ruben stelzner

“And if they haven’t died, they’re still alive today.”

“And if they haven’t died, they’re still alive today.”

The Meaning of Number 9: Completion, Dissolution, and New Beginning

The number 9 is the last single-digit natural number, and accordingly, in the philosophy of numbers, it’s also symbolically tied most often to the image of closure, of ending, or even of death. But the number line of natural numbers doesn’t end with the number 9, and neither does the symbolic world. Because the 9 isn’t a final ending. It’s actually the necessary condition for something new. It merely closes a cycle. The 9 is both the door out of the world and the door into a new world. Everyone knows this ending of a cycle. The flower that wilts. The year that comes to an end. The school years that reach their conclusion, the sunset that ends the day. The symbolism of the 9 carries something melancholic, but it doesn’t mean a final ending. Rather, decline is the necessary condition for a new beginning, and therefore the condition for the beauty of life. In many languages, the word “nine” has an etymological closeness to the word “new.” The 9 carries the spark of the new within it.
The 9-Shaped Staff
In the 9, everything comes together, the circle closes, and every pair of opposites dissolves. The 9 completes a development, the way graduation ends school, or the christening of a ship ends its construction. The symbolism of the 9 stands for completion: everything comes together in it. A thousands-year-old symbol for people who hold complete power over the world is the 9-shaped crosier. Shepherds, rulers, priests, and bishops carry it as a symbol that they’ve fully understood their world and hold mastery over it. The symbol shaped like a 9 has existed since at least the time of the ancient Egyptians: more on this in What Makes Pyramids Special.

The number 9 accordingly shows up often in religious teachings in connection with the divine or with the highest wisdom. Pythagoras used the metaphors of the horizon and the ocean to describe the 9, “because nothing goes beyond it, and everything turns within it.” That’s a fitting image, since the horizon represents the (seeming) end of the world. Within the sequence of numbers, as well as among the universal principles, the 9 forms a closure. But it isn’t a final ending: like the horizon, it’s only a boundary you can’t see beyond.

Synonyms for the Principle of the Number 9:

Completion, closure, neutralization, decline, death. Symbols include the crosier, the shepherd’s staff, the bishop’s staff, the Lord of the Two Worlds, and the sunset.

Question:

Do you sometimes feel afraid of the end of a stage, or a chapter of your life? Ach du gruene Neune! But don’t worry. The 9 teaches us that life goes on after a threshold. Completion doesn’t mean “that’s it”: it raises the question “what comes next?”

Quotes on the Meaning of Number 9:

„Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree with mighty roots beneath the mold.“
(Voluspa, Poetic Edda, medieval Norse poem)

„Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, and thrice again, to make up nine. Peace, the charm’s wound up.“
(Shakespeare, Macbeth)

„And nine is one, And ten is none. This is the witch’s once-one’s-one!“
(The Witch, in Goethe’s Faust)

„The number three is the root of the number nine. […] Three being of itself the efficient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons, to wit: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which, being Three, are also One: this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the miraculous Trinity.“
(Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova)

Related Topics:

For the meaning of the other numbers, see: The Principle of Numbers.

Image credit: iStock.com/LagartoFilm (numbers on a green background)