Las Vegas Showgirls VI by Georgia Albert with Jan Newton January, 2006

 

4-3-2 Goddess!

 

We find the world famous Las Vegas Show Girls, Bambi Darlin and Candi Kane, in their Las Vegas home. Bambi has just finished trying on her new Valentino gown in preparation for a Gala Grand Opening party later in the evening. Candi is playing a Sudoku game on her computer...

Bambi:  Oh, I just love my Valentino dress.(1)  I can just imagine some Gorgeous Man trying to untie one of my "ribbons" and the oriental-inspired design adds just the right touch of sumptuousness.  It goes perfectly with my platinum blonde hair, too.  I shall wear my hair up tonight, with my jade hair ornaments. I shall look like The Perfect Dragon Queen.

Candi:  Hmmm hmmmm....Drag Queen.

Bambi:  Not Drag Queen, Candi!  A Dragon Queen with a Goddess Edge like Nu Gua, or a modern-day Chinese Vamp.

Candi:  Hmmm hmmmm...Siamese Cramp.  Take a Midol.

Bambi:  No, not - oh, for Goddess Sake!  You have been playing Sudoku for hours and you're not paying attention to anything I say.  We need to finish researching the article about the divination practices of the Kazhaks....and then we need to get ready for the Gala tonight.  What are you going to wear?

Candi:  I am wearing the sheer white gown with all the rhinestones I designed for our Goddess Chess Fashion Line, it is ultra sexy!  By the way, I am working on the divination article right now.

Bambi:  What does Sudoku have to do with divination?  It's a number game.

Candi:  It's all our chief editor Jan's fault.

Bambi:  What do you mean? Jan never asked you to play Sudoku, or write an article about it.

Candi:  Hold on! I am just about done... 

Candi enters a '9' into a center square and lights flash on her computer screen.

Candi:  I did it!!!!  A winner again... Wow! The '9' shows up again...the Goddess is in this game, too.

Bambi:  Sudoku relates to the Goddess?

Candi:  Yes it does, because Sudoku is a magic square puzzle, and magic squares have a connection to many board games, and to divination.  Did you know that the oldest magic square is Chinese, and it is a 3x3 square of magnitude 15?

Bambi:  Of course I do.  Everyone knows that the Chinese Emperor Yu of the supposedly mythical empire of Xia(2), discerned the very first 3x3 magic square in the markings on the back of a turtle in the River Lo about 4,200 years ago. (Image, left)(3)  Yu extrapolated the Lo Shu magic square from the markings on the turtle's back. The Chief wrote about magic squares and their connection to chess  and - Oh, I get it.  Duh!  The 3x3 square has a total of 9 squares, just like your Sudoku puzzle!

Candi:  The Sudoku board is divided into 9 squares and each of the 9 squares has 9 smaller squares, so the entire board has 81 smaller squares in total.  In each of the smaller squares a number from 1 through 9 is entered. The trick is to figure out the order for each small square so that the rank and file rows of the entire board all have 1 to 9 in them without any double numbers in them...It is really easy to understand once you play a game.  1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 45; 4 + 5 = 9

Bambi:  Okay...go on.

Candi:  A couple of months ago Jan send us an essay by Joseph Campbell, "The Mystery Number of the Goddess"(4) and Joe explains that the number '9', and the number '432', are all related to the Great Mother Goddess. I really enjoyed reading it because of all the number magic...you know how I like puzzles.

Bambi:  I haven't read it yet!  I've been intending to, but I have been studying great warriors and military strategy for the next part of our Godel Chess/Global Chess article.

Candi:  I guess the best way to explain the number magic Campbell wrote about is by showing you.

Candi gets a piece of paper and a pencil and begins to explain the relationship between the number '9' and the number '432'.

Bambi: That's really cool, tell me more.

Candi:  All these numbers have a root of 3, the Trinity. Take, for instance, the Schemhamphoras, which is composed of 72-Trinities of Letters.  A Trinity of Dice now comes into play, which is something I have been working on separately, but I find it fits in perfectly with this.  Did you know that the ancient Romans called their dice tesserae, and there is a connection between tesserae, tasselations and The Golden Ratio.  And tesserae the non-dice kind) were also used in producing intricate mosaic tasselations. 

Bambi:  Tessellations, Candi, tessellations!  NOT Tasselations!

Candi:  I say tassles, and you say tessells, I say castles, and you say ketchup - oh, I just love doing that number.  Bambi, did I tell you I can now get my Akoya pearl-tipped pasties to rotate in opposite directions at the same time?  My breasts are usually pretty sore by the end of that exercise routine, though.  Maybe I need to reduce the number of pearls on my pasties?  Say - we wrote an article about tasselations and Colonel Potter, I succinctly remember that.

