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Meet Me in the Center, in the Soul of the World…
Contemplating the hidden good of the center, I thought of this familiar quote:
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot
But it is the emptiness inside
That holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house
But it is the inner space
That makes it livable."
—Tao Te Ching
All Things revolve around or encompass a center. Atoms, cells, people, worlds, systems, galaxies. In my book The Directory of 33 Systems and Solutions for the New Culture I explain that I once asked my Teacher what would define an “ideal reason” on which to center an intentional community striving for the “best existence obtainable,” being that how one defines their best possible existence is so very subjective. The response was “Center it on Respite, for there is ever rest and refuge within the center of All Things.” A five pointed star was drawn, and the number 108 was placed in the center. I was assured that if I examined the star and the central number, I would better understand how the center is a point of “vibrant stillness,” rest, refuge, respite, et al… Here I quote from my book:
I know the number 108 as a number of compassion and refuge, so this made sense. For example, when studying the Chakra system one will find that there are 108 energy lines converging in the Heart Chakra. Any who practices mediation, chanting and breath-work will also be familiar with calm developed through work with the number 108.
In Dharma traditions it is the number of names for God. In Islam, it is the number of God‟s name.
In astronomy, it is recognized for its frequent appearances when comparing the distances and measurements of the Sun and Earth. For example, the diameter of the Sun is 108 times the diameter of the Earth. The distance from the Sun to the Earth is 108 times the diameter of the Sun. There are also interesting astronomical correlations between Earth and the star Eta Draconis featuring 108. When Eta Draconis was the Pole Star, the cosmic revelation that is the 108 temples of Angkor Wat was constructed. The last temple, in which 108 is heavily featured, is the terrestrial counterpart of the star Eta Draconis, dedicated to those who are “suffering in the ocean of existence” so as to bestow on them “the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality.”
In Astrology there are 9 planets moving through 12 constellations, which also happens to multiply to 108.
108 is a number of being immersed in or “deep within” sound, or is even a way of understanding sound itself. This may be best demonstrated by the Sanskrit alphabet which has 54 letters in both a Shiva and Shakti, male and female form, for a total of 108. These pairs are mystically associated to the 54 points of intersection on the healing Sri Yantra, symbolically charging it with “all sounds” and linking it to states of extreme peace and healing. In Tantra, a practice of conscious Union, the Sri Yantra is known as a “sonic mandala”. From the permutations of Sri Yantra and the equilateral pentagon (which always has interior angles of 108º) the proportional equation governing the relationship of the notes to the musical scales is derived.
108 is a Harshad number, which is an integer divisible by the sum of its digits. Harshad is a Sanskrit word meaning “bringing a great joy.”
It is also the extension of the first three Powers in math. 1x4x27=108. (1 to 1st power=1; 2 to 2nd power=4 (2×2); 3 to 3rd power=27 (3x3x3).) And shares various relationships to 666, a number of Union and the Sun:
Example: 6²+6²+6² = 108
The Hidden Good of the Center
Hold up your 10 fingers. Put down your 5th finger. Four fingers remain raised on the left hand; five on the right. 4 and 5. Or, as they teach in elementary math when learning “the shortcut” for figuring multiples of nine – 45.
This is also the total value of all the numbers on the Lo Shu square. From nine raised fingers or from the numbers one to nine – the same value shows.
Looking through my ever-expanding personal journal on numbers and their associations, I saw that in Hebrew Gematria the name Adam has the normative value of 45. Jehovah (26) plus Eve (19) also has a value of 45. Eve, of course, was told of Knowledge, by the Serpent…
The 9th Letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet is Teth. It means “serpent.” I have drawn a basic form of the letter above by starting at five, and drawing through each of the 9 blocks.
Notice how this serpent is turning inward toward itself. Also notice that it makes 3 1/2 turns from the “tail” in the top-left corner just like the coiled Kundalini.
In the Zohar of Teth it is said, “the good is hidden within it.” The essence of the idea is the potential for actualization. Such as the fetus concealed in the womb (for 9 months!). The soul concealed within the body. The future hidden in the moment. The promise of eternity hidden inside the wheels of incarnation (the Phoenician origin of the letter means ‘wheel’). But maybe most similar to the revelation of the Lo Shu would be the idea of Divine Intelligence as the organizing-good veiled by matter…Heaven hidden within the elements of Nature.
