I am drawn to spirals, how they contract and expand.
Cynthia Bourgeault named the contraction infurling, the process of going inward. Infurling is not a fixed point, a final destination, but a process we go through any time we confront our grief, shadow, depth, or complexity. We grow outward by turning inward. This innermost space is what I liken to the true self, the teacher or guide. In this sense, contraction always leads to expansion as the spiral widens outward at every point. The spiral is a kind of paradox, two opposing forces that exist at once. If we are willing to look, we see that we contain this very same phenomenon in ourselves: a capacity for acceptance and judgement, for love and hate, for light and dark.
Spirals are present at every level of existence, from the genetic construction of our DNA to our spiraling emotional worlds to the physical universe. A spiral galaxy, for example, is thought to be the only kind that can sustain and create life. They make up 72% of existing galaxies! They are not closed, but have arms reaching outward, perpetually open and creating.
My collage, depicting a conception of a spiral galaxy
The labyrinth is a kind of spiral and represents the spiritual practice of going inward. It is the maze of our unconscious that when shone upon delights and frightens us with new awarenesses. In Greek mythology, Theseus enters the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur. He is then lead out by his muse Ariadne. Sadly, she was later abandoned by him as she slept. Carl Jung believed the myth to represent our own continual “slaying of monsters.” Perhaps our own betrayal too. Again, not a one time process.
A depiction of a dream labyrinth from Carl Jung’s Red Book
Hilma af Klint, Swedish artist and mystic, explored the spiral as the foundational image of existence. Before abstract art was popularized, before women were accepted as part of the canon, she visualized through images the harmonic laws of the universe, from the micro to the macro. The spiral as a form goes from the smallest to the largest and contains both. Bear in mind she is exploring the interconnectedness of all things spiritually and artistically as science is discovering it in the physical world through evolution and relativity.
Hilma af Klint, The Dove; No. 1, 1915
Around the same time, at the turn of the century, WEB Dubois develops a graphic language to talk about the progress of Black America for the World Fair in Paris. Here the lengthening lines of the spiral turn inward to represent the sum total of household and kitchen furniture owned by Georgia Negroes (a term used by Dubois, though one not commonly used today). As the value of their material lives expand, the spiral turns inward, perhaps signifying greater autonomy. It is simultaneously hypnotic and easily read.
WEB Dubois, Plate No. 25, From Visualizing Black America, 1900
And finally, though the spiral here is a little more subtle, this is my visual conception of how a virus began at a fixed point and spiraled outward. It transfers from person to person with breath, the Latin for which is uncannily close to spiral: spirare. The breath is a source of life and death. For now it is connecting every single one of us.
My collage, Spirare, 2020
I can’t begin to draw fixed conclusions about the spiral, only parallels. Nor can I draw conclusions about this disease that is keeping us mostly indoors and separate from one another, yet united in our fixed attention to this one thing. We are simultaneously near and far.