enigmatically that there was a golden key

that unified all of the mysteries of the universe.

It is this golden key that we will return to

time and again throughout our exploration.

The golden key is the intelligence of the logos,

the source of the primordial om.

One could say that it is the mind of God.

With our limited senses we are observing only the outer

manifestation of the hidden mechanics of self similarity.

The source of this divine symmetry is the greatest mystery of our existence.

Many of history's monumental thinkers such as Pythagoras, Keppler,

Leonardo da Vinci, Tesla and Einstein have come to the threshold the mystery.

Einstein said, "the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all true art and science.

He to whom this emotion is a stranger,

who can no longer pause wondering and stand rapt in awe

is as good as dead. His eyes are closed."

We are in the position of a little child

entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages.

The child knows someone must have written those books.

It does not know how.

It does not understand the languages in which they are written.

The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books

but doesn't know what it is.

That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most

intelligent human being toward God.

We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws.

Our limited minds can not grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.

Every scientist who looks deeply into the universe

and every mystic who looks deeply within the self,

eventually comes face to face with the same thing:

The Primordial Spiral.

A thousand years before the creation of the ancient observatory at Stonehenge,

the spiral was a predominant symbol on Earth.

Ancient spirals can be found in all parts of the globe.

Thousands of ancient spirals such as these can be found all over Europe,

North American New Mexico, Utah, Australia, China, Russia.

Virtually every indigenous culture on Earth.

The ancient spirals symbolize growth, expansion and cosmic energy embodied within the sun

and the heavens.

The spiral form is mirroring the macrocosm of the unfolding universe itself.

In native traditions, the spiral was the energetic source, the Primordial Mother.

The Neolithic spirals at Newgrange, Ireland date back five thousand years.

They are five hundred years old than the Great Pyramid at Giza

and they are just as enigmatic to modern observers.

The spiral goes back to a time in history when humans were more

connected to the Earth-to the cycles and spirals of nature.

A time when humans were less identified with thoughts.

The spiral is what we perceive to be the torque of the universe.

Prana, or creative force, swirls Akasha into a continuum of solid forms.

Found at all levels between the macrocosm and the microcosm,

from spiral galaxies

to weather systems,

to the water in your bathtub,

to your DNA,

to the direct experience of your own energy.

The Primordial Spiral is not an idea,

but rather that which makes all conditions and ideas possible.

Various types of spirals and helices are found throughout the natural world.

Snails.

Sea coral.

Spider webs.

Fossils.

Seahorses' tails.

And shells.

Many spirals appearing in nature are observable as logarithmic spirals

or growth spirals.

As you move out from the center the spiral sections get exponentially larger.

Like Indra's Net of Jewels, logarithmic spirals are self-similar

or holographic such that the characteristics of every part are

reflected in the whole.

2400 years ago in ancient Greece, Plato considered continuous

geometric proportion to be the most profound cosmic bond.

The Golden Ratio, or divine proportion was nature's greatest secret.

The Golden Ratio can be expressed as

the ratio of A + B to A is the same as the ratio of A to B.

To Plato, the world's soul binds together into one harmonic resonance.

The same pentagonal pattern that exists in a starfish,

or in a slice of okra, can be seen in the path of

the planet Venus traced in the night sky over an eight year period.

The intelligible world of forms above and the visible world of material

objects below, through this principle of geometric self similarity.

From the self-similar spiral patterns of the Romanesco broccoli

to the arms of galaxies, logarithmic spirals are a ubiquitous and

archetypal pattern.

Our own Milky Way galaxy has several spiral arms which are logarithmic

spirals with a pitch of about 12 degrees.

The greater the pitch of the spiral, the tighter the turns.

When you observe a plant growing in time-lapse video you witness it

dancing with the spiral of life.

A golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral that grows outward

by a factor of the Golden Ratio.

The Golden Ratio is a special mathematical relationship that pops up

over and over in nature.

The pattern that is observable follows what is called the Fibonacci series

or Fibonacci sequence.

The Fibonacci series unfolds such that each number is the sum of the previous two numbers.

The German mathematician and astronomer Keppler discovered that self similar

spiral patterns are observable in the way leaves are arranged on stems of plants.

Or in the floret and petal arrangements of flowers.

Leonardo da Vinci observed that the spacing of leaves

was often in spiral patterns.

These patterns are called "phyllotaxis" patterns

or leaf arrangement patterns.

Phyllotaxis arrangements can be seen in self-organizing

DNA nucleotides

and in everything from the family trees of reproducing rabbits,

to pine cones,

cacti,

to snowflakes

and in simple organisms such as diatoms.

Diatoms are one of the most common types of phytoplankton;

single celled organisms that provide food for countless species

throughout the food chain.

How much math do you need to know to be a sunflower or a bee?

Nature doesn't consult the physics department to grow broccoli.

The structuring in nature happens automatically.

Scientists in the field of nanotechnology use the term self-assembly

to describe the way complexes are formed such as

in the initial hexagonal phase of DNA formation.

In nanotechnology engineering, carbon nanotubes

are comprised of a similar arrangement of materials.

Nature does this type of geometry over and over, effortlessly.

Automatically. Without a calculator.

Nature is precise and extremely efficient.

According to the famous architect and author Buckminster Fuller,

these patterns are a function of timespace.

DNA and honeycomb are the shape they are for the same reason a bubble is round.

It is the most efficient shape for requiring the least amount of energy.

Space itself has shape and allows only certain configurations for matter,

always defaulting to what is most efficient.

These patterns are the strongest and most efficient way to build

architectural structures such as geodesic domes.

Logarithmic spiral patterns allow plants maximum exposure to insects

for pollination, maximum exposure to sunlight and rain

and allow them to efficiently spiral water towards their roots.

Birds of prey use the logarithmic spiral pattern to stalk their next meal.

Flying in a spiral is the most efficient way to hunt.

One's ability to see the spiral of life dancing Akasha into material form

is related to one's ability to see beauty and symmetry in nature.

Poet William Blake said, "the vegetative universe opens like a flower

from the Earth's center, in which is eternity.

It expands from stars to the mundane shell

and there it meets eternity again both within and without."

The study of patterns in nature is not something that is very

familiar in the West, but in ancient China, this science was known as "Li."

Li reflects the dynamic order and pattern in nature.

But it is not pattern thought of as something static,

frozen or unchanging, like a mosaic.

It is dynamic pattern as embodied in all living things.

The arteries of leaves, the markings of the tortoise

and the veined patterns on rocks are all expressions of nature's

secret language and art.

The labyrinth is one of many Li patterns.

It is found in coral structures,

mushrooms like the morel,

cabbages,

and in the human brain.

The cellular pattern is another common pattern in nature.

There are a myriad of different cellular structures

but all have a similar orderliness defined by their purpose and function.

It is easy to be mesmerized with the constant play of forms,

but what is most interesting is that certain archetypal forms

seem to be woven into the fabric of nature at all.

The branching pattern is another Li pattern or archetypal pattern

that is observable at all levels and in all fractal scales.

Take for example, this incredible image of a supercomputer simulation

known as the "millennium run"