Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body's Inner Intelligence (34 page)

Figure 8.3
Hindu Sri Yantra

We know that everything is connected—our cells and molecules; mind, body, and spirit; modern science and ancient wisdom—in a grand design. Albert Einstein said, “We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.” I’ve often thought this meant that he saw God as the generator of design. All life forms share the same secret codes and mysterious magic. We are sacred through and through, all the way down to our molecules. In the evolution of our new science, emphasis on quantum physics, energy, and the sacred has taken center stage. Yet consider that the formless energy of the quantum had to take form in our cells and molecules—and what divine forms, signs, and symbols we ourselves have become.

In closing this chapter, I will leave you with two symbols to reflect on, one ancient and one modern. The ancient symbol that first sparked my notion that the wisdom of the cells was hidden in plain sight in ancient structures and art was the medicine wheel I mentioned in the preface.
I saw this pictograph as representing a cell as well as the whole of life. Later I interpreted the three lines placed at each of the four directions as representing our centrioles, the magic triplets that direct our cells and thus our lives (see
plate 4
in color insert).

The second symbol, a product of science and modern technology, was the other image that piqued my imagination early on. This is a computer graphic of the atomic structure of DNA we first saw in the preface (see
plate 5
in color insert). It was created by professor emeritus Robert Langridge who was founder and director of the UCSF Computer Graphics Laboratory. Most people who see it think it’s a painting of a mandala. Did this basic structure provide the inner inspiration for mandalas? People long ago often used circular mandalas to help them focus their minds and connect with the divine. Looking at this image could certainly do the same.

Then the people looked beyond their dwellings and fires and saw something infinitely more than the tangible world. They saw that the spiritual realm is the crystal mirror of the cosmos. What is seen reflects the essence of things not visible in the tangible world. . . . Then at times I enter the spiritual realm at its source. . . . And my own spirit soars!

— ANNA LEE WALTERS
The Spirit of Native America

In this chapter I have offered the provocative idea that sacred art emerges from a direct knowing of the divine design of life. I have come to believe that it does. Also in the chapter, I have invited you to test the cells’ “code of three” in your own life—to experiment with harnessing nature’s creative power for your own growth and transformation.

In the next chapter we will conclude our journey by revisiting the winding trail we have traveled together as we have gained an intimate knowledge of the tiny sanctuaries of life that are common to us all.

Plate 1
First cell photograph: Human white blood cell recognizing and discovering?smaller? cells?from?another?species

Plate 2
Vitamin B12

Plate 3a
Earth, round, feminine—calcium phosphate associated with Capricorn

Plate 3b
Water, fluid, feminine—calcium fluoride associated with Cancer

Plate 3c
Air, linear, masculine—sodium phosphate associated with Libra

Plate 3d
Fire, illumination, spirit, masculine—silica associated with Sagittarius

Plate 4
Medicine wheel pictograph

Plate 5
Computer graphic of DNA; image by Robert Langridge

Plate 6
Sucrose, sweet taste

Plate 7
Malic acid, sour taste