One of the most ancient of human symbols is a spiral.

It has been found written on the walls of caves, woven into fabric, painted on pottery, and drawn in the sand on nearly every continent since the dawn of early man.

In most cultures, the spiral represents the cycles of life, death, and rebirth as well as evolution, change, and the journey through both life in human form as well as through the realm of spirit and beyond.

It also often represents a connection to the divine and a pathway to the awareness of both spirit and the oneness of all-that-is.

There are many examples of spirals found at Neolithic archeological sites including Newgrange, Ireland that a trio of spirals that represent life, death, and rebirth and also past, present, future called a triskelion.

The Hopi often used spiral motifs in pottery, and they have been found on many ancient Native American rock carvings.

The Akan people of Ghana used spiral motifs in the creation of cloth and weaving that represented not only one’s own arduous life path, but also the act of earning the resilience required to navigate it.

And, of course there are many myths and stories about mazes and labyrinths all over the world as analogy to navigating the trials and challenges of life including the famous myth of the Minotaur in Ancient Crete.

And it is fascinating to me is how many examples of the spiral exists in nature – in a snail’s shell, our fingerprints, in our galaxy, and even the double helix of our own DNA.

Nothing is a straight line in nature, not even the horizon that stretches in front of us as we now know that the earth is round, not flat.

To me, this is a reminder that our journey through life – as well as many lifetimes throughout our past lives – is a twisting, winding road filled with many surprises, seemingly wrong turns, and moments where you feel as if you haven’t moved forward at all.

But we are all spiraling upward, moving back across lessons already lived to make sure that we continue to learn them in ever deeper ways.

And that we are always being tested to find resilience and keep our connection to spirit.

Our journey over lifetimes looks like a spiral, not a straight line.