The ancient Nautilus Shell is a symbol of proportional perfection. It is also the perfect paradox – having survived relatively unchanged for over 500 million years. It was swimming the ancient oceans long before there were fish, dinosaurs, or mammals.
The Golden Ratio (Phi) can be found within it’s ever expanding shell, and it exists as the perfect metaphor for spiritual growth.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, in a poem entitled The Chambered Nautilus, "Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul….Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"
What a perfect image for spiritual evolution!
In order to begin a new stage in our growth, we have to think "outside the box." Yet, every time we abandon an old worldview for a new and wider vision, we merely find ourselves in a larger box. While each box serves its particular function for a time, we are always in danger of claiming that the chamber we currently occupy is the ultimate one.
The “boxes” of the past become discarded reminders of past lives and realities. While they may no longer apply, they provide us with the buoyancy and stability to forge onward.
The spiral shape of the Nautilus shell suggests that it can keep growing forever. There is no design for a "final" chamber. The creature must keep building new chambers as long as it lives. It cannot go back to the previous ones; they no longer fit. It cannot stay in its present space or it will die.
It has no choice but to move on, and on.
This item is finished with a solid pine frame that has been stained to a rich medium brown colour, it includes approx. 30" of black decorative chain to allow hanging in a window.
Actual size is 17.5 inches (approx 44.5 cm.) in diameter.
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