In this article we will continue our discussion of the geometry of molecular minerals, moving from the geometry of water (tetrahedra and icosahedra) to the geometry of ice (hexagonal).
Cathie E. Guzetta writes, “The forms of snowflakes and faces of flowers may take on their shape because they are responding to some sound in nature. Likewise, it is possible that crystals, plants, and human beings may be, in some way, music that has taken on visible form.”
Always remember Cymatics when it comes to understanding how and why atoms, molecules and minerals arrange themselves geometrically. Also remember how everything in reality is fundamentally a sine wave, or an oscillating sine wave curled in on itself forming a toroidal vortex pattern. These waves, by their very nature, form geometric patterns that physical material coalesces and crystallizes upon.
“The first thing which will come to our notice will be the absolute uniformity with which every species of [crystals], from the tiniest prism to the largest example, demonstrates in every dimension and angle that it has been the creature of polar force from its earliest inception, and this is equally true whether we choose an aged and hoary quartz, older perhaps than mankind itself, or a whirling snow-flake formed and reformed while making its one terrestrial journey from the dull, gray, wintry cloud that conceived it through a few short seconds to the drift where it joins its storm-born mates.”1
Snow Crystals (Snowflakes)
Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht is a professor of physics and department chairman at the California Institute of Technology. Much of his work is done on the properties of ice crystals and the structure of snowflakes.
Dr. Libbrecht has more of a mainstream viewpoint of science, yet he is vastly knowledgeable about snow crystals.
A snow crystal is “a single crystal of ice, within which the water molecules are all lined up in a precise hexagonal array.”2
A snow crystal appears when “water vapor in the air converts directly into ice without first becoming liquid water. As more vapor condenses onto a nascent snow crystal, it grows and develops, and that is when its ornate patterns emerge.”3
Dr. Libbrecht asserts on his website that there are no mysterious forces involved in the creation of snowflakes. He claims the complex symmetrical shapes form from the snow crystal falling and tumbling through the clouds and the ever-changing temperatures and humidities, making each crystal grow differently.
His explanation seems a bit reductionist and it falls back on the dogma that everything [including the geometrically precise and detailed works of art] is formed from random chance and chaos.
We do not agree with this assertion, yet Dr. Libbrecht is certainly entitled to his opinion.
Dr. Libbrecht steers clear of anything not firmly rooted in mainstream scientific dogma. He claims Dr. Emoto was committing fraud with his Messages from Water, but admits he is just guessing and has not tried to replicate his experiments. He believes the idea is ‘too outrageous’ to even consider.
Dr. Libbrecht says, “The growth behavior of ice depends on the molecular structure and dynamics at the crystal surface, and this is all so complicated that no one really understands it. Although science has made great advances in understanding the secrets of the Universe, there remains a bit of mystery still in these remarkable ice structures.”
Although he adamantly denies any blueprint, code, plan, predetermined design, mysterious forces, quantum or acoustical effects that guide the snow crystals as they grow…he readily admits there is mystery in these beautiful awe-inspiring structures.
No mysterious forces, yet there is mystery? Despite this cognitive dissonance he sure knows how to photograph them.
The Mystery of Snow Crystals. Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
If we return out attention to Cymatics for a moment, however, we see that various frequencies automatically create various geometries. The higher the frequency, the more complex the geometry. We have laid sufficient groundwork in Cosmic Core for the reality of an Aether. Remember, according to the work of Dr. Harold Aspden, the Aether is a matrix of oscillating fluid-crystals at the tiniest imaginable scale. The Aether has both fluid-like properties and crystallized properties. The Aether is also a matrix of interference waves as everything in reality oscillates back and forth from time/space to space/time. Oscillation creates interference patterns; interference patterns create standing waves; standing waves create geometry; physical ‘matter’ coalesces and condenses upon these geometric Aether flow fields.
Snow crystals give us a good physical, visible example of how this works.
Cymatics Patterns. Geometry is embedded within vibration and frequency.
Remember, we are exploring these concepts on every scale and finding the harmonic unity among them that could not possibly be a result of random chance. This explains why we see the same geometry showing up on every scale. It is all based on regular polygons and regular polyhedra (Platonic solids) and their associated combinations, truncations and stellations, because the Aether, at the tiniest scale creates these geometries. Each of these geometries are fractal-holographic in nature. They can fit inside one another, or around one another growing smaller or larger in any direction to infinity.
We have seen the same geometry at the scale of subquantum, quantum, atomic, molecular, and mineral. We also see it on a solar, galactic and galactic cluster scale.
We will continue to see it in all scales as we move through Cosmic Core.
Now let’s look at some of the myriad forms that snow crystals take.
Libbrecht’s Crystal classifications4
As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “How full of the creative genius is the air in which these are generated! I should hardly admire more if real stars fell and lodged on my coat.”
