MORNING SENTINEL • September 29, 2021
Around 1600, Johannes Kepler, while searching for the harmonies in the celestial spheres long before anyone knew what a galaxy is, noticed that flower parts grow in spirals. Botanists call it spiral phyllotaxis: Leaves on a stem and the structures inside a seed tend to form at a particular angle to each other, about 137.5 degrees. That angle was well-known to ancient mathematicians and artists. It had a name: The golden ratio. It was understood to be a fundamental pattern of beauty in nature and art. The golden ratio underlies the structure of pine cones, sunflower seeds and shellfish, Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings and the Parthenon. It’s in the spiral arms of distant galaxies, too. Somehow your eye imbibes it, and in late summer it wheels and dances in your mind like a kaleidoscope of billions and billions of goldenrods, sunflowers and other asters. ~ Dana Wilde