Clarity Emerges: A tale of Phi, The Golden Ratio and The Chambered Nautilus
This title sounds, to me, like that of a fairy tale.
And perhaps it is. My life can be like that, Natalie, is, afterall, the anagram of "In a Tale". What is in a name…
This narrative is also an example of how we can move in the direction of clarity even when not certain…and how clarity will (begin to) emerge through a process of uncovery, discovery, connecting and synthesis/re-weaving. And dialogue, conversation…inquiry and reflection. The wading in confusion is an essential and necessary, though challenging, step.
There was yesterday’s murky yet important long long long rant.
But Let’s start here. In the most recent post before this one. ’A helpful (mis-)quote‘.
The question I posed three hours ago about mis-quotes "much we have discovered in our misunderstanding of things?" just bit me in the ass…in a good way.
I have been walking about thinking that the chambered nautilus and fibonacci sequence I have adopted as my symbol is a representation of "Pi", when really, it is about "Phi"* - The so-called Golden Ratio.
This is especially relevant as mathematically speaking, the Golden Ratio naturally sorts out waves into a coherent set. ‘Waves‘^^ are critical here as in the post-literate age we are finding ourselves in - McLuhan speaks about ‘acoustic’ space - albeit slowly in the sense of our somewhat currently ‘dim’/blind/myopic abilities to see it (or should that be, ‘to describe it, and thus see it’?).
This is (relatively) newer physics knowledge moving into our stories … moving us beyond Newtonian definitions, (linear - cause: effect, input:output) the constructed world we find our selves in that is a mismatch for the story/body of knowledge/concept of time we have since mined and absorbed (are absorbing??).
The beauty of it all this is also that what I posted just below that post about Einstein, the post on the Chambered Nautilus, by Oliver Wendall Holmes , explores the Golden Ratio…the perfect relationship of the Phi in the naturally occuring Nautilus. Here is a beautiful lesson and list of questions on this. It is important to note that it’s name, the Nautilus, comes about because it was once thought that the shells really sailed. That is, the nautilus is also a symbol of navigating, at the sea.
These navigation metaphors are very present in my life at the moment. At my (consulting) work too. We are at sea without clear sight of the land we are moving towards (or away) from. Change is happening. Our old models aren’t working. Our organisational models don’t make sense. We are at ‘an edge’. I wrote to a friend recently that I felt I was "at sea with an anchor of thread". **
[The ball of thread is a reference to how we get out of a maze/labrinth...and to an email from a great friend from Estonia saying she sensed I was finding the beginning of my clew^].
There is something deeply important about the Nautilus symbol and as I move into trying to find ways of seeing, I am finding myself more attracted to symbols and signs, and ways to catagorise them: semiotics, tags, folksonomy…language.
I am realising also that in addition to dialogue (action!) it is the spaces between us/things/objects that is crucial. The waves ^^and dynamic interchanges…and we are seeing/feeling the waves, like the Shaman and his people in this story***, without being able to see the ship.
Learning the lesson of the Shaman, I will keep focusing on in the direction of what I can see and feel, in the direction of the changes, and trust that the ’ship’ will emerge, from the crystallisation/integration of a myriad of perspectives, through my conversation and dialogue practices. The idea - making what is there but somehow hidden emerge? Is this a quest of translating the occult into science/our current master language of ‘logic and reason’? (However did we put logic and reason on a pedastool as the only way to think!? It is important but not all!)
And suddenly, yet again, I am revisted by a poem (a now trusted ‘good friend’, who visits me regularly since I was shown at 16 to remind me of constant growth and contraction… or as Alice put it, the spiral of complexity and simplicity, so often obvious in art)
"We shall not cease from exploration
And at the end of all our knowing exploring
Shall be to arrive where we first started
And know it the place [as if] for the first time"
We do not need so much to learn as to be reminded of what we know/once knew…
*Interestingly, another symbol for the Golden Ratio is Tau. In my ‘and’ mindspace I sense that both Phi and Tau are needed…I just noticed that if you overlay the two you get a sphere on an axis …but if you dangle Phi over the top you can get a spiral on an axis (make a ball of paper and string for Phi and hold over Tau, a ‘t’ shape. The golden ratio also is a symbol present in Eastern Cultures, which is important to me as the marrying / holding of these two perspectives is critical…both are relevant to the whole.