- Simple prisms
- hexagonal prism – most basic snow crystal geometry
- Stellar plates
- common snowflakes
- thin, plate-like crystals with six broad arms that form a star-like shape
- faces are often decorated with elaborate and symmetrical markings
- plate-like snowflakes form when the temperature is near -2° C (28F) or near -15° C (5F)
- Sectored plates
- stellar plates often show distinctive ridges that point to the corners between adjacent prism facets
- when these ridges are especially prominent, the crystals are called sectored plates
- Stellar dendrites
- dendritic means “tree-like” so stellar dendrites are plate-like snow crystals that have branches and side branches
- these are fairly large crystals typically 2-4 mm in diameter; easily seen with the naked eye
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Fernlike stellar dendrites
- sometimes the branches of stellar crystals have so many side branches they look a bit like ferns
- the largest snow crystals often falling to earth with diameters of 5 mm or more
- in spite of their large size, these are single crystals of ice – the water molecules are lined up from one end to the other
- the best powder snow; these crystals can be extremely thin and light so they make a low density snow pack
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Hollow columns
- hexagonal columns often form with conical hollow regions in their ends, and such forms are called hollow columns
- these crystals are small
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Needles
- needles are slender, columnar ice crystals that grow when the temp is around -5°C (23F)
- one of the amazing things about snow crystals is that their growth changes from thin, flat plates to long, slender needles when the temp changes by just a few degrees
- why this happens remains something of a scientific mystery
- Capped columns
- these crystals first grow into stubby columns and then blow into a region of the clouds where the growth becomes plate-like
- the result is two thin, plate-like crystals growing on the ends of an ice column
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Double plates
- a double plate is basically a capped column with an especially short central column
- the plates are so close together that one grows out faster and shields the other from its source of water vapor
- the result is one large plate connected to a much smaller one
- these crystals are common
- Split plates and stars
- forms of double plates, except that part of one plate grows large along with part of the other plate
- Triangular crystals
- plates sometimes grow as truncated triangles when the temp is near -2 C (28F)
- if the corners of the plates sprout arms, the result is an odd version of a stellar plate crystal
- these crystals are relatively rare
- no one knows why snow crystals grow into these 3 fold symmetrical shapes
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- 12-sided snowflakes
- sometimes capped columns form with a 30 degree twist
- the two end plates are both six branched crystals but one is rotated 30 degrees relative to the other
- a form of crystal twinning, in which two crystals grow joined in a specific orientation
- these are quite rare
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Bullet rosettes
- the nucleation of an ice grain sometimes yields multiple crystals all growing together at random orientations
- when the different pieces grow into columns, the result is called a bullet rosette
- these polycrystals often break up to leave isolated bullet-shaped crystals
- Radiating dendrites
- when the pieces of a polycrystal grow out into dendrites, the result is called a radiating dendrite (or spatial dendrite)
- Rimed crystals
- clouds are made of countless water droplets, and sometimes these droplets collide with and stick to snow crystals
- the frozen droplets are called rime
- all the different types of snow crystals can be found decorated with rime
- blobs of rime are called graupel
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht
- Irregular crystals
- small, usually clumped together and show little symmetry seen in stellar or columnar crystals
- Artificial snow
- snow machines shoot out a mixture of water and compressed air out of nozzles
- the water comes out as fine droplets and the air cools as it decompresses, causing the droplets to freeze
- a fan blows the ice particles onto the slopes
- artificial snow is made of frozen water droplets, with none of the elaborate structure found in real snow crystals
“When we consider the great height at which these fragile forms are first outlined, and how they are hurled from their cloudy couch by the whirlwind, buffeted from first to last by the storm, subjected to sudden differences of temperature, and deposited where chance wills, it seems incredible that any of them should reach the ground in a state of perfection, nor could we hope to find a single specimen intact were it not for the fact that the law of polar force never for a moment leaves them in their wanderings nor ceases to exercise its formative and controlling influence. They start at first with a simple or primitive design, and, as moisture is added and temperatures change, this becomes more and more elaborate, the ever-present force constantly remodeling, readjusting, and restoring each tiny flake to the very end.”5
Snow crystal under a low-temp scanning electron microscope. Credit: Agricultural Research Service – United States Department of Agriculture
Wilson Alwyn “Snowflake” Bentley
Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) is one of the first known photographers of snowflakes. He poetically described them as ‘tiny miracles of beauty’ and ‘ice flowers’. He captured over 5,000 images of crystals in his life time.
Samuel Colman writes, “Mr. W.A. Bentley of Vermont has devoted his life to the development of the science of micro-photography particularly as applied to the study of snow crystals, and he has succeeded in producing wonderful results. A collection of his prints should be in the hands of every student of beauty of design. Among the thousand or more examples secured by him, not a duplicate has been found.”6
Kenneth Libbrecht says of Bentley’s work, “he did it so well that hardly anybody bothered to photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years.”
