September 11 and the Archetype of the Apocalypse and Birth of a New World: Meaning for Individual and Society
Six months after the tragedy of September 11, and in order to commemorate the
lives that were lost, beginning March 11 and lasting until April 11, 2002, two
searchlights are sending powerful beams of blue light from a lot next to ground
“0” in lower Manhattan vertically into the sky over New York. This is known as a
Tribute in Light memorial and is intended to show peace and order after the
chaos around the events of September 11. This can be justifiably seen as a
fitting way, using modern technology, for a nation to honour those who lost their
lives during this horrific incident. It is particularly apt, it seems to me, because it
captures by way of an image the sense that behind the concrete fact of the two
towers and their dissolution lay a spiritual and mythic reality represented by blue
light. Blue is an interesting choice of colour as it symbolically can represent
values of will and detachment.
