It is time for the “not much ‘rithmetic” promised in my blog title with a look at the number seven. Seven gets more than its share in the world of numbers. Just think of all the things that are numbered by seven:
· Days of the week
· Colors of the rainbow
· Dwarves taking care of Snow White
· Days in creation
· Deadly sins
· Wonders of the world
· Notes in the diatonic scale
· Years of bad luck for breaking a mirror
The month of September means seventh month. (You can go back and study a bit of Roman history to remember how that got messed up.) The astrological sign of Libra that I was born under is the seventh sign – not that I put much stock in that. In biblical symbolism, seven stands for completion or perfection.
Now you might wonder if there is a point to this absorption on the number seven. This blog marks my seventh year of writing these missives twice a week with one skip when I was in England. The consistency has more to do with a bit of OCD than of anything admirable! Traditionally, gifts of copper in the US and wool in the UK mark seventh anniversaries. I’m posting a more modern seventh anniversary with brass, bookends given to me a number of years ago by a sister and brother-in-law who know my penchant for reading and writing. It has served well to keep my favorite writing resources handy.
About that perfection and completion – neither is happening. Many is the morning that I find a mistake in a post from last week or last month. To reach completion, I’d have to stop writing these, and I’m not ready for that yet. I’m still having too many nice conversations triggered either on social media or in person by a blog. I am grateful for those of you who read regularly and for those who drop by occasionally. I hope you’ll join me as I start year eight!