Seven circles, seven days — the pattern that remembers how the week was made.
The Form
The Seed of Life is the first stage of the Flower of Life, a figure of seven circles: one at the center and six around it, each of the outer circles passing through the middle of the others so that they interlock in perfect sixfold symmetry. It is drawn as a natural sequence. From a single circle, a second is struck with its center on the first's edge, and the pattern continues around until six petals close symmetrically upon the seventh central circle. Nothing about it is arbitrary; each step follows inevitably from the compass and the spacing of the one before.
Within the Seed the eye finds the Vesica Piscis at every overlap, and the whole radiant figure resolves into a rosette of six almond-shaped petals framing a central hexagon. It is the compact origin from which the wider Flower of Life grows outward, the initial bloom that already holds the logic of the full lattice. Small and self-complete, it is the pattern's first breath.
Correspondences
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Construction | Seven overlapping circles |
| Symmetry | Sixfold |
| Petals | Six, around one center |
| Precedes | Flower of Life |
| Symbolism | The seven days of creation |
Meaning
The Seed of Life is most often read through the seven days of creation, its seven circles standing for the six days of forming and the seventh of rest, the whole week of Genesis condensed into a single flowering figure. Six creative acts turn around a central point of completion, and the geometry enacts the story: unity gives rise to the surrounding six, which return to close upon the one. This makes the Seed an emblem of beginning, of the ordered unfolding of the world out of a first circle, and of the rhythm by which creation moves toward rest. As the germ of the Flower of Life, it carries in miniature the promise of everything the larger pattern will become.