Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part II: The Quintessence - The Egyptian Duat

An Egyptian limestone panel, 400-200 BC / Metropolitan Museum, New York

"The Star which guided them is that same Blazing Star, the image whereof we find in all initiations. To the Alchemists it is the sign of the Quintessence; to the Magists, the Grand Arcanum; to the Kabalists, the Sacred Pentagram."

- A reposting of a quote (see Halloween post) via Albert Pike, a 19th century American Freemason.

While Pike doesn't specifically mention the ancient Egyptians in the quote above, and, while the Egyptian's 5-fold star wasn't technically a pentagram, the five-fold star inscribed within a circle (essentially a pentacle) was a crucial symbol in their world. It symbolized the Afterlife or Underworld; that is, the Duat, the medium in which a departed soul was judged, and a dimension in which there was no day or night. The Duat was the home of some of its most important gods: Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Hathor, and Maat. The sun-god, Ra, also passed through its regions every night in his solar barge.

In the large image (carved in relief) above, two baboons are worshiping the Duat, which hovers above the scarab - a sun symbol often used as a talisman for protection and placed inside a mummy's shroud - which, in turn, is set above the sun, placed here beneath the Duat.

(Note: Compare this design with the Kabbalistic tree-of-life inset right. Although not an actual match, there is a certain likeness in the way the elements are placed.)

This relief has a number of Underworld motifs... the most prominent being the pair of baboons facing each other. Baboons were said to be sacred animals in the Egyptian pantheon, and when depicted singly represented the great ibis-headed god, Thoth, a lunar god, who, in a sense, was Ra's (or Re's) counterpart.

In some tales, Thoth (inset left) was self-created at the beginning of time and, as an ibis, lay the cosmic egg that holds all of creation.  In others, he was thought to have created the art of writing and the calendar. He was also the god of both mathematics and magic and served as a scribe in the Duat.  Moreover, he had the ability to control space and time!

Above is a beautiful artifact which also features a set of baboons facing each other across a large scarab. Each wears the lunar crown of Thoth, however, so, we might assume that symmetrical pairs of baboons also portray Thoth. Note the small star (Seba) symbols embellished on the bar above them; it is likely they represent the night sky.

Returning to the larger image, there are what appear to be (Greek) Omega symbols over the primates' heads, but, these are likely to be shen rings - associated with Horus and his mother, Isis - which symbolized power, protection and, (eventually) eternity. This shen ring (at the Metropolitan museum in New York) inset right was found as a talisman alongside the mummy of a prosperous Egyptian, circa 1800 BC.

Note also the two Wedjats encircled by the baboons' arms. These are the twin (lunar) Eye(s) of Horus - one of which often accompanies images of Thoth - and used singly or dually represent healing and regeneration. They were also frequently used as talismans of protection for both the living and the dead.

Oddly enough, the Wedjat (also later referred to as the solar Eye of Ra) is also the name of the ancient goddess of Lower Egypt, the cobra goddess, Wadjet (or Wedjat)...

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part I: the Roman Dodecahedra

A "Roman Dodecahedron" found in the UK by Brian Campbell in 1987.

 

The Gallo-Roman Dodecahedra

_________________________________________________________

 

 

(This post was originally intended to be the first of the pentagonal phi series, and much of it was written early last year. It has been revised, however, and will contain new material. It may also run into two parts.)

 

"One August day in 1987, Brian Campbell was refilling the hole left by a tree stump in his yard in Romford, East London, when his shovel struck something metal. He leaned down and pulled the object from the soil, wondering at its strange shape. The object was small—smaller than a tennis ball—and caked with heavy clay. 'My first impressions,' Campbell tells Mental Floss, 'were it was beautifully and skillfully made … probably by a blacksmith as a measuring tool of sorts.'

Campbell placed the artifact on his kitchen windowsill, where it sat for the next 10 or so years. Then, he visited the Roman fort and archaeological park in Saalburg, Germany—and there, in a glass display case, was an almost identical object. He realized that his garden surprise was a Roman dodecahedron: a 12-sided metal mystery that has baffled archaeologists for centuries. Although dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of explanations have been offered to account for the dodecahedrons, no one is certain just what they were used for."

- Via an excellent article on Mental Floss found here. Inset right (above) is a Roman Dodecahedron exhibited in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuggart, Germany, and found in this article.


