(continued from "The true nature of moments, Part I")

To help you visualize this unequivocally, Im providing the following simple fractal model demonstration.

First, get a strip of paper 1 inch wide and, perhaps two feet long. Choose paper stiff enough to hold shape when folded. Now, hold the paper strip flat (i.e. plane parallel to the floor) in front of you and fold the right end towards the left end and press the bend flat. This strip, in folded condition, is now just one foot long overall and can be said to have a new left end and a new right end. Repeat (re-iterate) this action, new right end to new left end, fold and press, with what will be an ever-diminishing length (and increasing total thickness) of folded paper strip until the resulting accumulated folded paper is of such a length and thickness that you cannot practically fold it again (folding 5 or 6 times will do it).

Next, open up and arrange the folded paper strip on a table, with the 1 width of the strip perpendicular to the table and with each of the bends adjusted to a 90-degree angle. Look at what youve made and you will see an example of the Dragon (this fractal has been popularized as the Jurassic Park fractal, so named because illustrations of it at increasing levels of iteration were inserted at the beginnings of chapters in Michael Crichtons book, Jurassic Park). In this demonstration, each folding of the strip is iteration; if you were able to do the folding five times, you iterated the strip five times.

As a model for the iteration of the One into the many, the first folding (iteration), in this example, symbolizes the dividing of One into two. The second folding (iteration) yields four, and each subsequent folding (iteration) yields double the previous number. If it were possible to fold 13 times (i.e. to the 13th iteration), youd create 8192 sections. However, the sum of them all would still equal the original piece of paper! By analogy, your own sum total of personal moments still equals Moment. Now, notice that the strip has not really been divided, as it is still a whole, or unbroken, strip of paper. The iteration resulted in the addition of new characteristics, or parameters, and these are what distinguish each part of the strip, one from another.

The Dragon fractal iteration parameters are 1) bend exactly in half, 2) to the left, 3) to a 90-degree angle. Notice the dramatic decrease in overall size of the fractal as the iteration increases, even though the totaled length of all the line segments per iteration remains the same. Now, look at the series in reverse (i.e., from greater iteration to lesser) and youll see a dramatic increase in size. This apparent increase in size is symbolic of the observation that consciousness catiterating towards Awareness is described accurately as expanding consciousness. Also note that the entire fractal appears to curl up counterclockwise over iteration levels (if the folding had all been done to the right, the curling would have been clockwise).

This means that, as a function of time, the iteration has a spin characteristic, which is yet another dimensional parameter. The gray circles in the first five iterations indicate the center point of the fractal for each of them. Additionally, for the first five iterations I have made one half of the construct white and the other half black so as to illustrate their correspondence.

Lets examine this fractal, and the exact nature of the iteration that produces it, closely because the details here are extremely crucial to understanding why making moments from Moment also produces a fractal. The iterative action has three parameters; segment length, angle and direction, meaning the fractal forms along three dimensions. In this fractal, the segment per iteration is half the length of segment(s) in the previous iteration, the angle is 90 degrees and the direction is left. As the fractal is iterated, you will notice right away that some resulting segments are oriented on a line that is neither left nor right, but is up and down. Because of this, I will refer to the left segments as west, the right segments as east, the up segments as north, and the down segments as south. However, the particular iteration parameter (i.e. folding or bending the paper without reference to the number of folds already performed, or their results) is always going to be left or right; it is the results of the iteration that are oriented in one of the four directions (east, west, north south) relative to the center point of the fractal.

If this sounds a little confusing, remember the first iteration, and assume that you started with the paper oriented linearly east-west. It was a fold from your right to your left, and when adjusted to the 90-degree angle, resulted in two segments, one oriented north-south and the other one oriented east-west. So even though the fold was a left, or west, fold, the results yielded one segment oriented in a different direction (north-south).

To make things more interesting, a study of this fractal reveals that the two halves appear to be opposites in terms of sequence of left and right folds when you follow the structure, starting from either end of the fractal, and move towards the other end. You can disregard the centerfold (the fold of the first iteration) because that is the center point. Do this from each end to the center, and you will find that for every left turn you made on one side of the center, the corresponding turn you make on the other side is going to be right.

However, if you start at the center point, and follow along either the left half or the right half, you will discover that the sequence of turns you make is identical in each half! This observation is of extreme importance because it is symbolic of the observation that polaric differences are only evident when you take a polaric point of view (one of the ends, Dark or Light). Being centered, symbolized by the center point of the fractal, reveals that the Dark and the Light are essentially the same.

