阳 | yáng

In Mandarin Chinese, 阳 (Pinyin: yáng 🔊) is an adjective meaning “open”, “overt”, “protruding”, “positive” or a noun for “the sun”, “light” and, would you believe it, “male genitals”. All these meanings are related to Yang, “a principle in Chinese and related East Asian philosophies associated with bright, hot, masculine, etc. elements of the natural world”. According to Wikipedia,

Yang, by contrast <with Yin>, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and active; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

阳 is a simplified form of the traditional character 陽, which is a combination of radicals 阝 (a simplification of 阜, “hill” or “mound”) and 昜 (“sunshine”, which has the same pronunciation as the whole 陽), thus translated as “sunny side of a hill”. The 昜 got simplified to one aspect of Yang, 日 “the sun”.

More photos of sun and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

☉ | Sun

The circled dot ☉ is an ancient symbol representing the Sun. Note the similarity between ☉ and Chinese 日 (rì).

In alchemical tradition, seven metals were associated with the seven classical planets, which included the Sun and the Moon (but not Earth). The Sun’s metal was gold. In Hellenistic astrology, each classical planet had its own day of the week. Sól or Sunna was the name of the Sun goddess in Germanic mythology. English and other Germanic languages keep the association of Sun and Sunday. Other solar deities include goddesses Amaterasu, Grian, Marici, Saulė, Sulis and Xihe as well as gods Amun, Apollo, Helios, Ra, Shamash, Surya, Tonatiuh and Utu; the gender of the Guanche solar deity Magec is unknown.

More photos of sun and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

天 | tiān

In Mandarin Chinese, 天 (Pinyin: tiān 🔊) means “sky”, “heavens”, “heaven” or “day”.

OK, the sky is big, right? Much bigger than a man with outstretched arms 大 can ever show, no matter how hard he tries. That’s why there is a line over his head. A whole new level. Some historical forms of this character show a stickman with a large head, or a line instead of a head.

More photos of sky and sea glass @ Shutterstock.