Nine Lives

Moving beyond the empire of the 8, we arrive at the number 9, which, along with the 10, is one of the numbers representing reflection, review, retrospection, finality and endings; however, there are other aspects to be explored with this number. For instance, building upon the last point, the 9 may very specifically symbolize a sense of maturity (similar to 4, but this time, it’s on a grander scale) and complete integration, especially when talking about things like skill sets, various components of systems, or even different members of a group working together seamlessly towards a common goal. Another commonly portrayed theme about number 9 is a relationship to concepts like spirituality, much alike the previous numbers 3 and 7, but here, it’s an even further honed spiritual quality, integrating all the aspects of the previous 3 and 7 together to create a working spiritual “machine” whose impact is “greater than the sum of its parts,” which again is similar to what I talked about when exploring number 2, but it’s only natural that the 9 would have a great degree of overlap with many or even all the preceding numbers since it aptly represents this recurring theme of integration and the blending together of various disconnected concepts. In fact, this is precisely why I believe many numerologists like to attach your those big-money, overused SEO terms like: “humanitarianism,” “compassion,” a “universal love of mankind,” and a noble desire for “the greater good” of humanity. As sick and tired I get of reading these repetitive terms on a “numerology of number 9” Google search page, these themes do aptly match with the 9 if we proclaim it to have this underlying unifying quality, which again if you remember, is similar in nature to the number 1. Next, we arrive at a contradictory significance: that of the number 9 as a warrior; yet, this is how many numerologists, particularly in the Vedic system, view this number. 

So 9 heralds endings and upcoming completions, maturity and the process of retrospection. Now, these concepts may apply to any aspect of our personal lives or in the world around us; yet, one thing remains certain: that these themes are natural consequences of the activity first conceived and dreamt about in the void of the 0, then birthed into a concrete existence in the 1, and through its journey of development through all the successive numbers, it reaches the 9, which can signify a “wrapping up” and finalizing process. Of course, the 9 alone cannot ultimately represent endings and completion by itself by virtue of the fact that it is, after all, an odd number, meaning it still has that incomplete, active, and driven nature to it which bestows upon it a hunger to seek balance, rest and completion in the following even number, the 10. So with the 9, its kinda like a reminder telling us: “Don’t give up, because you’re almost there!” with the keyword being “almost.” Now, remember how I spoke about the 4 being a signpost of maturity and completion at a very basic level, and furthermore (along with the 5): death; well, here we have the same idea going on but at a much greater scale on multiple levels of our lives, as opposed to simple single-level changes of the 4, and maybe the 5 as well. To illustrate, if a 4 and a 5 were predicting a mature stage and an end to something specific, like a significant relationship, then the appearance of the 9 could possibly show the consequent transformation our lives take afterwards on all levels: our mental and emotional health, our physical health, our social lives, and even our careers; yet, such wide-sweeping change need not be limited to just the negative hit that all these parts of our lives take after a bad breakup, it can also mean the positive resurrection we take after we heal to become stronger and wiser people who can grow and develop these parts of our lives with even more wisdom and experience than before. 

