright © 2000 by Robert E. A. Daley.

Library of Congress Control Number:       00-193484

ISBN:         Hardcover                               0-7388-5651-7

                  Softcover                                 0-7388-5652-5

                     Ebook                                             9781462814466

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Delia Daley, floral & statuary art

Flora Daley, enhancement of official graphics

Cover design by author

Published by arrangement with READ Books, Los Gatos, CA

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE

PART TWO

ALABAMA

ALASKA

ARIZONA

ARKANSAS

CALIFORNIA

COLORADO

CONNECTICUT

DELAWARE

FLORIDA

GEO.RGIA

HAWAII

IDAHO

ILLINOIS

INDIANA

IOWA

KANSAS

KENTUCKY

LOUISIANA

MAINE

MARYLAND

MASSACHUSETTS

MICHIGAN

MINNESOTA

MISSISSIPPI

MISSOURI

MONTANA

NEBRASKA

NEVADA

NEW HAMPSHIRE

NEW JERSEY

NEW MEXICO

NEW YORK

NORTH CAROLINA

NORTH DAKOTA

OHIO

OKLAHOMA

OREGON

PENNSYLVANIA

RHODE ISLAND and

SOUTH CAROLINA

SOUTH DAKOTA

TENNESSEE

TEXAS

UTAH

VERMONT

VIRGINIA

WASHINGTON

WEST VIRGINIA

WISCONSIN

WYOMING

PART THREE

PUERTO RICO

The United States

PROLOGUE

THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN FOR ALL MY

PLAYMATES IN THE SANDBOX OF LIFE, HOPING

WE CAN FOCUS ON BUILDING OUR CASTLES

WITHOUT THROWING SAND AT EACH OTHER.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

More than twenty years have elapsed during the research and writing of this work. In that length of time and with this kind of subject matter, hundreds of people necessarily become involved. Most of them were public servants and I want the world to know I was well served and owe an immense debt of gratitude to all those folks—the telephone receptionists, the copy-machine operators, Lieutenant Governors, the Secretaries of State, the Librarians, the Archivists, Legislators and Legislative Assistants, the Chaplains, and the myriad of staff people in all fifty states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and in federal service. There were others too, outside government service, who rendered valuable aid in this work, who were likewise too numerous to mention by name. I am sure these contributors will be blessed by any and all who benefit from this work.

I would also like to acknowledge my wife and children for their great forbearance during the many times I was not present for them—being lost, as I was, in research and contemplation. A special Thank you also goes out to the Choctaw Nation’s Principal Chief, Clark David Gardner of Oklahoma, for his early encouragement, Eleanor K. Sommer (publishing consultant) and to Louise Vernon, insightful teacher and critic, without whose help in the latter days of this project the latter days would still be years away. Graphics management was by Michael Haley , Desk-Top Publishing Consultant.

All official graphic art was originally supplied through the gracious cooperation of the Secretary-of-State, Office of the Governor, and/ or their staff personnel for each of the various states, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. All of that art then, accumulating during 1976 and ‘77, had to be re-worked for clarity and reasonable uniformity by graphic artist Flora Daley.

The State Flower art, rendered in 1993-94 by commercial artist Delia Daley, was based on brochures supplied by the various State Boards of Tourism & Information along with many other floral publications. Of course, the results also include some of Delia’s own personal plant-life observations.

"Symbols are employed so that

generations long gone can speak

across the years to the newest."

From a 1976 address by William Rewak, SJ

President of Santa Clara University in California

INTRODUCTION

Walking the labyrinth is an ancient meditation device that is resurging into popularity. The pattern is a circular pathway that leads from the perimeter to the center and back out by means of multiple switchbacks.

