Rudhyar has coined the term holarchy to refer to this hierarchy of wholes within wholes within wholes . . . cycles within cycles within cycles. It is a hierarchy of containment, not (as in governmental, corporate, and military hierarchies) of command:
      Lesser (less inclusive) wholes [or cycles] operate within greater (more inclusive) wholes [cycles], and greater wholes [cycles] regulate the activities and rhythms of lesser wholes [cycles], each of which, by performing a function within the greater whole [cycle] of which it is a differentiated part (but also a whole), actualizes an aspect of the greater whole [cycle]. This actualization constitutes the dharma (destiny or truth-of-being) of the lesser whole.
      Two types of relationship thus operate within the holarchic universe:

1. vertical relationships between lesser wholes and greater wholes of which they are a part, the wholeness of the greater whole (its activity and consciousness) including the wholeness (activity and consciousness) of the lesser whole; and
   
   
2. horizontal relationships between wholes operating at the same level.