Sometimes it is easier to understand concepts with images, always remembering that they are only metaphors pointing to something beyond.
Symbols connect us to transcendent ideas, as the etymology suggests: Latin symbŏlus, from the Greek sýmbolos, formed by the prefix sin-, given the Greek articulation syn-, that points out the idea of ‘meeting, encounter or union,’ from the Indo-European reference *sun-, contemplated as the connector, and – bolus detached from the verb ballein, that refers to ‘throwing’ or ‘casting’, with roots in the Indo-European *gwele-, for ‘throwing’.
Archetypal images, as universal patterns or motifs which come from the collective unconscious, are the basic content of religions, mythologies, legends and fairy tales. Link