from my journal for December 1994
I’ve been wanting to write about the information in the Numerology books — recommended by a friend, I ordered them for Dana and wrapped them for Christmas. Looking them over, I see that Numerology can be as elaborate and complex as astrology. There is a wonderful chart of descriptive words for the energies of each number as manifested in personality, divided according to overbalanced, balanced, and underbalanced energy. For example, for number 1, keywords INDIVIDUATION, INDEPENDENCE, ATTAINMENT, it gives for overbalanced energy: aggressive, antagonistic, etc; for balanced energy: achieving, active, etc; for underbalanced energy: changeable, compliant, etc.
Goodwin says there are four important elements of what he calls the core — “the major determinant in the character delineation.” These are 1. Life Path — from the date of birth, 2. Expression — from the letters of the birth name, 3. Soul Urge — from the vowels of the birth name, and 4. Birthday — the day of birth only. He says to add each element & reduce it and then add those numbers, rather than just adding all the digits. Doing it his way, I come out with a 22 life path and a 22 soul urge which is pretty intense.
He calls 22 the “Master Builder” and says “The subject must learn the ultimate mastery of combining the highest of ideals with the enormous power to achieve the largest of material goals.” Under characteristics he lists: extremely capable, practical, unorthodox, charismatic, nervous tension. Under negative expression he says “The negative 22 may turn his powers to his own selfish use”, which I haven’t done, I sound more like the other manifestation: “An occasional 22 is overwhelmed by his powers and retreats from them. He may accomplish little, feel frightened by the world around him, uncomfortable with his nervous tension.” He also says “You will look for a long time before you find a 22 accomplishing anything even vaguely close to his potential. Mostly, the 22 is in process, trying to handle the forces which feel too powerful to handle, trying to live with the tension which accompanies these forces. The latent power of the 22 will be obvious to all. People may shake their heads and wonder why he didn’t do more with his potent energies. He will often be difficult to live with or deal with — he is so aware, so perceptive, so capable — and often so frustrated at not being able to put all the pieces together.” (p248)
This was a bit of a shock, especially as it resonated with all my unvalidated feelings of having enormous power, and my guilt about “wasting” this potential which I can’t quite believe I have. Just reading this description has given me a new sense of my own power that feels very grounded, very accurate. It’s like yes, I am very powerful, and it has been very difficult learning how to grasp and focus this power, and it feels like building Neskaya has been the first real opportunity to make use of it.
January 95
I added up the numbers for NESKAYA (5+5+1+2+1+7+1) and it’s a 22! This new information about myself — that is my life path and my soul urge being 22 — has been extremely reassuring. That sense of potential greatness that I’ve had is true, and the major difficulties associated with manifesting that greatness are true too. Instead of feeling like a failure, I feel like I’m doing well with a difficult assignment. And even before I did the numbers for Neskaya, it did seem that that was the perfect expression of a 22-Master Builder. In some ways, it seems like more my building than Dana’s, I was the one who said “Let’s build it.” It’s my money that’s paying for it.
Today, June 25, 2023: Really astonishing to read this now, when I’m having such a hard time, feeling hopelessly inadequate. Especially this part: “An occasional 22 is overwhelmed by his powers and retreats from them. He may accomplish little, feel frightened by the world around him, uncomfortable with his nervous tension.” (p248) Yes, that’s exactly where I am, except that I have no sense of having any power at all.