Bambi:  Oh Candi, You Are Hopeless.  Yes, we did write an article on Tessellations, Harry Potter, Escher, Chess and the Knight's Tour.  Now what about your Trinity of Dice?  And what was that about the Golden Ratio and tesserae?

Candi:  One thing at a time! We must keep our focus. Mah Jong is sometimes played with three dice. A set of 144 Mah Jong tiles consists of 36 tiles in the Bamboo suit, 36 in the Circle suit, 36 in the Character suit, 16 Wind tiles, 12 Dragon tiles and 8 bonus tiles (4 Flowers and 4 Seasons).(7)  There is your Dragon, Bambi.  Notice that 3x144 = 432; the Trinity appears again in relation to the Number of the Goddess.  And our Mayan and numbers expert, Mark Borcherding, sent us this number magic in email on the number 216: 

Bambi:  Mark has been a research partner with Goddesschess since the Art Bell Days in 1999.  It sure is wonderful to have such talented people to call upon when we need information!

Candi:  Back to the Trinity of Dice and their connection to 216.  As you well know, Bambi, dice have 6 sides, 6 possible numbers per die...2 dice have 6 x 6 = 36 possible combinations, like in a craps game.

Bambi:  Baby needs new shoes!!!

Candi:  We always need new shoes....tee he he...

Bambi:  So True!  A Girl can never have too many shoes.

Candi:  Now where was I....Three Dice have 6 x 6 x 6 = 216 possible combinations. There is that '9' (2+1+6) again.  The smallest possible number rolled with Three Dice is a Trinity of Ones: 1, 1, 1.  Check out some of the patterns created with three 6-sided dice:

This is the easiest of the tables to create using combinations from Three Dice, showing 36 of the 216 possible combinations.  Notice the smallest number from a combination, a Trinity of Ones,1+1+1, totals 3; notice the largest number possible from a combination, 6+6+6 or 18.  Three is the first number that is created out of the union of the Monad (1) and the Monad dividing itself (2).  Many cultures associate the number 3 with the godhead, and Trinities of gods and goddesses abound in the traditions of ancient cultures, and even today, for instance, in the Holy Trinity of Christianity. 

The Number of the Goddess, 432, divided by the smallest number created out of a Trinity of Dice (3) = 144.  At the other end, we have seen '666' referred to as the Number of Man or the Number of the Beast, both references to gross imperfection, or Man in his Demeaned State, according to Christian tradition.  This old teaching is most likely a negative patriarchal gloss on the number '9' (666 = 6+6+6 = 18 = 1+8 = 9), which has always been associated with the Goddess.  The Number of the Goddess, 432, divided by 18 = 24.  Mark demonstrated how both 144 and 24 are incorporated in the eschatological teachings of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. 

And then there is Pythogoras' Tetraktys ("triangle of fourness"), with its nine points radiating from a central point, which also relates to the Goddess.  Notice how the bottom row of the tetraktys is composed of four points, the next row has three points, and the next row has two points: 4-3-2.  In India this triangular pattern is also used in a Tantric Diagram called the Yantra. 

Bambi:  That central point out of which the form radiates and is created, isn't that the Bindu, and isn't it related to the Yoni?  And Bidev mentions a connection too. 

Candi:  Yes, that's right.  How did you know that?

Bambi:  Candi, we've been taking Tantric Yoga classes together for years!

Candi:  Oh... must have missed that class... Now where was I - Campbell writes: 

Candi: We need this translated Bambi: Das Ewig-Weibliche/ Zieht uns hinan!

Bambi (reaching for her Notebook):  I'll e-mail Stooping Wolf and ask him to translate the phrase for us...He's sooo cute.

Candi:  Cute and Handsome and Charming!

Bambi and Candi giggle together and then say in unison: And SEXY!!!

Candi:  That reminds me, I am going out after the Gala tonight so don't expect me home.

Bambi:  Ok.... There...the e-mail is on its way to Stooping Wolf.  What time is it? I still need to soak in a Kyphi scented bath, Dioscorides recommended its use before a big event, it smells absolutely heavenly.

Candi:  Oh, it's earlier than I thought, only 6 PM...we have plenty of time.  Did you notice how Campbell pointed out that the location of the bindu depends upon where one is focusing when looking at the tetraktys and a yantra. 

Bambi:  So it depends upon one's point of view - fascinating.  Sometimes a fixed point of view can blind one to the truth.

Candi:  True!  We are both of us philosophers, Bambi. 

Bambi:  Wait a minute - have you been reading Jane Austen again?  That sounds suspiciously like something Miss Elizabeth Bennet said to her sister, Mary, at the Assembly Ball in Pride and Prejudice!

