Messiaen and non-retrograde rhythms

The following is a super cool quote I came across while researching the influence of Indian Music on Western composition.

“It’s extraordinary to think that the Hindus were the first to point out and use-rhythmically and musically-this principle of non-retrogradation which is so often encountered around us. It’s a principle which has long been applied to architechture: thus in ancient art, gothic and romanesque cathedrals and even in modern art, the decorative figures ornamenting the pediments of the portals are nearly always two symmetrically inverse figures framing a neutral central motif. Ancient magical formulae included words which had, it appears, an occult power. It was impossible to read these words from left to right, then from right to left, without meeting exactly the same sound and the same order of letters. In nature we have an exquisite example: the wings of a butterfly. When butterflies are enclosed in their chrysalis, their wings are folded and stuck one against the other; the pattern on one is thus reproduced in the opposite direction on the other. Later, when the wings unfold, there will be a pattern with colours and the right wing which mirror those on the left, and the body of the butterfly, the thorax and the antennae placed between the two wings constitute the central value. These are marvellous living non-retrogradable rhythms.

Finally, we carry these rhythms in ourselves. Our face with its two symmetrical eyes, its two symmetrical ears, and the nose in the middle; our opposite hands and their opposed thumbs, our two arms, and the central thorax; and the tree of its nervous system with all its symmetrical branchings. These are non-retrogradable rhythms. A final symbol: this moment which I live, this thought which crosses my mind, this movement which I accomplish, this time which I beat: before it and after it lies eternity: it’s a non-retrogradable rhythm.”

P.44 “Conversations with Olivier Messiaen”, 1967, Samuel, C. transl. Aprahamian, F.