Now the nature school has a logo

by Susanne Ganns

It has long been important to the team of the school to have a meaningful and expedient logo for the nature school. Of course, it should increase the recognition value of the school, but on the other hand, and this is the most important aspect, it should serve as a protection symbol and “seal of quality”.

Even a logo should be allowed to express what the project stands for and what meaningful and profound topics underlie the project.

Thus, in autumn 2017, SHIN gave impuls. He wished for his nature school the Ganesha, sitting, blessing with the right hand and writing with the left hand with Ganesha’s broken tusk.

For a long time we were looking for an artist who could realize this logo as a drawing as well as a figure for the school portal.

During a construction meeting for Gangeshvaralinga, the universal centre for free peace in northern India, we talked to Mikhael Bouvetier, a painter and artist from France. Mikhael artistically implements the impulses of SHIN for the stone murtis of the temple, and thus designs the rough drafts from a special material, which then serve as guidelines for the Indian stonemasons. It is a great artistic challenge to transform SHIN’s extraordinary statue drawings into a three-dimensional form, because this also requires a very good empathy for Indian culture.

Mikhael was excited about the idea with the logo for the school and spontaneously sat down at the drawing pad and translated the idea of SHIN onto paper.

This logo was then embroidered and since the beginning of July all children wear it on their uniform, it adorns the website and in the future all correspondence and in the near future this Ganesha statute will also protect the entrance of the school.

What is the meaning of this logo?

GANESHA, god of beginning and success, god of intuition, is probably the most popular Hindu god and also one of the best known symbols for everything associated with Hinduism.

Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati, is portrayed as an elephant with a curved trunk and large ears, but also with a big-bellied human body.

In India he is revered as the god of knowledge, wisdom, prosperity and success. He is considered the master of literature and the destroyer of pride, selfishness and vanity as well as the master of wisdom, intellect and protector of the sciences and arts.

Ganesha, as God of the beginning and all good powers, will always help when something is started with joy and enthusiasm. He is friendly, he is funny and there is also the symbolism in it when one approaches something with cosiness, with joy and actually approaches it. Ganesha can make obstacles disappear, but can also create obstacles if you have deviated from your true path and identified too much with the physical. He guides people safely to their true goal.

Ganesha’s mount is the mouse. The mouse represents the limited body, as well as the limited thinking and feeling. A complete human, however, has the one boundless truth that Ganesha symbolizes. This means that our body is “only” our vessel with which we can work here on earth to grow beyond our own limitations.

His small eyes have the inner vision to see the Spirit of God in everyone.

The Ganesha on the nature school logo

has six arms and holds various symbols in his hands, which symbolize deep spiritual laws.

Thus his 3 x 2 arms stand for the three worlds

the divinely spiritual world
the spiritually emotional world and
the emotionally ethereal world, to which also the body belongs

In the first two hands – divine, spiritual world – Ganesha carries on the right the three-flame Trishul, which stands for the truth, the wisdom, the love with which he enlightens the spheres, but also achieves the dissolution of the world.

In his left hand Ganesha holds the Shiva Drum, which symbolizes the beginning and end of a evolution, beginning and end of creation.

The crown – the arches over Ganesha’s head between the first two hands – stands for the infinite serpent (Kundalini) as well as for the bow of existence of the Creator.

The second pair of hands – spiritually emotional world – shows on the right the raised blessing hand and in the left hand Ganesha carries the shell horn – the protective horn – which symbolizes the throne of the Holy Hours, puja times, and the coming and going of his parents Shiva and Parvati.

In the third pair of hands – emotionally ethereal world – Ganesha wears the thunderbolt on the right. Thus the power to defend the world with a huge club and also the cleansing, but also the corrective thunderstorm becomes clear.

In his left hand Ganesha holds his broken tusk and writes everything down in the Vedas, because Ganesha is the Lord of wisdom, of memory and the Lord of all written Vedas.

The colour of the logo

The colours of the school roof are reflected in the school uniform as well as in the logo.

Red stands for the protection of the earth and the happiness of life for people of all classes.

Blue stands for the protection of the sky.

Perhaps this blog might show some people that a logo is not just a logo, but that it wants to show itself into the performing area, something essential that goes far beyond just any graphic, image or symbol. The story of creation affects all areas of life, even a logo – this too is Integral Learning.