Chapter 3: Dinergy in the Arts of Living

Tangible and intangible patterns
The dinergic nature of symbols, bridging the gap between tangible and intangible patterns, was briefly touched upon earlier. Here it may be pointed out that the word symbol reveals its own dinergic origin, since it comes from the union of two Greek words: sun, "together," and ballein, "to throw," like ball which also comes from the latter root.

The first symbol we examined was the pentagram, a tangible pattern that helped the Pythagoreans grasp the intangible realities of harmony and health. The fact that the pentagram is still used as a symbol of good portent shows that the dinergy of certain symbols is both timeless and universal. C. G. Jung called such symbols archetypal, and he devoted a lifetime to the study of their central importance in shaping patterns of human behavior.

Because harmonious patterns created out of tangible materials are readily completed, whereas the intangible patterns of the arts of living are constantly in the making, one could perhaps look upon the harmonious patterns of the arts and crafts as symbols, metaphors and models of similarly harmonious behavior patterns yet to be created in the arts of living.

It was suggested earlier how the interrelatednes of diverse elements in a Pueblo pot expresses the Indians' unity with nature. The same unity is expressed by the Maoris of Polynesia in their concepts of mana and tapu, the latter being a variant of taboo. The noted Danish anthropologist Kaj Birket-Smith describes the experience of mana as a strong feeling that "life is unity, in which not only gods, but also things, which to us are lifeless have a part." Mana is thus a direct experience of "the sacred force that permeates existence." Tapu is the Maoris' word for their sacred responsibility to comply with mana; a supreme law.

Mana and tapu are expressions of the Maoris' sense of relatedness and oneness with the universe around them, and just as the American Indians express this feeling with spiral patterns, so do the Maoris. Everywhere in Maori art spirals abound. They are carved into wood and stone, painted, and even tattooed on the body in the hope that the mana power attributed to these symbols will save their wearers from trouble and untimely death.

Among American Indians, it is not only the Pueblo people who use spiral patterns. They can also be found engraved into the rocks in some of the oldest continuous human habitations in America, the villages of Oraibi and Shipaluovi, as well as in the ruins of Casa Grande, near Florence, Arizona. The Hopi Indians refer to these patterns as Mother Earth symbols, as Tapu'at (mother and child), or as symbols of emergence and rebirth. Anthropologists report that similar symbolic meaning is attached to the same symbols by many other Indian people all over the Americas.

Identical spiral patterns have been discovered in many other parts of the world, dating from prehistoric times. On the Mediterranean island of Crete, a 3000-year-old coin shows exactly the same spiral as the American Tapu'at, but in Crete this pattern represented the famous palace of the Minoan kings, the Labyrinth. Legend says that the Labyrinth was once the lair of the Minotaur, a mythical beast, half bull and half man, which was a symbol of fertility.

An apparently universal symbol of fertility is the snake, whose coiled body may very well have contributed to the creation of archaic spiral patterns. The snake lends itself to this symbolic role also because it strikes erect—a reminder of phallic power. The Great Mother goddess of Crete and her priestesses are frequently represented holding snakes.

Hermes or Mercury, messenger of the Greek and Roman gods, had two snakes winding around his magic wand, the caduceus, tool of his healing power, and even today professions connected with healing use this dinergic symbol as their emblem. Hermes was also the guide of the departed to the afterworld, and the intertwined spiraling snakes of his magic wand may also symbolize the intertwined mystery of life and death.

The intangible dinergy of life and death—interwoven with fertility—also appears in the tribal art of the Wahungwe people of Zimbabwe. Figure 44 is a drawing made from a tribal artist's painting, showing a tree rising from the dead body of a woman into the sky, where a goddess and a giant snake cause fertilizing rain to gush forth out of the roots of the tree. In the biblical creation story, woman, tree, serpent, and fertility are likewise intertwined, but here a further intangible dinergy enters: the knowledge of good and evil.

