THE SPIRAL HOUSE Revealing the Sacred in Everyday Life
Tom Gottsleben and Patty Livingston with Ronnie Shushan principal photographer Mick Hales
A Rafferty Rocks Press Book G Arts | New York
First published in 2019
G Arts 311 West 43 Street Floor 12 New York, New York 10036 www.gartsbooks.com media@gartsbooks.com Copyright © 2019 Tom Gottsleben and Patty Livingston www.tomgottsleben.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permissionin in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. First edition, 2019 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the publisher. Design: Ronnie Shushan Jacket design: Liz Trovato Front jacket : © Mick Hales Back jacket: © Michael Nelson Hardcover edition ISBN: 978-0-9992430-1-5 Printed and bound in China 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS Introduction viii
1
Rafferty’s Bench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Finding Our Immovable Spot
2 Designing the House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Before the Ten Thousand Details, a Single Night of Inspiration
8
3
Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4
Discovering Sacred Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5
Building the Spiral House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6
Spirit in Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
7
L ife & R evelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
The Enduring, Transforming, Primal Ground Beneath Us
An Insight into Reality, and the Path that Brought Us Here
The Plan, Working the Plan, and the Magic
Returning Our Stone to the Sacred Mountain
Living in a Living House
Credits and Acknowledgments
292
Bibliography 299 Index 301
viii Introduction
Introduction This book culminates more than two decades of exploring
principles and proportions of sacred geometry are used to
sacred space, both the literature around it and the experi-
design buildings, the result is sacred architecture.
ence of creating and living in one. We began the research
A key element of sacred architecture is relation to place.
in order to better understand both what we had done in
That’s why the cardinal directions figure so importantly in
building the Spiral House and also the dialog that resulted
the orientation rituals of ancient traditions. For us, a sense
between our lives and the life of the house.
of place inevitably leads to the mountains that created the
We didn’t set out to build a spiral house. But when you’re married to an artist and you want to build a little
stone that so dominates our land. Stone is itself archetypal. Most of us feel some primal
guest house on your property, the result, well in our case
connection to it. Essentially compressed time, stone carries
the result was a five-story spiral that became our home.
the history of the planet. The mountains and the stone have
The spiral grew out of Tom’s interest in sacred geome-
drawn so many artists and spiritual seekers to the Hudson
try. It’s important to say at the outset that you don’t need to
River Valley and the nearby town of Woodstock. As a
understand anything of sacred geometry to appreciate the
material for making art, in some ways the stone found Tom,
house — either in the pages of the book or in real life. But
just as sacred geometry did.
been a unique way to explore the vocabulary and magic of
The book has some five hundred photographs and looks
what is essentially an ancient wisdom tradition.
very much like a coffee table book. But it also tells a story.
There are many ways to define sacred geometry, but the
It begins with our beloved dog Rafferty and ends with how
most compelling perspective to me is that it is the pattern
two dragons — that came into our lives at separate times —
language of nature, the way nature creates endless variety
led Tom to discover the most ancient Hindu mandala within
from a few simple shapes. Studied and practiced by civiliza-
the floorplan of the house. Along the way, the story goes back
tions since antiquity, it is also called philosophical geometry
in time to how we found ourselves together in this place. It
because it views pure forms— the circle, the square, and the
tells of Tom’s years exploring stone sculpture and landscaping
pentagon for example — as having metaphysical meaning.
walls, his lifelong spiritual practice, his accidental discovery
It is considered sacred because it has the ability to affect us
of sacred geometry, and how my pragmatic nature grounded
at the deep and essential level of spirit or soul. When the
the project in the practicalities of a comfortable home.
ix
for myself as well as Tom, his sculpture and the house have
x Introduction
1. Raffer ty’s Bench Finding Our Immovable Spot
2. D esigning the House Before the Ten Thousand Details, a Single Night of Inspiration
East-West Axis: The Rainbow Bridge [Patty] On the north side of the house we dug out the
earth on a rainbow bridge. Celtic, Chinese, African, North
rubble to create a small amphitheater that would allow
American, and many other cultures have similar expressions.
natural light into the back of the basement. Tom designed
East Meets West (below) One of Tom’s earliest sculptures, this was named many years before we sited it where it would be lit by the late afternoon sun on the equinox.
