Skip to content →

/ˈflaʊ.ər əv laɪf/

Flower of Life

proper noun · sacred geometry

A hexagonal pattern of nineteen evenly spaced overlapping circles of equal radius, in which every circle passes through the centres of the six neighbouring circles around it. The canonical figure of sacred geometry and the parent construction from which the Seed of Life, the vesica piscis, and Metatron's Cube are derived.

What it is

The Flower of Life is the most parsimonious circle-packing of the plane: every circle is identical, and each one's centre sits at the perimeter of its six neighbours. The construction can be generated with compass alone — draw any circle, then place six more circles using the first circle's perimeter intersections, then a second ring of twelve circles around those. The standard published figure is bounded at the second ring and contains nineteen complete circles arranged in a hexagonal envelope.

Within the Flower of Life sit every figure most commonly grouped under "sacred geometry": the vesica piscis (the lens between any two adjacent circles), the Seed of Life (the central seven-circle subset), the Tree of Life (an extracted Kabbalistic figure), and Metatron's Cube (the figure linking the centres of the thirteen non-edge circles, which contains the projections of all five Platonic solids).

Flower of Life: nineteen overlapping circles arranged hexagonally
The complete Flower of Life: nineteen circles, hexagonally packed, with the central seed circle highlighted.

Etymology

The English phrase "Flower of Life" was coined by Drunvalo Melchizedek in The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life (Light Technology Publishing, 1999), which standardised the name now used worldwide. The figure itself is older. A drawing of the pattern survives on a red-granite column in the Temple of Osiris at Abydos, Egypt — incised at an unknown date but documented in situ since the 19th century. Leonardo da Vinci recorded compass studies of the same packing in his notebooks (Codex Atlanticus, c. 1490, folio 309v).

Examples in use

The Abydos Flower of Life — six overlapping circles burned into the red-granite column in the Osireion at the Temple of Seti I — was photographed and catalogued by John Anthony West in Serpent in the Sky (Harper & Row, 1979) and remains the figure's most-cited ancient occurrence, though the inscription's date is disputed (the column itself dates to the 13th century BCE; the burned-in figure is likely a later addition, possibly from the Ptolemaic or early Coptic period).

In Islamic geometric ornament, the same hexagonal circle packing generates the twelve-pointed star tilings that cover the muqarnas vaults of the Alhambra (c. 1370) and the dome of the Friday Mosque in Isfahan (c. 1088). Eric Broug's Islamic Geometric Patterns (Thames & Hudson, 2008) shows the step-by-step compass constructions linking the Flower of Life to these decorative systems.

See also: Seed of Life · Vesica piscis · Metatron's Cube · Sacred geometry · Flower of Life overlay · Sacred geometry tool

References

  1. Melchizedek, Drunvalo. The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life, Volume 1. Light Technology Publishing (1999). ISBN 1-891824-17-1.
  2. da Vinci, Leonardo. Codex Atlanticus (c. 1478–1519), folio 309v. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.
  3. Broug, Eric. Islamic Geometric Patterns. Thames & Hudson (2008). ISBN 978-0-500-28721-7.
  4. Lawlor, Robert. Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice. Thames & Hudson (1982). ISBN 0-500-81030-3.
  5. West, John Anthony. Serpent in the Sky. Harper & Row (1979). ISBN 0-06-090949-4.

Sarah Chen

Founder of Grid Maker Pro. Classical portrait painter (BA Fine Arts). Writes about composition, drawing methods, and the art-history claims that don't survive measurement.

Updated · Methodology