The Spiral in Nature, The Cosmic, and The Soul

When I first started making jewelry, I knew immediately that I wanted to work with natural metals and semi precious stones. I do believe in the healing properties and symbolism of various beauties such as amethyst, turquoise, ametrine, citrine, amber etc...you get the point. As you can also see alot of my work lately has been done with spirals. I remember doodling spirals during class in High School, painting spiral images in art class, and I will never forget the lovely spiral images created by Georgia O'Keefe in one of her paintings of a shell. There is something so soothing about creating spirals, it is a never ending pattern starting from deep within and extending itself outward in a continuum. Here are some descriptions I have found regarding this wonderful symbol:

The spiral symbol can represent the consciousness of nature beginning from the core or center and thus expanding outwardly.

Some consider the spiral a symbol of the spiritual journey. It is also considered to represent the evolutionary process of learning and growing. It seems that life doesn't proceed in a straight line. The path of life more closely resembles a spiral. We seem to pass the same point over and over again but from a different perspective each time. To walk and then stand in the center of a spiral or labyrinth has been a psycho-spiritual exercise for centering the consciousness.

The spiral stands for coming into being.

The spiral shows up often in nature - in hurricanes and tornados, in the pattern of seeds in a sunflower, in the growing tips of ferns, in the pattern that leaves grow on a stem, in the shape of a nautilus shell, and, as a helix, the shape of the DNA.

This is what has drawn me to this pattern over and over again in my designs and I find that when I wear my spiral jewelry I do feel centered and balanced ;-) I hope it does the same for you ;-)