Butte Green River Wyoming 

Thomas Moran painted "Butte Green River, Wyoming" in watercolor, capturing the stark, monumental rock formations of the American West. These towering buttes resonate with the ancient symbolism of mountains as sacred places, connecting heaven and earth. Consider the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, artificial mountains built to bridge the gap between humanity and the divine. Like those ancient structures, Moran’s buttes evoke a sense of awe and spiritual elevation. But where the ziggurats were constructed by human hands, these natural formations speak to the sublime power of nature, a force capable of shaping the very landscape. There is an undeniable phallic element in these forms, which Sigmund Freud might have seen as a subconscious manifestation of primal energies. This is not merely about sexual symbolism, but about the life force itself, the drive for creation and continuation that pulses through all living things. These shapes echo and shift meaning, each recurrence enriching the symbol.