Bentley snowflakes
Gyorgy Doczi points out that “each snowflake is restricted to one pattern, repeated and reflected twelve times.”
Credit: Gyorgy Doczi – The Power of Limits, 1981
Samuel Colman in Nature’s Harmonic Unity, uses Bentley’s examples of snow crystals for his geometric analyses. His illustrations are directly taken from micro-photographs, precisely as the flakes fell from above.
A Bentley snowflake, 1890
He notes that “every important proportion of this crystal, as in every other, is developed by the progressions of the angles of 60°, the square and the hexagon.”7
We will take a look at several of Colman’s examples here.
Colman reminds us, “The most important of all these laws of unity are the laws of repetition, continuity, and contrast, the latter disclosing the great value of simple or blank spaces in close proximity to those richly decorated or having many details, while curved lines are contrasted with straight ones, flat surfaces with sculptured forms, and intaglio with relief.
To study them reveals the fact that no object in Nature can be too small or insignificant for the artist’s careful attention, since many things seen only under the microscope prove to be among the most perfect examples of proportional form.”8
Conclusion
We have seen here some of the beautiful geometric shapes that snow crystals form as they freeze in our atmosphere. The vast majority are hexagonal in nature, yet there are also triangular, 12-pointed and other geometries as well.
We discussed above how these can form in our atmosphere (regarding the science of Cymatics).
Remember the atmosphere, the air, the wind, the rain, and everything upon the earth is composed of Aether. Aether is composed of fluid-crystals. It is no surprise that all physical matter forms geometrically if it is composed of a crystallized geometric matrix.
However, it is important to note that the geometry that forms in physical reality is often not perfect. Snow crystals are rarely perfectly symmetrical. They may look perfect to the eye yet they are not “perfect”. In just the same way, the human body is formed upon the golden ratio, yet no one human body will have all perfect ratios. When all humans are put together, the average (or humanity as a whole) more closely approximates “perfection” than any one individual.
This takes us back to Plato and his world of ideals – that is, the unseen, metaphysical source realm is the realm of ideals. In this realm everything exists in potentiation and in mental-construct concepts. As soon as those concepts are translated into physical reality, they lose some of their “perfection”. This is because of the various complex and turbulent forces involved in its creation.
Temperature, wind, air pressure and humidity form the snowflakes in various ways, yet each of these are formed upon a template. The template is an ideal. It only exists in the mind or in consciousness in its perfected form. The turbulence of physical reality works on each individual creating it in its uniqueness, based on the ideal, but as a unique individual.
This holds true for the creation of snow crystals, human beings, plants, animals, insects, crystals, planets, stars, galaxies and galactic clusters – everything, in fact, in physical reality.
“We have all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Each snowflake takes the perfect form for the maximum efficiency and effectiveness for its journey. And while the universal force of gravity gives them a shared destination, the expansive space in the air gives each snowflake the opportunity to take their own path. They are on the same journey, but each takes a different path.
Along this gravity-driven journey, some snowflakes collide and damage each other, some collide and join together, some are influenced by wind… there are so many transitions and changes that take place along the journey of the snowflake. But, no matter what the transition, the snowflake always finds itself perfectly shaped for its journey.
I find parallels in nature to be a beautiful reflection of grand orchestration. One of these parallels is of snowflakes and us. We, too, are all headed in the same direction. We are being driven by a universal force to the same destination. We are all individuals taking different journeys and along our journey, we sometimes bump into each other, we cross paths, we become altered… we take different physical forms. But at all times we too are 100% perfectly imperfect. At every given moment we are absolutely perfect for what is required for our journey. I’m not perfect for your journey and you’re not perfect for my journey, but I’m perfect for my journey and you’re perfect for your journey. We’re heading to the same place, we’re taking different routes, but we’re both exactly perfect the way we are.”9
“There are no ‘facts’ – there is only the fact that humanity, every man and woman everywhere in the world, is on their way to ordination. Some take the long route and some take the short route. Everyone is working out their destiny in their own way and nobody can be of help except by being kind, generous and patient.” ~ Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
- Colman, Samuel, Nature’s Harmonic Unity: A Treatise on Its Relation to Proportional Form, Forgotten Books, 2017
- Snowflake Science, http://www.snowcrystals.com/science/science.html
- ibid.
- http://www.snowcrystals.com/guide/guide.html
- Colman, Samuel, Nature’s Harmonic Unity: A Treatise on Its Relation to Proportional Form, Forgotten Books, 2017
- ibid.
- ibid.
- ibid.
- Maraboli, Steve, Life, the Truth, and Being Free, A Better Today Publishing, 2009
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