Encrucijada (Crossroads)

«The symbolic importance of the crossroads is universal.

The crossing of roads becomes the center of the world for the person who finds himself there.

Places of epiphany, of apparitions and revelations. All traditions have built obelisks, altars, stones and chapels at crossroads. A break seems urgent, as if a pause for reflection, for holy meditation, that is, for sacrifice, were necessary before pursuing the chosen road.

The crossroads is the encounter with fate. Each being in itself is a crossroads,where his different sides cross and struggle. In the true human adventure, the inner adventure, one simply finds himself at the crossroads: a definitive answer is awaited but all we find are new paths, new trials, new wanderings, opening up.

The crossroads is not an end, it is a ceasing, an invitation to go beyond. One stops there if he finds himself incapable of choosing for himself:it is, then, a place of meditation, of waiting, not of action.

But it is also a place of hope: the path taken to get here was not closed; a new crossroad offers a new opportunity to choose. But, choices are irreversible.

To show all of the power of this symbol there are stories in which the crossroads itself vanishes after the hero comes through: the problem of choice has been resolved.»

Taken from Dictionary of Symbols, by J.Chevalier and A.Gheerbrant. Crossroads, 2001-2003.