In the Spiral Arms Above...

"What is 'Spiral Arms'?", people will ask. "Is it a pen like name?" "Does it mean something?" "Did you make it up?"But mostly when people hear or see it they just nod, maybe they think it's weird or existential or stupid. Really, I don't care, because it's one of those things that repeats in my head over and over, a mantra of mine.

I don't know- I suppose its more of what I'd like to call everything I do. It was the name of my fashion label in college, it was the name of a book I wrote to correspond with the clothes, it's the name of everything I want to be behind in the future.

I don't remember how it totally first came about. I do remember that my brother first thought of it- he wanted to use it as a band name or as the title of a song, but he let me have it. He is a so generous- and I am forever grateful.

I jotted it down but it didn't find any permanence immediately. It is one of those things that grows within you and then finally revels itself clear as day. You see it in your notebook three weeks later and you need it so much more than you did before.

At the time, I was painfully obsessed with the stars and space theory and above all, its a reference to  the out-reaching bits of the Milky Way- they glow with intensity as they are sites of strong star formation. You'll hear cosmic theorists use the term on TV.


But overreaching the technical meaning behind these words came a more literal translation and imagery within my heard- spiral arms-it made me think of a hug, I think I needed one at the time. Spiral Arms- its the biggest hug you could ever imagine. It's the universe folding in on itself. It's the galaxy expanding enveloping itself in an infinite cycle, bound by all the love it is creating. That visual what what made me need the name.

This little made up meaning- it's powerful. Its all that was and all that ever will be, all that I hope to contribute to. It's all light and its all love.