The Symbology of My Avatar

One of the most frequent questions I’m asked at Twitter is the meaning of my avatar. If you’re reading this blog and have no idea what that is, it’s the symbol on the right side of my blog header. Twitter’s 140 character limitation does not allow me to fully explain it. Even when I do it takes about 6 tweets to do so and even then it’s only just the bare basics. By explaining it here I can go into greater detail in what the base symbology is, what it means to me and how and why I designed this customized version. I have not officially studied any Eastern religion or philosophy. The following comes from a base understanding in conjunction with research, observation and meditation.

Essentially it is a triple Yin-Yan. Alternate versions are Ying-Yang, Yin-Yang, and less frequently Ying-Yan. Personally I prefer the smallest version Yin-Yan as it is also the simplest. In numerology, the vowels represent the gender of the word so when you remove them from either Yin-Yan or Ying-Yang you cannot tell which word is being referred to (Yn or Yng). The other versions do not contain this distinction and for me lose the purity of the basic symbology of this ancient Oriental symbol.

When the “i” is added to these letters it becomes feminine and when the “a” is added it becomes masculine. Hence this word and its ensuing symbology represent the ultimate dualities of the feminine and masculine principles. This represents the concept of duality so let’s explore that for a moment. Duality in and of itself appears to be a widely used term. Wikipedia says that Duality may refer to philosophy, logic, psychology, mathematics, science, film, music, and electronics . This implies to me that such broad use would indicate it is foundational so let’s explore its definition.

The definition of duality at dictionary.com is “The quality or character of being twofold; dichotomy”

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