Shout out to Willie Dixon as I’m the son of a seventh son, born in the seventh hour of the seventh day with seven letters in my first name. Thus, sevens have always been part of my life. So, this Aquarian septuagenarian set out to appease my curiosity, not belt out a melancholy blues song.
Wikipedia shares, “The number seven enjoys a long history of positive associations across many different cultures. In fact, if looking for reasons why seven is so popular throughout history across world cultures, you'll find the number is omnipresent.
Throughout ancient history, number seven has been related to numerous mystical and religious meanings There are seven days of the week, colors of the rainbow, holes in your head, layers of skin, seven seas, layers of earth, and a fragile atmosphere. There are seven basic chakras, deadly sins, layers of hell and heaven, days of creation, wonders of the world, and islands of Atlantis. Then, there are the seven arts and sciences, orders of architecture, Goth’s deities, sabbatical years, years of famine and years of plenty, visible planets and luminaries, “Seven ages of Man” (Shakespeare), seven brides for seven brothers, the seven dwarfs and of course, 007.
There’s powerful connection between number seven and world religions. Psychology Today says, “The number seven is featured in the Book of Revelation (seven churches, seven angels, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven stars). Biblical scholars point out seven is notable. In the creation story, God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Scholars have found that the number seven often represents perfection or completeness in the Bible according to Wonderopolis.org. Used 735 times (54 times in the book of Revelation alone), seven is the foundation of the Bible. Seven pairs of every clean animal loaded onto the ark by Noah (Genesis 7:2), seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41), Seventh son of Jacob, Gad, whose name means good luck (Genesis 46:16) Seven times bullock's blood is sprinkled before God (Leviticus 4:6).
The Koran speaks of seven heavens and Muslim pilgrims walk around the Kaaba in Mecca (Islam's most sacred site) seven times”. In Judaism, number seven forms a widespread typological pattern within Hebrew scripture, including: seven days of creation, leading to the seventh day or Sabbath (Genesis 1)”
Wikipedia adds, “The Pythagoreans invested particular numbers with unique spiritual properties. The number seven was considered to be particularly interesting because it consisted of the union of the physical number 4 with the spiritual number 3. In Pythagorean numerology the number 7 means spirituality.”
Psychology today explains, “It matches our memory capacity. In 1956, George Miller of Harvard University wrote what is today considered one of the classic papers in psychology in which he demonstrated that most people could retain roughly seven items of information in their short-term-memory. That’s why phone numbers in the U.S. and many other countries tend to have seven digits (area code not withstanding) — as it is the most digits most people are likely to recall (although cell phones have done away with the need to recall anyone's phone number, even our own).”
Not a gambler in youth, I hopped into a VW van wafting with purple haze and patchouli with six friends and road-tripped to a horse racetrack in Cincy to test fate and see if “Lucky 7” would pay off. We bellied up to window seven, placed our high-risk $7 dollar bets on the number seven horse in the 7th race. Navigating through the crowd I was able to score seat seven in seventh row along with enough seats for my six friends. Perfect, exhale. What could go wrong? At approximately 7 PM, bells rang, gates flew open and snorting horses ridden by technicolor jockeys galloped away. What an intense spectacle for this naïve, repressed Christian fundamentalist who was told he’d be punished with a one-way ticket to perdition for gambling. Caught up in the frenetic energy, it was exhilarating. As sweating, grunting horses rounded the 4th turn down into the stretch, heading to the wire, I locked onto my horse and, clearly, I should’ve seen it coming: my horse crossed the finish line 7th.
Wikipedia shares, “The number seven enjoys a long history of positive associations across many different cultures. In fact, if looking for reasons why seven is so popular throughout history across world cultures, you'll find the number is omnipresent.
Throughout ancient history, number seven has been related to numerous mystical and religious meanings There are seven days of the week, colors of the rainbow, holes in your head, layers of skin, seven seas, layers of earth, and a fragile atmosphere. There are seven basic chakras, deadly sins, layers of hell and heaven, days of creation, wonders of the world, and islands of Atlantis. Then, there are the seven arts and sciences, orders of architecture, Goth’s deities, sabbatical years, years of famine and years of plenty, visible planets and luminaries, “Seven ages of Man” (Shakespeare), seven brides for seven brothers, the seven dwarfs and of course, 007.
There’s powerful connection between number seven and world religions. Psychology Today says, “The number seven is featured in the Book of Revelation (seven churches, seven angels, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven stars). Biblical scholars point out seven is notable. In the creation story, God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. Scholars have found that the number seven often represents perfection or completeness in the Bible according to Wonderopolis.org. Used 735 times (54 times in the book of Revelation alone), seven is the foundation of the Bible. Seven pairs of every clean animal loaded onto the ark by Noah (Genesis 7:2), seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41), Seventh son of Jacob, Gad, whose name means good luck (Genesis 46:16) Seven times bullock's blood is sprinkled before God (Leviticus 4:6).
The Koran speaks of seven heavens and Muslim pilgrims walk around the Kaaba in Mecca (Islam's most sacred site) seven times”. In Judaism, number seven forms a widespread typological pattern within Hebrew scripture, including: seven days of creation, leading to the seventh day or Sabbath (Genesis 1)”
Wikipedia adds, “The Pythagoreans invested particular numbers with unique spiritual properties. The number seven was considered to be particularly interesting because it consisted of the union of the physical number 4 with the spiritual number 3. In Pythagorean numerology the number 7 means spirituality.”
Psychology today explains, “It matches our memory capacity. In 1956, George Miller of Harvard University wrote what is today considered one of the classic papers in psychology in which he demonstrated that most people could retain roughly seven items of information in their short-term-memory. That’s why phone numbers in the U.S. and many other countries tend to have seven digits (area code not withstanding) — as it is the most digits most people are likely to recall (although cell phones have done away with the need to recall anyone's phone number, even our own).”
Not a gambler in youth, I hopped into a VW van wafting with purple haze and patchouli with six friends and road-tripped to a horse racetrack in Cincy to test fate and see if “Lucky 7” would pay off. We bellied up to window seven, placed our high-risk $7 dollar bets on the number seven horse in the 7th race. Navigating through the crowd I was able to score seat seven in seventh row along with enough seats for my six friends. Perfect, exhale. What could go wrong? At approximately 7 PM, bells rang, gates flew open and snorting horses ridden by technicolor jockeys galloped away. What an intense spectacle for this naïve, repressed Christian fundamentalist who was told he’d be punished with a one-way ticket to perdition for gambling. Caught up in the frenetic energy, it was exhilarating. As sweating, grunting horses rounded the 4th turn down into the stretch, heading to the wire, I locked onto my horse and, clearly, I should’ve seen it coming: my horse crossed the finish line 7th.
RSS Feed