In Hebrew there are nine words/concepts for Beauty with “Goodness” (according to Rabbi Ginsburgh) being the innermost form. This called to mind the Mason’s Square and Compass with the ‘G’ in the middle. The Square and Compass has been called the “Emblem of Beauty,” for they are the tools by which Beauty is formed and Beauty is to be found in their precise middle. (G for Good. G for God. G for Gnosis. Take your pick – they all work.)
The Square and Compass are sometimes rendered in black and white like the Yin Yang. Heaven encircling from Above. Earth measuring portions, below.
This also shows the inherent Peace, Balance and “Good” when the lower worlds are in union with the upper worlds. Or when the Fire of the Heavens (consciousness) circumscribes the Waters of earth (forms). Most importantly (to where I’m heading with this) for the Masons the Square and Compass shows “building toward God” from below, while God’s handiwork descends from Above.
Not surprisingly the interlocked Vs of the Square and Compass forms what once was called the Sigil of Saturn. I mentioned the Sigil of Saturn in my original post on the Lo Shu.
Saturn is the Lord of Time (or our experience-existence within time-space). His symbols are things like the skeleton-structure and the door called Death. He holds the sickle of reaping and can appear rather ominous and adversarial. BUT he’s gotten a bad rap in the modern world. Once upon a time he was associated to a Golden Age of peace and prosperity for Humanity. You can find references in the works of Virgil, Hesiod and Ovid, among others.
In the midst of the Saturn Sigil ‘G’ represents the inherent Beauty and Good expressed through the five elements, organized by and proportioned on Above. The Golden Greatness where material form and spiritual perfection collide.
The planet Saturn corresponds with both “higher and lower Lead” – or Lead as both a metal and a concept. Lead as an alchemical symbol reveals this concept, representing the lusterless Prima Materia or first matter from which the Universe of substance has come forth. That all things are derived of the One Thing and hold the potential to become something greater than they already are speaks of the Union and Peace central to the whole of Creation and implies the potential for transmutation from ordinary Humanity into something greater. Thus the ‘G’ at the center has also been said to represent the Great Work of alchemical transmutation from the dark, heavy of lead into the bright, light of Gold.
I’ve also heard tell that there’s some intriguing Masonic ciphers associated with the Saturn Sigil placed over the Lo Shu – but I’ll save that for another post.
Xia Musing Aloud
Base Numbers, Astrology Patterns, the Bible and More…
Quite some time ago I promised to return to the correlations between three-fold arrangements of the base numbers (popularized by Rodin and your telephone’s key pad), the 3 Mother Letters, and the 12 Zodiac Signs… This post is long overdue.
As previously mentioned, it was a discussion about Marko Rodin, the Rodin Solution, and sound frequency that served as my first introduction to “Key 528”. Within that discussion it was brought to my attention that, albeit differently ordered, these numbers (2, 5,8) represent the same “row” of base numbers and are often found together in important ways. I immediately recognized these numbers in my world as the positions of the first three Fixed Zodiac Signs. The other two number triplets (1,4,7 and 3,6,9), are the Cardinal and Mutable Signs, respectively.
This seemingly simple mental click continues to unfold for me.
One of the first places it took me was to the Cross of the Kingdom (of the Tree of Life), also called the Elemental or Greek Cross. Each arm of this cross belongs to one of the four elements found on the Zodiac Wheel thus there is an arm each for Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. Starting at the first Sign, Aries, a Fire Sign, and moving counterclockwise through each Elemental arm in its aforementioned order, we also spiral through each base number triplet in turn. This specific order of the Elements is said to represent the “original” formula of crossing oneself, where Fire is the center of the forehead, Water is the Heart or groin, Air is the right shoulder, and Earth, the left. This right to left motion symbolizes Liberation from the Cross, not descent as is commonly claimed (the reason being found within the formulary of this specific cross).
The three shaded squares are the last three Signs, not directly represented by base numbers:
This counterclockwise motion brings to mind banishing (as in the opposite of invocation). This is the same notion as release from matter or Ascent. We can think of it as the clock’s hands going backwards, taking us outside of Time.
In the system I Work with and write about often, this sort of action (i.e. banishing component-elements not in Service to one’s Greatest Good) begins with the South and the element Air. This was in the back of my mind when examining a drawing rendered from the The Midrash, depicting the Shevatim or (Twelve) Tribes.
