Clay, Mud

Clay or mud is prima materia, the worthless, formless raw material that is found everywhere and thus goes unnoticed, which can be used (shaped) to create something valuable. (When symbols of prima materia appear in dreams, it can be seen as “something you need to work with.”) Not only according to the Bible was man created from clay, or earth, but it is a universal theme in creation stories; according to the Greeks, it was ash. According to the alchemist Michael Maier, who is also mentioned elsewhere, gold (the highest) is processed clay (the lowest).

As the above suggests, the symbol of clay implies “that something wants to be created,” to be materialized or “coagulated.”

We associate clay with the simple, perhaps laborious and everyday. A man with mud on his boots, for example, suggests a down-to-earth and working man.

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