I would guess that several hundred times over the forty some years that I have lectured about numerology I have shared with audiences the story about my own experience with having a number (77) 5 number of the integrated self in my personal chart. I present it because I believe it very dramatically demonstrates the dichotomy of dealing with the duality of numbers, and in this case specifically the number 5. Also I feel that by presenting such details it will give the reader a more meticulous perspective of just how meaningful numbers can be.
I was raised by my grandparents through the early years of my childhood. My mother was working daily and preoccupied with her own personal problems, and my father was an absent parent as a result of their divorce when I was about one year old. He was a military man and we saw him once every two or three years.
He was an alcoholic, gambler and was known to have had multiple affairs outside of the marriage. Socially he could put on the tantalizing smile and seductive charm of the alcoholic personality. At home he could be cold, immature, self centered, and with me at times competitive and cruel. He was known for bouts of emotional, mental, and physical abuse. I rarely saw him and had little contact with him.
At the other end of the spectrum my grandparents were very devout and strict fundamentalist Christians. We belonged to a hell fire and brimstone based congregation that was far stricter that some of the most fanatical southern Baptists. We had to go to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening for prayer meeting. During virtually every session we were reminded that we were lowly, unworthy and damned sinners. Every possible transgression was remunerated and repeated endlessly from the pulpit.
Sunday morning was barely tolerable. Sunday evening was unbearable, and Wednesday evening with its continual alter calls was an unmerciful experience to my sensitive soul. Periodically there would be a light moment in the message and the presiding minister would remember to say that oh, by the way, some day Jesus will return and then things will all be better. I hated to go to church. To this day I still refer to the experience as spiritual abuse.
Virtually every goings-on of that time (the late 40’ and early 50’s) was considered by the church to be a sin. Movies, make up, television, dancing, smoking, drinking, and of course sex were among legions of activities on the list. It was difficult for a young person (particularly becoming a teen) to find anything to do that did not have some tainted message associated with it.
In my soul part of me knew this was not the real truth about our eternal self, but at the same time my open child’s mind took in these messages and they became rooted in my belief system.
My grandfather was devout but more passive in his belief and he rarely admonished or pointed out our transgressions. He was a good hearted turn your cheek Christian who had an enormous lack of self worth and undersold himself whenever he worked or was called upon to perform a service.
My grandmother was the matriarch of the family and very carefully monitored our behavior. She, too, was good hearted and meant well. She led a group of parishioners who would get together and prayer for others. She was affectionately known throughout the congregation as a prayer warrior. It was powerful wampum and there are many stories of minor miracles that occurred after her group prayer sessions.
She was also constantly wary and waiting to prevent or catch every possible transgression. She gave us constant warnings of sin and worried endlessly about every little possible violation. She was a very powerful woman and used her spiritual foundation as a force of enforcement in trying to control the family. I have said to this day that I was more afraid of my grandmother than God.
In March of 2011 I was watching the terrible consequences of the probably induced 9.0 earthquake that demolished a large region of eastern Japan. It reminded me of the time in 1949 when an earthquake hit the region where we lived. I loved to play in an old chicken house on my grandparent’s small farm. My grandmother had warned me not to go to the chicken coop because I would get horrible flea bites and there were rats running all around that could be dangerous.
Well, as you can guess one day I was just sneaking onto the steps of the chicken coop when that earthquake hit. The grounded rumbled and the building shook something fierce and I ran terrified back to the house and confessed in tears and fright that, “grandma, I was going into the chicken coop and the ground shooked and shooked!”. Anyway, that cemented in my mind that she was more powerful than the Lord.
When I was around 4 years old my mother met a funeral home owner who she married and we moved to live in a new home. He turned out to be a huge egotist, pathological liar, and was also seeing other partners for sex. It turns out he was a probably a practicing bisexual which, of course, had a much more significant stigma in those day.