As shown on the table below, when we begin with the South and move counterclockwise, positioning the Tribes according to the direction they are traditionally assigned and placing alongside them their related Zodiac Sign (corollary to a Tribe’s flag), we have a tidy revelation of the base number triplets. What’s more, we can again see that each triplet, as I’ve described, emanates from one of three Qualities or “Mothers”:
The first time I composed this table, I shaded in the three Signs given to the West as they are represented by the non-base numbers. This is the same thing I did with the Elemental Cross above.
Then I read about what Marco Rodin refers to as the “Mathematical Fingerprint of God“. Specifically, I read that he reduces the multiple digits back into single digits in the same way Manly P. Hall describes “Pythagorean Numerology”. In this way, cycles repeat. Thus what I would have previously conceptually discarded on some level as simply the non-base numbers, I now perceive as another turn (or even a certain completion) of the spiral; “10, 11, 12” are simply “1,2,3” in another guise!
This is what Rodin calls the Mathematical Fingerprint of God:
It is the starting point of Rodin’s Vortex Based Mathematics and is used to generate a model of the Universe with perfect mathematical coherence on all six-axis. This grabbed my attention as, within my own construct, the six-axis underlay the creation (or Becoming) of the Universe.
You will notice this fingerprint highlights one triplet in particular – 3,6,9. These are the “control numbers” of the trinary Universe and can be witnessed in the Mutable Signs. The other six base numbers come together to form an astounding, infinitely repeating pattern (1,2,4,8,7,5)…
1
1×2=2
2×2=4
4×2=8
8×2=16 … 1+6=7
16×2=32 … 3+2=5
32×2=64 … 6+4=10 … 1+0=1
64×2=128 … 1+2+8=11 … 1+1=2
In the Mathematical Fingerprint these numbers form a manner of infinity sign, pierced by time’s arrow, 3, 6, and 9. Or, in another perspective closely related to the Tree of Life, this arrangement of numbers can be seen to depict apparent opposites joined by a 3rd thing. Perhaps “effect” made known by its “cause”, or the world pillars and the Knowledge inherent to the equilibrium between them.
This brought to mind an arrangement I’d summarized around the same time I’d summarized the Tribes – the 12 stones on the Breast Plate of the High Priest (also called the Breast Plate of Judgment). In this case, the arrangement is not by Quality but by Quadruplicity (aka Element). The three Primary Qualities (of Conscious Being), or Mother “strands”, are multiplied through the Four Elements:
Associations between the stones and the Signs are not necessarily by modern assignment, but taken from the tradition that each stone was engraved “with only six letters” selected from the name of each Tribe’s patriarch (so that the entire breast plate bore a specific arrangement of 72 letters, each letter also representative of one of the 72 names of God). What stands out to me here is that the Mutable Signs are, as with Rodin’s Mathematical Fingerprint of God, preserved together, whereas the Fixed and Cardinal Signs are joined together onto opposite sides.
In the two columns where the Qualities are co-mingled, the Zodiac Signs are still distributed into the column containing their specific axis or polarity. Example – Aries, the 1st Sign, is in the same column with its pole, Libra, the 7th Sign. In this way, the Zodiac can just as easily be thought of as Six-Axis as it can be thought of as 12 Signs.
Then taking this same strain a bit further, within a model of Becoming (Creation) based on the Tree of Life, the Zodiac can ultimately be seen as the three Primary Qualities (of Conscious Being), or Mother “strands”. Unfolding in the direction of “less perfection” (more separation), these Mothers gain polarity (as a friend put it, the “strands” are then conceptualized by their end-points instead of as the strand-entire). Now there are six. In the material realm this pattern again divides, duplicates, and/or otherwise expands so that each of the six “end-points” actually emanate into our witness as a pair of Signs. This pair, we see in polar opposite. Example – Aries is the Sign of Self, Libra is the Sign of Others.
In this way, the 12 Signs of the Zodiac can be seen as Six-Axis positioned on three Mother strands of consciousness. Again you can see how each of the number triplets emanate from one of these Mothers:
Another interesting aspect to this arrangement worthy of noting before closing out is that the pairs containing the 1st three Zodiac Signs and their polarities pertain to the extremes of personal expression and the collective identity, while the pairs containing the 2nd three Zodiac Signs and their polarities pertain to the extremes of personal identity and collective expression.
Also, where the Mothers are concerned…
the strand presenting as the Fixed Signs is mystically referred to as ‘WILL’
the strand presenting as the Cardinal Signs is mystically referred to as ‘REFLECT’
and
the strand presenting as the Mutable Signs is mystically referred to as ‘CHANGE’.