Another concept that can be explored is the ability to integrate or fuse together disconnected parts of a system or thing and bring them together to work in alignment. In fact, this particular concept is a very “1” concept as it relates to the idea of unity and oneness, and so naturally, both the 1 and 9 can represent unity, but the 1 is quite raw, crude, simple and unrefined, and so it is much less likely to understand differences and will likely just unite different parts together without any consideration of their uniqueness; on the other hand, the 9 has this special maturity, compassion and wisdom to unify and yet still recognize the uniqueness of its individual parts; but still, the 9 does borrow this quality of unity in general from the 1, which only adds to the idea that the 9 is an integration of all the preceding numbers before it. Yet, let’s focus for a moment on these ideas of balance and harmony. Now, if you’re sharp enough to catch me on this: yes I did say the same thing about the 6, that it is able to balance and bring harmony to things. However, I think there’s an important notable difference between the 6 and 9 when we talk about the word: harmony. See, you could technically still have a functional “harmony” and balance in a system whilst still having opposing parts in it. As just an example: consider many electoral governmental structures in the world where you have opposing parties, and yet, in spite of this opposition, you still end up with (at least in theory) a relatively smooth and politically stable process where the party that the majority of people favour, is selected; therefore, this can be considered a form of harmony and balance, even though the ideologies of clashing parties will continue to exist indefinitely. So, this is the kind of harmony I envision existing first in the 2, and then in the 6. However, with the 9, I think the narrative changes in that now all those clashing elements in a system themselves become aligned in the same direction so that there is no more opposition existing between them. Consequently, you would end up with “harmony” in the truest sense of the word. Now, a far-fetched example of this could be two opposing rival gangs suddenly having an epiphany that, despite their differences, whether that be religion, ideology or social background, that they are all living, breathing human beings and therefore essentially the same, and that any further rivalry is futile and unnecessary, with them deciding to be good friends afterwards. So actually, the 9 is able to integrate these different and opposing parts of itself to make them function in unison and complete harmony. If you think about it, this makes sense, as the 9 understands that the final parts of many things, whether that be the end of a year, the completion of a season for an elite sports team, or perhaps even a meta-analysis, all these things have in common: a reviewing and looking-back phase of each of its previous elements, states and events and a need to unify and correct any mistakes and differences that may have arisen in the past; this is done with the hope that in the following year, season or study, everything will carry out flawlessly and perfectly in the number 10. In particular though, it is this underlying quality of bringing various and even opposing parts of itself into agreement and complete unison that terms like “universal love” are attached to the 9, and with this idea we can drift right into the next point. 

I just noticed that the 6 is like a downward spiral in shape, illustrative of a focus on energy and attention on things of a more base and material nature; well, this is in contrast to the upward spiral of the 9, which would then obviously convey the mirror image opposite with instead a focus on things more subtle, refined and mystical like, surprise, surprise: spirituality. Going a step further, if we were to look at the 9’s shape as a vertical line ending with an upward spiral culmination, just like a flower blooming with potential, this would make sense, as spirituality can be considered to be amongst the most subtle of our human faculties and therefore, our final frontier as human beings. We notice this trend in nature too if we look at something as simple as the physical elements around us: you start with the hard, tangible and solid Earth always being at the bottom of us, then you come to water, which has a relatively heavy density as well, but obviously lighter than non-water solids and the Earth. Next, of course, you can talk about both things like the gaseous phase of water, as well as the element of fire, both of which tend to rise from the ground towards the air. We then follow up with the element of air itself, which (together with steam/the gaseous phase of water) can be considered to be amongst the least dense of physical components of nature, at least here on Earth. Now, Vedic scholars like to add an additional element: that of “space” as the final fifth element and most subtle element, as obviously being a vacuum, its complete lack of matter makes it the least dense, and therefore the most subtle element. Naturally then, the subtlest of elements are the most difficult to reach: though we conquered the air in the last century and have engaged in numerous space missions since then, still, there is a hell of a lot that we still don’t know about space, and it will always be amongst the most difficult to explore due to this extreme “subtlety” where the complete lack of (non-dark) matter for huge expanses would not allow us to even breathe oxygen, or have an atmosphere to shield us from fatal radiation, or have enough gas molecules to collide frequently enough to allow our Sun or any star to heat us adequately. Well, we can use this same example in our physical universe to reflect back upon our internal nature as human beings and compare spirituality to the mystery, elusiveness and difficulty in our exploration of space; in essence, space can be considered to be a metaphor for spirituality itself. In this regard, it aptly seems to integrate the initial spiritual push of the 3, along with the ethereal spiritual order of the 7, and mesh them together to form a fully functioning system to explore our spiritual nature. 

