Gathers or distributes energies. A river gathers energy from a wide watershed basin, distributing it throughout that basin as it gathers, carries it through a system, distributing more of the energy while it does so, and often ends up in an delta or estuary, spreading out once again to distribute energy broadly.
Watersheds in the US.
River patterns, Greenland.
Your heart both gathers and distributes energy through a branching pattern that reaches every corner of your body.
A tree also gathers tremendous amounts of energy with super efficiency through branching above and below ground, through its root system and photosynthesis system in the leaves.
Branching patterns often show up as fractals, which are patterns that go from macro to micro in self-similar patterns.
Watersheds form fractals; Lake Nassar, Egypt.
Mountain fractals; Brooks range, Alaska.
Tree branches are fractals.
Bacteria in fractals (microscope).
There is a tremendous amount of mathematical coherence in the natural world and physical universe.
How to use this pattern
Branching patterns can be used to distribute water in a food forest. We’ve done that with irrigation or with contour ditches that start from one source and branch out to many trees.
There are many invisible structure branching patterns such as organizational structures, whether hierarchies or more equitably managed structures. It’s been found that managing a project or organization with many people involved is much more effective with a fractal type branching pattern than with one person directing many others. There are aspects of hierarchies that don’t work so well too, but small groups of people working together with one person being the connection to other groups works better than very large groups run by one person.
Branching is a way to distribute information rapidly through networks. Phone trees, for instance, where each person has three or five other people to call for events, emergencies or whatever the tree is set up to do, makes it real for each person to do their part and one person can reach many thousands of people in a short period of time using this method.
If you give a chaya stick to two people to plant and they then give it to two others, etc, how many branch levels would it take before 1000 people had chaya in their yard? How about 10,000? This type of distribution system is effective even if some branches break, especially once you get further up the distribution line, because there are so many left.