Yesod and The Timeless Way of Building

By P. Todd Decker
Here is a description from Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building1 in which he
explores and codifies the pattern languages that describe timeless architecture that sustains the
soul:

Your mind is a medium within which the creative spark that jumps between the
pattern and the world can happen. You yourself are only the medium for this
creative spark, not its originator.

I remember once, sitting in Berkeley, trying to work out a site plan on paper,
for our houses in Peru. One of the LOOPED LOCAL ROADS into the site was not
yet properly in place, and we could not find a suitable way of fitting this pattern
road into the design, the way the patterns told us to--so I decided to take a walk
around the site in my imagination.

I sat in my chair, in Berkeley, 8000 miles from the real site in Lima, closed my
eyes, and began to take a walk around the market. There were many narrow
lanes, covered with bamboo screens to shade them, with tiny stalls opening
off them, and fruit sellers selling fruit from carts. I stopped by one old woman’s
cart, and bought an orange from her. As I stood there I happened to be facing
north. And then I bit into the orange--in my imagination. And just as I bit into it,
I suddenly stopped and asked myself, “Now, where is that road?” And, without
thinking, I knew exactly where it was, and what its relation to the market was--
I knew it must be over there, towards the right, from the direction I was facing. I
knew that to be natural; it must come sweeping towards the market, and touch it
over there.

Then I stopped, and came back to my room, and my chair, and my effort to make
the design. I realized at once that this position of the road, which had come to
me so naturally, was quite different from all the one we had been trying on paper
in those last few days--and that it was exactly right, and satisfied the demands of
all the patterns perfectly.

It was the vividness of being there, and biting into that orange, that allowed me to
know, spontaneously, the most natural place for that road to be.

Without using the words of a Mystic, Christopher Anderson was operating in the sephirah of
Yesod within the mystic system of categorizing the creation emanations of the Deity known as
the Kabbalah.

It is in Yesod that spiritual concepts are translated into mental images prior to their

1The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander, 1979, ISBN 978-0-18-502402-9.

P. Todd Decker
December 2010
Yesod and The Timeless Way of Building
By P. Todd Decker
establishment in the physical world. “The pre-physical manifestation of all the higher
emanations [of Deity],” as Gareth Knight puts it2. It is sometimes known as “The Foundation”
and also as the “Treasure House of Images.”

Its archangel is traditionally considered to be Gabriel and its ruled by The Moon, The Great
Mother, Isis--the teacher. You can touch this feminine aspect of Deity through simple quite
meditation and imagination. You touch it at night in your sleep--which is why it is said that you
should reflect on your dreams. As a Fellowcraft, you pass between The Pillars into its realm.
We do not worship her as a God as the ancients before us did--we just know that it is one
aspect of The God.

I encourage you to join me in exploring Yesod in your meditations and sleep. As Christopher
Anderson states, “You yourself are only the medium for this creative spark, not its originator.”

2A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, Gareth Knight, 1965, ISBN 0-87728-397-4.

P. Todd Decker
December 2010