A year ago, I was presented with the opportunity to shape the space of our suite. It was wide open. There was one wall three feet thick and a couple of posts strategically placed in our corner of the building. The west side has those lovely tall windows looking out over Cedar toward the river, and the north side has fewer windows with less light, which to me feels quieter.
As an Osteopath, I have something in common with an Architect. We both have a deep understanding of the interrelationship between structure and function.
In nature, the shape of things allows you to understand their function. Rivers meander, trees branch in a myriad of beautifully symmetric patterns to let their leaves catch the sun, the nautilus grows following the golden ratio to form an ever-enlarging spiral. It is a beautiful dance of forms: spheres, arcs, spirals, branches, honeycombs…. It rarely forms straight lines.
Of course, this is repeated within us. Look at your beautiful hands with their perfectly proportioned fingers, the way veins and arteries branch all the way into tiny networks to provide life to every cell within us, and notice the awesome gothic cathedral-shaped arch our hips and pelvis create to support our spine.
Well, I had to have some arcs and circles and spirals happening in that office. I wanted it to reflect life. It needed to have flow. The outer square-ness of the building didn’t dictate the inner shape had to look like a bunch of boxes in a row. Working around the posts and in one case through the three-foot wall, we came up with some arcs and a hallway that opens like the bell of a clarinet into the beautiful abstract spiral Nicholas Sanchez painted for us.
Nick is a talented artist now living in NYC who grew up with our kids. When we started working on our lifestyle education program and seriously thinking about how to help people transform their lives, we sat down with him and told him about our work. We asked him to create an abstract piece that would reflect our intentions and hope for our practice.
Now you can walk down that hallway, see his painting, and make choices about your life. We invite you into this organic space to follow your own path to healing.
