The name of the Symbol
We have adopted the symbol of the “heyiya-if” which is also means“double spiral”.
It is a two branched spiral with an empty centre. It is an opened circle as contrasted with a closed circle which can be seen as a symbol of boundaries.
What it means
For miPATH it symbolizes the realization that you will always come home to your true nature, and to the realization of the truth of yourself, of life and your relationship with life. It represents the dynamic cycles of life.
It is a symbol of hope that tells you that no matter how lost you feel, or how dark or confusing the world seems, you will always find your way Home again.
Where it comes from
This is an imaginary symbol that was made popular by the acclaimed science fiction author: Ursula Le Guin’s from her masterpiece novel Always Coming Home (1985).
It represented the sacred, national symbol of the Kesh tribe of people. She borrowed the term from the Plains First Nations.
Iya “is the center of a spiral, the source of a gyring motion; hence a source of change, as well as a connection. Iya is the eternal beginning, the process of energy arising and continuing. The whole point of the heyiya-if is that it is open, its center an empty hinge, its arms spinning out toward infinity.
Its opposite, the closed circle or wheel, is a perfect metaphor for being closed to change… the wheel spins faster and faster until it is out of control: its energy can’t escape: it burns itself up.
How LeGuin describes the symbol
“In her masterpiece novel Always Coming Home (1985) Ursula LeGuin describes the heyiya-if as the visible image of heyiya, a word that means “sacred, holy, or important thing, place, time, or event; connection; spiral, gyre, or helix; hinge; center; change. To be sacred, holy, significant; to connect; to move in a spiral, to gyre; to be or to be at the center; to change; to become. Praise; to praise. ”
