Divine Proportion … 1.6180339887

Extinct, as of 65 million years ago, ammonite fossils, like this one from Madagascar, can be up to 400 million years old. It closely resembles, it’s ‘still living’ relative, the chambered nautilus.

Ammonite

I was attracted to this ammonite, by it’s spiral pattern, and the mystery of the divine proportion, or golden mean. Symbolic of the beauty and harmony of the universe, representational of the golden mean number, known as “Phi”, it can be found in all of nature and it’s living forms, in everything from sunflower spirals, to the solar system, to DNA structure.

To try to figure out this mystery of nature would take many life times, yet it is inspiring to me, to see in small things, the order of the universe, unfolding everyday around us. I cannot even pretend to try to understand the mathematics of this concept, so I opt instead to attempt to attune myself intuitively to the rhythm of nature, while creating.

Much talk has surrounded the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the evidence of this concept in his painting, especially with the popularity of the work of fiction by Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code”. I prefer to think that Da Vinci did not plan to include this in his paintings consciously. Instead I imagine that his masterpieces were a result of intuition, combined with a lifetime of observation.

In my experience, my best pieces of art have been done intuitively, without intellectually planning each and every detail, instead allowing myself to be an instrument of the divine. Allowing that which is greater than all of us, to flow through ourselves, from the hand and brush onto the canvas.

Perhaps then, the job of the artist is to keep the channel open, stay atune to the higher vibrations, and to the harmony or discord surrounding oneself. If that can be achieved, the work often comes effortlessly, and is often completed much more quickly than some.

Yet it would be overly optimistic to assume one can be inspired at all times, and so we move with the ebb and flow of life and that which is all encompassing. It is something to aspire to, while on our journey, a way to finding a purposeful existence.

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