Patterns and Waves II: Order and Form

Part I is here

EXCERPTS from Elliot Wave Principle (in black)
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"The logarithmic spiral has no boundaries and is a constant shape. The center is never met and the outward reach is unlimited. The core of a logarithmic spiral seen through a microscope has the same look as a spiraling galaxy viewed through a telescope. It is the only spiral that never changes its shape.

The logarithmic spiral further indicates that one can go to infinity in a minus quantity from any point in the spiral and one can go to infinity in a plus quantity from the same point. Both ends of the spiral must meet somewhere in infinity in the form of a circle (zero) as there is no other place to meet. Plus and minus quantities must meet somewhere, and added together give zero. Zero is never nothing; it is always something. If we start from zero, we go back to zero."

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"Within the progression from ashes to ashes and dust to dust then, there is something which meets the circumstances of awareness. Thus the logarithmic spiral spreads before us in symbolic form, as one of nature's grand designs, the image of life in endless expansion and contraction on the same plane, the within and the without sustained by a common umbilical law: the 1.618 ratio or Golden Mean.

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"History abounds with examples of learned men who held a special fascination for this particular mathematical formulation. Of course, the earliest known, and probably the most interesting, is that of the priests of the Gizeh pyramid of Egypt, who recorded the secret of phi in its construction. Furthermore, it has been reported that the Great Pyramid was used as a temple of initiation for those who proved themselves worthy to understand the great universal secrets. Only those who could rise above the crude acceptance of things as they seemed on the surface to discover what, in actuality, they were, could be instructed in "the mysteries".

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"For some then, the "light of god" has been revealed through an understanding of the principle behind the logarithmic spiral, a principle of continuous growth and unaltered form.

"It is this form which gives structure and unity to the universe. Nothing in nature suggests that life is disorderly or formless. The word "universe" means "one order."

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If life has form, then we should not reject the probability that even the most minute facets of life will have been composed and are being created in a manner that follows the same principles of the greater form. Elliott's theory "postulates that no matter how minute or large the form, the basic design remains constant."

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"Both Pythagoras, who in a self-portrait held a pyramid marked "The Secret of the Universe" in his right hand, and Isaac Newton, who had the logarithmic spiral carved on the headboard of his bed, would probably have agreed with this formulation."

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These mathematical forms may or may not mean anything to you. You may see or sense this intricate web in all things, concrete as well as abstract. And even in doing so, you may still discard these theories as useless- yielding you no greater fathoming of the depths around you.

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The Desiderata reads:

You are a child of the Universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.