The Wonder of Spiral Jetty

A spiral galaxy.

There are several types of galaxies in our universe, and many of those are spiral galaxies. The "arms" of the spiral are the areas where stars are formed, and these arms appear as waves. The galaxy we live in, the Milky Way, is a spiral galaxy, and the sun and our earth both lie in the waves of the Milky Way's arms. Oftentimes, galaxies pass through one another, but because the stars are so spread out, the chances of them actually touching is very unlikely. Rarely, however, galaxies do merge, and the result is that they either grow bigger and better fortified, or they destroy one another altogether. 

This notion of the very place where our earth floats and turns being part of a larger spiral is a fascinating one for me, and it furthers my belief that spirals are symbols of luminosity and love. Thus, it's fitting that some of the most meaningful moments in my life have taken place at Spiral Jetty. If you're from Salt Lake City, you're likely familiar with it, but for those of you who are not, it's an earthwork by Robert Smithson, a remarkable coil of rock composed in the reddish-tinged waters off the shores Utah's Great Salt Lake. 

Smithson at Spiral Jetty in the early 1970's. 

Much of Smithson's output was shaped by his interest in the concept of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, which predicts the eventual exhaustion and collapse of any given system. I find that especially meaningful, because it's a notion that ties back in with what can happen when two galaxies collide: the eventual disintegration of both after initially coming together. This is reminiscent of relationships, too; sometimes, things don't work out, even after the initial combining of lives and the optimism and assurance of those early moments of a relationship. 

Spiral Jetty in its early years, before the rocks whitened after later being submerged in the Great Salt Lake for over five years during an ongoing drought. 

But there are hundreds of thousands of stars in any given galaxy, and hundreds of thousands of galaxies in the universe, and sometimes, gravity matches up just so, and two galaxies are able to come together, expanding the number of stars and the amount of dust and gas and matter cradled in their "arms." I'm starting to wane philosophical here, but you probably get the idea.

I've always been curious about spirals, especially in relation to the places they hold in the universe. And it's beautiful that so many other artists find them intriguing as well, and that someone like Smithson set his mind to forming a piece made up entirely of natural materials, all of which came from the universe and the galaxy itself (mind blown, bro). 

Spiral Jetty in 2017.

Growing up in Salt Lake, I never made much of an effort to see its wonders; before I moved away to California a number of years ago, Utah always just seemed like a place where Mormons flocked to have a lot of kids, and the mountains, the Great Salt Lake, the red rock formations in the southern part of the state, the natural beauty of it all—that was all just something secondary my parents sometimes forced me to "enjoy" when we took a family trip somewhere. It wasn't really until I didn't live in Utah anymore and would occasionally return to visit that I realized the natural wonder and beauty it contained. And even then, I still didn't know much about the history of the landscape where I grew up until I started dating my now-fiance, Scott; it was then I began to really see the pulchritude of the terrain in this large piece of the West.

Spiral Jetty, "a monument to paradox & transcience" (The Huffington Post). 

Before Scott and I were dating and back when we were just friends, the two of us were both in town for the holidays, he from New York and me from Los Angeles. We had gone out drinking with some friends one night, crashed at my sister's place, and both woke up with crushing hangovers. I was all set to hit up Cafe Rio (if you're from Utah, you know this is a place where all the Mormons and/or the people who experience blinding hangovers go to get their Americanized burrito fixes), and wallow in hangover misery for the day, but Scott suggested we venture to Spiral Jetty. 

"I've been meaning to go there; I've heard it's pretty cool," said I, "but I don't know if I can handle that today." 

Scott was ready with a rational rebuttal. "We're only here for a few days, and it's a pretty warm morning. Getting out of the house and into nature will make you feel better." Okay, I couldn't argue with that, so we decided to hit the road.

It was about a two-hour drive to the area where the Jetty is in relation to downtown SLC, and the whole way there, while listening to the likes of Waylon Jennings and Townes Van Zandt, Scott gently pointed out various historical landmarks and interesting tidbits about areas of the landscape, and I remember being blown away by how much he knew of this land where I grew up but had always been averse to, and I realized that he was instilling a new apprecation of that land in me, and, in turn, in him as well. 

Glee after finding the vows.

