This is my natural and Smart Happy spin on the rhyme of the 12 days of Christmas. Enjoy humming the tune as you read and I hope you get a chance to take a moment each day to spy these natural numbers around you.
For true lovers..
Some items may not at first seem very romantic at first but when you read into the significance of each one they really are something special. They are all worth looking into, its something I’m always intrigued about.
Qualities of numbers.
Numbers are not just quantities but have qualities aswell. With roles in history and philosophy that seem like folk tales to us now but originated from the numbers’ presence in nature. Keep looking and all these numbers in nature will present themselves to you.
The 12 days of christmas from 25th Dec through to January 5th. Christmas Day being the ‘First day of Christmas’ . These dates vary in countries and denominations and history. In the English Middle ages the 12 days of christmas were seen as a time of merriment and feasting culminating in the Twelve Night immortalised by William Shakespeare.
12 days of Christmas – sing along if you like.
On the first day of christmas my true love gave to me….
A full moon in a bright sky.
A symbol of equality and wholeness. To ancient philosophers ‘One’ was represented as a circle . Circles in nature are found all around us from the bowl of the acorn cup to a solar eclipse. Every day we come into contact with a circle in nature.
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me….
TWO bivalve shells and a full moon in a bright sky.
Symmetry in natural forms abounds. The simplest and most obvious is the symmetry present in clam or mussel shells. This is ‘Bilateral’ (meaning two halves) or reflective symmetry. Throughout any season you will find a physical representation of reflective symmetry. On a more philosophical level the concept of duality runs through cycles of nature; day and night, male and female, the magnetic poles.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me….
can you join the dots?
THREE tri form leaves, two bivalve shells and a full moon in a bright sky.
So many things come in threes. Simplest to observe are three petalled flowers or leaves, which can be easily drawn from basic Steiner influenced geometry lessons originating from a triangle. Slice through melons or cucumbers and a perfect triangle presents itself. Three is of course deeply connected to 6, many flowers display both threefold and sixfold geometries.
On the fourth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
FOUR tides in today… and so on…
Balance. In every day there are four tides, two high and two low. One every six hours. There are four seasons in the year and four classical elements. For the ancient philosophers to whom geometry was both a scientific and philosophical matter it takes the introduction of the 4th point to create 3 dimensions. And so we create the Tetrahedron; a 3D shape made up of 4 triangle faces.
On the fifth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
FIVE star shape seeds…
So much to say about five. Many living forms display pentagonal geometry in their structure. On an observational level seeds and flowers give us so much in this area. The petals of a primrose, fruit blossom, seed pods or a starfish. Everywhere we turn we can see five fold geometries. The pentagram star is the symbol of greatness. Moving on from 4, for the philosophers the arrival of 5 is life itself, the cosmic magic that creates regenerates life.
On the sixth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
SIX’s in a snowflake…
Snowflakes have the hexagon all sown up. Each and every snowflake is unique because of the way that water vapour freezes as it falls through the different atmospheric conditions before it arrives on earth. Because of the chemical make up of water, snowflakes will always form in hexagonal geometry.
On the seventh day of christmas my true love gave to me…
SEV’N stars of the Plough…
Many constellations have seven stars, but the Plough we can all spot with a little concentration. There are seven colours of the rainbow. In alternative therapies there are seven chakras or energy centres in the body. There are seven notes in a musical scale. Seven has always sat at odds with other numbers, being the first number that doesn’t have any lower number value divide into it.
On the eighth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
EIGHT spiral snail shells…
Of course spiders have 8 legs and so do octopi, tentacles that is. But also the Eight is a number of the fibonacci number sequence which produces a spiral upon which many life forms approximate.
On the ninth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
NINE planets in the heavens…
Nine is tricky. For ‘artistic license’ I will put aside for a moment the discussion on which planets to include: Traditionally we see there as being 9 planets in the solar system. But Nine’s strongest qualities come in its link to 3, being a triad of triads. Nine holds a certain celestial property too, cats have nine lives and cloud 9 is the place to be.
On the tenth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
TEN petals of a flower…
Of course we all have ten fingers and thumbs, this fact gave way to the earliest counting methods. Ten is closely linked to the pentagonal symmetries and rather significantly DNA in cross section appears as a tenfold rosette. Passionflowers display near perfect each time, ten beautiful petals around the central sepal. Many citrus fruits will display ten segments.
On the eleventh day of christmas my true love gave to me…
ELEVEN double rainbows…
Eleven is a difficult one to explain.
There is a relationship between the numbers 3 and 11. If 11 were the circumference of the earth then 3 would be the circumference of the moon. The circle that the moon draws from its centre if pulled down to touch the earth would be exactly the circumference of the square which fits perfectly around the earth. This is called ‘squaring the circle’. It transpires that the ratio between the two arcs of a double rainbow are the same as this. Yes, I know difficult to get you head around!
On the twelfth day of christmas my true love gave to me…
TWELVE pomegranates… 11 double rainbows, 10 petals of a flower, 9 planets in the heavens, 8 spiral snail shells, 7 stars of the plough, 6’s in a snowflake, 5 star shape seeds. 4 tides in today, 3 tri-form leaves, 2 bivalve shells and a full moon in a bright sky!
And so we end on a pleasing fact. Pomegranates originate from ancient Persia and are revered in many cultures for their colour, juice, fruit as well as their significance. A pomegranate, because of the way the juice around the seeds swells to fill the skin, will always have dodecahedral seeds. A dodecahedron has twelve sides. The philosopher Plato was said to have remarked that God used dodecahedrons in “…arranging the constellations on the whole heaven”
A full moon in a bright sky.
TWO bivalve shells and a full moon in a bright sky.
FIVE star shape seeds…
SIX’s in a snowflake…
EIGHT spiral snail shells…
TWELVE pomegranates… 11 double rainbows, 10 petals of a flower, 9 planets in the heavens, 8 spiral snail shells, 7 stars of the plough, 6’s in a snowflake, 5 star shape seeds. 4 tides in today, 3 tri-form leaves, 2 bivalve shells and a full moon in a bright sky!
