The Chinese Yin Yang symbol sometimes called Tai-Chi symbol. The Tai-Chi is from I-Ching. The I-Ching is the greatest foundation of Chinese philosophy. Its development is from the natural phenomena of our universe. Because I-Ching comes from nature, it should be easy.The Chinese characters of I-Ching are . The second character means a book, a profound book. The first character means ease or change. Since I-Ching is easy, some people call it as "The Book of Ease" or "The Book of Changes". | | | |
By rotating the Sun chart and positioning the Winter Solstice at the bottom, it will look like this. The light color area which indicates more sunlight is called Yang (Sun). The dark color area has less sunlight (more moonlight) and is called Yin (Moon). Yang is like man. Yin is like woman. Yang wouldn't grow without Yin. Yin couldn't give birth without Yang.
Yin is feminine, black, dark, north, water (transformation), passive, moon (weakness and the goddess Changxi), earth, cold, old, even numbers, valleys, poor, soft, and provides spirit to all things. Yin reaches it’s height of influence with the winter solstice. Yin may also be represented by the tiger, the color orange and a broken line in the trigrams of the I Ching (or Book of Changes).
Yang is masculine, white, light, south, fire (creativity), active, sun (strength and the god Xihe), heaven, warm, young, odd numbers, mountains, rich, hard, and provides form to all things. Yang reaches its height of influence with the summer solstice. Yang may also be represented by the dragon, the color blue and a solid line trigram.
I once thought of getting this as a tattoo but never went through with it. I have always recognized the symbol, but really never knew its true meaning. It is very interesting to learn of its history.
One symbol which continues to remain popular is the lower case Greek letter lambda. The symbol was originally chosen by the Gay Activists Alliance of New York in 1970. Because of its official adoption by the GAA, which sponsored public events for the gay community, the lambda soon became a quick way for the members of the gay community to identify each other. The reasoning was that the lambda would easily be mistaken for a college fraternity symbol and ignored by the majority of the population. Eventually though, the GAA headquarters was torched by an arsonist, destroying not only the building but all of the organization's records, and the movement never recovered from the loss. The symbol, however, lived on.
Now what the symbol means or meant when it was introduced are a prime topic for speculation and a morass of public rumoring. Some of the more popular rumors are: * Simply, the Greek letter "L" stands for "liberation." * The Greek Spartans believed that the lambda represented unity. * The Romans took it as meaning "the light of knowledge shining into the darkness of ignorance." * An iconic rendering of the scales of justice and the constant force that keeps opposing sides from overcoming each other. The hook at the bottom of the right leg would then signify the action and initiative needed to reach and maintain balance. * The lambda is also though by some to have appeared on the shields of Spartan and/or Theben warriors. The Thebes version is more popular because, as legend has it, the city- state organized the Theban Band from groups of idealized lovers, which made them extremely fierce and dedicated warriors. Eventually however, the army was completely decimated by Kind Philip II, but was later honored by his son Alexander the Great.
There is no actual evidence though that the lambda was ever associated with this group. However, there was Hollywood movie in the 1962s called The 300 Spartans that showed Spartan warriors who appeared to have lambdas on their shields.
Whatever the lambda meant or means today, it's everywhere. Even though at one time it acquired a strictly male connotation, it is used by both gays and lesbians today. Back in December of 1974, the lambda was officially declared the international symbol for gay and lesbian rights by the International Gay Rights Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.
I was not familiar with this symbol before doing research for this assignment. It is very new to me I had never saw it before. I am glad I know what it stands for now and will know its meaning when I see it.

Kabbalah teaches that God created the world with seven spiritual building blocks—His seven “emotional” attributes. Accordingly, the entire creation is a reflection of these seven foundational attributes.
They are: chesed (kindness), gevurah (severity), tiferet (harmony), netzach (perseverance), hod (splendor), yesod (foundation) and malchut (royalty).
Correspondingly, the Star of David contains seven compartments—six peaks protruding from a center. The upper right wing is chesed. The upper left wing is gevurah. The upper center peak is tiferet. Kabbalah teaches that tiferet finds its source in keter, “the Crown,” which is infinitely higher than all the divine attributes which are involved in the “mundane” pursuit of creating worlds. The lower right wing is netzach. The lower left wing is hod. The center is yesod. Yesod is “Foundation,” and as such, all the other attributes are rooted in, and rise from, this attribute. The star’s bottom that descends from its belly is malchut—the attribute that absorbs the energies of the higher six attributes and uses them to actually descend and create everything—and to “reign” over them.
I have seen this symbol a million times and have drawn stars using this symbol a lot. I never knew what it meant but know I do I will be more careful not to use it so casually when drawing a star because I know it has a very deep explanation to it.

Works Cited http://www.ancient.eu.com/Yin_and_Yang/ http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/yinyang.htm

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/788679/jewish/What-Is-the-Mystical-Significance-of-the-Star-of-David.htm
http://www.lambda.org/symbols.htm