2009

And so it is a New Year day one. January 1, 2009.

The celebrations are done. Some folks are not feeling too well, but so be it. A new number now influences our lives and it is a nine.

Oh, how I love "nines!"

Nine has a wonderful magic to it and has always been a prominent number. 9 planets, 9 orders of angles and 9 daughters of Zeus, the Muses. There are the nine earth’s of Milton, nine crosses and nine days of wonder, nine crowns in heraldry and 9 judges on the Supreme Court.

Multiply any number by 9, and the sum of the digits will also come to 9 (7 x 9 = 63; 6 + 3 = 9). Reverse the digits, and the number you get (36) will also be a multiple of 9. Take any number you choose (4,321) and divide it by 9. The remainder you get (1) will be the same as the remainder you get when you add the digits (4 + 3 + 2 + 1) and divide by 9. That is why mathematicians check their calculations by "casting out nines."

9 members on a baseball team that have nine at bats in 9 innings.

Golf has two nines to make an eighteen-hole game. And one and eight is nine.

9 is an endless aid to merchants, who will always charge $9.99 for something.

9 also has its down side. Christ died at the 9th hour. It is the number just before the boxer is counted out; the cat runs out of lives, the lover slams the door.

Macbeth's witches chant, ''Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine/ And thrice again, to make up nine." and then declare "the charm wound up."

The Egyptians were devoted to the Enneads, groups of nine gods. The legends of northern Europe have 9 bards, 9 dragons, and 9 stones in a circle. We all know of Dante's 9 circles of Hell, which were merely the inversion of the 9 circles he associated with Heaven.

In the Middle Ages, 9 was the angelic number. Milton divided his Nativity ode into 3 sections of 9 stanzas each.

In ancient China, there were nine buttons of rank and not too long ago the Emperor would ascend the Altar of Heaven—a perfect circle inside a perfect square and his 9 grades of Mandarins performed a 9-fold bowing before him.

The followers of Jai’Na, a sect of Hindus, believe all objects are classed under nine categories.

On a personal note: My television career began and ended on television stations with the number NINE.

In short, 9 is no 9-day wonder, dressed to the nines, it is, for many, the number of heaven itself, for according to the Pythagorean numbers, man is a full chord, or eight notes, and deity comes next.

And, of course we have Emerson's inscription to nature, "The rounded world is fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery."

In short, I think this will be a very special year.

My thanks to any number of books that provided the "nine" information. Hopefully there were nine of them.

Happy New Year.