The Lion is a great symbol with much meaning. It is the Ego, conscious, the sun, the king, culture, but it is also the Self, God, Christ. It is the opposite of the serpent, and therefore connected to it. We can see that Aion has a Lions head and a snake is coiled around him. The snake is the unconscious, the feminine, the womb that takes the Lion (the hero, the sun) back to the underworld. That is the sunset. The hero has to go to the underworld, to integrate the shadow, to become whole, and then he will resurrect, like Christ, like the sunrise.
In the climax of the summer, the sun is in it’s home sign in the zodiac: Leo. The Lion means summer, warmth, courage, loyalty, truth, light, but also passion, sex, creation, rejuvenation. It is the child full of potentials. The powerful king at the top of his powers. We can also see the Lion symbol in modern stories, like Narnia (Aslan) and Harry Potter (Gryffindor).
But the Lion can also be the devil. He guards the underworld and transforms what is death back to life: resurrection. It is the gold that can be found deep down in the earth/unconscious. On every level we can see the cycle of dying, going to the underworld, being transformed by the golden Lion and then being resurrected. That cycle always continues. Of course we can experience this in an individual level, but we can also see it clearly in society. When the Self/King/God is dead, the darkness will come to the surface and will rule. Nietzsche wrote in the end of the 19th century that “God is dead”. People in Europe left Christianity and became nihilistic. God is now in the underworld and we are ruled by the darkness, the devil. But there will be a moment in which Christ will be resurrected again, and society will rejuvenate and prosper. The light, warmth, love and deeper meaning of life will come back to humanity after this dreary period of utter darkness and evil. Christ/the Lion will return!