These configurations are also regarded as the three Cherubim. Take a close look at the strand presenting as the Fixed Signs, and you might recognize the Cherubim having a face of a Bull, a Lion, an Eagle (Scorpio, Raised), and a Man…
Thus in summary:
(Pillar 2, Cardinal) REFLECT = 1,4,7,1 = Fire, Water, Air, Earth
(Pillar 0, Fixed) WILL = 2,5,8,2 = Earth, Fire, Water, Air
(Pillar 1, Mutable) CHANGE = 3,6,9,3 = Air, Earth, Fire, Water
VIDEO: Manly P. Hall Lecture – Tragedy of the Broken Doll
Manly P. Hall is a proponent of the Universal Spirit of Truth. He largely served as my point of introduction to the Wisdom Traditions, and I respect him. Greatly, in fact.
His work flowed serendipitously into my life at the age of 19 (I’m 36 now, I do not mind saying). The first time, I set the book on the coffee table like art. It was art in many ways, but art more worthy of a pedestal than a coffee table and I hadn’t realized it yet. The second time, when similar but peculiar circumstances produced the same random gifting of the same rare book, I paid attention.
I found that I really connect to the Astrological thread that is woven throughout, and draws together, the vast composition of his life’s efforts. This is the same thread I referred to as the Universal Spirit, which can provide relief from misconceived dogmas and unfold the understanding of Humanity as ONE.
I find myself returning to his words time and again; a body of work astounding in both breadth and depth. Which brings me to my purpose here today – his lecture series alone comprises over 26 hours of audio, and this lecture numbers among my favorites. When I saw it in my updates, I had to pass it along:
Video: The Preisthood of Amen-Ra, Liber Oz, and The Eyes of the World
This isn’t my standard video flavor per se, nor is it often that I devote an entire 10 minutes to just one such video, but this one hooked me, and kept me that way. Not only that, when it was done I went to the Labyrinth of the Psychonaut for more! It’s not even that I necessarily agree with every word being said, but more that I appreciate the brilliance with which the narrator weaves together valuable revelations of the Great Synchro-Mystery and provokes experiences with contemplation…
Liber 88
After four months of redevelopment, LIBER 88 is finally back and will continue to expand! There is a glitchy domain name issue that the host informs me will be around until their next upgrade, but I’ll take it as all pages are now accessible! WOOT! Let me know what you think…
Today’s “Extreme Supermoon”
Before I came across the aforementioned Moses Siregar article on the Astrology behind Haiti, my intention was to write about today’s Full Moon (waxing perfect as I type this). Having already posted on Astrology this week my intention changed until I found my day filled with “signs” bearing witness of its energy…
The Full Moon is occurring at 10°15 in Leo. My first Google Alert comes for the topic ‘Gematria’ today, and the first blog post is for “A Lion’s Might”, lion and might (in Hebrew) having the same vibrational weight and quality. “A Lion’s Might” could be a good descriptor for this Moon!
Also, I happen to arrive at page 111 in the book I am reading, which begins to unfold the esoteric correspondences between the Moon, the Sun, Light, and the Lion. Needless to say, my thoughts turned often to the Moon today, now setting the night aglow in silver and orange, and culminating in this entry.
If it looks extra big, that’s because it is. It is what has been referred to as a “Supermoon” or, more technically, a perigee-syzygy. A syzygy is simply a notable union between three celestial bodies, namely the Sun, Moon, and Earth or another planet, and is most often used to refer to the New or Full Moon. Perigee is applied when the Moon is at 90% or greater of its closest approach to Earth.
Although this Leo Full Moon is one of five Supermoons this year, this one has the most “might”. According to the Encyclopedia of Planetary Sciences, a perigee-syzygy can raise waters 40% above their average. This specific Moon is additionally called “Extreme” because it is the 3rd of only 17 Supermoons that will approach 100% or greater of the mean perigee this century.
Today, and the energies surrounding today, are likely to bring self-expansion and self-direction into contrast (for the purpose of comparing and harmonizing) with transpersonal and humanitarian ideas and ideals. We may be shown where are personal desires are in conflict with our sense of compassion and justice… or how the freedom and independence we search for on the outside can be found by Liberating the might of the Lion from within. Shed what no longer servers you in favor of Ultimate Truths!
BLOG 88 