Exploring Paths to Cosmic Wisdom

Look! Luck Ahead

     As we approach the end of 2014, many of us have extra time available for quiet pursuits. Whether we visit with loved ones or take alone-time this season, it is a good moment to reflect on the changes that have shaped our lives this year. We have made decisions which determined how we travelled our path. We have been either open or closed to the teachings and growth-opportunities that presented themselves to us.
     With the New Year, the energy of Eight will resonate in all our lives, simply because 2+0+1+5 = 8. We each bring other, more individual, vibrations to the year. Not one of us can avoid the vibration of Eight which will seep into every corner of our world.
     Understanding Eight can help us approach our activities in ways that allow the Numbers to help: when we are aligned with the Universal vibration, then life unfolds naturally. In that easy unfolding, we don’t resist reality, and the world does not resist us.
     In coming weeks I shall be writing at length about Eight, and how it manifests in many areas of life. For this week, however, I offer a short look at some of the meanings which have been connected with Eight throughout the ages, around the globe.
     Within the Jewish worldview, the world was created in seven days, thus the number Seven is an expression of the physical world. The Number Eight is then that which transcends the physical, which relates to the unseen aspects of life: it is the seat of all that which we cannot hold in our hands. Eight is therefore the residence of integrity; generosity; kindness, and spirituality. Within eight is the personal journey into meaningful life.
     In Chinese and other Asian cultures Eight is considered “lucky”. In the Mandarin language, the word for "eight" is bā, which sounds similar to the word for wealth or prosperity. As a result, being assigned a telephone number with one or more eights is considered very lucky, and people seek out houses and accounts, tickets and licenses, indeed any opportunity to include the digit 8 in their daily activities.
     While Western businesses use "9" and “99” in their prices, those in the East use "8" and “88”.
     To praise a person who has admirable knowledge or ability, the Chinese language uses the phrase “they have the talent of eight buckets.”
     The Bagua is the chart used in Feng Shui to find advantageous placements and arrangements of physical items. This name refers to the Eight Diagrams which are symbols from ancient Chinese philosophy and astrology.
     The Book of Changes known as I Ching or Yi Jing is variously thought to have originated between the eighth to third century BCE.  The system and philosophy it contains are based on Eight arrangements of three lines each, and it continues to be a focused way to access synchronistic energy. 
     In Japan, eight is considered a lucky number because of the flaring symbol: (八), which illustrates the gradual growth of prosperity.  In Japanese, eight is used as a word for “many”. If the sky is cloudy, it is described as having “eight clouds”. 
     In Numerology, Eight is celebrated for the cycle of giving and receiving that it reveals, the looping back and forth between physical form and animating Spirit. When turned on its side it becomes a lemniscate: the mathematical symbol for infinity. What is infinite is also transient, like human life itself. The curving turns and returns of the Eight remind us that the lost shall be found, the far will return nearby, and what ends will begin again. The energetic inclusivity of Eight keeps us connected to the constancy of change and the eternal expansion that is ours, promoted and deepened by the Human Experience.

     Jo Leath has been supporting clients through change and growth since the 1980s.
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