Sacred Geometry

"To see a world in a grain of sand
  And a heaven in a wild flower
    Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
      And eternity in an hour."

-William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

I Am Surrounded by Flowers
Daily

In this season of harvest, I pick hibiscus blossoms every morning.

Every morning, they beckon me.
Pause. Look. Deep. Deeper.

"Heaven in a wild flower."

I Sip my Tea

Each Morning

In the quiet hours, I hold my cup in my hands.

I look down into its simple circle.
And so begins my contemplative practice.

"Hold infinity in the palm of your hand."

We don't have to be poets or herbal tea farmers to recognize that we are surrounded by the sacred.
Mary Oliver suggests only this...

Instructions for Living a Life:
Pay attention
Be astonished
Tell about it

The Circle
"The circle is a symbol of the heavens. Of the divine. Of oneness." 

-Lisa DeLong, Geometry Hidden in Plain Sight TEDxBYU

A Teacup
Is a very simple thing.

A Circle
When viewed from above.

The pottery pictured here was made by my sister and is sold in my farm store and elsewhere.

In observing her create a teacup she instructs me:

"First, find your center."

Mathematician Lisa DeLong says that in geometry, circles teach her the same thing:
 

"When we start centered...

Knowing first that
We are in the right place
At the right time
The action creates itself."

A Teacup
A simple circle
A beautiful way to start
Centered

The Spiral
"A spiral...It is movement...Reach.
Like a reach for the divine. 
Within a circle, It reflects both movement and stillness. Like the cosmos."

-Saimak Hariri, How Do You Build a Sacred Space, TED

It is Miraculous...
Watching a hibiscus blossom unfold.

It starts so small.

Then those soft, delicate petals push out of the calyx.

It slowly spirals open when touched by morning sunlight.

By mid-day, it is a fully expanded 5-petal miracle.

Do spirals in nature draw you in?

They make me want to go deeper...into my hibiscus flowers...

A Galaxy
A Whirlpool
A Seashell
 

Architect Saimak Hariri used the inspiration of a spiral to design the Baha i Temple in South America.
Once completed, he describes being inside the spiral temple.

"And what does it feel like on the inside?
Intimate.
Sacred." 

I imagine it must be the same with hibiscus flowers.

Fractals
"Similar patterns can occur at vastly different scales across time and space. Whenever you have a single object that contains patterns repeating, where every small part resembles the whole, that's a fractal." 

- Ben Weiss, Fractals: A World in a Grain of Sand, TEDxVeniceBeach

From One Small Seed...
A flower grows.

From One Small Flower...
Hundreds of seeds.

From Those Many Seeds...
A field of flowers.

From That Field of Flowers...
Untold number of sacred cups of tea.

And On It Goes

To hold a seed is...

"To hold the infinite in the palm of your hand." -William Blake

I am the steward of the sacred geometric fractal that is Elevation Tea Farm.
A seed, much like a dream, has infinite potential.

What an honor to plant them both

Dear Tea Drinker,
My blessing to you this month: May we allow ourselves moments of stillness long enough to pay attention, be astonished by the sacred geometry all around us, and ask what it has to teach us.

May we remember, like a circle, to first find our center when we embark on a new day, a new project, a new friendship, a new skill.

May we delight, as in a spiral, in being drawn deeper into nature. And find within, places that are intimate and sacred.

May we recognize that, as with fractals, in each moment, we hold the infinite in the palm of our hand. Plant. Grow. Create. Plant again. And so it goes, inspiring others to do the same. 

As always: 

Thank you 

I'm honored to be your herbal tea farmer. 

Be well,
Shannon