What's in a Number?

This is my 473rd post. Nothing particularly significant in that as such, however this was the year in which Leo the First granted his six year old son Leo the Second the title of Caesar in the Roman Empire. Today, the 473 bus in London will take you between North Woolwich  and Stratford and takes in the London City Airport. A few years ago, the journey would have taken you between  Dormansland (Plough) and Crawley via East Grinstead, Kingscote, and Three Bridges. The old hand painted aluminium bus sign above is from this site.

473 is the country telephone code for Grenada and United Nations resolution 473  adopted in June 1980 expressed concern and condemned South Africa for the killing of protesters, including schoolchildren opposed to apartheid. At the time of writing, Flight United 473 is travelling from LaGuardia to Chicago Hare International airport in the United States of America.

So there are some useless facts about 473; but some would look at the number and determine that indeed, the number may not be random and that it might actually mean something.

This is what numerologists do. In his excellent book, Complete Guide to Developing your Psychic Skills, David Wells outlines the basics and explains what numbers mean and how they can be used and I'll give you an example of how it works as I understand it, using the random number that I started with - 473.

Take the number 473 and add all the individual digits together: 4 + 7 + 3. This equals 14. Now, add 1 + 4 and this equals 5. And so 5 is the 'magic' number.

You can do this with your birthday. Say you were born on the 27 August 1960. This works out like this:  27 (the day) + 8 (the month) + (1 + 9 + 6 + 0).

Reduce this down to 9 + 8 + 17. This equals 34. Finally add these numbers together and your number is 7.

So what do your final numbers mean? Well that is a matter of interpretation and a good book like David's can explain it, so for example, in the above birthday example, 7 in terms of your life path, it means science, solitude, spiritual and mystical. My birthday is worked out as number 3: truth, optimism, playful, expressive. It is possible to work out your personality number, your life path number, your soul number  and your destiny number using your name (by assigning numbers to the letters), significant dates etc.

Now of course this is only for fun. If you think it's bunkum, well thank you for reading so far. The jury is out for me, but if asked what was your favourite number, what would you say? We are often asked that, like 'what is your favourite colour'. I have favourite numbers, for example, house numbers where I've lived, my personal number 3 is another and so on. Ask yourself why you have a lucky or favourite number or a colour - if you have one, are you superstitious do you believe in luck or is there another reason. 

Enjoy the ponder.

The work on the house continues apace and is on schedule. The work has already transformed the house, how it looks and how it feels. Another couple of weeks and we should have it finished ready to decorate out.

On Saturday  a couple of days ago, we had the most torrential summer storm including hailstones the size of marbles. Leaves were ripped from the trees and my poor flower heads on the geraniums were felled in a five minute deluge. Fascinating how the weather is showing signs of extreme weather which, in the mainland UK were fairly rare events up until the last few years, now they are regular occurrences.

Chat soon 

Ta ra.