THE FIVE PLATONIC SOLIDS
AND THE FLOWER OF LIFE

The building blocks of form and creation are the Five Platonic Solids. Plato discovered these to be the only shapes in which all sides, edges, and angles are all congruent, meaning they are all exactly the same, and there can only be five. These basic shapes are interwoven within the Flower of Life and are the underlying shapes of our physical existence.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:  CUBE, TETRAHEDRON, OCTAHEDRON, ICOSAHEDRON, DODECAHEDRON

These shapes are the most perfect geometric forms that can be created. Within each platonic solid can be seen another depending on the perspective in which it is observed.

The star tetrahedron fits inside the cube with its 8 points touching the inner corners of the cube. The octahedron, the icosahedron and the dodecahedron will also fit perfectly inside the cube.

Rotate the cube and it takes form of the outer edges of the icosahedron seen as a hexagon. Rotate the icosahedron and it takes form of the outer edges of a dodecahedron seen as a pentagon. If you take one form and nest it inside another, the points of the one inside will touch each of the inner faces of the other.

For instance, the 6 points of the octahedron, if fit inside the cube, will touch each of the inner 6 faces of the cube. The 12 points of the icosahedron, if fit inside the dodecahedron, will touch each of the inner 12 faces of the dodecahedron.

The 4 points of the tetrahedron, if turned upside down and fit inside another tetrahedron, will touch each of the 4 inner faces of the outer one. There are many ways to find these interwoven similarities in which they all form into each other.

So how do these fit into this ancient mandala?

Take another look below and see if you can see one of them ‘pop’ out at you.

Can you see the cube?

The Cube

The Octahedron

The Tetrahedron which is shown here as a Star Tetrahedron

The Icosahedron

And the Dodecahedron

This one is not as difficult as it seems. It is based on Metatron’s Cube which is made by taking all the central points of the first 13 core circles of the Flower of Life (called the Fruit of Life) and connecting them together. Within those lines you get the dodecahedron.

Metatron’s Cube

MORE >>

Resources / Sacred Geometry

This page is an excerpt from "Sacred Geometry - A Geometric Universe" by Gabriel Ensign