I'm 47 today
Ever since I was a kid, 47 has been my favorite number. When I was 9, I saw Jim Henson's first feature production, a surreal TV drama titled The Cube. A hammer is thrown through a wall, making a jagged hole. Behind it is seen only blackness with sparks of light flying about. It turns out to be a #47 hole, so a patch already exists that fits it exactly. After the show that evening we went to church where the coat pegs were numbered. I hung my coat on #47 and thereby set up a lifelong association with the number. Over the years it has turned up with uncanny frequency and accuracy precisely at certain moments of my life. So this is the birthday I've always been looking forward to... sort of a personal milestone.
The number is weird because it's a prime, but 40 and 7 both have such archetypal awesomeness in world mythologies. Putting them together has to lend a certain fascination. Many numbers (as studied interestingly by the late polymath scholar Annemarie Schimmel in The Mystery of Numbers) have certain meanings associated with them. The numbers from 1 to 10 all have their individual characters, as encoded in the Kabbalah, and some larger ones like 40 have definite meanings. I could read mythological significance in most larger numbers by factoring them, since multiples of numbers tend to replicate the qualities of their factors. But oddly, I never found an identifiable association for 47--partly because it's a prime with no factors but itself and 1. Oh, and I read that book by Annemarie Schimmel to look for traditional significance in 47, but the book had nothing on it.
So the enigmatic quality of 47 has helped keep it more interesting, since the meaning seems just out of reach, something is definitely there but of stubbornly indefinite nature. This continues to engage Younger Self's imagination more than a meaning that is fixed.
As a sideline, I recombined the 4 and 7 to get 11 and 28, which are both really cool numbers. In Kabbalah, 11 is the number of the qelippot, the empty broken shells, sort of like the packing cases that creation was shipped in, thrown out after it was unpacked. But James Joyce used 11 in Finnegans Wake for the cyclical new beginning after the Fall. And 28 is not only one of the "perfect numbers," which I always thought was extra cool--the definition of a perfect number is that its factors all add up to it--but for a Witch, 28 is the moon cycle, a primordial archetype of feminine power. When I became interested in Sufism, I found that a central Sufi concept, عشق ‘ishq 'intense love', totaled 470--a ten-pack of my favorite number, and wasn't that a really sweet affirmation!
After I finally got on the internet some years ago, I discovered that there exists a whole 47 Society! They hail it as "the quintessential random number." The 47 Society was started at Pomona College years before, and then made it onto the internet. The founders attributed the fascination to the use of the number in the original Star Trek in the Sixties. By the time I saw The Cube in 1969, I had been watching the first run of Star Trek for years, but had never noticed the 47 in it. Although maybe somehow it had gotten into my mind subconsciously, so when I heard it from another source it resonated.
When I learned gematria in Hebrew and then Arabic I looked for words numbering 47 to help elucidate it for me. Again, the picture wasn't very clear. The letters mim (40) and zay (7) make half of the name زمزم Zamzam, the sacred well at Mecca once tended by ancient priestesses. But by themselves they mean 'suck'. Ha! They don't make anything in Hebrew. These Hebrew words are from Sepher Sephiroth, and the Arabic from Fihrist al-abjad (a couple of 3-ring binders I filled with numerical notes in Arabic, begun in the margins of Sepher Sephiroth).
Hebrew words totaling 47:
אויל avil - foolish, silly, stupid (Ha! Maybe that's my answer right there!)
בכייה bakhiyah - a weeping
במה bamah - cloud; high place; waves; fortress (Modern Hebrew: stage, platform)
חלט halat - to clutch, hold
כי טוב ki tov - that it was good
אום - AUM ॐ
Arabic words totaling 47:
بهم buhum - jet-black (plural)
جليد jalid - frost, ice
جمد jamada - to freeze
مجد majd - glory
مز mazza - to suck
مز muzz - sour
طلح talh - acacia tree or banana
أولى ula - first (feminine gender)
والي wali - leader (one of the 99 Names of Allah)
زم zamma - to fasten, bind
زيل zayyala - to disperse, scatter
So for my 47th birthday, please tie me up first as I suck a banana ice freeze.
Anyone feel inspired to buy me a gift? Go for it!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/34K31EKLQTZCE/103-7507564-8631815
"As soon as you discard scientific rigor, you're no longer a mathematician-you're a numerologist!"
-π
=======
The following responses from the 47 Society are cooler than cool... I was blown away! :) The nicest 47th birthday presents I could have received.
Re: [47] I turn 47 today
Well Happy Birthday, Johanna!
Thankyou for your most informative post, I totally
enjoyed it.
I took the liberty of checking your asteroids, and
found that on the day you were born, which I assume
was September 14, 1959; the asteroids 127 JOHANNA, 238
HYPATIA and 65 CYBELE were all in Taurus. For a Virgo
Sun like yourself, that is very compatible. Not only
that, but 65 CYBELE was at 17 Taurus- which is degree
47 of the zodiac. Amazing! You couldn't have planned
your birth any better, or your nick-name.
May you have many more Happy 47 coincidences!