^ Clew is both a ball of thread and a part of sail, tying my two themes of navigation and narrative (threads as used to sew story/themes together)
^^ The idea of ‘Waves’ can also be seen as time periods. There is the idea that we have moved into a new (4th?) wave…Visit here to read about the last three waves.
** Where does my optimism come from: "The world is round-o…" Alobar to the Shaman, in Tom Robbins’ "Jitterbug Perfume". This same scene mentions the necessary leaving of man from the system … and also highlights a vision for a necessary return to the system. We can’t help but come back…Another faint echo - "What’s the time?" "The time is now" (Socrates, in Dan Milman’s "Way of the Peaceful Warrier"
***The Story:
I first heard it told in ‘what the bleep‘. Legend has it that when Columbus’ ship came to America, the native American’s could not see it. They could see the waves, and the winds, doing strange things. But they could not see the ship. How is this possible? They had never experienced ships before in their history, they had no concept for ship in their language, in their memory.
Whether or not the story is true the story continues that the shaman of the group went back to the shore daily and meditated on the area of the strange wave movements. One day he had a ‘vision’ of the ship. And in being able to ’see it’ he was now able to say it, to tell people in his group about it, in terms (language) they understood. In trusting their Shaman, and in being able to hear it, and thus, say it in their own language, they could now see the ships…".
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December 1st, 2005 at 12:52 am
Touching on many points very lightly. Apart from the folk tale about
Columbus. You have identified 3 major areas of interest. 1.
Scientific/Mathmatical analysis of Phi, 2. Social Theory and analogies using
Phi, 3. Phi in folk lore, mythology, ancient cultures. Go a bit further into 1 & 2. Tying together of these themes doesn’t work so well. Instead of drawing on outside sources so much, perhaps make a stronger link with your own argument. The similarities are clear, but the meaning of their connection, and what their implications are, is not cohesive in this piece.
I want to finish reading this and think “wow… I never thought of it that wayâ€.
December 1st, 2005 at 1:03 am
Wow Natalie you are thinking and thinking as well as talking and walking. Thanks.
Here follows a brief and less coherent comment rushed off because it feels good to respond…In considering the chambered nautilus and phi maybe you are well on the way to stripping away the constructs most of us safely hide behind, get diverted by and which too often lead to confusion in the guise of certainty, you are heading off for clarity and chose those symbols from your unconscious because they had already been chosen for you.
However, the idea of the golden ratio is both clarity and perhaps a kind of arrogance, an imposed construct, it is the ultimate rationality, the interpretation (like the later Fibonacci sequence) of what is right and natural - right in the sense of true and real, no value judgement - a way for the rational mind to understand what was once intuitively and instinctively known. It doesn’t ultimately matter how you name it, for some of us it helps to look at waves or fractals, some refer to sacred geometry or geomancy, all definitions are analytical tools that provide ways to help us to see the world and through the world.
Every generation uses the tools at its disposal to define the world around it. Now we can use newer physics, through chaos theory, waves and fractals to understand the how questions. It’s always exciting to look at the world in new ways and it can lead to clarities. The magic of water was for so long simply appreciated and worked with, later scientific paradigms degraded it into neutered components and individuals and the worlds relationship with water became more troubled, newer paradigms have happily allowed us to begin to reclaim the magic through science. But the magic has always been there although there have been many times when our cultural consciousness didn’t allow us to look at it in a non-rational way. New science has allowed us in some ways to join pre-rational and rational knowledge and reclaim the magic through, if you like, the intellect. I think I may need to go back to looking at water. Water does have answers, even when we continually ask the wrong questions.