Although the archetypal rainbow bridge is seen as
an arching stone bridge across this enclosure running
vertical — another manifestation of the axis mundi — our
along the true east-west axis of the property. We call it
horizontal Rainbow Bridge is given sacred life on the
The Rainbow Bridge, an archetype that many cultures see
equinox, when the last rays of the setting sun travel from
as the connection between heaven and earth. In Norse
the western sky directly through the center of the bridge
mythology, women warriors known as the Valkyries carried
to the center of Tom’s Meditation sculpture, at the eastern
fallen heroes across a rainbow bridge to the celestial pal-
end of the sculpture field. In addition to connecting heaven
ace of Valhalla. In Buddhist legend, after three months of
and earth, our Rainbow Bridge connects east and west, a
dharma teaching atop Mount Meru, Buddha descended to
metaphor for Tom’s own spiritual journey.
107
Orientation Compass  A small mosaic centered on the walkway of our Rainbow Bridge (detail near right) and the circular geometry of our basement skylight (far right) both reference the overlapping vesica piscis scratched in the earth by the ancient geometers when they traced the sun’s shadow to orient their earthly temples (center right). The vesicas mark the cardinal directions, and the corners of the square mark the intermediate directions.
North-South Axis: The Bedrock, the Walls, and the Spiral Sculptures [Patty] The north-south axis of our property is carved into bedrock, striations in the stone left by the glaciers’ advance from north to south some twenty thousand years ago. The dramatically expansive stone ledge overlooking the ranch house quarry pond is part of that ice age legacy. The stone landscaping walls have grown along this north-south axis, a spine weaving its way through the landscape and anchoring other structures and sculptures as they are created. Without conscious intention, we sited Tom’s two large spiral sculptures on that power line forged by the glaciers and reinforced by the landscaping walls. The Axis Mundi sculpture anchors the northern end of the pond in view of the ranch house where we were living when Tom finished that piece. Six years later, we placed Spiral Construction on the south end of the recently cleared sculpture field, its siting largely determined by a desire to remove it from the comings and goings of construction equipment while we were building the Spiral House. the two houses, and extended the landscaping walls to connect to that structure. When the installation of the Rainbow sculpture required additional reshaping of the hillside above the pond, we further articulated the two levels of undulating walls with a wide grass path between them. And, of course, gardens grew up around the walls and other structures. In retrospect, it seems that the land itself guided us to honor its energy veins and to develop the property in a way that was consistent with the traditions of sacred architecture. You can see these various structures and sculptures in the aerial photograph on the following two pages.
109
Eventually we added a greenhouse midway between
Rainbow sculpture
Landscaping Walls Begin Axis Mundi sculpture
Rafferty’s Bench
Vegetable Garden
110 Sacred Geometry
Vegetable Garden
Quarry Pond
Ranch House
EarthSeed sculpture
Aerial View Taken in October 2017, this shows the buildings and sculpture on the developed part of our property. Most of the sculpture field is out of view beyond the top right of the photo; and the sculpture studios are out of view beyond the lower right.
Squared Circles in the Spiral House In the basement The cylindrical stairwell leaves perfect circles as architectural elements in floors and ceilings throughout the house. In the basement ceiling, we squared the circle with wooden beams to support the floor above.
116 Sacred Geometry
In the columns Part of that structural support also comes from the stone-clad columns, two of which are visible in the photo at right. If you look at the photo on page 151 (far right), you’ll see that the stone cladding is like a square picture frame around the structural steel cylinders, creating yet another manifestation of squaring the circle.
In the architecture of the observation room Where the axis mundi opens to the heavens, there’s another squared circle — unplanned, invisible to the eye, and astonishing in its mathematical harmony. We’ve written elsewhere about the challenge of closing in the roof of a spiral structure that, in its pure form, wants to continue to infinity. The 19 walls that enclose the stairwell and ultimately the observation room seemed like an odd number in a house that aspired to perfect harmony. Tom’s Eureka moment was the recognition that 19 squared, is 361. It’s one degree off a perfect circle. And he had arrived at this near geometric perfection, with a prime number — 19 — divisible only by the numbers 1 and itself.
