Yin & Yang, & Astrology Roots
Reasoning
Art Portfolio
For my art piece of this project, I decided to create a clay piece visually inspired by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The overall shape of this piece is based off of the Libra glyph shape, in that is the sun setting below the horizon line. The symbols in the center are from my personal astrological alphabet I made based off of the zodiacs and elements which I then applied to part of one of the poems I wrote for the English part of this project. It reads, "being pulled by the Sun and Moon, trying to balance heart and mind." Libras are the soul representation of balance and I feel that's very fitting to me personally so I purposely chose this line to put on this piece. As far as the colors I chose for this, I chose them essentially based off of the colors used in said ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
English
For English, I chose to write poems corresponding to each of my parents and their zodiacs, as well as mine. They're a little tricky to follow if you don't know my background, but basically, my parents are and have always been opposites. My dad is a Scorpio and my mom is a Cancer, and the back and forth causes a lot of issues with them and me personally, hence the fact that I'm a Libra and strive for balance. I've always been closer with my mom than my dad by a very significant amount, and she's the one I've lived with a majority of my life so you can tell by reading my poems that I'm very bias towards her. The first poem is about me, second is about my dad, third is about my mom, and the ending blurb at the bottom - well, I'll explain. Basically, when my mom and I still lived with my dad he was a raging alcoholic who would come home in the middle of the night from wherever and cause scenes so, my mom worrying about it impacting me or worrying he would do something to hurt us, she would take me to spend the night at hotels. Once I reached age 7-8, my mom noticed the impact it started to have on me so we moved out. She was afraid I would be eternally upset with her if she moved me away from my dad, so what did she do? Moved into a house right down the street from him. Which essentially is just a coincidence, but still.. really, Mom? And now, I'm not a fan of his anyway so I always wonder what would have been different if she HAD moved me away.
I purposely chose to put my poems in this order because I wanted the initial focus to be me.. and then me within my parents. When I think about myself overall, I tend to say my bad traits come from my dad, so I weighed in on him first and then moved into my moms poem which has a more uplifting tone. The 4th poem I included because it's where the growth of my relationship with my dad pretty much ended. My intention was to have readers read these in a cycle, where as soon as you finish the 4th poem, you go back and re-read the first one and so on. So it's just a loop on repeat in a way, which is ironic because that's what it feels like trying to talk to my dad.
I purposely chose to put my poems in this order because I wanted the initial focus to be me.. and then me within my parents. When I think about myself overall, I tend to say my bad traits come from my dad, so I weighed in on him first and then moved into my moms poem which has a more uplifting tone. The 4th poem I included because it's where the growth of my relationship with my dad pretty much ended. My intention was to have readers read these in a cycle, where as soon as you finish the 4th poem, you go back and re-read the first one and so on. So it's just a loop on repeat in a way, which is ironic because that's what it feels like trying to talk to my dad.
Self in the Modern World
For this part of my project I created a mind-map connecting all of my initial ideas for this project as well as the things I found out along the way. It connects the origin of the Yin Yang, Chinese and American zodiacs, Buddhist and Christian religions, along with why my personal zodiac is key to my whole idea, and all bouncing back to the essential question of why faith is necessary to achieve balance.
https://atlas.mindmup.com/2020/12/a09fe23033d711eb875123512c4b568f/free_mind_map/index.html
Annotated Bibliography:
Campion, Nicholas. “How We Find Meaning In The Stars.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 31 Aug. 2012, www.huffpost.com/entry/astrology-and-cosmology-in_b_1626481?guccounter=1.
This link was very helpful because it explains the difference between astrology and astronomy and why our generation is so enthralled with it. It provided a lot of general information about astrology and how it actually works.
“Chinese Zodiac: Religion.” Chinese Zodiac | Religion, depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07030/religion.html.
This website was very helpful because it came right out and explained the link astrology, Taoism, Buddhism, and the Chinese astrology. It also tells the story of how Buddha chose the animals to represent the Chinese zodiac, similar to a Noah’s Ark story from the Bible.
Jewels, Sheridan Kennedy I'm Doctor, et al. “The Natural Wisdom of Libra: Finding Balance in Motion.” Sheridan Kennedy Ph.D, 11 June 2020, www.sheridankennedy.com/field/the-natural-wisdom-of-libra/.
This link was one of my context research links for my personal zodiac. It talks about how to find balance in different areas of your life and characteristics of your typical Libra.
“Libra's Balancing Act.” Blue Light Lady RSS, bluelightlady.com/blog/2008/10/libras-balancing-act/.
I liked this article because it just verified what I already knew/thought about my Libra zodiac. It really brings attention to the whole aspect of finding balance in everything in life and applying different perspectives to every situation. It also threw in info about some celebs who are Libras which I thought was interesting.
Moum, Mike, et al. “Why We Need to Balance Faith and Reason.” Bahaiteachings.org/, 11 Aug. 2020, bahaiteachings.org/why-need-balance-faith-reason/.
I liked this link because I had no idea what the Baha’i faith and teachings were until I read this. It mentions that science and religion both have a significant place in our lives and that there are room for both even though many people argue with this. Instead, they are believed to be intertwined and are ‘divine messengers’ for those who choose to respond to it.
The Libra Path - Finding Balance in Neutral, www.newmillenniumbeing.com/nmbcopy/124.
I thought this website was one of the most interesting ones I came across because it introduces and explains the Libra evolutionary journey and planetary elements as well as showing how the other air signs correspond to us. It’s just a very unique way of showing the traits of a Libra.
Campion, Nicholas. “How We Find Meaning In The Stars.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 31 Aug. 2012, www.huffpost.com/entry/astrology-and-cosmology-in_b_1626481?guccounter=1.
This link was very helpful because it explains the difference between astrology and astronomy and why our generation is so enthralled with it. It provided a lot of general information about astrology and how it actually works.
“Chinese Zodiac: Religion.” Chinese Zodiac | Religion, depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07030/religion.html.
This website was very helpful because it came right out and explained the link astrology, Taoism, Buddhism, and the Chinese astrology. It also tells the story of how Buddha chose the animals to represent the Chinese zodiac, similar to a Noah’s Ark story from the Bible.
Jewels, Sheridan Kennedy I'm Doctor, et al. “The Natural Wisdom of Libra: Finding Balance in Motion.” Sheridan Kennedy Ph.D, 11 June 2020, www.sheridankennedy.com/field/the-natural-wisdom-of-libra/.
This link was one of my context research links for my personal zodiac. It talks about how to find balance in different areas of your life and characteristics of your typical Libra.
“Libra's Balancing Act.” Blue Light Lady RSS, bluelightlady.com/blog/2008/10/libras-balancing-act/.
I liked this article because it just verified what I already knew/thought about my Libra zodiac. It really brings attention to the whole aspect of finding balance in everything in life and applying different perspectives to every situation. It also threw in info about some celebs who are Libras which I thought was interesting.
Moum, Mike, et al. “Why We Need to Balance Faith and Reason.” Bahaiteachings.org/, 11 Aug. 2020, bahaiteachings.org/why-need-balance-faith-reason/.
I liked this link because I had no idea what the Baha’i faith and teachings were until I read this. It mentions that science and religion both have a significant place in our lives and that there are room for both even though many people argue with this. Instead, they are believed to be intertwined and are ‘divine messengers’ for those who choose to respond to it.
The Libra Path - Finding Balance in Neutral, www.newmillenniumbeing.com/nmbcopy/124.
I thought this website was one of the most interesting ones I came across because it introduces and explains the Libra evolutionary journey and planetary elements as well as showing how the other air signs correspond to us. It’s just a very unique way of showing the traits of a Libra.