I am thinking of how much I love the mountains, because some of my family came from there, and how much I love West Virginia, because some of Annie s family came from there. It gives me energy and hope. It is a kind of icon in the spirit. One sits before them quietly and allows the image to become an encouragement to prayer. But this is just a small example of the way we use icons.
Icons are absolutely native to the human spirit.
Our psyches construct them. Our psyches are full of images from our entire lives. They feed them back to us in dreams, in memories, in language and poetry. A spiritual icon is an image which carries with it a meaning. Some of these are negative or traumatic.