What is the symbolism of the circle?

Circle, Cycle In the mystery cults, God is a circle whose center is everywhere - implying perfection and transcendence as understood by humans. The circle has no beginning, no end, and no direction. The "dome" of heaven is a circular arc, so the circle also symbolizes heaven and all spirituality. The spokes of the circle are symbolic of the wheel, but in contrast to the eternity of the circle, the meaning of the wheel is movement. The Egyptians tied thin ropes into a circle to signify eternity, the ancient Greek equivalent of which was a snake that wanted its own tail. Concentric circles appear when something is thrown into the water, a pattern often found on monoliths and tombstones, which can be interpreted as sinking into the sea of death or as miraculously reemerging from the sea of death, with concentric waves suggesting the idea of death and rebirth. Circles drawn from the outside in symbolize the sun to traditional astrologers, and to alchemists represent gold, the metal associated with the sun, which functions in divination to banish evil spirits.

In symbolism, the opposite of the circle is the square, which is associated with the secular world and materiality. The circle represents God and heaven, the square represents man and the earth. The proverb "Find a square equal to the area of the circle" requires the creation of a circle with an area equal to the known square. The idea is to strive to transform one's own material nature into the Godhead in order to become immortal and divine. This geometrically impossible puzzle was used in the Renaissance as a metaphor for the human endeavor to reach divine perfection, and it has an important symbolic significance in alchemical symbolism as well. The mystical philosophy of Judaism did not delve into the problem of equal areas, but it did study the relationship between the square and the circle: the circle in the square suggests a divine "spark" underneath the thin layer of matter. In Christian paintings, the halo around a saint's head is usually round, and concentric circles symbolize God's original creation: the first circle represents the earth, on which man was placed later; God drew it with a circular ruler, or he himself became a hand that emerged from the center of the overlapping circles, rose above them, and overtook them one by one.

Of course, the importance of the circle is not confined to Western culture. The moon, the sun, and the stars are all clearly circular in their orbits. So is the way everything in nature grows, and so camps, conical tents, and seating arrangements are all based on circles. It is not uncommon for traditional dances to follow the circle. In Buddhist Zen, the circle symbolizes revelation and embodies the perfect union of human nature and primal essence. In China, yin and yang are symbolized by a circle divided into black and white. In Europe, the concept of the concentric operation of the heavenly bodies of the universe dominated medieval cosmology and was poetically represented in Dante's Divine Comedy as the "circles" of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise; angels of different ranks guarded different spheres, that is, the whole universe. The Trinity is often symbolized by three intersecting circles.