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Allegedly, the labyrinth was devised in the distant past by early mankind in an attempt to mimic the dance of the planets, which they perceived in the cosmic light show of the night sky. In walking the labyrinth one experiences a lot of the retrograde motion we perceive in the movement of our planets and it is symbolic of our own life-journeys, wherein we retrace our steps when things are not working out. Crude labyrinth patterns are found in archeological digs and more refined ones are embedded in the vestibule floors of most ancient cathedrals in Europe, testifying to the widespread use of them as aids for people in contemplating the basic questions of life. During my twenty-some years of studying our American symbols, I have walked among them, metaphysically, as one would traverse the ancient labyrinth and I have found they are strung together by the proverbial Golden Thread of the Heavens. People who have experienced walking the labyrinth many times say each walk is its own unique experience, coming out of one’s particular meditation. So also will you get new thoughts and insights each time you contemplate these American symbols, because your own time and place in the universe are ever changing.

Whenever you ask yourself those really basic questions—ones like Who am I? Why am I? and, most importantly, Does it really matter?—those are soul-questions . . . the kind you sleep on for many nights before the answer comes. And when it does eventually come, it can be in a strange dream—a pictograph of symbols—and you must then go on a daytime soul-search to understand your own symbols. You must walk your own labyrinth of contemplation.

When a group of people get together and agree on a symbol to speak for their political group—as our congress and state legislatures have done over and over through the years—what is the ultimate source of the symbol they agree upon? When we ask the basic questions individually, the answers come through the God-connection within each of us. Is that equally true for groups? Can a nation ask those same questions: What am I? Why am I? Does it really matter?

In 1976 (the US Bi-Centennial year), when I first began seriously looking at America’s collection of state and national symbols, it felt like I was peeking into the nation’s dream-journal—because symbols are the language of the soul and talk to us on that level. Approached in that way, our American symbols are a metaphysical heritage, inspired for us through the collective consciousness of all those souls who preceded us on this continent:

. . . . the ancient immigrants from Asia who lived here first, the explorers and immigrant settlers who came later, the colonials, the revolutionaries, the statesmen, pioneers, farmers, developers, merchants, preachers, service-people of all trades. . . in short, any and all, whose thoughts influenced the evolution of our symbols.

Through the God-connection of symbols—a spiritual internet—our forebears seemingly continue to this day, bridging the chasm of time & space, whispering directly to each citizen-soul who enters into quiet contemplation of their medium, the symbols. It is unique soul-to-soul communication and that’s why metaphysical questions are cautiously, if ever, addressed in the formal environment of the classroom. Another reason they are not so addressed is that each of us sees through the window of our own unique make-up and experience, putting a personal spin on symbolic material. Apart from the personal, though, there are universal meanings in symbols that have collective value. This review of the nation’s dream journal—our garden of inherited symbols—is the fruit of this author’s contemplation, presented here in book form to encourage others to seek their own experience with these symbols and with the spirits of our forebears who created them.

[For people who are unfamiliar with metaphysical thought, I offer this suggestion: Try looking at thoughts and ideas with your Magic Eye. That’s the name of a book at your local public library. It presents many two-dimensional color-prints that magically become three-dimensional for those people who can adjust their visual perception to see the amazing depth contained in them. The authors call the Magic Eye A New Way of Looking at the World and they urge the reader to Discover and train your gift of deep vision. This is equally valid in reference to this study of our American symbols. A meta-physical perception that perhaps should be called meta-vision.]

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

From the very beginning, our forebears collectively expressed their belief that God was on their side in the forming of this nation and that conviction—historically documented—remains with us. If it is really true—that God takes an active role in the affairs of man—we may well expect to discern the hand of God in the way our history plays out, bearing in mind that God’s time-frame is very likely much different from ours. Thus we must step out into the vastness of space/time, for better perception of what has unfolded in the history of mankind here on Earth.

The family of man evolved through history from tribes into clans; from clans into villages; from villages to cities; cities to states; states into nations—and always organized under single power-centers, waging war against each other. The American continent became history’s first demonstration-place for peaceful cooperation among states. And though the White House has always had a War Room for strategizing war-efforts, now there is a serious movement to create a Peace-Room. Is this by historical coincidence or by divine design?

