The Peacocks of Kew Gardens

by 5ocietyx

Video taken April 2013 by 5ocietyx @ Kew Gardens

In modern times, peacocks gained a bad rep for being squawking show-offs strutting around like they were royalty with a trailing plumage longer than Princess Diana’s wedding gown.

But this wasn’t always the case. Throughout history and in various traditions, the peacock was known as a mystical bird with phoenix-like attributes and associated with royalty, rejuvenation, spirititual awakening and immortality.

If nature had not created them and a fiction writer were to invent a fantastical creature along the lines of a peacock the reader would be required to suspend disbelief such is their seemingly implausible design.

Yet the 5ociety managed to catch up with one of these magnificent birds recently in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and captured it displaying.

Is our current perception of the peacock a modern symbol of how we as humans have been intentionally prevented from knowing our true nature and should we look again to the proud peacock and learn from it how to display our beauty, integrity and true colours of who we really are?

Other qualities possessed by the peacock include vision, guidance, holiness, protection, refinement, incorruptability,  and watchfulness.

Video taken April 2013 by 5ocietyx

Yet the peacocks of Kew are not the only ‘mythical’ birds with a bad rep to grace royal Brentford…

Avia Venefica provides a definitive explanation of the symbolism of the peacock:

In Greco-Roman mythology the Peacock is identified with Hera (Juno) who created the Peacock from Argus whose hundred eyes (seen on the tail feathers of the Peacock) symbolize the vault of heaven and the “eyes” of the stars.

In Hinduism the Peacock is associated with Lakshmi who is a deity representing benevolence, patience, kindness, compassion and good luck.

Similar to Lakshmi, the Peacock is associated with Kwan-yin in Asian spirituality. Kwan-yin (or Quan Yin) is also an emblem of love, compassionate watchfulness, good-will, nurturing, and kind-heartedness. Legend tells us she chose to remain a mortal even though she could be immortal because she wished to stay behind and aid humanity in their spiritual evolution.

In Babylonia and Persia the Peacock is seen as a guardian to royalty, and is often seen in engravings upon the thrones of royalty.

In Christianity the Peacock symbolism represents the “all-seeing” church, along with the holiness and sanctity associated with it. Additionally, the Peacock represents resurrection, renewal and immortality within the spiritual teachings of Christianity.

Themes of renewal are also linked to alchemical traditions to, as many schools of thought compare the resurrecting phoenix to the modern-day Peacock.

Source: http://www.whats-your-sign.com/peacock-symbolism.html