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In the eye of the house Later in the book we talk more about this window niche along the east-west axis of the house (center of the photo at left). A small statue of our resident deity, Nataraja, dances in the window niche, an enclosure that squares the perfect circle of Nataraja’s flames. The geometry of the placement emphasizes the union of opposites that Nataraja himself represents: waxing and waning, movement and stillness, time and eternity, creation and destruction.
as a unified whole. Light and dark, day and night, male
inspired work. From the beginning, I saw how the symbolic
and female, front and back — we cannot conceive of one
qualities of the spiral could translate into architectural space.
without the other. These pairs do not exist as independent
As we describe in more detail elsewhere, the axis mundi of
or opposing qualities, but as complementary manifestations
the house is the spiral staircase and the column of light that
of the same principle, each containing the seed of the other
surrounds it. The calm eye is the observation room at the
in a single energy spiraling between two poles.
top, where the dynamic movement that makes the spiral so
This unity is the essence of the spiritual path: unity of the one with the many, of heaven and earth, of the ongoing
Embraced by Every Tradition The architecture and artifacts of every wisdom tradition have embraced the spiral as the path to enlightenment and the Divine.
120 Sacred Geometry
(below, left to right) The ninth-century mosque near Samarra, in Iraq, is ascended by an external spiral stairway, the Malwiya, which means snail shell. The spiral staircase at the Vatican Museum is actually a double helix, with one staircase going down and the other going up. Today, Sufi whirling dervishes still dance the spiral of creation. The sound of the conch reminds Buddhists and Hindus of the original sound of creation and the divine sound Om.
alive comes to rest in a harmoniously proportional space. Living in the house truly does make the qualities of
cycle of increase and decrease, of life, death, and regeneration,
the spiral part of our daily life. From the outside, we never
of the expansion of consciousness outward and its return
cease to appreciate the form as a symbol of unity, for it has
to the source of being. The sculpture Inspire expressed all
restored beauty and harmony to a mountainside destroyed
of these ideas, making me realize that through sculpture
by the dynamite of the quarry industry. Inside, the spiral’s
and stone I could give form to the metaphysical ideas that
ever-present connection to the center is a constant oppor-
inspired my own journey and informed my world view.
tunity to return from life’s busyness and distractions to our
The heart of philosophical geometry is this ability of
own inner truth. The windows that surround the entire
pure form to carry profound meaning. In the case of the
house expand our view back to nature’s rhythms and the
spiral, there is not one spiral archetype but many: creation
cycle of the seasons. So we experience the simultaneous con-
myth, marker of time, source of protection, symbol of unity,
traction and expansion of the spiral form throughout our
map of the life journey, and the path of transformation and
days and nights. And we truly feel the life force of the living
the awakening of consciousness. We have found no other
pattern on which the design was based. The house is alive,
pattern with so many broad references to human experience.
in the way that organic structures are alive. People who visit
When I sat down to design a new house on the prop-
us sense and respond to and remark on that aliveness, and
erty, I’d been working with the spiral form for six years, and
we’ll come back to this important point in the final chapter
it presented itself as the house design in a single night of
of the book.
Tom’s sculpture Reflection (far right) expresses the same metaphysical idea, as does the Axis Mundi sculpture mirroring itself in the quarry pond (near right).
121
As Above, So Below (right and far right) Everything contains the seed of its opposite. The two eternities are balanced at the still center and there is always a change of direction between realms. What is above is below. Beneath Hindu temples that soar to the sky lies an imagined and equivalent descent deep into the earth. Dante’s vision spiraled down into hell as well as up the mountain to purgatory. And it is said that at Chartres Cathedral, the well is as deep as the spires are high, creating balance on earth.
The Yin Yang Spiral
One of the most widely known metaphysical symbols, these interlocking light and dark forms come from the Taoist tradition rather than the world of geometry. The black represents the yin energy — female, receptive, soft, shadows. The white represents the yang energy — male, active, hard, light. Each area contains a dot of the opposite color, enabling the yin-yang symbol to convey that all perceived opposites are complementary manifestations of the same principle, each containing the seed of the other in a single energy spiraling between two poles. We etched a variation of the yin-yang symbol into the keystone of the arches of the Spiral House (one shown at right). Alan Watts has said that if you understand yin and yang, you understand everything.
