Tangle Cube

Tangle Cube, a photo by escher is still alive on Flickr.

I expect like most people, or at least those that are reading this (;-)) you often go for strolls around the park, woods, fields, streets and lanes around where you live. Once spring has sprung those places that you wander through change from moment to moment. Grasses grow tall, wild flowers reach for the sky, everything is in leaf and green.

A revisit to any of those places a few days, a week or a fortnight later and you'll see everything taller, seed heads developing, the undergrowth becoming more tangled and dense like a miniature jungle.

It isn't just something you see, it is something you feel, right through to your very core. Moist air full of buzzing insects and all life looking for chances to reach further, colonise, grow and develop and to bring along the next generation.

Amongst what I find so magical is the blueprints that underpin all life. Road maps and assembly instructions that say to each component part 'do this and repeat until you cannot do any more.'

Plants build spirals and circles and all manner of intricate symmetries. Cells build upon cells and those simple instructions to duplicate, replicate and grow lead to all manner of specialities and magical things. So amongst all that tangled undergrowth, whilst our own cells are a-buzz with the headiness of high summer, lies such richness, diversity and complexity. Complexity consisting of simplicity, beauty and regularity.

All life is a fusion of these two things. Complexity and simplicity, order and seemingly random chaosity. The order and the disarray, the turmoil and the calm, the tumult and the peace.

The tangle and the cube.

Apologies for the watermark, I hate them! But unfortunately it has become necessary to try and protect them a little more (not that it will stop everyone) but I still want to share regardless!