Deodar Cedar
The beautiful temple-shaped cone of the Deodar cedar (a sacred tree of the Middle East and India) presents us with a metaphorical example of a fractal connection between the Divine act of creation and human religious practice. Because this upright cone is roughly in the shape of an ancient Eastern temple, we intuit the following comparison: "Deep within the secret place of the Most High, the celebrant combines sacred streams of information to create the miracle of life." Within the cone, this information is in the form of DNA; within the temple it takes the form of human language.

( For a photo of the Deodar cone see: http://www.johnagowan.org/temple.jpeg - 1.jpg )

The Deodar cedar seed-cone is a natural temple: sleeping within is the DNA molecule, the identity of the species and the fractal secret of life.