2005 · Ancient Canons · by Stephen Meakin
In 1611, Johannes Kepler conjectured that the maximum number of equal spheres you can pack around a single sphere is twelve. It took until 1998 to prove him right. Twelve is the structure of three-dimensional space — the number at which things are perfectly, completely surrounded.
Three is the first shape. The triangle is the simplest polygon — the minimum number of points required to enclose space. In the Flower of Life, the innermost arrangement resolves into three.
Twelve around three. The cosmos around the source.
Meakin built this on the Flower of Life — the same symbol found at Abydos, in Leonardo's notebooks, and at the heart of his Transformation mandala five years earlier — but here in its specific structural logic: twelve circles arranged around the inner three, the whole assembly dense and lace-like, ring after ring of overlapping form radiating outward, every circle passing through the centre of the ones beside it. The surface has the quality of something grown rather than constructed — organic in its mathematics, alive in its repetition.