"A Roman dodecahedron or Gallo-Roman Dodecahedron is a small hollow object made of copper alloy which has been cast into a dodecahedral shape: twelve flat pentagonal faces, each face having a circular hole of varying diameter in the middle, the holes connecting to the hollow center. Roman dodecahedra date from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD.

Since the first dodecahedron was found in 1739, at least 116 similar objects have been found[1] from Wales to Hungary and Spain and to the east of Italy, with most found in Germany and France. Ranging from 4 to 11 centimetres (1.6 to 4.3 in) in size. A Roman icosahedron has also come to light after having long been misclassified as a dodecahedron. This icosahedron was excavated near Arloff in Germany and is currently on display in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn.

No mention of them has been found in contemporary accounts or pictures of the time. Speculated uses include as a candlestick holder (wax was found inside two examples); dice; survey instruments for estimating distances to (or sizes of) distant objects; devices for determining the optimal sowing date for winter grain; gauges to calibrate water pipes, army standard bases, a coin measuring device for counterfeit detection. Use as a measuring instrument of any kind seems improbable since the dodecahedra were not standardized and come in many sizes and arrangements of their openings. It has also been suggested that they may have been religious artifacts, or even fortune-telling devices. This latter speculation is based on the fact that most of the examples have been found in Gallo-Roman sites. Several dodecahedra were found in coin hoards, providing evidence that their owners considered them valuable objects. Other suggestions include a knitting frame for creating gloves, supported by the fact that many are found in the northern range of the empire.

Smaller dodecahedra with the same features (holes and knobs) and made from gold have been found in South-East Asia along the Maritime Silk Road. They have been used for decorative purposes and the earliest items appear to be from the Roman epoch."

- Via the Wiki entry for Roman or Gallo-Roman dodecahedron. Inset left is a museum photograph of 2 Roman dodecahedrons and the icosahedron mentioned in the quote. In my eyes, the icosahedron, although a polyhedron and similar in size to the dodecahedrons, does not seem to be in the same family of objects as the former.

***

Did you know there is a geometry in running water... or that small objects of equal mass - specifically small and lightweight - tend to fall into groups of three? Regarding the latter, at one point this year, I noticed this so often during my waking hours that I began to document these geometrical events, snapping photos with my cell phone whenever they occurred. Is this madness? Precisely. But it's a sort of "magical" madness involving a particular phenomenon which very likely spawned numerous oracles in the past; everything from casting knuckle bones, dice, sticks, coins, tea leaves, etc. for the purposes of divining or interpreting the resulting patterns as a narrative of the future.

In reality, small objects very often fall into rudimentary geometric patterns or figures - a little understood phenomena Jungian psychologist, Marie-Louise von Franz, 1915–1998, once described as a form of synchronicity or "meaningful chance" especially in regards to divination and the role of natural numbers.

Inset right is one example I shot with my cell-phone September 8, 2020; an interesting triangle formed by the random distribution of red pepper seeds scattered during the course of making a salad! I didn't see the figure at first; the pattern had formed on the far side of the table on which I was working. It was during clean-up that I came across it, and I swear I felt like some mystified farmer who discovers a crop circle in his field one day; it was eerie.

The X-file factor of this event was that the triangle bore a strong resemblance to the triangle I'd been working with over a year (and you've been encountering on this blog for months): the pentagonal golden triangle. Had it fallen out of my head and imprinted itself on the table? Who can say? But, I saw it as an affirmation of an artist's journey well taken. And, for an artist who faithfully follows the muse down one rabbit hole after another, affirmation is a much coveted thing... because, what is a "rabbit hole" other than some strange anomaly stumbled across during an intellectual excursion which might potentially lead one to the greatest of epiphanies or the most confounding of delusions?

But, while it may have ended that way, my journey down this particular rabbit hole did not begin with a random distribution of pepper seeds. It began with an online article regarding that unusual metal object currently staring at you from the top of this post... its empty cyclopean eye revealing just about everything we know regarding its existence...which is pretty much nada.

Now, the general opinion among experts (and one must always use this term loosely) is that a lot is known - and verified - about the past. Even the long past. But, don't be fooled. The past is as elusive (and illusive) as the future. New discoveries keep popping up each day with the potential to completely overturn all previous determinations. There are, after all, numerous newsworthy items. And, no, I 'm not referring to those well-documented abominations of the world's daily affairs. I'm talking about those little, weird tangible things - the products of human ingenuity - which emerged in the days before "artificial intelligence" was even a bad dream in somebody's head. This is not so say that the days of which I speak - and, no, none of us witnessed those days in any memorable way - were benign or utopian, but, intriguingly enough, ancient humans were admirably capable of flummoxing the oh-so-sophisticated humans of the future (us),  producing artifacts that we - with all of our modern expertise... and some highly sophisticated calculators - are unable to identify.