Candi:  I refuse to speak on the grounds that it might incinerate me.  Focus, Bambi, Focus!  I think I may have found another connection to our Godel Chess/Global Chess White Elephant and Tortoise game piece. We know that Buddha is connected to the White Elephant, and Buddha's Mother's name was Maya.  According to Campbell's essay: "Maya-sakti-devi, the 'goddess'  (devi), as at one the 'moving energy' (sakti) and the 'illusion' (maya) of phenomenality.  For according to this nondualistic type of cosmogonic metaphor, the universe as maya is brahman, the Imperishable, as perceived.  It is thus its own sole cause as well as substance.  The analogy is given in the Mundaka Upanishad of a spider and its web.  'As the spider brings form and takes back its thread ...so creation springs from the Imperishable'."(14)

Bambi:  I believe you're on to something. The ashtapada (ashta=eight + pada=feet) board has been compared to a spider.(15)  I see - the Spider is a metaphor for The Potential, Potent Creative Force Of The Universe.  Some of the games that were played on the ashtapada must therefore have embodied a representation of the creative force of the Goddess/Universe manifesting herself into Matter - like the original Big Bang - POW!  - All Originating From The Center Point, the Bindu  - oh, here is an email from Stooping Wolf, our own Gallant Knight to the rescue...check this out.

Candi:  Poor Goethe....He should have studied the Kama Sutra and Tantric...then he wouldn't have considered the female energy the way he did.  He would have embraced the creative force of the Goddess and rejoiced in her robust and pleasurable energies.

Bambi:  I know Stooping Wolf rejoices in the pleasurable energies of the Goddess/Goddess.

Candi:  Do Tell All! - Oh look at the time, we've got to get going! The Big Party!

Bambi:  But we're just getting started.  We have yet to explore how the Nine is related to the Eight in Indian religious inconography, for instance - and don't forget about the Egyptian Ennead and how that is the original representation of the Tetraktys. And there's that comment you made about tesserae and the Golden Ratio - Candi - Candi, come back here!  Oh, well, I'll just go soak with Dioscorides...

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FOOTNOTES:

(1) No, that is not Bambi modeling her Valentino "Dragon Queen" dress.  The image is courtesy of Valentino's website, with a lovely brunette model.  Bambi is a natural platinum blonde, and she looks Much Better in the dress, no offense to Valentino's model.

(2) Dates for Xia Dynasty (long thought to be mythical) vary, but archaeological evidence now affirms the existence of the dynasty circa 2100-1800 BCE.  See, for instance, Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia (2033 BCE-1562 BCE),  Dynasties of Ancient China (2100 BCE-1800 BCE), Travel China Guide (21st Century BCE-17th Century BCE). 

(3) The image of the lo shu is from Tony Smith's website. We always approach this website with shock and awe.

(4) "The Mystery Number of the Goddess," by Joseph Campbell, 55-129, in In All Her Names: Explorations of the Feminine in Divinity, edited by Joseph Campbell and Charles Muses, Harper San Francisco, (1991), ISBN 0-06-250629-3.

(5) For more information about the 216-letter name of God, see Esoteric Hebrew Names of God; compare The Names of God.

(6) For more information about the aspects of The Goddess of 1000 Names, see the 108 names for Devi; Durga Puja, the great Hindu Mother Goddess; for the record, there are also 108 names for the Hindu Great God.

(7) Information on Mah Jong from James Masters' Online Guide to Traditional Games.

(8) Bambi is not satisfied with the explanations she has read about this "phenomenon."  Here are a few websites that discuss the issue:  Coincidence and 11:11 (a large blog dating from 1996 through 2003) and Encoded Digital Messages.  She thinks it is more likely some kind of biological synchronizing or adjustment on the cellular level that occurs in every living thing tuning into the mathematical vibrations that we know are manifest around us in the universe (as evidenced in the Fibonnaci sequence being encoded into so many living things, in the shape of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, etc.), sort of like an engine tune-up.

(9) "The Mystery Number of the Goddess," 75.

(10) Image of triangle with bindu from Exotic India, Tantra, the Art of Philosophy, Article of the Month, September, 2001. 

(11) Image of Neotholic fertility goddess from Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, from Bulgarian Myth and Folklore/Bulgarian Traditional Tales. 

(12) "The Mystery Number of the Goddess," 78.

(13) "The Mystery Number of the Goddess," 77.

(14) "The Mystery Number of the Goddess," 66-67.

(15) "Ashtapada, an ancient Indian race game played with dice on an 8x8 board; the board on which the game was played.  The Sanskrit name, meaning 'having eight legs', is used for a spider and also a legendary being with eight legs, as well as for the board."  David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, (1992), 20, ISBN 0-19-866164-9.