The Geometry of Spirals
All spirals carry the rich metaphysical connotations that we have been exploring in these pages. But in terms of pure geometry, there are different types of spirals, and some of
124 Sacred Geometry
these differences informed the functional success of our spiral floor plan as a place to live.
When the proportions of a logarithmic spiral are related by phi, we have a golden spiral (below). This brings us back to the series of squares within a progression of golden rectangles that we looked at earlier in this chapter; the curve connecting opposite corners of the adjacent squares grows by a factor of phi and creates a golden spiral. The Golden Spiral has been called “the mathematical expression of the life breath of the universe.”
In logarithmic spirals (below left), the distance between windings increases proportionally while the shape of the curve remains the same. These are the growth curves found in nature, the logarithm being a simple pattern for growth over time. For example, the pattern might grow one unit, curve one unit, grow two units, curve one unit, grow three units, curve one unit; the size grows progressively larger while the arc turns at a constant rate. If you were to enlarge a section of an inner curve, you could fit it precisely over a section on the next winding, and the next, and the next. This quality, called self-similarity, gives seashells, plants, and animal horns a constant center of gravity even as the size of the organism grows. EDC
B
A
In a logarithmic spiral, the ratio of the distance between consecutive turns is equal (AB/BC = BC/CD = CD/DE); and all the angles formed where the spiral meets a straight line drawn through the center are equal (<A = <B = <C = <D = <E), making it an equiangular spiral as well. There’s an often told story about a 17th-century mathematician who wanted a logarithmic spiral engraved on his tombstone, with a Latin epigraph that translates as “Although changed, I rise again the same.” That is the mystical essence of the logarithmic spiral, and the reason it has been called “spiral mirabilis” or wonderful spiral.
1
Archimedean spirals (left) have evenly spaced coils. They grow at a fixed rate: the distance between curves remains the same while the curve itself gets broader. A useful, man-made invention, you find Archimedean spirals in the evenly spaced grooves of early gramophone records, and the end views of a roll of paper towels.
1.618 1.61803
The natural form that comes closest to a mathematically perfect golden spiral is the chambered nautilus, whose spiral curve guided us as we shaped the floor plan of the house. The nautilus spiral is illustrated by the red line in the diagram below. You can see that the nautilus curve is not identical to a golden spiral (indicated by the dotted green line); but the inner spaces created by the nautilus curve were more functionally proportional for living areas. As we move around the house, and from one floor to another, we experience and embody the relationship between different turns of the spiral.
The Spiral We Live In [Tom] The house is a spiral sculpture that we live in — a beautiful and inspiring, practical and whimsical container for our lives. Every detail of the design was informed by the organic unity inherent in the spiral pattern. Throughout our days, the spiral’s rhythmic expansion and contraction reflects those energies in our own lives. We move between the periphery and the center in the process through which consciousness unfolds. While we were writing this book, I came upon this diagram (below) demonstrating the golden relationships in the star pentagon. Created by the architectural designer and sacred geometry expert Keith Critchlow, the drawing astonished us with how accurately it describes the floor plan of our house and the way we laid it out using a polar radius from the center. Although our curve is slightly different, and closed at both its widest and narrowest points, the similarities are remarkable: fifty-two wall segments, diminishing in width as the spiral turns around its center two and a quarter times. I hadn’t realized how the pentagram — a shape so sacred that the Pythagoreans used it as their secret seal — is of how the house continues to reveal mystical connections that we didn’t know were there.
125
embedded in our house plan. This is one of many examples
You do not need a spiral house for this work of the spirit. But you do need the space and the intention. When I was just beginning to work with stone, Rafferty’s Bench was my space for meditating. It was a simple stone bench and at the time I had to walk over quarry rubble to get to it. But it was a space I had created with sacred intention and an open heart, a space where I could let go of the beliefs and confusion related to past and future and simply sit with the truth of the present moment. All of my stonework, and ultimately the Spiral House, grew out of that space — the seed experience of creating it and then the ongoing experience of sitting there open to possibilities that neither of us could yet imagine. — Tom Gottsleben