The word fractal is explained in the dictionary as "similar patterns that recur at progressively smaller scales and describe partly random or chaotic phenomena." A great epiphany of mine was the revelation that all life is fractal. That is apparent in the physical world, but it is also true of the metaphysical world.
Physical World
Why can a tree resemble so many parts of the human body?
Why can a body part of an insect produce the same pattern as the product of an arachnid or a liquid?
Why does the only thing that can contemplate the universe seem to reflect the universe itself?
How can a spherical flower imitate the action of sparks? Why is the shape of a galaxy almost difficult to distinguish from that of a hurricane?
How can each successively smaller part of a fern replicate the look of the larger part of the same fern?
How is it that the mind of man can conceive a stained glass mandala unintentionally evoking a cross section of his own DNA?
How can a river, a lightning bolt, and a blood vessel all seem to be iterations of each other?
Every human has a signature, even if it is just an idiosyncrasy. People are easily identified by their handwriting, artists are known by their style, authors are recognized by their prose, etc. It may be that these parallels in nature are a result of the signature of a creator - a common thread which traces back to a common designer, just as Van Gogh is so distinctively recognized by his inimitable brushstrokes.
Metaphysical World
These things show how reality replicates itself in ways unknown to us. If these facts amaze us merely within the observable world, should we not be more amazed that they seem to transpierce the barrier of the natural into the unseen? In fact, it rather seems the reciprocal: that these truths have their provenance from the metaphysical realm first, which trickle down to the natural realm, as every stream does not rise above its source. It seems that nature behaves in accordance with a deeper, unseen law; that is why the source appears to be from the metaphysical, primarily.
For example, which of these is the more undergirding: that when you sow a physical seed, the crop yields exponentially more of it, or that when you inject good or bad into the world, the same good or bad manifests itself exponentially more in your life as a result? Perhaps some deny the metaphysical realm, but every religion and culture, no matter how disparate, has acknowledged the truth of the metaphysical law of sowing and reaping. And the application as a metaphysical principle is much more ubiquitous than the single instantiation in the natural. That is why the truth seems to be more transcendent in source than natural.
Another example is the second law of thermodynamics: the law that all tends to atrophy. This is of course true of the thermodynamic world, but it is also true of the moral realm. People left to themselves tend to disorder - immorality is always easier than morality. As natural entropy can be overcome in an open system, so moral degradation can be overcome in with an open heart to a higher accountability. Which truth in this parallel is more basic? The pattern of it indicates a transcendent ordering principle. So, it may not be a question of which realm bears the greater truth so much as the same truth manifesting itself in a more real and a less real paradigm.
I claim that the unseen realm is the greater (and therefore realer), just as we can logically (though not scientifically) prove that the shadow of a four dimensional tesseract is a three dimensional cube. The very essence of truth seems to live in the higher realm, which we are capable of perceiving but not completely understanding because its true form is appropriately above us, but the shadow of it has been aptly projected into the natural realm in a form that is true within our medium - in the same way that the form of one kind of animal above the water can project an indication of what kind of animal belongs under the water.
