Spirals of Life

Astronomy was one of the classes I took just to fulfill my general education requirements. I found the lectures interesting but I wasn’t really thrilled to deal with the lab aspect. So while it wasn’t my favorite college experience, it was the place where my sense of awe was born when looking at photos of the surrounding stars and galaxies. My spiritual seeking had taken me through a phase of being particularly focused on women’s spirituality and associated symbolism. When I saw a picture of a spiral galaxy in class, I simultaneously pictured ancient spiral symbols and the spiral shape of our DNA. It gave me this amazing sense of connected through time and through consciousness. I thought about how the spiral is such an important shape from the expansive galaxies to the unseen DNA that shapes our being. I found it amazing that ancient peoples, who didn’t have our ability to see deep into the stars and into our physiology, recognized the importance of the spiral design. Now, whenever I see a spiral galaxy I’m filled with that sense of awe, connection and mystery.