To my mind, the most beautiful thing in the world is patterns. They are restful, mesmerizing, they leave me awe-struck, and draw me in to the vastness and simplicity of the universe.

Patterns are comfortable and comforting. At their heart, they are simple and predictable. We can relax into their rhythm with full abandon and let them align us to ourselves.

Patterns draw us into awe

by building upon themselves to create more complex patterns that challenge our brain and stimulate our creativity. And when a pattern becomes too complex to understand, there is always a simpler pattern within it. Finding the simpler pattern is what we call having “perspective.”

When two patterns interact with each other, life gets interesting. When we add motion to a circle, it becomes a spiral. When we add motion again, it becomes a spiral moving through time, leaving a trail across its drawing page like a stretched-out slinky.

Motion is simply a pattern of time, which can be tapped out like a drumbeat. And once we have a drum beater in our hand, we can change the pattern of time – for ourselves, for the space that surrounds us, for a moments or an hour or two, nestled within the immeasurable complexity of the universe which brought us to where we are.

Within that space of time in which we find ourselves, we can change the drumbeat for a little while, which causes the spiral to leave a different trail as it moves across its cosmic page. It causes the circle to stretch at a different pace and grow into a spiral of a different form.

If the circle is me, and the spiral is my life moving through time, I can change the shape of my life in a drumbeat or a heartbeat. I can do this in strength and curiosity because it is all being held – I am being held – in the immense and beautiful pattern of the universe.

This awareness of my own participation in the dynamic shaping of the patterns is where I enter ecstasy and divine bliss.