Every shape carries a different intention

These shapes come from sacred geometry: patterns that turn up again and again across mathematics, astronomy, and spiritual traditions from many different eras and cultures, not one single tradition. Each grid is laid out on one of these figures. Some are provable geometry that's stood since antiquity. Some carry meanings that are genuinely old and traceable. Others are modern interpretations, or original designs built using sacred geometry's own principles.

The meaning behind each shape isn't all the same age. Some of it is genuinely old, traceable to a named source. Some circulates as old but is actually a modern idea dressed up to sound ancient. And some of it is newer, with no outside source at all. Each shape below is laid out the same way: what it is, what it means, and where that reading comes from.

Abundance

Seed of Life

Seven circles, all the same size, each one drawn from the last. It is the figure the Flower of Life grows out of, and every circle in it comes from one simple move repeated without variation.

Nothing is added from outside. It keeps unfolding from that first pattern, and there is no point where it has to stop. I use it for abundance for exactly that reason. Abundance should not have an ending either.

Where it comes from

The geometry is exact: six circles of the same size fit around a seventh with no gap and no overlap, which is why the figure closes. The form is much older than the names, but Seed of Life and Flower of Life are modern names, and so is the idea that one grows from the other.

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Protection

Vesica Piscis Eye

Two circles of equal size, each one centered on the other's edge. The lens where they overlap belongs to both, and neither circle is lost to make it.

One circle represents spirit, the other matter. The lens is where the two meet, and existence begins there. The eye sits in the middle of it, watching both sides at once, and protection comes from that unbroken watching.

Where it comes from

The vesica is old and well documented. It is the figure drawn in the first proposition of Euclid's Elements, and the same lens, called a mandorla, frames Christ in medieval painting and on church seals. Reading it as an eye is modern and widely shared.

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Love

Rose of Venus

Venus travels faster than Earth, so it laps us. About every nineteen months it passes between us and the sun, and five of those passes take eight of our years. Plot where the two planets sit against each other across that stretch and this five petaled rose is the figure they trace.

After about eight years Venus arrives back near where it started and the drawing begins again. The petals are the returns. The planet drawing them is named for the Roman goddess of love. I use it for love of every kind.

Where it comes from

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, sets the cycle out in its Venus Transit 2004 education sheets. The synodic period rounds to 584 days, five of those make 2920 days, and eight of our years is 2920 days. Across that stretch Venus goes around the sun thirteen times and Earth eight. The figure never quite closes, coming back about two degrees short each time. Venus as the planet of love is a widely shared astrological attribution, not particular to one tradition.

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Manifestation

Sixfold Echo

Triangles pointing up and triangles pointing down, drawn at three sizes. The two innermost points reach past each other and create the opening at the center.

The principle of correspondence is one line: as above, so below; as below, so above. The same figure repeats here at three sizes. I use it for manifestation because the thought comes first and the form comes after.

Where it comes from

The Kybalion, a book published in 1908 setting out seven Hermetic principles. This is the second of them, Correspondence.

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Calm

Triple Spiral

Three spirals meeting at one still center. The three arms are mind, body and spirit, and the center is where they meet.

The arms run both ways. Followed out from the center, a spiral carries the calm into each of the three. Followed back in, it brings each one home, setting down what it was carrying on the way.

Where it comes from

The triple spiral is carved at Newgrange in Ireland, on the stone at the entrance and again inside the chamber, and it is about five thousand years old. It is often called Celtic, but it predates the Celts in Ireland by roughly two and a half thousand years. This drawing of it is mine.

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Psychic Connection

Merkaba

Two tetrahedra, one pointing up and one pointing down, passing through each other. Each one's points come through the other's faces, and neither is subordinate. Spirit above and body below, united, with neither dissolving into the other.

Ka and ba are real Egyptian words. The ka is the life force, the part that stays. The ba is the part that moves and travels. The ba travels and the ka stays, and connection needs both.

Where it comes from

Merkabah is Hebrew for chariot, and Merkabah mysticism is a real body of Jewish visionary literature from the early centuries CE. Ka and ba are attested Egyptian words. Mer is attested as beloved and as pyramid, not as light. Its use for this shape is modern.

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Solar Energy for Happiness

Dodecagram

Twelve points spaced evenly around the circle, one every thirty degrees. The sun's year divides the same way: twelve months, twelve signs, and the sun passing through each in turn before arriving back where it began.

The Sun has long been read as the authentic self, your own expression and your own fire. The joy comes from being in alignment with that, and it travels outward from the middle the way the light does.

Where it comes from

The twelve fold division is the sun's year. The reading of the Sun is astrological, widely shared and not particular to one tradition.

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Lunar Energy for Inner Intuition

Star Octagram

Four eight-pointed stars, nestled one inside the next, stepping in toward the center. They represent the moon's phases: new moon, first quarter, full moon, last quarter.

The moon gives back the sun's light, and the reflection stirs intuition. The phases run the same cycle a life does: filling, full, emptying, and beginning again.

Where it comes from

Eleanor Harris, Ancient Egyptian Magic, published in 1998, from the modern revival of Egyptian practice. Her words: as the Moon reflects the light of the Sun, it also reflects reality to your mind. She ties that to imagination and intuition. The four phases are my own drawing.

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