Which brings us back to that cyclopean object resting above - the subject of this section - the Roman dodecahedron inset left. No one seems to have a precise explanation for its presence on the earth - although the general drift is towards some practical, utilitarian instrument (such as a candle holder or knitting device) or complicated measuring device (such as a military range-finder) - and, yet, at least a few ancient folk across a number of countries - and all living in the earlier centuries AD - created these objects for reasons of which we can only speculate. Over a hundred of them have been dug up in parts of Europe and one imagines more may be found. I find this oddly exhilarating; there are still things the experts, admittedly, can't explain. In any case, I'm sure that all intuitive readers have realized by now that this mysterious little artifact is quintessential rabbit-hole material... and, yes, it most surely was!

In any case, "Cyclops" is actually believed to have been created around 200 AD... somewhere within the vast Roman Empire. Which is how it got its name: The Roman dodecahedron. The thing is,  despite archaeologists finding more than a hundred of them, no written reference to them has ever been discovered. And this might be a our most important clue: perhaps the objects had no practical use whatsoever and were never intended for the general public.

What's more, the object is an early example of a polyhedron - and the dodecahedron is the most complex of the Platonic solids - artifacts which we rarely see in the ancient world (despite the contributions of Pythagoras and Plato). As it so happens, this blogger loves polyhedra - even documenting a set of my very own (inset right, above: the dodecahedron, the icosahedron, and the pentakis dodecahedron). Not very long ago, I posted about some unusual Scottish sundials (example below the jump)...

Oblique Strategies... and the Circles of Time

The first set of the "Platonic" Cyclohedra cast in 1988. (Photo: 2016, DS)
(click on photos to enlarge)

"Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was coined in 1967 by Edward de Bono."

- Via the Wiki entry for lateral thinking.

"They were most famously used by Eno during the recording of David Bowie's Berlin triptych of albums (Low, "Heroes", Lodger). Stories suggest they were used during the recording of instrumentals on "Heroes" such as "Sense of Doubt" and were used more extensively on Lodger ("Fantastic Voyage", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Red Money"). They were used again on Bowie's 1995 album Outside, which Eno was involved with as a writer, producer and musician. Carlos Alomar, who worked with Eno and Bowie on all these albums, was a fan on using the cards, later saying "at the Center for Performing Arts at the Stevens Institute of Technology, where I teach, on the wall are Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies cards. And when my students get a mental block, I immediately direct them to that wall."

- From the Wiki entry for Oblique Strategies, a card game created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt and first published in 1975. David Bowie's personal deck (pictured above, inset, right) was found here.

Les stratégies obliques (and here)

"Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)"

- The "oblique strategy" presented to moi when I clicked the link for the online version of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. (English only, but there is a French version on the web somewhere... at least there was... as well as a Japanese version.)

"As it happened, the subject of maps came up that day, during a game of Triakis, a game which was fairly new to the Prince, and one for which his uncle insisted he needed training. As it was, he'd just made, what he thought, was a strategic move, but when his uncle's turn came, the boy lost another avatar.

"You will never understand this game, Nathaniel," his uncle grinned, flipping the tetrahedron in the air and then catching it, "until you look at the board as if it were a map."

But, all the Prince really saw when he looked at the diamond- shaped board was a mosaic of triangles, and he said so.

"Well, yes, the board is composed of triangles, but, look closely: those triangles are really portions of hexagons, and it's by the hexagons one calculates the most advantageous moves to make," explained his uncle.

"But, that's not like real maps," Nathaniel complained, "not like the ones of Elidon Wold you have in the library." 

"Well, no," laughed his Uncle, "not like those I own, but precisely like the ancient maps that were made by the Avians."

"Avians? Do you mean, actual birds?" his nephew asked incredulously. "Birds made maps?!"

"The Avians weren't exactly birds, Nathaniel", explained his uncle, "but, like birds, they could fly. Ultimately, it was they who discovered Elidon Wold, and gave it its name. But that was in a different circle of time..."

"Do you mean, when you were a boy, Uncle?"

"Oh no," said his uncle, "I was never a boy. I was as you see me now... as I always have and always will be seen. I merely meant a circle of time in which boys like yourself were not physically located."

