I'm On Your Side

With AMARTITHI coming up tomorrow, I felt I should post something and I've come up with the lyrics of a song by Paul Kelly that I came across for the first time only a few days ago. The song is "I'm On Your Side" and the first time I heard it, I thought of Baba and the fact that he is always supporting us. However, we tend to forget that and often feel that we alone and unloved. 

Link to video clip of Paul Kelly singing this song

Here are the lyrics and a link to the guitar chords:

I'm on Your Side 

You've been crying a long long spell

You've been drinking from the Devil's own well

You're just hanging on to your pride

Hold on to me now

 

I'm on your side

I'm on your side when you think there's no one

I'm on your side when darkness falls

I'm on your side

All you gotta do is call

 

The trees on the shoreline are all fresh from the rain

The ship on the water is heading for the main

Open your window, let the good air inside

You don't always know when

There's a change in the tide

 

I'm on your side when others turn on you

I'm on your side when your back's to the wall

I'm on your side

All you gotta do is call

 

I'm on your side though you might not believe it

I'm on your side when the shit rains down

I'm on your side

I'm gonna stand your ground, stand your ground

Ooh, call on me, all you gotta do is call

For other posts connecting Meher Baba with music, see:

• https://sean-reeves.blogspot.com/2021/08/its-been-long-long-long-time.html

• https://sean-reeves.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-one.html

• https://sean-reeves.blogspot.com/2021/12/across-bridge.html

The Number 13

My brother, Anthony or Tony as he was mostly called, was born on the 13th January 1960. Yesterday would have been his 64th birthday but he never made it that far. He died in June of 2021. Yesterday I was 27313 days old (yes I keep track of my diurnal age) and was struck by the fact that the last two digits of this number are 13. Furthermore, the number factorises to 11 * 13 * 191 and so the number 13 appears again. My brother Tony had a rather unlucky life and so I asked Bard the following question. What follows is the question and response.

Why is it that certain cultures regard the number 13 as unlucky and try to avoid using, replacing it for example by 12A so that we have the progression 11, 12, 12A, 13.

The association of 13 with bad luck is a complex phenomenon with roots in various historical and cultural factors, rather than a single definitive reason. Here are some of the most common explanations:

Religious and mythical associations:

Christianity: Judas, the 13th guest at the Last Supper, betrayed Jesus.

Norse mythology: Loki, the mischievous god, was the 13th guest at a feast and tricked another god into killing Baldr, the god of beauty and innocence.

Other cultures: In numerous ancient cultures, the number 12 held significance because of lunar cycles and zodiac signs. 13, then, represented imbalance or disruption of this perceived order.

Numerical factors:

Fear of the unknown: 13 often follows a perfect pattern (e.g., 12 months in a year), making it stand out and seem unpredictable.

Death and misfortune: Some historical events (e.g., fall of Constantinople) happened on the 13th, reinforcing the negative association.

Psychological factors:

Confirmation bias: People tend to remember instances where bad luck followed the number 13, overlooking events when it didn't.

Cultural conditioning: If a culture teaches that 13 is unlucky, individuals are more likely to interpret occurrences after encountering it as negative.

Cultural variations:

The extent and reasons for avoiding 13 vary across cultures. Some countries, like Italy, consider it particularly unlucky on Fridays. Others, like Japan, associate it with good fortune.

Modernization and changing perspectives:

In recent times, the superstition surrounding 13 has weakened in many societies. This is partly due to increased secularization and awareness of the lack of scientific basis for the association.

Overall, the negative association of 13 is a fascinating example of how cultural beliefs and historical events can shape our perception of numbers. While the specifics vary, the fear of the unknown and the power of cultural conditioning often play a key role in perpetuating such superstitions.

Coincidentally, the house I've lived in for eighteen years now is numbered 12A! I next asked Bard the following:

Can you give some examples of common phrases or situations involving the number 13.

Absolutely! Here are some examples of common phrases and situations involving the number 13:

Negative connotations:

Friday the 13th: A superstition associated with bad luck and misfortune.

Unlucky number: In many cultures, the number 13 is considered unlucky and often avoided.

Kiss of death: In sports, being the 13th player chosen in a draft may be seen as a disadvantage.

Baker's dozen: This phrase refers to 13 items instead of the usual 12, used to compensate for potential oversights or theft.

Counting sheep: Traditionally counting sheep to fall asleep, some people skip over 13 to avoid nightmares.

Positive connotations:

Lunar cycle: There are 13 full moons in a Gregorian year, inspiring traditions and symbolism in some cultures.

Tarot cards: The Death card (number 13) in the Major Arcana symbolizes transformation and new beginnings.

Bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah: Occur at the age of 13, marking a significant coming-of-age ceremony in Judaism.

Lucky number: In some cultures, like China and Thailand, the number 13 is associated with growth and prosperity.

13 colonies: The original colonies that formed the United States of America.

Neutral situations:

Floor numbering: Some buildings skip the 13th floor due to superstition, often replacing it with 12A or 14.

Card games: There are 13 cards in each suit in a standard deck of playing cards.

