Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves on different scales. Like Russian dolls, or people coming out of people! The term Fractal is being used in so many ways now, from the stock market to cosmological physics, but what does it mean to daily living?

I’ve seen some react to the idea that fractals have anything to do with things outside of numbers and geometry related to physics, as if patterns that repeat themselves can only exist in mathematics, given heady names like recursive or stochastic fractals.

However, a pattern that conceptually repeats itself can't really stop at borders if it's a pattern that repeats itself, as the very definition of it claims no boundaries.

As we are connected to Nature around us, and therefore wrapped within the cosmos too, our linearly trained minds have a hard time grasping what 'movement with no boundaries' means. No beginning and no end. Just endless, repeating patterns that morph their disguises.

The word ‘independence', interestingly, claims boundaries (I am independent from you, sovereign and unto myself), which simultaneously results in its opposite - freedom that claims fewer boundaries and greater movement. Which is a dichotomy I hadn’t considered before…

Further into my ramble, pondering the concept of Independence today, I was reminded of Burning Man. There is a kind of law of the people who come to the Playa, called Radical Self Reliance. It means that you Need to come prepared to entirely take care of yourself. Radical Self Reliance is a foundation of Burner ethic.

However, if you are in need, the community will absolutely take care of you, and this is true. In fact, I have noticed that I feel safer at festivals - even large ones like Burning Man - in the kind of community that these gatherings foster. At a moment’s notice, you will be helped by many if needed, and caring for everyone is the law of the Land.

Regardless of the fact that the ticket to Burning Man states that if you die there, it’s all on you, (sadly that occasionally happens), it is also simultaneously one of the safer places to be.

Another oddity of a dichotomy, and if compared to the concept of Independence, this can be considered a fractal because both the political example, and the social one, each mirror an ability to encompass one extreme - as well as its complete opposite - at the same time. Same pattern, entirely different expressions of it as played out in the world

This brought me around to realizing that Independence to me can mean building a force of Radical Self Reliance in regard to health. If we all amped up our health, we would not only be having a better life, we’d be creating a better culture, reducing stress on medical systems, oh, and so much more….In that way I’d take care of my independent self, as well as the Whole, so the boundary of self-focus simultaneously allows for the expansion of the greater whole… Hmmm.

And the planets? They are lining up tonight in a rare, celestial span this weekend. When I look at the moon and other planets, I can’t help but think that they are just like atoms and spinning electrons, and what if that’s just what this all is? The Fractal reality of the macrocosm of planets mirroring the microcosm of our inner world…continuing through vaster patterns than we can grasp.

Aligning our own inner energies - or chakras as many relate to - are being given a boost, I think, to take time to be with ourselves and contemplate what is happening in our stellar skies that are happening in our inner landscape. Our world could use a lot of alignment, and activism is also breathing that alignment into reality - individually, and therefore, collectively.

…and while this post isn’t particularly linear in itself, it still does follow a straight line about fractals, in a fractal kind of way. Sort of.

May the Independence you source for yourself, also become the source of expansion and inspiration for many, as we dance in the patterns of Independent Togetherness.