Linda A. Levy

 

The importance of the Number 9 in our lives is derived from ancient belief systems and continues to effect us today: living along Highway 9, through 9 lives, 9 months, the whole 9 yards, cloud 9, dressed to the nines, a stitch in time, and so on. 

 

 

“9 x 9 Lives”

Nancy M. Howe

Watercolor Collage

(click to enlarge thumbnails)

 

“Fire Tulips 

( X 9 )”

Christine Beck		 "It takes 9 Lives to get wings"  High Fire Clay sculpture by Julie Mackie

   

 

“Nine Flies Flew”

by Julie Zaccone Stiller

 

Mixed Media, Fiber

 
 

“Mnemosyne:

Mother of the 9 Muses”

by Linda Levy

 

Construction/Collage/Jewelry

 

   

"9 x 9", Collaborative Screen Print by 

Judy Dykstra-Brown, Julie Erreca, Linda Levy, Julie Mackie

    

“9th Position”                                “9 Patch Child’s Play”

 by Deb Ecklund

 

Textiles

 

“Nothing Included, Nothing Excluded”

by Johnny Arbogast

 

Acrylic on Canvas

 

 

“Nine Lives”

by Judy Dykstra-Brown

 

 

 

“Still Life with Obscure Nines”

by Ralph Joachim

  Oil

 
 

Hiway 9 in 1999  

By Anouk Johanna

Watercolor

 
 

“Canalis Opusculus: Volume IX”

by Jody Alexander

 

Mixed Media

 

 

 

The importance of the Number 9 in our lives is derived from ancient belief systems and continues to effect us today: living along Highway 9, through 9 lives, 9 months, the whole 9 yards, cloud 9, dressed to the nines, a stitch in time, and so on.  To provide you with a perspective on the significance of the number 9, from ancient beginnings to our present, we offer the following excerpts from “A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe”:

 The last among the seven Pythagorean numbers (three through nine), nine is the limit to which the generative principles of number reach.  The ancient mathematical philosophers called nine the “finishing post” and “that which brings completion.” 

 Folk sayings have carried the essential nature of nine over many centuries.  We say “a cat has nine lives,” after which its luck runs out.  A “cat-o-nine-tails” provided symbolic maximum punishment to its victims.  To “go the whole nine yards” is to go all the way into an endeavor.  We say we’re “on cloud nine” to express our highest joy.  To be “dressed up to the nines” is to be dressed completely and perfectly, omitting no detail.  “A stitch in time saves nine” is a pithy way of saying that taking care of small problems as they arise enables us to avoid having to repeat the complete job later.  The ninth level is the proverbial nth degree.

Holiest of Holies - Composed of the three trinities (9 = 3 x 3), the number nine represents the principles of the sacred Triad taken to their utmost expression.  Nine was considered thrice sacred and most holy, representing perfection, balance, and order, the supreme superlative.  In ancient Asia, gifts given in groups of nine were considered most respectful.  In fact, the Chinese words for “gift” and “nine” are identical..

 The Ultimate -  Nine is the final number having a specific identity.  It represents the highest attainment to be achieved in any endeavor. Nine is the unsurpassable limit, the utmost bound, the ultimate extension to which the archetypal principles of number can reach and manifest themselves in the world.  The ancient Greeks called nine “the horizon”, as it lies at the edge of the shore before the boundless ocean of numbers that repeat in endless cycles the principles of the first nine digits.  Nothing lies beyond the principles of nine, which the Greeks called the Ennead.

 

9 Muses – 9 Gods - The Greeks honored nine muses, who personified and inspired the full range of the arts and sciences of humankind.  Going back further in time, the Egyptians honored a company of nine “gods, “ or neteru, their Ennead of nine manifest principles, a trinity of trinities, which emerged from four pairs of unmanifest gods to oversee the world’s ongoing creative process.  The Egyptians saw the whole of humanity, which they symbolized by the glyphs for “nine archers’ bows,” as subject to the ninefold rule of the Ennead.  The pharaoh, their representative on earth, was often symbolized by nine bows.  This same symbol is referred to in the name of the vulture Mother Goddess Nekhebet, “she who binds the nine bows,” or unites all people and so was called “the father of fathers, the mother of mothers.”