Puzzles: Many crosswords and Sudoku puzzles have 13 columns or rows.

Space missions: Apollo 13 was a lunar mission marked by technical challenges but a successful return to Earth.

Musical chords: The 13th chord in music theory can create complex and dissonant harmonies.

These are just a few examples, and the significance of the number 13 can vary widely depending on the context and cultural background. The fascinating thing about this number is its ability to evoke both positive and negative emotions, making it a truly intriguing figure in human culture.

I hope this provides a good starting point for further exploration! Feel free to ask if you'd like more examples or information about specific cultural interpretations of the number 13.

Of course there's also the rhyme that goes: 

• Monday's child is fair of face
• Tuesday's child is full of grace
• Wednesday's child is full of woe
• Thursday's child has far to go
• Friday's child is loving and giving
• Saturday's child works hard for a living
• And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Poor Tony, as you might guess, was born on a Wednesday and so certainly confirms these assignations. Ah well, this was just a post to commemorate his passing.

The One True Death

Meher Baba once said: “None dies, and none knows to die. The rare one who knows to die is never born again!” By this Baba means that whether we are incarnate or discarnate, we remain in illusion. We die physically only to be reborn again in the flesh. 8,500,000 cycles of life and death are necessary before we achieve true death, the death of the ego, after which no further physical incarnations are necessary. We have discovered the answer to that age-old question of "Who Am I?".

It is only when in a physical body that we can achieve freedom from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. This got me thinking about the inhabitants of the astral and mental planes. These planes are populated by beings, are part of creation and thus remain in illusion. I can suppose that after a great many incarnations, many reach a point of complete disillusionment with the physical plane. It no longer holds any appeal for them and their karmic liabilities are such that they are not drawn back to the physical plane to settle them. 

Unlike most of us, who in the afterlife enter a period of intense introspection, these individuals become free to interact with other entities who are on a similar wavelength. They can enter communities and enjoy the structures that these communities have built. There they can live and interact with others. They can later choose to act as guides and support those individuals who have died and are temporarily discarnate. Most of these individuals will lapse into deep subjectivity before long but in the meantime those permanently resident on the astral planes can be of assistance.

However, these dwellers on the astral plane will not achieve liberation there. For that, they will need to experience a physical incarnation and perhaps run the risk of getting trapped on the wheel of life and death again. This is not likely to happen however, given that they are not compelled to return because of karmic liabilities. They can take their time and plan an incarnation that will maximise their likelihood of making progress in the sense of entering a higher plane on the astral after death. Eventually, by this strategy, they may even enter the mental planes.

This is purely speculative on my part. Baba does not talk much about the residents of the astral and mental planes and rightly focuses on what we can do here and now on the physical plane. It's easy to get distracted by astral travel, lucid dreaming, chakras, yogic practices and so forth, often reinforcing the ego in the process rather than diminishing it. Still, it's interesting to speculate about what's going on there.

Prognostication

Soon after arriving in Yogyakarta in the closing days of December 2023, I noticed a car number plate directly in front of the taxi that we had hired to take us from the train station to our place of accommodation. The number plate read:

H 1305 SR

8-26

It was the SR that caught my eye of course: Sean Reeves. Now my mind clicked into gear. H is the letter used by vehicles registered in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and I took this to stand for Hidupan meaning "life" in the Indonesian language. The 1305 I interpreted as the number of days remaining of my life.

Given that the date was the 28th December 2023, 1305 days from this date is Sunday, July 25, 2027. The 8-26 (short for August 2026) suggested to me that I'd perhaps fall ill in August 2026 and pass away on July 25th 2027. I used Wolfram Alpha on my phone to quickly calculate the date of my possible demise. If it comes to pass, I will be 78 years old.

That age reminds me of Barry Thomson who was the owner of the accommodation that I moved into when staying in Brisbane a few years ago. He was 77 when I met him. He had battled advanced melanoma in his 60s and was now seemingly hale and hearty. He gave me two books he had written on how he had overcome his cancer. He died some months later, having quite quickly succumbed to brain cancer. He may well have been 78 at that point.

I should never have met him had I not been standing in the doorway of some alternative accommodation that I had first considered. The caretaker with two young Asians in tow suddenly arrived and took instant offense to the fact that I was blocking his doorway. A couple of years later I ended up living in that accommodation but on that occasion sharp words were exchanged and I ended up at Barry's place.

Even though Barry succumbed in the end, his story is an inspirational one because he did live a good many years cancer-free after his initial diagnosis and it wasn't because of any help from the medical establishment who had written him off. He followed his own path and won the battle. I need to do the same with my own mysterious affliction and try to find a remedy using my own methods.

I looked at the transits to my chart on July 25th 2027 and I'll link later to an astrological discussion of what I found. This is all much ado about nothing probably but it's interesting how I've become more focused on the timing of my exit from planet Earth. I'm probably not unusual in this respect but I should get on with living and making the most of the time that I have left.

This post has got me thinking about the use of the word "dead" in various expressions, so  I created a post on this topic in my Pedagogical Posturing blog called Dead Eye Dick.