Draw every line between the fruit's thirteen circles, and all five solids fall out at once.
The Form
Metatron's Cube is derived from the Flower of Life. Take thirteen circles arranged in the pattern sometimes called the Fruit of Life — a central circle ringed by twelve — and connect the center of every circle to the center of every other with straight lines. From this web of connections a remarkable figure emerges, a two-dimensional diagram that nonetheless contains, in its overlapping lines, the outlines of all five Platonic solids: the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, and dodecahedron can each be traced within it. It is the moment the flowing circles of sacred geometry crystallize into the straight-edged bodies of solid form.
The figure is named for Metatron, the archangel who in Jewish mystical tradition stands nearest the throne, the scribe and the voice of the divine record. As the circles give way to lines and the elemental solids appear, the diagram reads as the passage from the fluid to the fixed, from potential to structure, presided over by the angel who bridges the eternal and the made.
Correspondences
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Derived from | Flower of Life (Fruit of Life) |
| Base circles | Thirteen |
| Construction | All centers connected by straight lines |
| Contains | All five Platonic solids |
| Attribution | The archangel Metatron |
Meaning
Metatron's Cube is the hinge between the two great families of sacred form, the circle and the polyhedron, unity and structure. In it the soft repeating circles of the Flower of Life give birth to the hard, elemental solids, and so it is read as the point where the template of creation becomes the architecture of matter. Its association with Kabbalah runs deep: Metatron is the angel of the divine presence, and his cube is imagined as a container or vessel of creative geometry, close kin to the map of emanation traced by the Tree of Life. To study it is to watch the four elements and the quintessence emerge together from a single connected field, all form folded into one drawn figure.