Today was a quiet day. I really,  really like quiet. It gives me space and time to think and not think, and to just be.

But when I think about it, is it ever really completely quiet?  No. There is always sound. Always. And if I stop to listen, I will hear it.  The air conditioner running. The refrigerator. A bird calling. The wind. A far off truck rumbling down a highway.  Maybe even a lawnmower (although I rarely miss hearing those!!)

Really what I notice is the more still and quiet I am inside, the more I notice these other things that are present with me now. This is true for noticing the more subtle aspects of my personality as well. Things may go unnoticed–an irritation with someone, a nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right in a situation, a physical discomfort–until we get very quiet and still within.

I love a quote by William Butler Yeats,
“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.”

What more is there to say than that?

Remember the kaleidoscopes we had as a kid that were cardboard tubes with all sorts of things sandwiched between two pieces of plastic probably.  You could shake it and here them, and hold them up to your eye and twist the end to watch them tumble in the fractured, repeated image.

This reminds me of a concept I learned about nature that is pretty freaking amazing.  In nature there are these things called fractals. Fractals are patterns that repeat at every scale.  The pictured nautilus shell is an example, as is ice forming on a surface.

I learned that some trees follow fractal patterns–all the way from their cell structure, to the veins in the leaves, to how the leaves attach to branches, and branches to trunks and even how they grow in the forest.  That was an amazing discovery.

Here is an experiment you can do for yourself.

Take a look at a tree sometime.  Notice how the branches are positioned. Do they come out of the trunk directly opposite one another? Or do they come out all at one point? Or do they come out staggered up the trunk?

Now look at how the leaves are attached to the branches.  Do you notice that they are exactly positioned to the branch as the branch is to the trunk? And look at the veins on the leaves. Don’t they match this pattern as well?

I remember reading that the formation of how the trees grow in the forest (for some species at least) will match the pattern as well! That would certainly make it easier to anticipate where to look for a specific tree if using it for medicinal or dietary purposes.

I bet most people aren’t aware of these patterns in nature all around us.  And I believe that all life is a series of patterns that we miss, because we can’t see the whole picture or we don’t look closely enough. What might you notice if you looked for patterns of behavior, or patterns in societies? Might there be a bigger picture that we just haven’t noticed? And how might that help us live more peaceful and happy lives?

I have appreciated learning more about behavioral patterns through study of the Enneagram. Through this study, I have discovered ways that my personality runs on auto-pilot in specific ways. Seeing these patterns has helped me to alter my behavior toward more healthy ways of relating to myself and others. It has helped me to break bad habits as well.

For more about the Enneagram, check out the Enneagram Institute here.