- Excerpt from the prologue of "The Last Chronicle of Elidon Wold,"  2013, Dia Sobin.

***

As you might've noticed, my usual modus operandi these days is to start a post and then leave it hanging there, unfinished... for days. I'm trying hard to break this habit, but, as of late, there seems to be a large disconnect between my impulses and ideas and my ability to translate them into hard copy. Moreover, by the time I've found the words, I've forgotten the point. The reality is, while "lateral thinking" - the sort of thinking that Brian Eno hoped to induce with his Oblique Strategy cards - might be useful for spontaneous, creative leaps of the imagination and breaking though mental blocks, etc., in the end, it doesn't, in itself, produce anything tangible. It takes a certain amount of logic - that is, linear thinking - to bring any "project," large or small, to fruition. In other words, to truly successfully hatch anything into the world, one has to effortlessly glide between the two modes of thought, the two modes of activity, utilizing each at the proper moment. And it takes a certain amount of faith in yourself to pull this off. The minute your faith falters... well, it's like with any other skill - riding a bicycle, perhaps, or ice-skating - you fail... you fall. Or, worse still, you flounder...

The Mysterious Caves of Fontainebleau

From the caves of Fontainebleau... (click to enlarge)

The Forest of Fontainebleau

"This forest which is now a popular recreation area, was an isolated region for thousands of years. It was a haunt of robbers, fringe dwellers and fugitives who sheltered in its caves and carved the walls with inscriptions, designs, and abstract signs. More than 2,300 square yards of rock are decorated in this way.

Among the carvings are human figures with rectangular bodies, neck-less heads with sunken eyes and U-shaped noses. Their arms are outstretched, with the fingers spread like a fan, and often the legs are missing. A second group, in bas-relief, have their arms close to their bodies, In a third, the figures are dressed in skirts and have only three fingers on each hand.

The crosses, circles and hopscotch-like designs are almost impossible to date. They may be from prehistoric time, or they could have been drawn yesterday. All have been indexed and some are similar to designs which specialists located elsewhere. However, there are some designs which are found only at Fontainebleau. These are the irregular latticed designs which have been deeply incised into the rock. They have been found in the most inaccessible places, in cavities where only an arm can reach. Why were these engravings made under such obviously difficult conditions? They were certainly not made recently, but how old are they? What message did their engravers wish to leave, and who were they?"

- Text and photo (above) found in some older files; source currently unidentified.

***

Chances are, whenever the topic of prehistoric art crops up, the first examples that spring to mind are the stylized beasts (in shades of black, brown and red ochre) found on cave walls in France, notably those of Lascaux and Chauvet. Or, maybe, those enigmatic Paleolithic handprints which created a minor sensation in 2013; the handprints which, upon closer inspection, were tentatively judged to be the work of primarily female artists. On the other hand, the more informed Fortean mind is likely to turn to the stone carvings found at Göbekli Tepe (also, here), or the Nazca Lines.

But, my fellow fans of weird archaeology, here's another place to add to your files: the mysterious abstract carvings found in the caves of Fontainebleau Forest, located 30 miles south of Paris. While some of the designs were wrought in the late Middle Ages, others have been dated back 15,000 years to the Upper Paleolithic or Magdalenian period; and, still others may have arisen as early as the Neolithic period. So strange and sophisticated are some of the carvings - along with the nearby presence of unusual rock formations, and what appears to be a bestiary of boulders - that it's been proposed the forest of Fontainebleau may contain the artifacts of an unknown civilization...

Matrices of Paper; the Creations of Eric Standley

"Either/Or Circle" - layered paper - 2001, Eric Standley
(click to enlarge)

Inspired by Gothic and Islamic architecture, much like Cristóbal Vila, another "matrix" artist featured on Trans-D, Eric Standley takes the fine art of paper cutting to a new level. That is, approximately 100 of them! 

What appears as one cohesive - and elegant - mandala is actually composed of layer upon layer of intricately laser-cut "windows."

To see the artist in action, David Pescovitz has posted a video found here.

The artist's new website can be found here.

(Thanks, DP!)

Ancient-Future Artifacts #3: Sherry Bellamy's Beads

My original title for the post that started it all - "Explorations of An Ancient-Future" - was "In Search of...," and I might change it back, because the original title was probably more accurate. Certainly the ancient-future was not found by myself in the intellectual realm, but was, more or less, intimated by the artifacts I later found... Tom Beddard's Faberge Fractals, and then those awesome bismuth crystals. One statement in the post was certainly legitimate though: "Ultimately, the Ancient-Future - and/or the necessary bridge between the two - is forged In the creative imagination..."