About that time our step father would take my sister and I to the movies every Saturday afternoon. I really enjoyed movies, but had enormous guilt, because we had to lie to grandma, and. Of course, it was a big sin. Each Saturday he would take us to the movie and then pick us up and take us to grandma’s and grandpa’s house for the week end. Every time she would ask, “now did you children go to the movies?” And each time I would say, “oh no grandma”. Little did I know he probably told her that he would pick us up from the movie and then bring us out to their house.
When a child is told endlessly don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t sin more often than not that child becomes curious about why. As the teen years developed I tried smoking and realized I was not interested. I went through a period of trying alcohol and fortunately was not interested. I believe it is because I had such anger toward alcohol and what it had done to our family and my life. However, I have had a struggle with addiction to sugar for most of my life. Part of the addiction to alcohol has to do with the sugar in its processing. It is just within the last couple years I have substantially reduced sugar intake and am feeling the benefit in all aspects of my life.
One of my biggest struggles came with dancing. Rock n’ roll was introduced to the world as I was approaching adolescence. I loved to dance. However, as I got on the floor I was very inhibited, rigid and controlled. As much as I wanted to let loose and just go, I was the victim of restraint. Part of the discomfort was from awakening sexual feelings and closeness to the proximity of partner. Mostly I realized that I was constantly looking over my shoulder and expecting to get hit by a ball of lightning from God for enjoying it (another sin) too much.
I am an accomplished ballroom dancer and it took me until I was nearly fifty years old to finally realize that
I love to dance and that it is no sin. Subsequently I have learned to be more relaxed and natural, and let the rhythm flow joyfully around me and through me. Here is one saga of dance I have shared before.
Herein is part of the 5 dilemma. There are the desires and excesses of the assertive 5. There are the fears and denial of experience of the passive 5, and there is the desire to find a middle ground of appropriate choice of experience for the positive development of the soul. When I started to enjoy something I would experience guilt because perhaps it was a sin. When I would pass up what might have been a valid experience I would get pissed at myself for not taking the opportunity to experience something new. I have struggled with the cross currents of these forces all of my life.
Around 1971 I was writing my first book The Tarot and Transformation. My grandmother had recently died and I was wondering if she would think that what I was writing was a sin. At times it was if she was looking over my shoulder. I consulted a professional friend of mine who did what she called release work (one form being exorcism). It turns out she was there. I realized that she understood better what I was doing and I also had the opportunity to help her through a hurdle of her transition and move onto another level of her progression.
It was 1981 and by then I had been involved the world of metaphysics, personal growth, and esoteric studies for 20 years. My life was becoming more fulfilling and I had come to a better understanding of many issues. I had gone through any number of past life regressions and readings, had my aura balanced, my chakras tuned, and my etheric body healed. My body had been Tragered, Rolphed, massaged, and treated with chiropractics, acupuncture and kinesiology to name a few. My growth continued, but something seemed missing that prevented a step of progression I felt that was time to happen.
It was that year I picked up a magazine that had an article about Adult Children of Alcoholism. In the article was what we affectionately call the laundry list of characteristics of children that have grown up in a household troubled by a parent or parents who have a severe problem with alcohol. I experienced a huge internal sigh of relief because I knew it was a huge clue to what I was looking for to help with my own ongoing personal growth.
This led me to many into therapy and many hundreds of hours of working with my own issues from having come from an alcoholic home. Since then I have continued to work on issues of codependency, abuse, sexual toxicity and shame that are all related to dysfunctional behavior. Having opened up the deeper wounds of the dark side and starting to work through the hidden issues it involves.
I began to equally experience moments of mystical expansion and cosmic revelation into the light and eternal core of being. As a result of my work I have been fortunate to have traveled to many nations and regions of this world and experienced a glimpse at many other worlds as well. I have chronicled many of these experiences in the preface of my latest book The Heart of Numerology.
My work has included exploring and working with all five of the major symbolic studies, numerous forms of healing, numerous sightings of UFO’s, mystical moments, several time warps and altered states too mention some of the many episodes that have gone before me. It is recently that I have begun to stay more consistently in touch with my inner being and making decisions that are consistent with heart and soul.