Modern tools allow us to understand the HOW questions.
But they can’t address the WHY. Yet people go through life asking WHY? Why do we need to know why? Is this part of the rational human condition? Maybe we constantly ask the wrong questions. I have few answers.
All tools of analysis, from listening to stories to linear analyses through Darwinism and all later evolutionary models lead us to question. And from these questions we get led to sometimes unexpected answers.It is these ” answers” that are important and lead to deeper knowledge because they pose more questions which lead to new ways of answering and new answers. I guess that the way to a peaceful conjoined existence is to have the same answers, whatever the questions?
The new part of our house was designed through sacred geometry features outside are placed according to sacred geometry, we use dowsing as a starting point and work from there, so I suppose this is a happy combination of non-rational and rational. However there are times I’m really uncomfortable with the golden mean/sacred geometry view because it seems so intellectually imposed and what we’re really looking at is finding ways to do what is right, true, real and it seems odd for us to be able to say that we have somehow discovered the way. But I suspect that’s my hang up more than a metaquery about the validity of tools of analysis.
Yes please to a link to glean some regularly wonderful quotes .
Thanks for being, for answers and for posing questions,
Keep well,
Happy days, Charlie
December 1st, 2005 at 12:17 pm
Hey nat.
I love following your MINDSPACE :)
(actually the more i read your blog the more i am reminded of my thoughts on how to notate as much thought from our mind).
The actual content itself could be cleaned up a bit. Made a bit more clearer. If you believe it is so important to what you are trying to acheive then perhaps you should re write it now that you have finished it. Put it through its own ‘external’ clarifying process… (i can see that internally you have been ordering and connecting those thoughts for a while.)
(as an exercise… try this if you want… Start with the outcome (is there one specifically?) rather than the story and then work backwards filling in the gaps of knowledge.) It might be interesting where it goes. Then you could even marry the two together to create a really solid Story. Ah fuck what do I know. :)
But regardless (excuse tortology)… love it, love it, love. Keep moving in the direction your miind takes you.
December 2nd, 2005 at 7:25 am
Hi Nat
This is the first time that I have posted to your blog, although I do read it quite often. I think the reason why is that often I don’t really have any response to add, other than gladness that I was able to have some nat-isms to brighten my day. This is the same response that I have had to this post too. There are glimmers of your beautiful personality coming through, but it felt like the ideas were tumbling out of your head frantically into a pool of words on the page. I just felt like I was reading transcript of a conversation we would have on the phone. I’m not sure if this was your intention.
Anyhow, keep exploring those oceans!!
With Love,
Shell
December 6th, 2005 at 10:59 am
thanks for all this.
Shell, I promise to keep exploring these oceans!! Please just add whatever vague thought or tangent comes to mind. That is part of the dialogue - to extend the posts in directions I never imagined they woud go because of your sparks. And El and Joel, I will try to clean up my act as it synthesises. Charlie, love that you dive right in with me and add to the dialogue!
Thought you might all like to read about this experiement about us not seeing things in front of our eyes if we’re not looking for them. A classic experiment on visual processing involves asking people to watch a video of 6 people passing a basketball, and press a button every time a particular team has possession. Invariably only about half the people tested ever notice a woman in a gorilla suit walking across the middle of the screen during the game. We’re such a shallow people.
Source: Simons, WJH, Harvard 1999
January 30th, 2006 at 6:43 am
hi nat
as an occultist and “metaphysical mathematician” i do feel that eg phi ratio and eg the square root of 3 :- 1.73 that is contained in the vesica pisces are mainly gateways to the mind of god and the universal consciousness.
I also thank you for the chaos/order combined word you mentioned in this blog; I will follow that up(and clarts! for better clarity and synchronicity) The mentioning of the alphabet and its design is good too when one uses say basic numerology of a=1 thru to z= 26 to decode things.