Columbus believed he was divinely guided in his mission. Was he? If he was, may we presume the same for those who followed him in the forming of this nation? Apart from the failings of individual people acting out of their own personal agendas, whenever many assembled people focus on the highest good of the group, the higher awareness and authority of God-within-us is also present by built-in design and function. To accept such a belief causes one to re-assess our political history and look anew at the symbols we live by, as states and a nation.

This nation was pieced together by immigrant Europeans, who were very religious people. Some of them, and the natives already here, were quite spiritual. It is by ritual of religion that we are called to pray; but it is by the spirit of ‘God-in-us’ that we are moved to pray.

Effective prayer is that which centers one in the realization of internal unity—the bonding of the creature with the Creative-Nur-turing-Source. The United States is the world’s first political entity to express this unity-truth by declaring on its currency:

In God We Trust.

America’s Poet, Walt Whitman, once said:

The United States themselves are the greatest poem.

When you finish this study of America’s symbols you may want to amend his words to say:

The United States themselves are the greatest prayer.

The Names,

Nicknames, Mottos,

Flags, Flowers, and Seals

of America’s States and their Union

Soul Talk in the Garden of Symbols

This book is divided into these three parts:

The Overview

. . . presentation and discussion of our Federal symbols, seen as the framework within which the other symbols function.

The Process

. . . presentation and discussion of the symbols of each of the fifty states, seen as symbolic states-of-being which harbor guidance clues for souls-in-process.

The Goal

. . . presentation and discussion of the symbols of Puerto Rico, our Freely-Associated State, and the symbols of the United States Virgin Islands, our wholly-owned national paradise. Together they are the end-point of the ocean-journey of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and remain a symbolic goal for all migratory souls who metaphysically follow Columbus across the sea-of-life—from the ways of the Old World—to the promise of the New.

PART ONE

THE OVERVIEW

OUR FEDERAL SYMBOLS . . .

seen as a metaphysical framework for souls in process.

The DISTRICT of COLUMBIA

In the name—Christopher Columbus—Christopher is a Greek word meaning christ-bearer while Columbus, from the Latin word columba, means dove. Throughout history the dove has always been a symbol for peace.

Now this man, named Christ-bearing Dove, departed from Spain in the womb of a ship he named Santa Maria (Holy Mary) and he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, eventually sailing all about the Caribbean Sea, christening islands in honor of various Christian saints and principles . . . with names like Santo Domingo (Holy Lord), La Trinidad (The Trinity), Vera Cruz (True Cross), El Salvador (The Savior), et cetera.

The District of Columbia, our capital city’s region, was named in his honor and it means

District of the Dove (The place of peace)

The United States of America has always championed peace efforts throughout the world. Isn’t that the ancient spirit of Columba still at work?

It is well known that our founding forebears viewed this nation as parallel to the work of the biblical Moses. They saw America as the fabled promised land. In fact the first Official Seal proposed to the Continental Congress showed immigrants crossing the Atlantic Ocean like the Biblical story of the Hebrews crossing the Red Sea.

Consider the parallel further:

1. Moses had a speech impediment so his brother Aaron was called to share his mission and speak for him. Similarly, Americus Vespucius, an Italian advertising agent, was sent with Columbus and later spoke to the world-at-large about the enormity of what they had found. Americus was to Columbus as Aaron was to Moses.

2. Moses spent a lot of time at the court of Egypt before he succeeded in getting his people released. Columbus spent many years at the courts of Europe before he succeeded in getting one of them—Spain—to support his mission.

3. Moses and his people wandered through the desert for many years before reaching their destination, but he, himself, was not allowed to enter that promised land. Columbus and his men sailed many times across the ocean but touched only the Carribean Islands and Central America—never North America, the perceived Promised Land.

4. The spirit of Moses is kept alive today in Isreal, the land of his promise, and just as vibrantly the spirit of Columbus is alive and well in America, the land of global promise.

"Who but the great Omnipotent One, who sees all things, could have awakened that little grain of faith in the soul of Columbus?. . . . In reality, were his visions dreams? Were they not ideals in the Great Universal