In 1969, the American underground comics artist, Ron Cobb, designed the Ecology Symbol. It was first published in The Los Angeles Free Press ("The Freep"), historically one of the 1960s first underground newspapers in the United States. It seems Cobb had better intentions than simply making money off the symbol and thus promptly released it into the public domain.

The philosophic symbolism behind Cobb's image, reminiscent of the mid-twienth century move towards enlightenment that was the anti-Vietnam war, pro-environmental, pro-civil rights, peace and justice movement, is illustrated on a poster by Cobb. On the poster, the symbol is surround by definitions and concepts that illustrate the hope and idealistic goals of an entire generation.

Much of the intent was to highlight the concept of Ecology in order to incite awareness of the reality of human environmental destructiveness. It would be used as a deterrant to that destructiveness, publically defined so as to remind us of our uncanniness, our lostness, and to help us find a new path toward reintegration with the planet. It would be the rediscovery of a hidden truth, a way to help "get ourselves back to the garden," as Joni Mitchell would sing.

For Cobb, the 'e' was to be lower case "to symbolize the passive yielding or feminine aspect of nature, the 'prima materia' or 'no-thing' out of which all 'things' are made to appear by division." The 'e' was to symbolize the environment, thought of through a list of 'e' words, such as "earth, eden, eternal, evolution, encircle, enrichment, enlightenment, eros, empathy, emotion, ecstasy and existence." The symbol was elliptic to illustrate "the transcendent unity that pervades all dualities..." And so Cobb connected the ends of the 'e' to become a circle to suggest 'o' words, such as "organism, oneness, oasis, OM, omnipresence, origin, open, orgy, orgasm and ontology," thereby creating a mandala, "the universal symbol of wholeness of harmonious unity -- the centering of psyche with cosmos -- the resolution of all opposites ...sanity, peace..."

The symbol survives, reminding us of very practical needs: clean air, clean soil, clean water, room to grow, health, peace, justice, and finding our way back to the garden...