With the
9, we complete the cycle of action, reaction and integration.
9 is the final integration that started with the 7. 9 is the
integration of the integration. All that came before is brought
together in the 9. In this way, 9 is the number of maturity.
It is the final integration of our experience of a complete cycle.
9 is the
number of completion. It is the final stage, the step that returns
you to the source, the integration of all things before it. But
this completion is really inseparable from the new beginning
it creates. Every time we end something, we begin something else.
If you end a project, you begin your time of having experienced
that project. You take with you into your future the experience
of that completion. You begin a new phase of your life, the phase
of having had that experience.
In Pythagorean
number theory, 3 is the number of love. 9 is 3 times 3 or the
number of love raised to its own power. 9 symbolizes this Universal
love. 9 returns to the source of the 0 , the all encompassing
life force. This 0 is sometimes written as 10 to show a return
with awareness of the path that leads back to that source.
In the Tarot,
the Fool is 0, young and innocent, high atop his mountain looking
upward. 9 is an old man, mature and experienced. Back atop his
mountain after a life time below, the Hermit looks down on where
he's been. Both are at the pinnacle of existence symbolized by
the mountain. We can imagine that with the next turn of the Wheel,
the Hermit will again be the Fool.
The 9 also
teaches us about goals. As we start out, we often think that
the point of everything is to attain some goal. At times we think
the goal is to get married, finish school, or buy the right car.
On our spiritual path, we often apply the same reasoning, assuming
that the goal of our path is to gain enlightenment, to unite
with the Universal life-force.
But this
is not true. In the 9, we see that all of our "goals"
are really new places to begin. What do we imagine lies beyond
the attainment of our goals? Since the end is really the beginning,
we are fooling ourselves to think that reaching some goal is
going to free us.
The 9 is
the lesson that the goal is to be aware that we are already at
the source. Wherever we are, we have already attained the Ultimate
Goal. The 9 teaches us to be conscious of where we are and what
we are doing right now. We know now, that we are always beginning
and ending something. We are always in the middle of something.