From: The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images
Spiral motifs appear worldwide in the symbolism of religion, art, dreams, folktales and mythology. Mathematically, a spiral is simply a line that grows continuously toward or away from its center. But its symbolic power is in its evocation of an archetypal path of growth, transformation and psychological or spiritual journey. Based on the direction of its spin, whether expanding outward and larger, or tightening inward and smaller, a spiral is a cosmic symbol that may represent one or the other of several dualities: growth or decay, ascent or descent, evolution of involution, waxing or waning, accumulation or dissolution, increasing or decreasing, expanding or contracting, offering or receiving, revealing or hiding. The double spiral combines both opposites in one glyph.
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Spirals extending infinitely in two directions make the path of ascent and descent between heaven and earth. Deities and humans communicate with each other along spirals. It is the sacred way of commandment and prayer, the spiral voice of God and the sacred call to God. Various deities speak through spiral whirlwinds and through columns of whirling dust, smoke and fire. Humans pray to deities along the same spiral paths by making offerings with ascending smoke spirals and by blowing through spiral conch shells and ram’s horn trumpets. Each natural spiral has a center of balance or calm eye (the eye of the storm) around which all motion and turbulence revolves. The spiral’s eye evokes one’s own center, divine source, “I am” and seed of consciousness. It suggests the eye of wisdom that observes all but is never entangled in the turbulence.
Note: The Book of Symbols was produced by the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). ARAS is a pictorial and written archive of mythological, ritualistic, and symbolic images from all over teh world and from all epochs of human experience. The collection of 17,000 photographic images, accompanied by commentary on their cultural and historical context, probes the universality of archetypal themes.