Wild horses near the Great Salt Lake in winter 2014.

When we emerged from the winding lanes of vast farmland that led us there, I was stunned by the view of the lake, by how vast, isolated, and dreamlike it was. The coral hues of the water, the rocky areas on the surrounding hills interspersed with sagebrush, and then, of course, the formation itself—a huge white and sparkling spiral composed of salt-caked rocks that sprawled into the edge of the water of the largest salt water lake in the Western Hemisphere.  

Glitter, dust, and stones from the universe.

For decades—years rich with rain and even floods—Spiral Jetty lay submerged beneath the saltwater of the Utah desert, waiting on time and nature's cycles to resurface. When it reappeared after years of drought, it was no longer a massive coil of black basalt but a glittering white spiral of encrusted sodium chloride—a transformation even Smithson could not have predicted.

As we neared the edge of the lake, a number of wild horses glanced our way and made their way up the rocky hills. Scott and I got out of the car and wandered down to walk on the rocks that made up the design of the spiral. Scott smoked a cigarette (he was still smoking then; that's before he became a dedicated runner and marathoner) then pocketed the butt, and I remember thinking that was incredibly attractive, the fact that he was considering our dear, abused planet, and I started getting even more googly-eyed over him than I was already quickly becoming. I remember wanting to kiss him, but being too scared and shy to lean in close enough, so we just walked together and appreciated the beauty. It had been a long time since I'd felt this flicker of anticipation, of desire; I was just getting out of a long-term relationship, and seeing this person I'd known for a number of years in an entirely new way was frightening and confusing, but it was also restorative and exciting. 

Wandering around near Spiral Jetty, trying to keep cool in the 105-degree heat.

After a few hours at the Jetty, we left; I dropped Scott off at his dad's house for a Christmas party, and I went home to be emo and think about new love while I took a bath. Almost exactly two years to the day later, Scott would ask me to marry him, and he would propose with a series of photographs he'd taken out at Spiral Jetty where he had gone six months earlier, unbeknownst to me, to write and bury his wedding vows with the hope that I would accept his proposal when he eventually asked. 

I'm a pretty die-hard feminist, but I am also a romantic (though I think Scott is actually way more idyllic than I), so this proposal was really special to me because it wasn't about the ring or the big show of eventually having a giant wedding and "being a princess for a day," because though that kind of thing is perfect for some, it's just not what I want, and Scott understood that and made the proposal more about the act of love than the show of it. He had taken the time to think about wanting a future together, and he had invested in that; he'd traveled to a place that meant something to both of us and spent time there, looking out over the rock spiral and the saline lake as the sun set and deciding that he wanted us to join lives, that he wanted to risk bringing two different forces together and take the chance of the relationship either being destroyed or becoming something even better than it already was. 

Unburying and unboxing the vows.

Last week, during another trip to Utah for various birthday celebrations in our families and to see my mother after recently getting married herself, Scott and I once again made the trek out to Spiral Jetty to unbury his vows. It was the first time we'd been back together since that time two years ago when we first started to have feelings together, and it was an extraordinary experience. The weather could not have been more different—we had previously gone in December when it was around 40 degrees and parts of the lake were slushy and near-frozen, and this time, it was 105 degrees and so hot that the salt was rock hard and burned your skin if you touched it. Being there again together was like existing on two different astral planes simultaneously (mind blown again, bro). The Spiral is an amazing formation, and this symbol will forever have a significant meaning for me. The future remains unknown, and that's terrifying, but also exhilarating. 

Wandering.

S+E=∞🌀

Galaxies are constantly moving through the universe, and sometimes, they collide with each other. Sometimes, there are planets in those galaxies that form in such a way as to allow life to exist there, for a variety of species to develop and materials to form from the dust and matter of the universe where bioherm rocks and saline lakes form from ancient masses of water and contain their own diverse communities of tiny organisms, where even the design of something so vast can change, a place where the unknown thrives. And so too are relationships and the places they will go, places one could never conceive until each parallel life bears itself forth into time. 

I'll end this stream of consciousness with some profound words from one of the greatest minds of our time, my man, Carl Sagan: 

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

Photos from the Utah Historical Society, the archives of The Salt Lake Tribune, NASA, and by Scott Simpson.