And, so it goes; approaching the ancient-future directly is almost impossible, and discussing it as if were some physical conundrum is equally as futile.

Poetry, then, is the the only effective way to go. Presently, there are no mathematical equations. So, my mission remains to ferret out examples whenever and wherever they're found, and recently, I came upon another treasure trove. Love, sweet love... Sherry Bellamy's lampwork beads!

Although I've been unsuccessful in contacting the artist - her blog and website seem to have gone dormant earlier this year, and while her tutorials are featured in her Etsy Shop, I'm unsure about the availability of her work - I still felt compelled to feature some glowing examples of Bellamy's art glass. Click on the images and, with your mind's eye, follow the glints, globules and organic glass folds deep inside the globes... Wander accordingly. ;-)

And, as we stand upon the cusp of another year - a metaphor for the ancient-future - here's hoping the "future" part is at least as bright as a lampwork bead.

Happy trails to all of us in the coming year...!

Art glass - Sherry Bellamy, found here

For more luminous examples of Bellamy's work, try this page with a 2005 interview, this 2012 blog post, or her website, Orca Beads, where the piece directly above was found.

More Ancient-Future Artifacts... Bismuth Crystals

Bismuth Crystal, Flickr photo by Ficusdesk

My friend, Bob, sent me strolling the other day, over to a Reality Carnival: Cliff Pickover's amazing, and constantly updated compendium of strange, mathematical-phenomena links; and I hit pay dirt almost immediately... and, discovered more trinkets to add to my Ancient-Future artifact collection.

Bismuth crystals - who knew?

Resembling ancient Meso-American stepped pyramids, or examples of  fossilized organic circuitry (and, I've been known to generate one or two) these tiny beauties are generated from the chemical element, bismuth... one of the first 10 metals to be discovered - known since ancient times - and the most diamagnetic of them all.

It's also an ingredient in Pepto-Bismol!

Bismuth Crystal, Flickr photo by Miriam

Apparently, bismuth crystals are rarely found in nature, but, like the ones pictured, they are grown in labs, or (and, this is the exciting part) can be grown at home on a household stove! (Links are provided at the end of the post.)*

Obviously, the possibilities are not lost on jewelry designers, and the results are items to be coveted.  For some examples, here's a steam-punk pendant by Heather Jordan, and here's Element83's Art-fire selection to drool over.

            

Above, to your left, is a Flickr shot by Sal Tation, but, speaking of drooling, the second photo above is a close-up shot of this article for sale in a UK Etsy shop. I guess money can by happiness, after all!


Some breathtaking close-ups of bismuth can be found at Paul's Lab.

For more info, photos, and items for sale, try here.

For instructions about how to make your own, try here and here!


*  Warning: Bismuth does have a degree of toxicity, though generally only with high exposure. According to Wiki: 

"Scientific literature concurs that bismuth and most of its compounds are less toxic compared to other heavy metals (lead, antimony, etc.) and that it is not bioaccumulative. They have low solubilities in the blood, are easily removed with urine, and showed no carcinogenic, mutagenic or teratogenic effects in long-term tests on animals (up to 2 years). Its biological half-life for whole-body retention is 5 days but it can remain in the kidney for years in patients treated with bismuth compounds."

Previously in the Ancient-Future series:

• Artifacts from an Ancient-Future... Featuring the Fractals of Tom Beddard
• Explorations of An Ancient-Future

Artifacts from an Ancient-Future... Featuring the Fractals of Tom Beddard (Updated)

Faberge Fractal (from a series) - digital 3D Generative - Tom Beddard, 2012

“I still believe the universe has a beginning in real time, at the big bang. But there’s another kind of time, imaginary time, at right angles to real time, in which the universe has no beginning or end.”

 - Stephen Hawking, from Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, 1984,

Oxford University Press

"The creative process is akin to an exploration into a space that can dramatically change with a slight tweak of one parameter. A fundamental feature of fractal algorithms is recursion, where the output of one iteration is fed back as the input of the next, so often certain features can get ‘amplified’ leading to unexpected and delightful results."

- Tom Beddard via this 1.4 interview, 2012

"Fractals, in other words, bridge the micro to the macro, and do so by the marriage of mathematics to the language of form. Symmetry, on the other hand, has become the catch-word across the board; in all areas of science, as well as art, music, history and societal analysis. Symmetry, in other words, is a very transdimensional term. It describes both the singular entity and the encompassing field. It can take us from a simple geometric figure to a parallel universe. We can follow it from the atomic to the galactic, from the child's "cat's cradle" to the Super-string universe and beyond."

