Entities, Environments, and Patterns

"In an organic environment,

every place is unique,

and the different places also cooperate,

with no parts left over,

to create a global whole;

a whole which can be identified

by everyone who is part of it.

In short, no pattern is

an isolated entity.

Each pattern can exist

in the world only to the extent

that is supported by other patterns:

the larger patterns in which

it is embedded, the patterns of

the same size that surround it,

and the smaller patterns

which are embedded in it."

- Christopher Alexander

(1936 - )

Interpenetrating Worlds

"Instead of negating the conflicting aspects of a paradox, you advance your understanding when you can hold both sides of a dichotomy in your mind at the same time, reconciling rather than negating. One could embrace paradox as an operating, operative principle, rather than seeking to deny or dissolve or dilute it. Rather than seeking to resolve dualisms and institute some grand ‘theory of everything’, the science of the imagination would embrace and explore paradox, going deeper into conundrums, relinquishing delusory attempts to achieve certainty. We may find that thought and language are creative aspects of being, tools for transforming reality. If the universe is actually a projection of subtler levels of the psyche- a loom of maya- then we may discover that the vibratory lattices of interpenetrating worlds elaborated by current physics are descriptions of the psyche itself, in its fully ensouled unfolding."

- Daniel Pinchbeck (1966 - )

Breaking Open the Head:

A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism