I've just come out of a four-day intensive online course in numerology for kundalini yoga. I wasn't sure what to expect, and it definitely defied any expectations I did have!
I spent the first three days trying to understand, trying to work it out, and nothing was coming to me. It all seemed very esoteric, very intangible, very confusing. I wasn't sure what I would do with it. I loved aspects of it and found it all very interesting but it was like I had a bunch of puzzle pieces but no picture to guide me, and some pieces were missing.
And the teacher said towards the end of the third day "don't try to work it out. It's not a rational thing. You cannot organise it. Let it come to you. It might come to you in meditation, in your dreams, or as a result of sleeping. Just go to sleep and see how you feel in the morning." And so I did. And my dreams were full of numbers and organising. Stories, flows, and fragments.
I woke up and did yoga and meditation practice as I do every morning. All of a sudden I felt like I understood it. I didn't know how I understood it. It still wasn't organised and mapped out. But I had this connection with the numbers - their meanings were clearer. They were guiding me to bring new meaning to my life. I could see the connections that were previously eluding me. I saw how their meanings brought context and a different perspective. I suddenly could see some patterns in my life and in other people's lives. From the most mundane (my sequence for making lunch), to the most profound (how I had been living my life unconsciously in a pattern and in becoming more conscious, I was retracing my steps through the pattern, and clearing out the junk in each step).
The final day was a joy - everything the teacher said brought more depth, more layers, more meaning. I understood what he was saying and I could see how the puzzle was starting to take shape. At the end he said " this is where my work ends and yours begins. I have given you the tools. Now you have to do the work and let the numbers guide you."
So this morning, I got my oracle cards out. I had intended a simple reading, just to frame my day, to connect in with my intuition. But my intuition had other ideas. I pulled three cards. And then I noticed that there were triangles on each one. Pyramids and triangles were a key aspect of the training. Often we see a sequence of 3, but this is incomplete. When you look at a pyramid, the 4th point, the 4th side is hidden. You need to consider what is hidden in order to complete the sequence.
So I thought, hang on, they're missing the pyramid. And I have 3 cards. I'll pull a 4th to complete the sequence. When I did, I thought, how do I understand these 4 cards as the 3 reading was mind-body-spirit. And then I thought, well each number relates to different aspects of a person. But the physical body is number 5. So I need 5 cards if I'm to think about a mind-body-spirit reading in the context of numerology.
And before you know it, I have created a whole new oracle card spread with its own questions, sequences and new ways of understanding what the cards are saying based on numerology. Just like that, numerology gave me another layer of meaning to my oracle cards.
And why am I writing all of this? Partly because I am amazed and I love to amaze myself. It's so much fun! But really it's about letting go of the need to understand, to organise, to arrange. To have it mapped out and see everything clearly before we do something. We can be so caught up in this, we don't step back. We forget to breathe, to slow down, to hold something and allow it to unfold as it will. In this way we miss out in completing a sequence and get stuck doing, working, analysing, visioning. That's not to say we should avoid any of those things - they have their place. But they aren't the end point. They are just one part of the sequence.
This week I'm looking at spinal flexibility in classes. The spine connects to number 1 and it seems like an apt place to start! We need flexibility to move, to see new perspectives, to allow change, to adapt with change, to be able to live in the world we now find ourselves in. Now that our illusions of control have been shattered. Come join me on your mat this week and find some flexibility. And you can be sure some of the numerology will find its way into classes.