Eight inches point to point, 0.13 lb, cut to the outline of the figure so the six outer circles stand as broad physical lobes at the perimeter rather than being drawn inside a disc. Those lobes are large enough to serve as real placement wells; each one holds a good-sized tumbled stone with the engraved boundary marking where it sits. A circular opening is bored clean through at the center of the board.
The opening is the piece's distinguishing feature and its open question. Practically, it will seat a small sphere so the sphere cannot roll off, take a point dropped partway through to stand upright, or accept a cord for wall hanging.
What you get
- One laser-etched wood crystal grid board, Metatron's Cube pattern with six lobed stations
- 8 inches point to point
- 1/4 inch thick
- 0.13 lb
- Three-layer cross-grained plywood
- Unfinished
- One bored circular opening through the center, 3/4"
- Stones and crystals are not included
About the form
Plywood is three thin sheets laminated with each layer's grain running crosswise to its neighbors. At eight inches with six protruding lobes, that construction is what keeps the necks where each lobe meets the hexagonal body from splitting along a grain line. The board is rigid enough to lift fully loaded with one hand.
The pattern is burned rather than cut through. A laser at engraving power vaporizes a shallow channel along each line and scorches the walls, which produces the amber edge on every stroke. Light exposure fades that toward pale over months.
The bored opening has exposed edge grain around its rim, and edge grain is the thirstiest surface on any wooden object. It will darken first and absorb fastest.
Unfinished wood absorbs generally. Oils, wax, and water soak in and stay. Wipe-on matte polyurethane or paste wax will seal it if you want it pale. Left bare, it darkens and keeps a record of use. Bare wood also takes a wood-burner cleanly if you want to add your own marks.
Provenance and tradition
The figure is built from the Fruit of Life: thirteen circles in hexagonal packing, one at the center, six touching it, six more at the outer ring. Join every circle's center to every other center and you get seventy-eight straight lines, which is the lattice across the face of the board.
Metatron comes out of Jewish mystical literature, principally the hekhalot texts and 3 Enoch, where the scribe Enoch is taken up and transformed into an angel of that name. Attaching the name to this diagram is a modern development, spread through English-language sacred geometry writing in the late twentieth century. The geometry has a long life in ornament; the label on it is recent.
You will also see the claim that the figure contains all five Platonic solids. Two-dimensional projections of the cube, tetrahedron, and octahedron trace cleanly out of the line work. The dodecahedron and icosahedron require a generous reading of which lines count.
Who this is for
Crystal grid layouts, especially structured ones. Thirteen circle positions give you a center, an inner ring of six, and an outer ring of six, which maps directly onto a master stone with two tiers of support. At eight inches the lobed stations take full-size tumbled stones and palm stones rather than only chips, and the board holds a table on its own as an altar centerpiece. Also good as a display base with a sphere seated in the opening, a meditation focus, and a wall piece.
