Symbolism: Direction

The cardinal directions of the compass carry symbolic meaning gained from the experience of life. The most universal, unsurprisingly, are east and west, following the daily rising and setting of the sun. All cultures share the experience of the sun rising in the east. The sun is universally regarded as a source of hope and life; even in the harshest climates, it seems, day is preferable to night.

East is the direction of birth and rebirth, childhood, youth, happiness and energy. Many religious ceremonies, historically, have been conducted facing east – certainly all solar gods and religions have laid a great emphasis on the eastern horizon. By extension to the idea of birth, childhood and youth, the east is also the direction in which home lies. Taken as a cultural metaphor, the east becomes the cradle of civilization, the direction of ancient knowledge and wisdom. East is the direction of origins, mysteries and wonders, the home of the light, the source of life, eternal youth, immortality and divinity.

West, by contrast, is the universal direction of death. The sun dies in the west every night, bringing darkness and danger. Evil and misfortune are associated with westerly directions, along with autumn, old age, sickness and the lands of the dead. In ancient Greece, the entry to Hades was said to be near the western edge of the country; in Egypt, the souls of the dead had to make a dangerous pilgrimage to the lands of the west in order to find their eternal reward – a myth paralleled almost exactly by Tolkien’s elves in the Lord of the Rings cycle. In modern American mythology, the Wild West is a byword for lawless violence and sudden murder. Not all of the western associations are so negative, however. Modern cultural patterns are giving it an association with progress and scientific advancement, and traditionally it has been the direction associated with explorers, new frontiers and discoveries.

Drawing more on the geopolitics of the last five hundred years than on any particular facet of the natural world, north has come to represent modernity, materialism, advance, industrialisation and thought in general. It is masculine, aggressive and dynamic. The south, by contrast, is considerably more innocent. Viewed as relaxed, it symbolises feeling and intuition. It has a holistic nature lost to the north, and represents older, less sophisticated values.