I was able to get away for a retreat this past weekend and found myself surprisingly thinking about math while walking in the woods.
Well, I was thinking about numbers themselves, specifically.
There were many spots and stops throughout the paths and seemingly man-made within the confines of nature. Though some I do wonder if some were naturally there.
What started it all was my first stop in a circle with 12 stones. The circle was not laid out evenly – like 6 and 6 or 4 sections of 3. My eye wanted to fix it and it wanted something to focus on. I kept looking and looking for a spot to rest my eye on and let the picture come into focus.
Then I thought “Oh 13! That number…”
The number 13 was never a superstitious one for me. Growing up, my family took great joy in making it a special and sacred number. Though as an adult it has become like any other number for me: 24, 36, 2, 4531…
Until that moment standing just outside that circle of stones.
What if I or the person in that circle was the 13th? The focus? Then my brain went to “12 calendar/solar months but really there’s 13 lunar months” and then…then my head just kept spinning.
I kept walking. I had to analyze these seemingly random thoughts. Why did I want something to focus on in that circle? What was it about an even number that left me feeling strange? And why did I always have such joy as a kid at 13?
I knew some of the folklore, stories and reasons that 13 was/is maligned. Still, I’m always about an underdog. Or for those who are kept down and used/construed for other people’s purposes. No wonder I felt an affinity to 13 as a child and as an adult had let those feelings go.
Here I was on a nature walk, thinking about numbers and what they REALLY meant, to me, to society around me.
I realized that I look at and enjoy numbers very differently than most accountants/mathematicians do…and the generic way most people look at numbers.
Numbers mean things. Until they don’t need to mean things and until they need to mean things again.
It’s like Leonard going into Cicely looking for the stories that we built our society on (we are watching Northern Exposure right now)…
I look at how the numbers we use, we type, we write, these numbers that are so much in the background are actually building everything. Their energy is building everything. What are their stories, the ones I know, the ones you know, the ones that are familiar to many?
These stories matter just as much (if not more than) the actual number itself.
There are more to numbers than just a count, a code, a dollar $ – there are energetics to them…
It’s why starting at #1 feels good and why we wait for the new month or a birthday or anniversary to start something.
It’s why #2 feels safe, comforting and warm.
It’s why #3 gives potential, a new way of looking at the two.
It’s why #4 feels like a party, an enjoyable gathering.
It’s why #5 feels like a change point, a decision needs to be made.
It’s why #6 feels gregarious and light hearted.
It’s why #7 feels delightful, open, on the edge of a new thing.
It’s why #8 feels like its own little universe, sustaining within itself.
It’s why #9 feels like getting ready for adventure, preparing.
And why #10 feels like a sense of completion and maybe getting ready for a new path.
At least these are how they feel to me. I imagine everyone has individual feelings about individual numbers whether they realize it or not. And maybe being a little more aware might make daily life easier on us and those around us.
Or I’m just talking crazy and enjoying a conversation that I had with myself on a hike at the end of the year on a beautiful warm winter hazy day…
