Through
meditating using the Three Mother letters, (Aleph,
Mem and Shin) I began a series
of paintings using the three primary colors
to represent the Three Mothers.
In one painting, I noticed that I had drawn
Shin as a triangle, Mem as a square,
and Aleph as a circle.
It struck me that besides being related to the
primary colors, these Mothers could also be
primary geometric shapes. The shape of the letter
Shin resembles a triangle and the final
Mem is a square. However, the shape of
the letter Aleph is not exactly a circle.
So I looked for another connection. Maybe gematria
would have a clue to the geometry of these three
letters.
Gematria is the numerical value of the Hebrew
letters.
The first letter of the alphabet (Aleph)
is one, the second is two, etc. From the tenth
letter (Yod) and on, the number values
then become ten, twenty, thirty, forty, etc.
And when you get to one hundred, the last letters
are two hundred, three hundred and four hundred.
The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a
gematria of four hundred.
According to this system, Aleph is one,
Mem is forty and Shin is three
hundred.
I immediately saw that there is a connection
between gematria and geometry. The simplest
kind of gematria is called 'small number gematria'.
It deals with single digits only. Zeros are
dropped from the larger numbers of the alphabet.
This type of simple gematria seemed most fitting
for dealing with primary things.
So according to simple small number gematria
- Mem is four - a square has four sides;
Shin is three - a triangle has three
sides; and Aleph is one - a circle, which
has one side. (Or to be mathematically precise,
an infinite number of sides.)
Shin and Mem together make seven.
The world is therefore a place where there is
a lot of tension between opposing forces: Fire
and Water, hot and cold, plus and minus, attraction
and expulsion, masculine and feminine, yin and
yang, etc.
When we realize that the Mem (4) and
Shin (3) are polarities - two sides of
the same thing - the Aleph (1), we enter
into the realm of Infinite Oneness - the Infinite
eight. 4 + 3 = 7 +1 = 8
This image of a colorful figure eight is composed
of thirteen sections. Six sections at the top
loop in reds and oranges, six sections at the
bottom loop in blues and greens, and one large
yellow section in the middle. Thirteen is the
gematria of the Hebrew word for One - echad.
This figure eight is also a Mobius strip. If
you take a long, narrow strip of paper, twist
it once and then join both of its ends together,
you have made a Mobius strip. Draw a line along
the length of your paper Mobius strip. One continuous
line is drawn on both sides of the paper without
lifting the pen from the surface! This is because
a Mobius strip has only one side. When one is
aware of the Aleph (1), the two opposites,
Shin and Mem (3 and 4), become
two aspects of the same Infinite Oneness, hinted
at by the number eight (8).
