In entwining together two distinct movements, the circular and the linear, the form of the spiral overcomes the limitations of its component parts to draw attention to a different way of making sense of ourselves in relation to one another and the wider world: that of "cyclic becoming", to borrow a term from British biophysicist Jill Purce. In her treatise on the spiral, she proffers the reminder that this becoming is a recurring theme in many spiritual traditions: "It is the breathing of the cosmos. With the exhalation the spirit contracts, creates, and involves or winds into matter; this is the creation of the world by the breath of God. With the inhalation, matter expands and evolves or unwinds into spirit."

 

Within this scheme, vantage points proliferate, center and periphery swirl and flow into one another in unceasing exchange, and the prospect of transformation – from order to chaos, from action to stillness, from confusion to wonder – is always already lodged in each moment. Such transformation does not demand a sharp break with what has come before, but instead necessitates looking back in order to orient oneself and discover, however tentatively or fitfully, the next direction of travel. The choice to begin anew, then, is at once a choice to return, where the value of a consciousness of history and of reflexivity cannot be gainsaid.