Working With This Sacred, Ancient Symbol Can Foster Balance & Unity (2024)

Flowers are an important part of the Earth's biota, with their life-giving beauty and medicinal properties—but they may be important to understand the fabric of existence as well.And the flower of life, an ancient sacred geometric symbol, may also contain the secrets of the universe.

What is the flower of life?

The flower of life is one of the most recognized symbols in the ancient and modern world. The sacred geometric pattern consists of 19 intersecting circles spaced evenly from each other that reveal an intricate pattern of overlapping symmetrical flowers.

The striking visual is meant to represent creation, the sacred masculine and divine feminine, and cycles of life, death, and rebirth. Some believe the flower of life is also a key that can unlock hidden knowledge of time and space within its petal-like structures.

"At baseline, it is a geometric form of perfect—and some would say divine—proportion," intuitive energy healer and author of Energy Work for the Everyday to Elite Athlete Cyndi Dale tells mindbodygreen. "The flower of life is a beautiful and ancient symbol that has been depicted in many cultures across time. It's found in Egyptian, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and Judaic artwork, religious structures, and manuscripts," she adds.

Based on Assyrian relics, historians can date the flower of life to 645 B.C. Beyond its earliest origins, author of Sacred Geometry: How To Use Cosmic Patterns To Power Up Your Life Jemma Foster shares that the flower of life can also be found in countless temples and sacred sites across the globe, like the 5,000-year-old walls of the Osirian temple in Egypt, where it is burned into the stone as if by laser.

"We can consider the flower of life as the original blueprint for life, a cosmic generator or amplifier that supports and sustains all living things," Foster says.

Meaning and symbolism of the flower of life.

"The flower of life represents the cycle of creation and the interconnectedness of all life," Dale says. Spiritually, the symbol can be used as a focus for attaining a sense of enlightenment and the awareness of peace. "It can also be used symbolically as a pathway to seek our personal and unique purpose within the greater universe," she adds.

Beyond its spiritual implications, Dale explains the flower of life also has associations with the chakra system—the main energy centers of the body. When there are no blockages and energy can effortlessly course throughout the entire body, it enables balance to exist between the mind, body, and soul. When looking at the geometric symbol, she says the image is seen to contain the seven chakras aligned in the middle.

"The reason that we typically link a lotus with a chakra—with different chakras shown with different numbers of petals—is that chakras are energetic. Based on nerve plexuses, they each spin at a different rate. Each chakra manages a specific bandwidth of energy, measured by color or sound," she says.

As such, we can work with these sacred patterns to boost our energetic health. Because the flower of life is the visual connection between all living things, it's said to have many benefits. And to reap those benefits, some recommend meditating on the image or wearing the symbol as jewelry to raise your vibration or even as a form of protection.

The flower of life in sacred geometry.

"Sacred geometry is the underlying form or geometry in nature—and not only the environment on Earth but in the cosmos," Dale explains to mindbodygreen, elaborating that the flower of life is considered sacred because these formations are considered one of the most significant patterns in the universe.

If you peer closer at the flower of life, inside you'll see many sacred forms nestled within. Dale notes the structure includes the tree of life systems, a universal code known as the Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Ratio of Phi (a mathematical radio that shows up constantly in nature), and Megatron's cube—which carries the five platonic solids, or foundational shapes of all organic life.

"It is thought that the flower of life holds a secret within it—a circle, which in many cultures, is considered the 'zero point' or the 'origin' of us all," Dale says. "This is the Oneness that ties us together."

What makes the flower of life so meaningful is how it potentially supports emerging scientific theories today. "Recent offshoots of quantum and 'spiritual' physics are suggesting that the universe is conscious, sort of a quantum information field with awareness and that all the energy or data that have ever existed is stored in geometric forms within it," she continues. "We are composed of these same forms and can exchange data with the universe because of it."

How to use the flower of life.

"The flower of life is a key ally in raising and protecting the energetic quality that you and your environment are operating at," Foster says.

To mobilize its creative energy, Foster also advises placing the flower of life in your space or onto objects. "This means to come into coherence and to move out of dissonance. [It] brings the surrounding area or object into greater coherence, for example, to restructure water, or to help negate some of the negative dissonances of a laptop," she adds.

The takeaway.

The flower of life has mysterious historical and spiritual origins, and there's still much we can learn about this incredible artifact. For now, it's a great tool to remind us we are all inextricably connected together.