Three is a Magic Number

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about alignment. By alignment, I mean being aligned internally within myself - some might say body, mind, and heart, others might substitute spirit in there for either the mind part or the heart part, but essentially it seems to be widely agreed that there are three pieces of us that work together to form and inform this existence. Schoolhouse Rock got it right, in that three is a magic number in so many ways.

When we tap into the power of three we are connecting with something ancient and present, astronomical and fundamental. The triangle is the strongest and most stable shape without becoming stagnant to the point of being immovable. There is something so dynamic about that. Christianity offers the Trinity as a way to understand the perfection of God. There are triple deities to be found in multiple cultures the world over - Brigid, Hecate, The Fates, 3x3 or nine Muses, etc. In Chinese cultural belief, three is a positive number representing wholeness and the cycles of life - where we came from (birth), where we are headed (death) and what happens in between (marriage). The ancient Babylonians separated the world into the three of Above, Below, and the Abyss. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had to draw straws for the three realms of the heavens, the sea, and the underworld. There are three wishes, three guesses, three fairies, three billy goats gruff, three riders, three bears, three pigs, three times three makes a spell, and on and on and on. Pythagoras and the ancient Greeks believed three to be the perfect number - a marriage of harmony, wisdom, and understanding. Even in the particular style of meditation I practice, Ascension Meditation, the three mantras of each sphere so effortlessly align with this model of three: one of the deep sea of emotion, one of the physical part of us that belongs to this incarnation and this land, and one of transcendence. But what about beyond that?

I once had a girlfriend in high school who insisted on dissecting my personality into all these different aspects of my behavior and character traits, and she gave them numbers, most of which she loved, but some of which she didn’t. When I was behaving in a way she didn’t like, she’d refer to my behavior by the number she had assigned it (“Why are you being so ‘Becky 13’ right now?”). That felt wrong and damaging to me - living in discreet confined segments is not a life. And fracturing ourselves in an attempt to compartmentalize different aspects of ourselves or our lives is so damaging, it’s the stuff storybook monsters are made of, i.e. Voldemort. We are not meant to be fractured - we are meant to be whole. And yet we are not singular in our existence - we contain multitudes.

There are now believed to be trillions of galaxies in the universe, based on what we’ve observed through the Hubble Space Telescope. And just to quantify what a trillion means, a trillion seconds is 31,710 years. If there are 2 trillion galaxies, as this article here discusses, then there are 258 galaxies for each person on the planet, give or take one. When I think about this, how can I believe I am anything more than a proud member of the microbiome of this big, beautiful planet, akin to the bacteria that currently reside in my own gut? The human adult body has in the thirty trillions of cells, and also has in the thirty trillions of bacteria living within it. Including us, there are hundreds of thousands of millions of living organisms on Earth. Trillions of galaxies mean quintillions of planets. It’s been estimated that there are about 7 quintillion grains of sand on the entire planet. And that number is overtaken by the stars a million fold. So of those millions upon millions of stars, circled by quintillions of planets, we are but one planet of beings, and people are merely one species amongst millions. And yet we hold so preciously to our clearly limited understanding of the cosmos.

Our life is as miraculous and precarious as being on a giant rock hurtling through space at fatal speeds, circling a giant ball of gaseous fire, dancing with millions upon millions of other cosmic fireballs, in a galaxy among trillions of galaxies, in a universe among infinite universes, each one a god unto themselves. There are places within us so deep that we tear ourselves apart to find them. That which we call the soul lives in the quantum spaces that can only be called in between, and the stuff that makes up our atoms, our DNA, our cells…is also the stuff of planets, and stars, and galaxies.

Thinking back on my childhood kneeling next to my bedside in prayer, how much simpler it was when all parts of me were so naturally aligned - if my body needed sleep, so did my feelings, and my soul, same with food. And if my feelings needed to be in water, so did my body and spirit fully participate in that - every part of me was so naturally in sync, so was my living - so was my prayer. As adults we sometimes have to find our way back to that singularity of purpose, for myself, multiple times a day, to live the the same authenticity and alignment so many of us found natural as a child. So many things can get in our way and distract us - the politics of the day, social and broadcast media, financial burdens, work stresses, relationship stresses - all competing for our attention, and it makes me wonder - how did we ever begin to build these lives that distract us, and take us away from this alignment - away from those choices that would have left us feeling whole rather than shattered and scattered as we have become, spending our adulthood pulling all our lost pieces back to ourselves? And even more importantly I ask myself:

How do I live a life aligned on my path, with all parts of me here, now, together, and focused on this time, place, and purpose?

There are many ways to achieve alignment. Some do it through prayer, and others through meditation. The key is to give yourself a moment when all of you is doing the same thing, toward the same purpose, all at the same time. I also recently found I can achieve this state through canvas painting, and it can similarly be achieved through any kind of art, marshal arts, yoga, dance, music, improv, etc. But it can be as easily achieved through gardening, house work, child care, cooking, anything that can engage your whole self. Sometimes when my spirit wants the house to be clean, and my body needs to do something meditative and repetitive, and my child self is happy to have their hands in warm soapy water, I can become aligned by washing the dishes. Alignment happens when we let everything else fall away, and just be in ourselves in the moment.

I align as often as I can, sinking deeply into what each of these three spheres of my existence is singing into being: What does child-self-playtime-sticky-fingers-everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-kindergarten-naptime-temper-tantrums-laughter-love-and-feeling me need? What does walking-around-living-in-this-material-world-animal-breathing-eating-sleeping-talking me need? What does my soul-knows-best-can’t-we-transcend-already me need? What they each really want is to be connected - to one another and those loving beings all around us - and aligned in their purpose in harmony. I give each a breath. I pick up the song. And I sing into being my most favorite self. The one who is all three of them together - all unified toward the purpose of being my favorite self, and living my best life, in a world where everything is always singing to everything.

Blessings on your journey,

💖