My Lucky Number is 13
As I stand on my patio waiting for the sun to appear, throwing a frisbee to a dog who will jump to retrieve it for as long as I keep going, I keep thinking about the patterns in numbers. It’s my 55th birthday today – Double digits! (since 5+5=10). It is also Friday the 13th. My birthday is 10.13, making it all a little extra. The repetitive disc throwing feels meditative, and the recurring numbers from the past few days float through my mind. Two of my favorite singer-songwriters have birthdays leading up to mine – John Prine was born on the 10th, Todd Snider on the 11th. In my final dream this morning, I know I was dreaming about a birthday on the 12th, but it slipped away before I could grab the details.
I’m paying extra attention to my dream recall right now, so I feel a little disappointed (cheated, even) when the specifics escape me. The numerical thoughts persisted, so I went inside and wrote the numbers between 1-100 that have some significance in my life. No surprise, there were 13 numbers on the page! Thirteen is not only my birthdate, but also my very favorite number. Social Plug: It’s Taylor Swift’s favorite number, too. Since Taylor has been the favorite singer-songwriter of my two youngest daughters for many years, I am fully enjoying her energetic presence in KC, as she cheers on Travis Kelce and the Chiefs!
The number 13 has developed a huge reputation for being unlucky, but those of us connected to thirteens experience the exact opposite effect. It seems fanciful to our scientifically geared brains that numbers could actually possess what folklore perceives for them, yet the proof exists all around us. A quick fact check tells me the least drawn Powerball number is 13. What?! Even Powerball data suggests it as the most unlucky number! I also found that 80% of buildings try to conceal their thirteenth floors? Superstitions, even when we claim to not believe them, are still repeated over and over, and the energy around them is frequently held in our bodies, persuading our beliefs.
I walked back outside feeling somehow more grounded, and definitely more Whole overall. I am instantly more clear, simply because I connected those dots… and I hadn’t even realized I was holding that stagnant energy! The Ignorance Pillar finds its sweet spot in the power of transforming the unknown. The essence of ignorance is not knowing, yet we place so many expectations on it that our judgments cloud our ability to see what lies before us. We can choose to use that power at any time, and we find that the more we use it, the more we begin to see it as an aid to our daily lives with increasing frequency. Even if we choose not to explore those resources, they remain steadfastly in place, ready whenever we are, with no judgment of any kind.
As the sun rose, my thoughts turned to words, and so far, all of my conversations have remained on the topics of Numbers and Wholeness. I’m not a numerologist, but I would imagine that each one of us has an inner concept of certain numbers that loosely align with numerology’s claims. There are reasons why we prefer some numbers to others, and scientific explanation behind how easily we attach energy to numbers based on our personal experience with them, without even realizing we do it. The odds of winning the lottery are astronomical, yet we pour billions of into the remote possibility that we could realize our dreams. So many of our collective choices come down to numbers. In life, as in lottery, do we choose the quick pick, trusting the universe to put the right combination in our hands, or do we gather the numbers that mean the most to us, feeling comforted by their added symbolism and meaning–hoping that our intentions carry us through? This is our ongoing gamble as we risk our own feelings every single day.
My point, if I may claim one, is that our own individuality is far more valuable to how we live our lives than we are willing to acknowledge, and that our capacity for vulnerability is the only real pathway to deeper understanding of anything. Sure, we appreciate the quirky parts of us that are cool and different, but the parts that are sensitive, we seek to diminish or hide. We are smart enough to know, from a mental standpoint, that we each come from a different perspective. We find easy agreement here. However, when our emotions are stirred, we begin to expect understanding and acceptance from people who simply aren’t in the position to give it. At the same time, we aren’t easily able to see it, creating conflict of some type.
Our unmet expectations, combined with our unacknowledged feelings, create cloudy conditions around us. When we take the time (or become forced) to clear them, we move forward in our growth, one way or another. When our communications remain cloudy, we fail to understand how we feel, which makes us lose sight of what we need. We might then begin to see things outside of us as some kind of threat to our stability. We are unable to feel safe because we cannot harmonize the opposing energies that we often feel within our minds and our bodies. Our ego often has a different perspective than our soul does, but we aren’t taught to look that far into what we believe as part of our regular education.
What a birthday weekend! (And it is only Saturday evening). It’s been 36 hours since I started writing this blog and I have definitely learned a lot in a short amount of time. I am grateful for all of the memories that have popped up organically as I checked in on facebook birthday wishes, hung out with old high school friends, and checked in with family. I get to hang out with all of my daughters tomorrow and am living vicariously through my stepson’s incredible adventures in Italy. I may not know where our world is headed, or how we solve our many ongoing conflicts, but from a place that is deeply connected amidst all the chaos, life feels good.
