Scientists may one day be able to take a photo of the DNA molecule magnified so powerfully that they will actually be able see the 8 atom wide double helix string-shape as clearly as this digitalized image shows.
In his book The Cosmic Serpent, anthropologist Jeremy Narby explores the correlation between scientific investigation into DNA and the approach of shamans in Western Amazon, who come into a knowledge of the 'life source' through use of hallucinogenics made from plants.
The common 'thread' is the various 'visions' of a twinned/spiralling/coiled ladder/snake perceived to be imbedded deep within every living thing in the universe.
Those having taken Ayahuasca, in a ritualized manner, often experience a vivid insight into a higher world where two entwined snakes ( not unlike the double helix ) appear to be the essential basis of an otherwise 'unknowable' part of the cosmos.
From these visions, the indigenous people are informed of many things including the pre-existing healing qualities of many plants that grow in the Amazon, precise combinations and mixtures of which create medicines which could not possibly have been discovered even through thousands of years of experimentation.
Could the blurry double helix scientists are trying to see more clearly be a metaphorical link to 'higher perception' and more mystical altered states, where inspiration comes directly from the cosmic life force. Is the creative process, which leads to truly great music, art, writing and amazing scientific discoveries, the process of climbing that same illusive ladder, where pre-existing cosmic fruit hovers about', just waiting to be picked, (by those who enter, consciously or unconsciously) into some 'other' mysterious parallel realm.
My 'Rubble Helix' is a nod to that concept, with all its implications.
A photo of my original dry stone idea (installed some years ago on a property in Southern Ontario) is seen here in a whimsically manipulated form. It is the digitilaized image of a 'mineralized' version of the DNA crystal, magnified trillions of times to appear clear as crystal, life-sized and almost life-like.