Intertwined spiral mazes from Neolithic times, identical with the Cretan Labyrinth, the Maori tattoo and the American Indian Tapu'at, are carved into the rocks of barrow tombs in New Grange, Ireland. These double spirals have been interpreted as symbols of death and rebirth, because as one follows the line coiling inward, one finds another line coming out in the opposite direction, suggesting both burial in the tomb and emergence from the womb: the dinergy of life and death.

The same double spiral design shows up with remarkable clarity carved into stone balls which have been unearthed near prehistoric passage graves at Glas Towie, Scotland. As anthropologist Loren Eisley has written, "Neanderthal man had, we now know after long digging, his own small dreams and kindnesses. He had buried his dead with offerings—there were evidences that they had been laid, in some instances, upon beds of wild flowers."

The double spirals of prehistoric graves are witness to the kindness as well as to the creative concerns of our prehistoric ancestors. These patterns reveal the energy-creating power of symbols suggested by the word dinergy. The tangible unity of the dinergic spiral lines brings home the realization that death and life are in some mysterious and unfathomable way interlocked. The sense of awe that follows this realization sparks new energy from the embers of grief.

Our dinergic endowment
One can find dinergic spirals much closer at hand than in prehistoric tombs—for instance, in the minute whorls of our fingertips. Dinergy is also evident in many other patterns of our physical and mental constitution.

We have two eyes and we see two images, which are united in the brain into a single, three-dimensional stereoscopic vision. We have two ears, receiving signals from two opposite directions, which are transmitted through the spiral-shaped cochlea of the inner ear to unite in the brain as stereophonic sound.

The entire nervous system is a dinergic double structure, consisting of peripheral and central component systems, again united by the brain. The brain itself consists of two hemispheres, their integration being performed by centrally located organs within the brain. The bold and extraordinary theory of Julian Jaynes traces the origin as well as the present-day problems of consciousness to a breakdown in the double structure of our minds.

Is it pure coincidence that on the molecular level the joint three-dimensional spiral pattern of the double helix—matching the double snakes of Hermes' magic wand—was found a few years ago to be the true shape of the DNA molecule, which contains within its miniature coded pattern the master plan of the entire future development of living organisms? It was discovered even more recently that some of the most minute and important elements within living cell structures (such as red and white blood corpuscles) group themselves in double spiral patterns. The cores of these microtubules, referred to as axonemes and seen here enlarged in the electron micrograph, figure 50, are a faithful match to the double spirals of prehistoric tombs, the tattoos of the Maoris, and the Mother Earth patterns of the American Indians.

Whatever else there may be behind such "coincidences," it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are looking at one of nature's most basic pattern-forming processes, here referred to as dinergy. Seeing the hidden and harmonious order built into body and mind, as it is built into every flower and leaf, mirrored by the crafts, and echoed by music, one wonders at the origin of the disharmony and disorder that mars our civilization.

Indeed, our fascination with so-called "primitive" cultures appears to spring from our longing for the lost dinergic relatedness which was once ours, when we ourselves were still "primitives." Of course, we very much need science and technology, but we do not need the fragmentation and separation that have come with the differentiations of our civilization. Perhaps the disharmonies and disorders are with us not because our culture has grown up, but because we have not yet grown up. Western civilization is still in its adolescence. Our violences and worries may be but growing pains.

We do not have to go back to preliterate tribal cultures to find true dinergic relatedness to nature and the universe. St. Francis of Assisi, in one of his famous canticles, addresses the Sun, Air, Fire, Wind, and Water as his brothers; he sings about Moon and Stars as his sisters and he praises the Earth as his mother.

A sense of our dinergic relatedness to the mysteries of this universe and our participation in its mana has inspired many scientists. Albert Einstein wrote: "Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature."

The psychologist William James saw the essence of true religion as "the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting thereto." Another psychologist, Abraham H. Maslow, refers to the "peak experience" as "a clear perception that the universe is all of a piece and that. . . one is part of it, one belongs in it." From this follows a sense that "the sacred is in theordinary. . . that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends and family, in one's backyard. . . . To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everythingis miraculous."