Appeared in India Empire magazine, New Delhi, Dec 2017

By: Susan M. Griffith-Jones

The Pyramid Spiral

The Pyramid Spiral’ describes a piece of artwork entitled, ‘The Circle of Immortality’ that the author herself made, a simple structure using 5 different shapes that describe the entire nature of reality through both their individual symbolism and the way they are placed together.

According to the Vajrayana path of Tibetan Buddhism, each element has a corresponding shape. Here, a spiral of wind rests on 2 equilateral triangles of fire that form a square of earth at their base, that sit on a circle of water, inside which is the mirror of space.

These 5 shapes correspond to 5 different aspects of our mental process through symbolizing each one; ‘wind’ being the movement of consciousness, ‘fire’ – the light of knowing, ‘water’ – the flow of thinking, ‘earth’- stability of mind and space, as the place in which we reflect our conscious state.