Fibonacci Patterns and the Metabolism of Time

Libra and Saturn introduce the seasons of Fall and Winter. The leaves on the trees turn red, orange and yellow. they no longer recede into the distance like they did while green in the summer. They come forth, into our focus. We are inspired to pick up a fallen leaf and look closer at it. Winter is cold. We draw our energies in, stay inside, cook hot food and hunker down. Winter is a time of collecting our vital energies inward.

The Seasons and the wheel of the zodiac introduce a ‘time that turns’. In knowing the seasons we come to better know ourselves.

But there is another kind of time. A ‘time that burns’. A metabolism, so to speak. By transforming the zodiac wheel into a torus shape, we convert cyclic time into metabolism.

What does the Fall and Winter show us in terms of ‘time metabolism’. What happens when we draw our energies in? What kinds of things come forth, and prompt us to bring them closer yet?

What happens when we focus our energies into something we deem very worthy of our focus. With the brilliant colors of Fall and the sobering chill of Winter we peer into a beautiful relationship: the beckoning of beauty and the endeavor of effort.

Have you picked up a leaf this year to get a closer look?

Nature is capable of displaying great works of beauty. The complex design of a butterfly wing is also simple with divine laws of proportion. It is not a ‘loud shirt’ with random color schemes and mechanical patterning. It is ordered. Ordered by something wonderful that underlies all creation. The beauty of the butterfly wing is like the beauty of our own bodies with our seashell-like ears and our galaxy-like eyes. Artists were quick to recognize a kind of sacred pattern to nature in its beautiful expression. It became known as the golden ratio; nature’s divine signature of proportion.

Artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo would work the precision of nature’s mathematics into their masterpieces. The divine beauty that emerged was rooted in natural law. Heaven, as they could prove, is here on earth, by grace of these sacred proportions and relations. In knowing the formula of nature, with all of its divinity, one has the capacity to create natural divinity, or real beauty.

The golden ratio, otherwise known as phi or the fibonacci sequence, shows the pattern of nature as it grows. One plus one brings us to two. Two plus one to three. Three plus two to five and so on. The relation between each step is one of accumulation. The next step marries itself to what has come before it. The growth pattern is a spiral. Nothing is wasted, it all is incorporated into the design.

For a rose, there is no doubt about a ‘decision’ to continue growing and expanding. There is no confusion of a sense of self. The result is nothing short of a visible and tangible divinity.

Human beings are sometimes blessed with plenty of beauty. For some of us, the ratios are Boticelli-like, and we can thank the mysteries of our genetics.  But a pretty face will soon disappoint if an attitude non-supportive to growth reveals itself, such as cynism and shallowness.

Before birth, we are perfect little seashell swirls in our mother’s womb. After we are born our bodies continue to grow, in the divine spirit of nature. And then they stop growing. What does this mean in terms of this divine process? Do our own ‘masterpieces’, the sublime work of our living bodies stop dancing to this catchy mathematical beat?

What does growth become when it is no longer the growth of the body?

Michelangelo studied the laws of growing in order to produce beauty. If we want to produce beauty in our lives we too must learn these laws of growth. This is the essence of Libra and Capricorn. This spiral deals with learning nature’s laws, so that you can produce more nature, more beauty and more bounty.

We are the rose that grows by ‘marrying itself to what has come before.’ The rose delights in the full affirmation of the sun. Within the unity of nature there is no ‘agency of future’. Future is only biological growing. The future of the rose is the same thing as its growingness, or its health.

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” Gertrude Stein

But we are free agents in a world that includes a vision of the future. We can envision ourselves in this future and we can reflect on ourselves in the past. This is how we are infinitely more related to our own capacity to grow. We share the same laws of the rose, but our world is wider and deeper. We can apply these laws to vision, reflection, and planning. We can encourage a healthy fibonacci pattern by being honest enough with what came before so we can consciously marry some freedom into something new.