Pinky Agnew::Nautilus Celebrancy
The Chambered Nautilus
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Oliver Wendall Holmes (1809-94)
This beautiful shell, the Chambered Nautilus, is crafted with precision and engineering genius by a little creature related to the squid called a cephalopod. Because they were the dominant marine life form before the rise of the fishes, scientists see the Nautilus as a living key to processes that shaped life in earth’s ancient seas.
Argonauta is the symbol of Nautilus Celebrancy. A funny little creature with tentacles on its head, and no central nervous system?
To Pinky Agnew, this creature symbolises the qualities around which she has built her celebrancy business.
Argonauta builds its home with patience and determination, using the resources it has to create a structure of beauty and integrity. If you sliced the shell down the middle you would see that it is not only beautiful, but precision-engineered with valves to open and close ballast chambers, which give Argonauta buoyancy, and the ability to steer and raise and lower its craft.
Argonauta makes this shell, not to drag along the ocean floor, but to sail. This creature sits upright in its Nautilus shell, propelling it along with its tentacles, sailing along majestically through the ocean, through its life journey.
In his poem The Chambered Nautilus, Oliver Wendell Holmes uses the shell and its architect as a metaphor for our life’s journey. The fabulous engineering, combined with the beauty of the shell speaks to us of great things which can be achieved with patience and commitment.
As Argonauta builds each chamber, it seals it off and begins the next, building, in the words of the poem, “each new temple nobler than the last”. This symbolises, to me, the spiral of life’s milestones. The shell and its inhabitant teach us about learning when to hold on, when to let go, building slowly, building well, learning from the past but not being trapped by it, creating beautiful things which serve us well.
As we enter each stage of our lives, Nautilus Celebrancy seeks to help its clients celebrate and commemorate these events – the birth of a child, the marriage of a couple, a same-sex ceremony of commitment, the funeral of a loved one - in a personal and significant way. Your life, like the Chambered Nautilus, is unique.
Nautilus Celebrancy provides you with a ceremony that reflects what it is you wish to say to your friends and family for your special day.