Wholeness Unfolding in the World

Here's an except from an interview the mystic architect, Christopher Alexander, did with Tricycle Magazine a while ago.... "In the grass there were a very small number of flowers, rather sparse. I think there was one blue flower and a few white flowers, but mainly it was grass. I was lying there looking at this, and the perfection of it gradually began to impress itself on me. There was a faint sense of light in each of the bits of grass. It wasn’t a revelation in any literal sense, and yet as I was looking through these grass stems, myself almost part of the grass, suddenly the thought came to me, So this is what you’re trying to do! What the grass does: it is effortlessly creating a beautiful and complex environment. And it isn’t just capable of it, but it is doing it, everywhere, and every day, and so easily. I was comforted, because the grass found it so easy. So there’s nothing for me to worry about at all. Even if I fail in my lifetime, it is so obvious. Surely people will understand it sooner or later. Alexander's 15 Universal Design Properties 01 Levels of Scale (a range of sizes) 02 Strong Centers 03 Boundaries 04 Alternating Repetition 05 Positive Space (no leftover bits) 06 Good Shape (e.g., well-proportioned fans, circles, squares) 07 Local Symmetries 08 Deep Interlock and Ambiguity 09 Contrast 10 Gradients (gradual changes in size, fine lines) 11 Roughness 12 Echoes 13 The Void 14 Simplicity and Inner Calm 15 Non-Separateness" Great stuff!