Convolutions

More random notes on spirals and labyrinths. This topic is HUGE, and I'm getting sucked in.

The spiral is an abstraction from nature codified by the labyrinth.

Labyrinth/maze
- string, guide
- minotaur/ sphinx/ guardian
- hero
- creator/ genius figure
- sacrifice/ sparagmos
- sacrificial victims
- quest / goal / treasure
- ordered, knowable
- descent, downward, underworld, Hades
- man-made
- woods as labyrinthine: dark, mysterious
mazelike: pan as god of woods: pan as one
who leads victims out of the dayworld


Spiral/ Vortex
- chaotic yet patterned enough to be also ordered
- represented by snakes, snails, tornados, whirlpools, fingerprints, ear, intestines, ram’s horn
- association with mirrors, reflection, repetition, opening up of consciousness
- descent, downward
- constant motion, movement, nothing static
- natural
- unsuspecting victims
- is its own monster

Both
- underworld, Hades, downward motion, descent, below surface
- chaos and order
- violence; beast, minotaur, dragon, sphinx, leviathan?, whale?
- regeneration, rebirth, going under and coming out again, changed, transformation, eternal return?
- time, cycles, cyclical; space
- center: calm and safe?
- radiation
- mystery and that which is hidden
- wandering, loss
- webs of connections, spiders

Other manifestations:
- ouroboros: self-consuming serpent
- caduceus: staff of Hermes/Mercury (guide to underworld and messenger of eternal life) with wings and intertwined serpents; symbol of health, healing, medicine
- DNA: spiraling double helix
- symbol of infinity

Notes from Frye
Frye 77 “all arts possess both a temporal and a spatial aspect” - As do spirals and labyrinths.
Frye 99 “archetype: that is, a typical or recurring image. I mean by an archetype a symbol which connects one poem with another and thereby helps to unify and integrate our literary experience . . . archetypal criticism is primarily concerned with literature as a social fact and as a mode of communication”
- could this very connection be seen as spiral-like?
Frye 102 “Archetypes are associative clusters, and differ from signs in being complex variables” learned associations; some are obvious but none are necessary or inherent. I keep finding that the spiral and labyrinth can simultaneously hold or suggest or imply many and contradictory meanings, images, connotations, importances.

In the case of King Minos of Crete, the labyrinth held something of which he was both deeply ashamed and deeply fearful. Something he could not destroy because it was of divine origin. Thus it forced him to act as a tyrant, exacting fourteen (two sets of seven) sacrificial victims from the Athenians every eight years. Ultimately, it cost him his daughter.