Lastly, we arrive at a profound contradiction, that whilst the 9 is a guardian of ultimate integration, harmony and unity of different elements and spirituality; at the same time, it is regarded as a number denoting the “warrior,” which is likely why Vedic schools of thought have associated the planet Mars with this number. So, how could this be? I guess this contradiction can be resolved by simply labeling the 9 as a “spiritual warrior;” at least in its highest expression. If we think of this world as a huge, polarized battleground between “good” and “evil,” then you would need a perfectly harmonized unity amongst the “good” elements fighting as a “perfectly integrated” force in order to have the strength to defeat the “darker” or “evil” elements. We must keep in mind however, that this type of warfare is not won only through a masculine approach of being unyielding and intense, with endless initiative, offence, force, and with the quality of leaping into action, but also a feminine approach of being silent, still, calm, collected and receptive to knowledge, clarity and insights to actually pierce through the veil of our own ignorance and tricks of our mind to unravel our essential spiritual nature. Also, we must keep in mind that the duality of light and darkness in a spiritual sense must necessarily persist and that despite the ongoing battle, neither darkness nor light can truly be eliminated due to the fact that opposites are a reality of this world, and that anything that exists here must necessarily be counter-balanced by its polar opposite. But, let us briefly explore an interplay between the 8 and the 1: if we look at the 1 as representing indivisible strength, whilst considering the 8 to denote material increase, change, transformation and resurrection (through its association with the 8th sign), then we could obviously state that the 9 is the summation of the 8 with the 1, and therefore, it personifies strength with a change; now, if you think about it, this sounds very much in line with themes of revolution, battles and war for an ideological cause, belief or social change, and so here we can also make the connection of the “humanitarian” and “selfless” 9 being a badass soldier at the same time. So in this vein then, the 9 isn’t some punk that just selfishly fights to get a kick out of it at someone else’s expense, but rather, is more like a seasoned veteran who engages into battle for good, just and humanitarian causes, and is even willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the greater good.  

In conclusion then, the number 9 is a significant milestone in our voyage of numbers thus far. We began by exploring it’s association with endings, review, retrospection, the tying up of loose ends and it’s function as a final reminder that a current process of action or state of being is nearing completion, much like the “1 minute left” warning you hear about in football, basketball or ice hockey games. So seeing the 9 everywhere would or could very simply be alerting you to the possibility of impending endings, kind of like the 4 and the 5, except on a much more profound level, like a change in your lifestyle or personality, for instance.  Following this, we visit my proposal that the 9 acts like an integrative force, knotting together all the qualities of the previous numbers into a perfectly harmonized conglomeration where all of it’s previously opposing elements (similar to the 2, and then the 6) are all now aligned in agreement, without any opposition or contradiction, to create a powerful unified force, much like the 1. As an example, perhaps there is a great degree of discord and conflict in your family or work environment, and the 9 is conveying to you to act as an example of love, harmony and unity between your family members or co-workers who differ in their opinions in order to bring them together in harmony despite their differences; at a larger level, this could be something like a community leader uniting people of all different social backgrounds, religions and ethnicities together into a harmonized whole. Thirdly, we arrive at the 9 as an advocate of spiritual idealism, after having gathered together the initial spiritual foray of the 3, along with the mature and analytical mysticism of the 7, together into a “spiritual machine” which is complete in itself as an engine to effectively reach consistent spiritual growth. Finally, we come to the idea of this number being a warrior with and for a greater social cause; hopefully, a positive and humanitarian one in its highest expression. Here, the 9’s appearance may be fore-warning us that we indeed need to become a spiritual warrior against our own personal negative traits (much like the 4 making realize our restrictive negative habits, and the 5 shining the light of our conscious attention on our subconscious patterns of behaviour, or even the 7 sitting in long hermit-mode periods to quietly study, analyze and self-reflect on our entire individual nature); yet, we must also positively affect change in the external world at large, and this certainly doesn’t mean we have to become spiritual martyrs slaying demons for humanity on an actual battlefield, but rather, we can still be warriors for beneficial change simply by living as an example for others to always be at our most excellent version of ourself, despite all of life’s most cruel tests, challenges, injustices and hardships.