7 Weak archetype, strong archetype

In the best cases, when the symmetries come forth unconsciously from adherence to the feeling of the whole, and from the process of symmetry-production in the small, then something almost awe-filled occasionally comes into being. This is a thing which strikes fear into the heart, yet creates a peacefulness and solidity that we can rest upon. It gives us nourishment because it is so strange and so definite and well-found in its uniqueness — which we did not create.

On the one hand, there is the weak archetype. […] It is the range of forms which arise, directly, from the fundamental process. These forms have living structure. They have discernible structural features.
But there is a narrower class, a class of more archetypal, more awe-filled forms which go to the root, forms which effect us powerfully, which reach, somehow, the core of what it is to be a person. […] The forms of this class are more raw, still more powerful.
This second archetype, this core, exists in a much smaller group of things. It is narrower than the range of living structure. It is deeper, more rare. It is harder to find, harder to reach. The forms are prized, respected, treasured. In many cases, the maker knew that he, or she, was about something special at the time of such a making.

This takes more. This does not come about merely from the fundamental process. I believe that this second, strong archetypal core comes when the search for living structure, the use of living process is combined with a conscious desire, and a half-conscious search, for the origin of all things.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/20 Summation: The morphology of living architecture#