Life, Death, Fractal patterns and spirals, simplicity and complexity

Was on a walk today and noticed the leaves turning yellow as fall sets in. I closely inspected a leaf and noticed that the green in the leaf was gradually shrinking in a fractal pattern much the same as a plant grows in fractal patterns (branching fractal). Energy expands/moves in a spiral pattern (also a fractal pattern).

It dawned on me that the “dying” of the leaves, which is a recession of energy/life itself, follows a reverse pattern of “coming alive”. This triggered a memory of conversations that have happened about simplicity and complexity. Some (most) people view life, energy, nature, and awareness as complex.

I (and most non-dualists) consider awareness to be the most simple, most rudimentary “building block” (some call it existence itself). When this expands, and since awareness in (apparent) motion is energy or life force, it does so in spiral patterns. When this expands at a large enough scale, it takes on the appearance of complexity (much like the plant, or even a leaf).

Is it plausible that what is considered life, is merely an expanding fractal of awareness/energy? Similarly, is what is considered death, merely a reversal of said expansion? Kind of like inhalation and exhalation go together. You can’t have one without the other — yang and yin, or yin and yang or simultaneously yin-yang, depending on what perspective one considers the process from.

The outgoing breath can be considered as death, or it could be considered as making room for incoming breath, hence life. Or could it be considered both life and death at once — life-death, like yin-yang?