 Ninefold rule is not uncommon in history.  In medieval Europe, nine types of crowns in heraldry represented complete ninefold rule. Ecclesiastical architects recognize nine styles of crosses.  The Freemason founders of the United States government used the Egyptian Ennead as their model for the nine justices of the Supreme Court, whose interpretation of the law is ultimate.

 The Egyptians honored ninefold companies of both deities and demons.  The notion of ninefold cosmic levels spread through cultures they influenced and appears in others they never reached.  In Christian symbolism, we find nine orders of angelic choirs in nine circles of heaven and nine orders of devils within nine rings of hell.  Medieval tales refer to nine gates of hell (three of brass, three of iron, and three of adamantine rock) with its nine rivers all pouring into the ninth ring, where Lucifer is confined. 

 

 

 

Across the ocean the symbolism continues with the Native American, Aztec, and Mayan myth of nine cosmic levels (four above, earth in the center, and four below).  In this context, nine-story temples also represent nine levels of the underworld, the realm of our unconscious.

 

The ancient Chinese told a myth of the man who emerged from the Yellow River carrying a geometric arrangement of forty-five points called the lo-shu, or river plan. The groupings of points were recognized as the numbers one through nine arranged in a 3 x 3 magic square.  Its three columns, three rows, and two diagonals always add up to fifteen.  Nine cells provide the smallest and first such arrangement in which all nine numbers can be woven in this form of matrix.

 

The ancient Chinese saw the magic square as a harmonious blend of the nine archetypal principles of number and a paradigm of cosmic structure and process, mirroring the supreme order of the universe.  In the science of feng-shui, the numbers within each cell of the magic square have specific significance for working with the earth’s subtle creative energies for the good of society and the environment. 

 

  

As the most auspicious number of celestial power in ancient Chinese, it orders nine great social laws, nine classes of officials, nine sacred rites, and nine-story pagodas.  On the ninth hour of the ninth day of their ninth month was held the festival of the “double hang,” honoring the ninefold creative celestial powers of heaven, the archetypes represented by the nine digits.

 Nine-Story Pagodas

 There are worldwide practices of repeating a phrase, prayer, or chant three times to enforce it with sacred intention.  Thus, to repeat any trinity three times, fulfilling nine repetitions, represents an ultimate appeal.  A famous example concerns the three witches in Macbeth, repeating their spell nine times:

 The weird sisters hand in hand,

Posters of the sea and land,

Thus do go about, about,

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,

And thrice again to make up nine.

-         William Shakespeare

 A look into nearly every culture finds references to nine representing the ultimate extension.  A superstition among many musical composers forbids the numbering of a symphony past the number nine.  Even in modern times we find the principles of the Ennead expressed in secular affairs such as the American sport of baseball, played on the four-base diamond, or square earth-symbol, fielded by nine players over a duration of nine innings.  The “bottom of the ninth,” the modern version of the ninth rung of hell, is a team’s last chance to win, the ultimate limit.

A novena is an act of worship over a period of nine days.

The nine tube centriole

Natural Elements - There are few ninefold structures in nature.  The forms that do configure the principles of the Ennead seem to be associated with the process of birth.  The tail of the sperm half-cell is made of nine twisted threads.  After it unites with the egg to form a complete, cell, the first visible step in the doubling process of mitosis is the duplication of the centriole.  Each centriole becomes a pole and moves to opposite sides of the cell while a spindle of chromosome threads forms between them.  Electron microscope photographs show the structure of each centriole to be a circle of nine parallel tubes.  The ancients could not, of course, have known about these discoveries of

modern technology, but they attributed the nine months during which we develop in the womb and the nine openings of the body to the limiting principle of the Ennead.