The taxonomy of images begin with conventional signifiers of self-preservation, survival, fear, mortality, and loss, including life jackets, inflatable rescue boats, water wings, and surgical masks for public health protection. I investigate the belief in these objects in contrast to the shortcomings of the actual, physical object. Despite the fallibility of the objects in the event of true crisis, there is tremendous comfort in knowing that one is taking incremental measures against disaster; the life jacket under your plane seat actually is reassuring. Don DeLillo wrote in White Noise, “The more we rehearse disaster, the safer we’ll be from the real thing.” Akin to the representational icons of safety, I am currently investigating the mimetic qualities, transactional symbols, and legitimizing practices of ritual, or symbolic healing. A healer evokes symbols or metaphors in dramatic action and aesthetic performance that provide a material language through which a patient can express, understand, or transform the personal or interpersonal conflicts underlying his or her illness. The mediating symbols align the inner experience of the subject with the objective structure of the rite.