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CHAPTER 1

8 & 1 – Infinity and the Personal Self

8 pairs with 1. 8 is all curves while 1 is a straight line; they are opposites for good reason. Both 8 and 1 work with forces which generate life.

8-ness: Infinity

The number 8, on its side, is also the symbol for infinity

First of all, get paper and pen and spend some time drawing 8s, get the feel into your hand, arm and body. 8, like all the numbers, is more than an intellectual exercise.

As you draw the 8s your pen flows round one circle, crosses over and flows round the other. If you're right-handed you probably began your first circle going widdershins, got half way through it and turned deosil to do the bottom circle. You then crossed back over and went widdershins again to complete the top one. Left-handed people often do it the other way around.

Keep going round and round, over your 8, keep doing it. You find yourself travelling first one way and then the other. The figure 8 is one of the simplest spiral labyrinths, it goes in both directions, deosil, widdershins, deosil, widdershins. Remember, deosil is clockwise and widdershins is anticlockwise. This property of 8-ness is like the labyrinth again, fundamental to how it works with spirit, it brings together the two directions, widdershins and deosil, the energies of feminine and masculine, the pairs of opposites.

Now try drawing 8 on its side as the infinity symbol above, a similar but different feel.

So what is Infinity? Hmmm! Difficult! Eternity, immensity, endless, boundless, limitless, perpetuity, time without end. Like I said, difficult to imagine, at least at first.

Nowadays, we're educated and encouraged to think of things as having a beginning and an end. While this may be convenient and comfortable, it has little to do with reality, or physics! You've likely heard of the Big Bang Theory which suggests a beginning for the universe and is much quoted on TV but ... but ... if you talk to scientists, the real ones who're at the cutting edge of theoretical and particle physics, you'll find them talking about the fact that the maths for the Big Bang don't really hold up. And, anyway, what was there before the Big Bang, what did it come out of and what set it off? So the world, the universe and everything (nor any unified theory of everything either!) is not a comfy beginning-middle-end story, like a soap on TV, it's a deep, confusing, difficult concept that nobody has got the hang of yet.

And yet we live in it and with it all the time, we're constantly part of infinity. We are infinitely part of infinity.

Einstein showed that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. It changes constantly. And it completely confuses us because current photographs of the universe seem to show us that it's constantly expanding. How? If matter is not created then how is the universe expanding? I'm not going further with this in this book, but it does strongly suggest to me the concept of a "breathing" universe. I find all that stuff fascinating; comes of having a mathematician-physicist-husband, who's talked all this stuff to me over the cornflakes for the past forty-five years.

Wow! Breathing universes and the Big Bang – that's a huge load of stuff to take on if you happen to be an 8-person and so have connections with infinity. We can make it a bit smaller than that though, and so a bit easier to get a handle on. There's an old song from Yorkshire which does it rather well ... On Ilkley Moor Baht'at ... these are the words, in the dialect:

Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee,
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at?!
Wheear 'as ta bin sin ah saw thee?
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Tha's been a cooartin' Mary Jane|
On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Tha's bahn t'catch thi deeath o'cowd On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then we shall ha' to bury thee On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Then we shall ha' to bury thee On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then t'worms 'll cum and eat thee oop On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Then t'worms 'll cum and eat thee oop On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then ducks 'll cum and eat oop t'worms On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Then ducks 'll cum and eat oop t'worms On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then we shall go an' ate oop ducks On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Then we shall go an' ate oop ducks On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

Then we shall all 'ave etten thee On Ilkla Moor baht 'at Then we shall all 'ave etten thee On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

That's wheer we get us oahn back On Ilkla Moor baht 'at That's wheer we get us oahn back On Ilkla Moor baht 'at

So the poor lassie catches her death of cold, dies and is buried; the worms eat her up; the ducks eat the worms; we eat the ducks ... and so we eat her atoms, or rather the atoms that made up her body while she was alive. We don't eat her spirit, of course. And that happens all through everyone's, and everything's, life – you eat, digest, excrete, and your excretions become part of the next meal for someone or something. In the sense of our physical atoms, we are all part of each other and always have been.

This works even if you go back before the Earth was solid, before all the atoms stuck themselves together to make this glorious spinning ball of rock we all live on. The atoms came from stardust (as Joni Mitchell wrote) – We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden. Only it's one hell of a lot older than the mere billion years that she wrote about, our own earth is at least 4.5 billion years old for a start, and then there's however-long that the atoms were cycling around the universe before they came together as the Earth, and nobody has the answer to that one. I'll let Joni off though as the lines do scan well!

