Consider your standard square flower knot (see right). The structural centre is distinctly square, which is good. But, you say, there are only three ears. You say, a square knot should have four ears. I say, consider the loose ends to be the fourth ear. You, nevertheless, remain dissatisfied. A square has four sides, should not a square flower knot have four ears?

While the flower knot, when considered as a polygonal knot, is a family unto itself with many (many!) variations starting with the number of petals (ears) and the ways that the structural loops interlace, the basic square flower knot is also the basic unit of the mystic knot (see right). Now flower knots can be chained together via their ears as in the case of the ru-yi knot, but if you instead extend the structural loops and weave through them appropriately, you begin to build up a mystic knot.

What with all the good luck knot stuff I’ve been doing, it’s time to fix up the main page and do a how-to or 2 or… But that sort of thing takes time. All the first round of pictures are scanned and need to be processed, text added, etc. See the files as they are worked on. When the pages are complete, they will replace the directory listings. This is a peek under the hood.