Circle of the Nines

I just love a riddle, some enigmatic statement that causes me to dig through all manner of unrelated information, and fit together pieces that probably don't fit. It's like creating abstract art, or a mosaic, usually with history. The nine brothers have not let me down in this vein.

It's kind of logical, being that three is seen as a perfect, and somewhat magical number. It is representative of completeness. You have maiden, mother and crone; birth, life death; father, mother, child, and so on. There are many triune/trinity structures within our belief systems, and it's easy to see why. It's remarkable how many groups of nine there are from the ancient world. I suppose if three is perfect, three threes are beyond perfection.

The Greeks had nine muses.

In pre-Buddhist Tibet there were nine creator-gods, mountain gods worshiped by the people then which are now Buddhist guardians.

There have been nine avatars of Vishnu. It has been predicted that the tenth will come at the end of the Kali Yuga, which is our current phase. The length of this Kali Yuga is in dispute.

In Egypt there were the nine plagues we've read about in the Bible, which can be categorized into three groups of three. There were also nine greater gods of the Egyptians.

The Olmec, and the Maya following them had nine gods for the nine layers of the underworld. The Hero Twins defeated these nine, returning First Father's remains to the world to be buried in the ballcourt, and then rose into the sky to become the sun and the moon.

There's an intriguing proposition that perhaps First Father is to be born again through the dark rift, at the coming turn of the wheel, if you will. At the last turn he died and was taken into the underworld, so as day follows night this seems to make some sense. You have to stretch your imagination a bit, but it's an interesting thought.

These nine layers of the underworld make me think of Dante's nine circles of hell, each progressively more miserable than the last, to coincide with each increasingly more egregious grouping of sinners cast down to that level.

I don't think any of the nines I've found are the nine brothers Whispering Crow was talking about, but it's been a nice trip around the block for my mind, so it's time well spent on the puzzle in my opinion.

The nines are a wonderfully interesting labyrinth to be lost in. They seem to show how ideas are echoed through human consciousness, with each groups perception reflecting a slightly different view of the mutable thought form. People who have never met often have the same idea. Inventions are frequently thought of by more than one person simultaneously, or close thereto.

The Universe repeats herself, not only in nature, but in the minds of men also.