spiral

implicit in (Le Guin's character) Shevek's temporal theory, which integrates sequency and simultaneity, is a transcendence of the competition between linear and circular models of time.

Though Shevek does not explicitly propose or endorse a spiral (or helical) model, spirals (and helices) can serve as representations of both time's linear-sequential and its circular-simultaneous aspects.

"In Le Guin's world, true journey is return and her evolution into post-feminism marks a spiral trajectory, nearly coming back to origins." Le Guin's Journey to Post-Feminism (151)

A spiral, strictly speaking: a two-dimensional curve...

helps — it is at least more complex than a straight line or closed circle: and this open-endedness is very important, as resistance to deterministic teleology.

However a helix is better still, because the third dimension exponentiates the complexity of the spiral: we can now imagine either conical or cylindrical helices of time, or even spherical ones, and we can further conceive of time itself as subject to fluctuations such that helical segments can be distinguished, some conical, cylindrical or near-spherical.

Jerome Bruner's constructivist spiral curriculum (education) is really helical, because it iterates through time...