Infinity is about this constant change, the constant reusing and recycling of atoms from one being to another ... and so is all life. And so is 8-ness. It's about beginning to allow glimmers of this reality into your consciousness, about expanding your personal envelope to encompass more. There's no way anyone manages this all in one go, nor should you try to, after all infinity is endlessness, there is no need for an end; it's about the continuous growth of your consciousness, and your ability to be inclusive, your ability to relate to everything and to know, ken, your interconnection with all life.

8 also gives us the linking threads to the ancestral realm which includes everything, not just our grannies; it also links us to the world of potential, connecting us with the unlimited, latent, dormant and embryonic inspiration of ideas and concepts. The world of the ancestors has great wisdom for us, and advice on how not to do things; how not to re-make the mistakes of the past, as well as idea for doing things we've not yet thought of.

Being an 8-person

8 is on the centripetal inward cycle. Centripetal is about being drawn into the centre, the axis. It's a force which acts on a body moving in a circular path around a centre, which pulls that body inwards, towards the centre around which it's moving. Spirit is about this centripetal force, about 'inspiriting matter', bringing heaven down to earth.

Like with all numbers, there are extremes which cause the person to go out of harmony, out of right relation with the world in which they live. To work well with your numbers you have to balance yourself between these extremes, like walking a tightrope, it's often called 'the razor-edged path' in esoteric-speak. When you're balanced it's like standing at that centre where the two circles of the 8 meet.

It's very easy, as you may have found in your drawing, to get hypnotised into just flowing round and round the spiral. You don't want to stop, it feels so good. Now, take this idea into life ... it can be a 'go with the flow', but if you take it to extremes you flow so much you lose all identity, all individuation, you become without direction, and you lose the ability to concentrate and focus. This is no good at all for your spirit. Your spirit-self has real difficulty inhabiting a gossamer-cobweb person who wafts hither and yon, going with the flow; there's no security, no grail-cauldron to contain it, or for it to express itself through, there's no vehicle in which to do its work. It's like grabbing at clouds.

So 8-people have to take care that, while they do go with the flow, they also have edges and boundaries, they know self from not-self, and are distinct enough not to invade other people's space. They have to be able, over their lifetime, to form their personal self into a solid and useful grail-cup in which their spirit can live and work. This is, after all, part of the bargain they made before they came into incarnation this time.

At the other end of the scale 8-people can become rigid. They walk their spiral, but they tread so religiously in their own footsteps that eventually they find themselves treading a deep, narrow rut, always the same, no change, no growth, no evolution. Deep ruts are very hard and difficult to climb out of. Imagine to yourself how it feels to be walking in a track, just the width of your footsteps, and perhaps so deep you can no longer see over the top. How do you climb out? And your view of the rest of the world would be severely limited, comprising largely of a strip of sky and perhaps the feet and ankles of other people who come close to the edge of your rut. You've probably got the picture ... now ponder and explore those analogies in terms of everyday life and relationships.

A simple example might be the way you drive or walk to work. Maybe you always take the same route. This can be very comforting and reassuring, you can listen to the radio, you don't have to think, and you go on autopilot ... Now ... is this always a good thing? Maybe you need a change, to see something different, feel your brain firing at full capacity again and enjoying it. While routine is good and useful and pleasant it can also become a treadmill which excludes growth. Our spirits won't thank us for that. And we become dull and boring companions for our friends and loved ones too – not surprising if they forget our birthday, or up and leave, perhaps!

1-ness: the Personal Self

1 is the partner of 8.

Again, get paper and pen and draw the 1 as a straight line. Leave off the little flip at the top, keep it as straight line, this way you'll get the feeling of 'line', as you did with the floating curve of 8.

Let the feeling flow into your body through your hand and arm. Don't try to translate the feeling, just experience it for the moment. Later, having put all feel of 1-ness into your Cauldron of the Unconscious, when it's brewed awhile you'll be able to eat of the idea-soup it contains. Like all cooking, you have to let it brew and remember, a watched pot never boils, so leave it alone to work away without you fussing over it. The Cauldron of the Unconscious works this way, so let it happen, don't try to understand or explain it to yourself (and definitely not to anyone else). Give it time to develop into a juicy, nourishing broth, then you can really feast on it.

