The Seed of Life
Pure potentiality is known as the Isotropic Vector Matrix (IVM):
The IVM is the substrate of being. It’s the zero point, the balanced field before manifestation and the lattice that unconsciousness uses to incarnate. In a way, it’s before the unconscious—a deeper layer. It’s a bit like the soil that a seed germinates in.
In other words, the IVM is the secret precursor to life itself. The shadow of this pattern (its orthographic projection) is known as the Seed of Life. This represents creation or the root chakra (19 is a centred triangular number and a centred hexagonal number):
Above: projecting the IVM along a triangular axis yields this diagram
The Seed of Life is the moment where geometry is fully patterned but not yet reflective (the Lotus of Life adds the observer). So the seed doesn’t think. It unfolds according to encoded patterns. That’s Muladhara, or the root chakra.
Popular in spiritual communities, meditation and art this shape is often used as a tool for contemplation or as a visual representation of harmony and balance. The Seed of Life contains geometric shapes like the vesica piscis (overlapping circles) which are key to other sacred geometry patterns. It’s studied in fields like geometry and crystallography for its symmetry and tessellation properties.
Yet the matrix was without form, and void;
And shadow lay upon the face of the deep.
As pure potentiality, life arose as a seed.
The Temple of Osiris at Abydos contains the oldest known examples of the Seed of Life. They date back as far as 9,125 BCE. It appears as if they were burned into the granite. Other examples can be found in Phoenician, Assyrian and Indian cultures.
