“I” – continue

Each time we lose sight of the “I” we spiral toward the periphery. We appear to leave the center because we feel a sense of separation somewhere in our lives.

We lose our vantage point of the center when we artificially divide our Self and try to look at it, think about it, want it, grasp at it.

When we leave our center, we are simply identifying with other possibilities of our Self, distracted by the turbulent realm of the four elements. And when we do, we miss the peace of the calm “I” and yearn to return to it, to transform our selves back to identity with it.

Identity with our center is always possible, as a wobbling top can sometimes be helped to regain balance. The further we wander from our calm center, the calm “I,” the greater our experience of psychological turbulence. The motion of stepping away creates resistance, like moving an oar in water, leaving in its wake vortex streets of thought and emotion, desire and urge.

Drifting from our center takes us away from the calm by creating resistance, resulting in the sometimes stormy turbulence of our psyche. Like water and air around us, fluid emotions and airy intellect within us moves in spirals. Like the golden spiral of nature, we grow by experiencing resistance and overcoming obstacles, adjusting our path as we go.

We know we are off-center when we drift into identity with the clamor of sensations—the dramatic whirlpools of passion and fear and anger, dust devils of desire, swelling waves of emotion—and when we are kept awake at night by winds of thought.

It’s a natural part of our growth process periodically to leave our center and come back to it, just as we must expand and contract to breathe. The creative pulse of the Dyad between center and turbulence is part of our growing process. The rhythmic interplay between the impulse to divide ourselves from our center and the yearning that is expressed in our longing to return is found in the experience of constantly searching for and finding meaning in our lives.

The interplay between these two forces manifests itself in the world as a curve. That’s why the transformative path is characterized by a spiral and not another shape. A spiral pulses all ways simultaneously and yet remains constant in its properties throughout change.

By being aware of our inner motions and learning to observe ourselves, we can find the calm eye or calm “I” within the weather surrounding our center of awareness.

When we grow, we arrive at the same place where we were before, but we arrive more experienced, higher on the spiral.

Michael S. Schneider. “A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe. The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science.”