Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 09:24:14 -0500
From: "Kate B"
Subject: snails... or a nautilus... depending on perception....
The other part though, is what actually made me write this email: the
fascination over the snail shells is definitely mutual. I actually got
a tatoo of a pentacle behind my left ear. (I'm not sure if you're
familiar with the connection but here is a link if you're not:
http://edj.net/mc2012/fap14.html) I decided to get the pentacle for
two reasons. The first is that popular misconceptions of the symbol
tend to lead people to accuse me of devil worship when they see the
tatoo and I absolutely delight in explaining the real meaning behind
the symbol. Watching a person's face change from ignorant hatred to
curiosity is an amazing experience. The second is because I think it
is a beautiful representation of a simpler time when the recognition
and reverence of nature and its beauty were widespread and
unquestioned. But anyways the point is: Did that have anything to do
with why you chose that poem? One can gather a whole other meaning
when watching the movie, when it is coupled with a strong
concentration on the words of poem (which is beautiful by the way, I
wish my french were better so I could really understand it rather than
slaughtering it in translation), and a recognition your choice of
concentrating on the snail's shell which relates to the cyclical
aspect of nature and life/death. I guess it just got me thinking about
what you meant by the choices.
Holy of holies! I had no idea about the connection between the the
pentagram and the snail shell spiral. I'm on my knees with my hands
in the air and my eyes to the milky way. The astonishing coincidence
is that I just got done playing a character with whom the five-pointed
star holds a lot of significance. Richie Nix, the character I got to
play in Killshot has one tatooed on his hand, but I didn't choose it
because of my love for what they call the Golden Ratio--it's just that
Richie's from Texas.
And for further haphazard beauty, no, I didn't choose the poem
because of the spiral in a snail's shell. I didn't know anything
about its mysteriously profound prevalence in what seems like
everything. I just liked reading the poem aloud. It wasn't until
after Rian and I had already been to Paris that I began to learn about
the extreme and mean ratio. In fact, it was on my plane home from
Paris, I sat next to this art student named Molly who was working on a
project of creative playground equipment, like stuff for kids to play
on, that somehow followed the same spiral pattern as a snail shell. I
told her that was quite a coincidence, because I had just gotten
started on a short film adapted from a poem about snails. So she drew
me the 1/1.618 rectangles and told me to look it up. Which I did.
Once that connection was made, of course, it grew to be a very
significant part of the film for me. And you're so right, the
parallels are there in the patterns of the poetry, the seasons, the
night, the day, the sun, the moon, life, death, nature, man, or snail
rather. Yeah, I should try to write a translation of the poem,
although I must admit I'm intimidated by the task. I also want to
turn the ESCARGOTS page into a little PHI shrine of my own of which
the essay you sent me on the pentacle will most certainly be a part.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…
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