- Dia Sobin, from the post: The Language of Form (Part 2): Fractals, Form and Symmetry

Faberge Fractal (from a series) - digital 3D Generative - Tom Beddard, 2012

It doesn't always work, but, sometimes, when one is looking for a clue to some personal dilemma, or some creative "fix" to jump-start the little grey cells into up-and-running mode, the internet proves to be The Great Provider. It's almost uncanny. At least, that's what I thought when I stumbled upon a post by Cory Doctorow, at the irrepressible, irreplaceable boingboing, the other day.

I'd been mulling over my Ancient-Future meme, having, to some degree, lost my original thread from an idea that originated weeks ago, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but actual artifacts, embodiments of just what I'm attempting to illuminate!

The artist: Tom Beddard, an English web-developer currently operating his own company Hyper Digital Ltd. out of Edinburgh, Scotland. The artifacts: a series of 3-D generative renderings he refers to as "Faberge Fractals". It was love at first sight.

Naturally, I wasted no time in visiting Tom's Subblue studio, where I was delighted to find more 3D generatives, and, better still, a whole slew of animations, which he describes as: "rendered using raymarching in the same way as the Mandelbox and Mandelbulb fractals. The formulas follow similar processes of folding, scaling, rotating and inverting the space to give the final shape."

Soon, links to his animations will be embedded on the sidebar of this blog, but, for now, Tom has kindly allowed me to include two of his animated gems... which appear at the end of this post. (Note: I've switched out the 2nd video, and replaced it another - I'm a sucker for soundtracks with my fractals - but, have left a link to the previous.)

In Tom's words, taken from Subblue: "I have a fascination with the aesthetics of detail and complexity that is the result of simple mathematical or algorithmic processes. For me the creative process is writing my own software and scripts to explore the resulting output in an interactive manner. The best outcomes are often the least expected!"

Hmmm... well, from the point of view of a primarily analog digital artist - which is, alas, what I am (out of sheer fear and laziness) - my question would be: but, where exactly does the muse crawl in? Because, you know it must.

Ah, well, I did find this quote from Tom (from this article): "You get an intuition about what equations lead to interesting results," he says. "Everything in 'Surface Area' comes from slowly changing just one parameter. And when it moves in and out of phase with some of the other parameters, certain structures pop out: some organic, some geometric, some classical and tree-like."

My guess: the intuition.

Faberge Fractal (from a series) - digital 3D Generative - Tom Beddard, 2012

Then again, looking at Tom's work, my inuition is that the muses - with Tom at the helm - have fashioned themselves ingenious little abodes... or, perhaps complex mechanisms which accomplish strange things when held in ones hands or above ones proverbial noggin. My suggestion to Tom? In two words: 3D printing!

When it comes to the sheer mechanics which produce fractal patterns, however, I am as much in the dark as anyone else. But, I find, the best way to approach fractal art, geometry, or anything else that smacks of complex mathematics, is to simply allow oneself to respond in much the same way as one might when gazing into the bifurcating whorls of a particularly intricate seashell... the awe, the palpable wonder... because the body can subliminally and inherently grasp what the mind - with all its pre-conceived notions and emotions - cannot. The body understands all geometrical configurations because its ability to function depends upon them; from the division of a cell to the algorithmic arrangement of atoms, the body is a complex, exquisitely fine-tuned geometrical expression in motion. In other words, truly "seeing" is a holistic, whole-body experience.

And, a body loves fractals. They are keys to the Transdimensional, and, hence, keys to the Ancient-Future I've been grappling with.

But, you're going to have to read between the lines on that one. I think I've left enough clues. Meanwhile, forget all of that, and let your aetheric body and/or your pineal body (via your eye-sockets) wander amid the fractal animations below. They will thank you for it.

Welcome to an Ancient Future!

Music Box by Tom Beddard - Soundtrack by J. Saunders

Surface Detail (& soundtrack) by Tom Beddard - Previously shown: Window Well 

For more of Beddard's fractal animations, go here... or, visit his blog, and/or his pages on Twitter, and Flickr.

And, do keep an eye on his sites Subblue, and Fractal Lab; he's promising "some very big new stuff " in the near future!

Thanks, Tom!

Next in the Ancient-Future series: More artifacts!