The Way of 12

I have been seeing the number 12 all over the place in Seattle recently. The number has shape and balance and creates a sense of order and benevolence. How could this be? In Chinese numerology (the study of numbers), numbers fulfill the role of creating an ordered framework around which one can organize one’s thoughts and observations when describing the processes of life.

In the introduction to the main text of The Way of Heaven  (pp14-15, The Way of Heaven: Neijing Suwen Chapters 1 and 2, by Claude Larre, Monkey Press 1994 Cambridge, England) the author states that:

1 gives its cohesion to the being and maintains the individual as the unified whole…

            1 constantly brings back all that is expressed to the living mystery, which both manifests and does not manifest itself, and whose constancy is in its changing;

2 divides but does not separate…

            It gives an account of the proper vitality of the 1. Through 2 one can understand the effect of the couple inherent in 1. For the world to be alive, it must beat. 2 is the beating;

3 does not divide or separate…

            From the merging, which is life itself for a couple, 3 is produced. Showing that 2 partners are alive because they compensate one another. And from them is produced a new but similar life.

4 marks the movement of qi in expansion…

            In so doing, it defines the set of directions we call space, but it is an expanding space. Like wise 4 presides over the unfolding of the seasons, which everyone knows are just differentiated accumulations of qi. Time is born from this differentiation.

To be continued...(First in a series of 3)