Spirals

June 8

I am thankful for spirals. What, you say? Not that I live and die for spirals, but if you think about it, spirals are a very integral shape in our lives. Many galaxies form spiral-like shapes. And, the structure responsible for our ability to survive and pass on life to our children, the double stranded DNA helix, is a three dimensional spiral shape. There is something simple and elegant about this shape that is soothing.

This is a macro photo of the petal of a daylily in my front yard. The daylilies are in full bloom at my house and I enjoy taking photos of them just about every day. This particular petal intrigued me by the way it coiled around itself. After several attempts, I finally got this photo. There are many kinds of spirals: the one in the photo is technically called a logarithmic spiral because the distance between the coils gets progressively farther as it goes outward. A spiral galaxy is also this type of spiral. If the distance between the coils stays constant, it is called an Archimedean spiral. The DNA helix is a 3-dimensional Archimedean spiral. Perhaps, all of this is more than you wanted to know about spirals, but even if you don't know anything, you can still appreciate the simple beauty of spirals.

spirals

spirals

ever increasing concentricity

ever increasing outward

flowing smoothly

like a pinwheel

spinning freely

around an axis

but ever widening

no more to return

home

but the further out

freer

weaker

 ‘til no longer connected

to its origin

to its home

alone.

© rt tulley