“The path isn’t a straight line; it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.” ~ Barry H. Gillespie

I have been thinking a lot about spirals lately. It started with a soul collage card that depicted a spiral shooting up with a star at its peak. It seemed very magical and ethereal, and I have painted three canvases with this amazing spiral. To me it has become the symbol of growth and creation.

When you look at nature, spirals seem to be everywhere – the strands of DNA, the shell of a snail or a nautilus, the unopened frond of a fern, spiral galaxies, patterns of hurricanes and draining water. If you walk outside and look closely, you will most likely find something in nature that is a spiral.

In spiritual imagery, you can find the triple Celtic spiral, the Goddess with the spiral depicted on her belly, the labyrinth, and spirals carved in temples and in tombs.

So what does a spiral mean in a spiritual sense? Each person must answer for herself. For me the spiral has come to mean creation, emergence, genesis. The spiral that I am painting in my meditations comes up from a primordial sea. It is more like a spring than a traditional spiral, but it has a shining star or life at its tip. To me it feels joyous, juicy, and creative. It is something new emerging from the soup.

I have realized over the years that life is very much cyclical in nature. The lessons we thought we had mastered seem to come around regularly to teach us in ever more depth. What we don’t master comes back, and we must face it once again. The spiral teaches me that I am not stuck forever, that I will continue to have opportunities to learn and grow.

There is so much hope in the twists and turns of a spiral. As each lesson comes back to me, I am free to learn in more and more depth. I am free to make new choices, to dive deeper, and to grow in understanding. I learn that with every turn of the spiral, new spiritual options are available to me. I have new opportunities to become all that I was meant to be.

The spiral also teaches me that there are times for expansion and growth as well as times for contraction and dormancy. Walking the labyrinth teaches me to release and let go as I move toward the center, to allow myself to be filled only with silence. Then as I move outward back into the world, I can integrate and expand on what the silence has taught me.