A spiral is a beautiful and dynamic swirl that can help you find your life's purpose if you follow its turns long enough.
There are spiral icons in nearly every cultural tradition; there are spirals in nature (seashells); there are spirals in physics (fractals). Their beauty is a tip-off that something integral is happening here and, as with all things beautiful, we are drawn in to look for a long time. It takes a while to peel back all the layers and truly comprehend its purpose. We are moved by spirals. They're a great metaphor for life - beautiful, mysterious, seemingly simple, but then not so much sometimes.
I well remember an article that my grad school mentor gave me (though I can't find it now 25 years later) that featured a wonderful spiral representing development through life. Having doodled spirals all my life, I will readily draw a spiral for clients and explain that as we circle AROUND issues in our life, we also move HIGHER in our understanding of the issue (if we're paying attention) and from an INNER to an OUTER to an INNER view of the problem. There's a lot going on. Seemingly simple, but then not so much sometimes.
This movement is affected by our closest relationships, which the spiral can also symbolize. When we feel very close to our spouse, partner or family, we easily become interwoven into their viewpoints and projects, and we may almost completely lose sight of our own. Intimacy is absorbing and natural, and it feels wonderful to immerse yourself into a loved one's trials and triumphs. You say Yes a lot, look into eyes a lot, and laugh a lot at others' antics, and it feels wonderful. Your own life's purpose may become lost in all this pleasure, yet Time, and your outer journey on the spiral, move on.
Then, at some point, your head suddenly pops up and away from the object of your affection, usually in response to some painful life happening which often involves same loved one. You look around, squinting, with the sun in your eyes, and realize you're not sure what you're doing right now. You find yourself staring at people, studying them, doing some comparisons, looking for familiar cues which, thank goodness, you usually find, though it may take a while. Things have changed though: You used to have a very cohesive, if subconscious, view of things, and now you're seeing life consciously from a different vantage point that's rather startling in its newness. Who am I, and what AM I doing here?
That's the cue that it's time to move inward on the spiral again, back into your own pursuits and away from total focus on The Other, and you might also find that you're higher up on the spiral. You're back at a place you've been before, sort of, but you know more, you're wiser, and you're seeing things from a different angle. You start saying No more, spending more time alone and perhaps sighing more than you used to.
And it's all OK. You'll move once again, into a new balance, if you don't get in your own way. It's a dance. We move in and out of being moved and delighted and frustrated and bored by others, and ourselves, and in the process we learn more about ourselves and others and what we're doing here.
There may be some overarching themes that remain steady throughout our lives, especially our adult lives. We may also find that some things shift a lot, if we are brave and wise enough to let them and to endure the ambivalence and scariness of change.
Remember to look for the beauty of the spiral, and to give yourself the time to really look into it. Draw one, find a seashell, get a concrete representation of the spiral that you can explore when things are really confusing. [See http://spiral.gallery.sytes.org/. It's beautiful. The Dromenon on the floor of Chartres Cathedral and available to walk at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco is very engaging.] Move through the spiral at your own pace, and you'll find yourself firmly planted in your life again. You'll be experiencing yourself in many deeper ways, as if through a lovely prism, and you'll be entranced by what you see - a beautiful, dynamic person with an energized life of purpose that is truly yours.