So you see that the iteration results manifest in two directions simultaneously relative to the center and that the entire fractal does have a center point, making it a polaric structure. This center point is the point at which the first iteration (bend or fold) occurred and it remains the same no matter how much iteration takes place.

What you began with, when using actual paper, is a plane surface of limited length (2 feet) and width (1 inch). Now we all know that the paper has a thickness as well, but for purposes of this discussion, the thickness is not relevant, so we are going to act as though the paper had no thickness at all. Such a construct would be known conventionally as a two-dimensional object, but is what I refer to here as an object of two dimensionals in space, or an object with finite values measured along only two of the spatial dimensions.

As iteration proceeds, using actual paper, notice that the fractal is forming along a third dimension, but incompletely. Incompletely is accurate because a true plane has no thickness, and yet the fractal is forming in a direction (or dimension) other than that of the plane. The deeper the iteration, the closer the fractal begins to approach three-dimensionality. Having a sum total dimensional value between two and three conventional dimensions (in iteration levels less than infinity) is an example of what is known as fractional dimension in fractal geometry.

Corresponding the Dragon fractal with moments from Moment, the fold angle symbolizes the emotional frequency of a given moment, and the direction symbolizes the polarity, and, of course, the segment length represents the elapsed time.

Notice that the emotion you feel for a particular direction of moment does not necessarily have to match the direction. For example, you may experience a moment in which you feel happy (emotion, angle) because someone died (polarity, direction). The dying may represent Dark polarity to you, while the happiness is Light polarity to you. This happens often in moments.

Resuming the analysis of the Dragon reveals that, no matter whether the first iteration goes left or right, the initial bend point will be the center point of the fractal. Although that first bend is 90 degrees in total, in order to appreciate the complete correspondence quality of the two halves, consider this first 90 degree bend as equivalent to a 45 degree bend to the left of the center, plus a 45 degree bend to the right of the center, with the center point equal to the bend point. This is important because, later on, when I discuss the iteration of Awareness into consciousness, youll see that this center point is symbolic of Awareness. Consciousness is iterated equally, but in a similar correspondence fashion (i.e. on both sides of the center point) because consciousness is also polaric in Experience.

Realizing the relationship between the two halves of this fractal, know that each time you iterate Moment, you end up with two sets of moments, with each set polarized relative to the other set. This observation is symbolic of a basic fact of Reality, which is that, no matter how iterated, the entirety of existence must always have an absolute, or net, value that I call Equanimic. Net Equanimic means that, when all of the values resulting from iteration are resolved and summed, the total of these values still equals the original value of the state that existed before iteration. In the example of the paper version of the Dragon, that means that when all north turns are canceled out by all south turns, all east turns canceled out by all west turns, and all the individual lengths of segments are added up, what you have is equivalent to the original 2 foot long piece of paper! In terms of space/time Experience and, indeed, Oneness, Equanimic is of such critical importance that I will be discussing it at greater length later in this book.

How you experience moments is dependent upon where your focus of consciousness is (i.e. which half of the fractal of Moment, and where in that half, your consciousness is focused in). Those who are truly centered have catiterated consciousness towards Awareness, the center point, and thus are not focused in either half.

At the center point of the Dragon fractal, you realize that the two halves differ only in the direction of iteration; the one half is exactly the same as the other one with the exception of a 90-degree difference in orientation in the plane. Considering that one half of the fractal can be said to be symbolic of the Dark side and the other half, the Light side, the Dark and the Light really differ only in direction, and this direction is relative, not absolute.

If (for example) you take the position that every right bend is dark and every left bend is light, you will notice upon study that dark and light can be found in both halves of the fractal. This is symbolic of the observation that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things.

Analyzing moments in Experience reveals that their duration, emotion, and polarity show more complex patterns than the Dragon fractal example, in which the angle is always 90 degrees, the segment length is always half the length of each segment in the preceding iteration, and the direction is always west (even though the iteration results yield segments with an east direction, as well as north and south directions as well). Add to this the fact that your focus of consciousness shifts occasionally from one half to the other half, and it is easy to see why moments are not easily recognized as the fractal of Moment.

In a self-similar manner, choices are the fractal of Choice and experiences, the fractal of Experience. Meditate upon the implications of this understanding and you will begin to see the importance of it.