I'm sure we can agree the rose (and "rotations") has different interpretations. A passage on the "Rose" (sometimes "Lily") opens the Zohar. The rose was the symbol of Isis (and her name means "Throne".. the rose throne? "Shekhinah", the female aspect of the Divine presence to the Jews).
The stained glass window shows what I'm about to get into well. The geometry is based on 4/8/16. "Phyllotaxis" is the scientific term for how petals and leaves arrange on plants. The arrangement "rotates" each tier (or layer) to fill the gaps left by the previous tier. Some plants form spirals which follow the fibonacci sequence.
I like this version of Fludd's rose. Beside it is an Indian yantra. It's a modern creation, but its true to the source material:
This "phyllotaxis" also describes the geometry I'm always going on about. The division of the circumference into 6 parts, represent the points of the hexagon, cube, and star of david. That is just the beginning of the construction.. the next tier is comprised of 6 circles at the intersections of the first six, and the next tier follows suit. But the 4th tier changes, there are now 12 intersections/circles. After 3 tiers of 12, its 18. So for every 3 rotations, you add another six circles, which turn out to be the points of a another hexagon/cube. When you expand this enough, and consider the center of the circles, what you are left with is in geometry called an "overlapping circle grid". The image on the left is a partial construction (far enough to plot the tree of life and tetraktys), and on the right is something I did a long time ago, almost at my very beginning, based on the grid. I've always called it the Rose Cube/Rose Cross:
I've discussed the solar wheel (specifically related to this geometry) quite a bit so I won't get into it again.
So.. Macrocosm, Tau Cross, Rose. I'm pretty sure Levi would have been thinking of Franckenberg's tau-rose from "Tabula Universalis Theosophica Mystica et Cabalistica":
In light of all the above, here's another image I actually came across before re-writing this reply:
Whats my point with all this? Francis Yates in "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" (Ficino's Natural Magic) gets pretty warm.. She's not talking about the images I discuss all the time, but I think this is close to describing the "tradition" behind them all. This is heavily chopped up for the relevant parts:
I think looking east fills in some details. The "science of yantras" is 100% concerned with geometry and the "ritual" construction of the yantras, combined with contemplation/meditation, and what it does for the mind. And this is totally related to the practices of Lull and Bruno. That's what Bruno's diagrams are.. Yantras.
Here's a major Greek connection to the beehive for the Masons:
The bee is a favorite topic of mine:
I would mention since I brought up Isis/Shekhinah, that Wadjet/Eye of Ra is also feminine.
Bookmarks