Judy
1347
Re: [47] I turn 47 today
Also, while September 14th, 1959 was the 257th day of the year that year, it becomes the 258th day of the year in a leap year. Asteroid #47 AGLAJA was discovered on September 15th of 1857, the 258th day of the year that year. While you may not have been born the date in question, you were certainly born on a date that will be the correct number of days into the year on which asteroid #47 was discovered one out of every FOUR years. The next time that will happen will be September 14th of 2006. Happy birthday, Johanna! Gene247
The number is weird because it's a prime, but 40 and 7 both have such archetypal awesomeness in world mythologies. Putting them together has to lend a certain fascination. Many numbers (as studied interestingly by the late polymath scholar Annemarie Schimmel in The Mystery of Numbers) have certain meanings associated with them. The numbers from 1 to 10 all have their individual characters, as encoded in the Kabbalah, and some larger ones like 40 have definite meanings. I could read mythological significance in most larger numbers by factoring them, since multiples of numbers tend to replicate the qualities of their factors. But oddly, I never found an identifiable association for 47--partly because it's a prime with no factors but itself and 1. Oh, and I read that book by Annemarie Schimmel to look for traditional significance in 47, but the book had nothing on it.
So the enigmatic quality of 47 has helped keep it more interesting, since the meaning seems just out of reach, something is definitely there but of stubbornly indefinite nature. This continues to engage Younger Self's imagination more than a meaning that is fixed.
As a sideline, I recombined the 4 and 7 to get 11 and 28, which are both really cool numbers. In Kabbalah, 11 is the number of the qelippot, the empty broken shells, sort of like the packing cases that creation was shipped in, thrown out after it was unpacked. But James Joyce used 11 in Finnegans Wake for the cyclical new beginning after the Fall. And 28 is not only one of the "perfect numbers," which I always thought was extra cool--the definition of a perfect number is that its factors all add up to it--but for a Witch, 28 is the moon cycle, a primordial archetype of feminine power. When I became interested in Sufism, I found that a central Sufi concept, عشق ‘ishq 'intense love', totaled 470--a ten-pack of my favorite number, and wasn't that a really sweet affirmation!
After I finally got on the internet some years ago, I discovered that there exists a whole 47 Society! They hail it as "the quintessential random number." The 47 Society was started at Pomona College years before, and then made it onto the internet. The founders attributed the fascination to the use of the number in the original Star Trek in the Sixties. By the time I saw The Cube in 1969, I had been watching the first run of Star Trek for years, but had never noticed the 47 in it. Although maybe somehow it had gotten into my mind subconsciously, so when I heard it from another source it resonated.
When I learned gematria in Hebrew and then Arabic I looked for words numbering 47 to help elucidate it for me. Again, the picture wasn't very clear. The letters mim (40) and zay (7) make half of the name زمزم Zamzam, the sacred well at Mecca once tended by ancient priestesses. But by themselves they mean 'suck'. Ha! They don't make anything in Hebrew. These Hebrew words are from Sepher Sephiroth, and the Arabic from Fihrist al-abjad (a couple of 3-ring binders I filled with numerical notes in Arabic, begun in the margins of Sepher Sephiroth).
Hebrew words totaling 47:
אויל avil - foolish, silly, stupid (Ha! Maybe that's my answer right there!)
בכייה bakhiyah - a weeping
במה bamah - cloud; high place; waves; fortress (Modern Hebrew: stage, platform)
חלט halat - to clutch, hold
כי טוב ki tov - that it was good
אום - AUM ॐ
Arabic words totaling 47:
بهم buhum - jet-black (plural)
جليد jalid - frost, ice
جمد jamada - to freeze
مجد majd - glory
مز mazza - to suck
مز muzz - sour
طلح talh - acacia tree or banana
أولى ula - first (feminine gender)
والي wali - leader (one of the 99 Names of Allah)
زم zamma - to fasten, bind
زيل zayyala - to disperse, scatter
So for my 47th birthday, please tie me up first as I suck a banana ice freeze.
Anyone feel inspired to buy me a gift? Go for it!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/34K31EKLQTZCE/103-7507564-8631815
"As soon as you discard scientific rigor, you're no longer a mathematician-you're a numerologist!"
-π
=======
The following responses from the 47 Society are cooler than cool... I was blown away! :) The nicest 47th birthday presents I could have received.
Re: [47] I turn 47 today
Well Happy Birthday, Johanna!
Thankyou for your most informative post, I totally
enjoyed it.
I took the liberty of checking your asteroids, and
found that on the day you were born, which I assume
was September 14, 1959; the asteroids 127 JOHANNA, 238
HYPATIA and 65 CYBELE were all in Taurus. For a Virgo
Sun like yourself, that is very compatible. Not only
that, but 65 CYBELE was at 17 Taurus- which is degree
47 of the zodiac. Amazing! You couldn't have planned
your birth any better, or your nick-name.
May you have many more Happy 47 coincidences!
Judy
1347
Re: [47] I turn 47 today
Also, while September 14th, 1959 was the 257th day of the year that year, it becomes the 258th day of the year in a leap year. Asteroid #47 AGLAJA was discovered on September 15th of 1857, the 258th day of the year that year. While you may not have been born the date in question, you were certainly born on a date that will be the correct number of days into the year on which asteroid #47 was discovered one out of every FOUR years. The next time that will happen will be September 14th of 2006. Happy birthday, Johanna! Gene247