A Little Bit of Symbols by Henry Reed

Author:Henry Reed
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling Ethos

SOME SYMBOLS TO SAMPLE

You may admire me.

Slow and steady

I’m back!

Can you bear it?

SOME SYMBOLS TO SAMPLE

Horsing around

Nobody can run like me.

Don’t give us false warnings.

I’m just curious.

9

A MEASURE OF THE

MIND-OF-GOD:

THE SYMBOLISM

OF NUMBERS

How could something so precise as numbers have the kind of suggestive or evocative qualities needed to drive the symbolic process? Two plus two equals four, and four equals four, nothing more, nothing less. Equals and symbolizes imply very different correspondences, as we know. It doesn’t seem possible that such abstract things like numbers could have proven symbolic significance. But they do!

What about having a lucky number? What makes it special? What does thinking about that number bring to mind? Answering such questions is a good review lesson concerning how symbolism works its charms.

I first entered into the realm of number symbolism in fourth grade. We were working on learning our multiplication tables. I had to memorize a lot. To simplify my task, I visualized arrangements of marbles, the coin of my realm at that time. To visualize two times two, which equals four, I would see a square of marbles, arranged two by two. As I learned how to find what little numbers make up big numbers, I found the marble approach helpful.

There are so many possibilities. As always, the properties of something are the source of its symbolic energy. Explore the properties of numbers that allow them to be arranged in various patterns. It can be very entertaining, with perhaps the symbolism process working in the faraway background, to arrange large numbers of marbles into different patterns.

Another way of getting into the symbolism of numbers is by thinking about how we learned to count. Experts believe that numbers began by counting things on our fingers, giving the number ten its importance. Our standard arithmetic, and the way we write it out, is based upon ten and its square, one hundred, then one thousand, etc.

Add the toes to the fingers, and we get twenty. The Mayans used this vigesimal, or base twenty, system in their astronomical calculations to become more accurate in heavenly calculations than the earlier Mesopotamians.

The Mesopotamians favored the number sixty as a basis for counting. This decision comes from their counting the days in an annual seasonal cycle (they counted 360, off by a bit more than five days). Also, using a compass to draw a circle, that same compass setting will walk around the circle’s circumference in six steps. These six points define a hexagon created by six triangles.

Triangles are crucial to construction. The number three is the smallest number that allows for creating a boundary and enclosing some space. As carpenters know, the triangle is the most simple and stable of the forms in construction. No wonder that they say, “Three times a charm,” although that might not be the original reason for saying it. Yet, in so many stories, having to do something three times, or if something happens three times, makes it real, or committed, solid, true.

Being “true” can also be

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.