Wednesday 10:00am - Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice (Online - short course)

This term we will begin exploring the geometry of five. Five fold symmetry is found everywhere in Nature - in flowers, fruits and in us! Pentagons and pentagrams contain the beautiful proportion known as the Golden Ratio. This in turn gives us the golden spiral and the series of numbers known as the Fibonacci sequence, which abounds in the natural world.

 Philosophy:

According to the ancients, numbers were more than quantities and revealed much more through their ‘qualities.’ Similarly the highest function of geometry was seen as a discipline through which the soul could be aided to rediscover or ‘re-member’ itself. Socrates stated that the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of that which is eternal and not that which comes and goes. What does it mean when he says that ‘geometry is the art of the ever-true?’

 Practice:

 To begin we will learn a variety of ways to draw a pentagon - allowing time and space to improve the accuracy of our work.

We will also learn how to draw a golden rectangle and a golden spiral.

Once we are more familiar with this ‘five-ness’ we shall construct one or two patterns based on five or tenfold symmetry.

Along the way there will be opportunities to explore, experiment and refine the use of colour.

From the tradition which has given us so much we have the words from Shri Shantananda Saraswati which are relevant for our exploration of geometry: “So the important thing is for the attention to be given; that is the prime factor in understanding anything. Anybody who wants to learn anything must attend.”