The number 1 is on the centrifugal function, the outward spiral, it's expansive and inclusive, it's that feeling like spinning a ball round on a string, the ball feels as though it's pulling away from you. Or if you're driving a car fast round a corner you feel as if you're being pulled/pushed away sideways from the apex of the corner.

As you've already seen, each of the pairs of numbers adds to 9, the number of the Void, of potential, of enabling power – we talk about this in detail later. Because of this pairing, as an 8-person you also need to work with the 1, and if you are a 1-person you need to work with the 8, to understand your full nature.

The other half of your number pair will be your shadow side – and shadows are vital in order to show you the edges that define you from everything else. Shadow enables you to see! Shadow shows you the boundary between you and not-you, it makes you visible as you. Shadow is what makes it possible to define, to know where you are. You need your shadow or you could end up like Peter Pan.

The Ridgepole & the Personal Self

1 is the Ridgepole. In Taoist philosophy it's the ridgepole that holds up heaven, by standing firm on the earth. The number 1 keeps heaven and earth distinct and separate – it's both an edge and a boundary. It defines the pairs of opposites and so makes our universe possible.

So 1 has a very important divisive function that is good and necessary. In some new-age work we may be told divisiveness is 'wrong' but this is a somewhat simplistic notion as it leaves out all the important material about boundaries, edges, self/not-self, individuation, and duality without which our universe cannot properly function, and nor can we. 1 is a number of discernment, knowing one thing from another, and without this faculty we wouldn't be able to know our arse from our elbow as the ancient and slightly rude adage goes. It's about Jung's sensory function, about the body, about the stuff of matter, and the relation of our body with earth.

Knowing self from other is vital and necessary, essential to knowing. Without knowing we become 'head-sets', full of knowledge which we splurge out inappropriately, swamping our hearers and blinding them with science. The number 1 brings us back to our bodies, back to earth, feet on the ground. Part of knowing is knowing when to speak and when to be silent, how much/little to say, and that's a hallmark of the fully awake and aware 1-person. It does take a bit of practice and making a few mistakes to get to this point but that's OK, it's very likely the sun will continue to rise each morning in spite of our mistakes, a comforting thought. But it's not a reason for being thoughtless and hedonistic, which are downside traits for 1-people; so while making mistakes is OK and useful, galumphing about without caring or thinking is not.

When you were drawing 1s you will have felt the up-down, rocking, pendulum motion of the figure. It's a journey between two points. Polarities. If you draw up and down over the same line it's quite hypnotic, probably boring, and makes a hole in the paper. Think about that.

Being a 1-person

If you are a 1-person it's very possible to get stuck, to lose perspective, get tunnel vision. All you can see is those two points, and the only journey you can imagine is the one that goes between them. A 1-person who has got into this state can be quite aggressive to anyone who suggests there might be another way. The 8 has its 'stuck in a groove', and so does the 1, but this stuck-ness feels very different for each of them although, to an outside observer, their 'stuck-ness' is both obvious and similar.

1-people, because of their strong heaven/earth polarity, can be quite difficult to coax out of their rut. Helpers must learn to duck fast as 1-people can lash out like lightning, so fancy footwork is a good idea for those who would like to help, and 1-people are very worthwhile helping. They are towers of strength; the figure 1 is a tower-like image, and 1-people can be swords to fight battles, often for others than themselves and for causes which they espouse. Where these causes are evolutionary – such as the environment, education, stopping cruelty, greed and poverty, for instance – the 1-person can be an exceptional leader. Leadership is a fundamental trait of 1-ness, up-front and out there; 1-people do this very well, they can also stimulate change and stand as marker-posts at crossroads. What they, and the world, need of them is for them to have a good handle on discrimination before they rush to sort the world out.

1-ness is also about beginnings. 1-people initiate things. They also have to learn to complete them, a function of the line which goes all the way between two points.

So the basic extremes for 1-people are stuck-ness, getting in a rut, narrow vision and pushing everyone else along with their idea of right. These are qualities of a self-image which has become distorted through introspection, as they are also excellent naval-gazers. The 1-person can become so singular that, to quote an excellent Harrison Ford film, they feel that 'Everyone's lost but me!' With loving help 1-people can be persuaded to climb out of this pit.

Another word for 1-people can be poised like the grace and balance of a tight-rope walker; there's a lovely Arthur Rackham picture of fairies dancing along a strand of cobweb which gives a sense of this.

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Excerpted from "Numerology"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Elen Sentier.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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