Seven is a mystical number with deep roots in the human psyche. Folklore offers testimony, with symbolic references such as sabbaticals, seventh-inning stretches, seven-year itches, seven-come-eleven betting calls, and so forth.
The seventh year return, too, is an anniversary of significance--I call it a Septide. In multiples of three they mark our primary life stages--the turning of our seasons, as it were: into maturity at 21, engaging us in midlife crisis at 42, retirement at 63, and the golden age of ultimate attainment at 84. These are approximate ages, of course, but they fairly well punctuate the lifetime, eventuating in the life-seasons that we commonly experience.
When the Septide of a significant event comes around, as it does for 9/11 this year, it offers the opportunity of alignment with other notable occasions that may not have been so evident until this moment; it offers the opportunity for better understanding of what the event has to tell us, by its concurrency with other Septide occasions.
Exactly four Septides prior to the 9/11 disaster--to the very date! (9/11/73)--the democratically elected leftist government of Salvador Allende, a peaceful nation up to that point, was overthrown by a military coup in which the CIA is known to have been involved, an instance where our government (the Nixon administration) was guilty of illegal interference with another.
But that's not all. Short of such precision by a mere few weeks, another disastrous occasion of the last century also stands in Septide relationship to the attack seven years ago on the Twin Towers! It was sixty-three years ago (7 x 9) in August, that we unleashed nuclear destruction on a world not even forewarned of it.
There may have been good reason to do so, as many still claim, but it relies on the assumed legitimacy of mass murder of non-combatants--which was subsequently claimed for the Twin Towers disaster by its alleged perpetrators, as it was claimed also for the overthrow of Allende, which brought on a 19-year terrorist dictatorship to a previously peaceful nation. Those who commit terror are always sure they are on good ground.
It may be time for us to shift our focus from who actually sponsored the WTC 9/11 disaster to the wider implications of using terroristic methods as a means of modern international engagement, whether in acknowledged warfare or otherwise; and the particular tendency of American power to engage in strategies that eventually lead to such developments (regardless of who actually carries them out!)
The seventh year return, too, is an anniversary of significance--I call it a Septide. In multiples of three they mark our primary life stages--the turning of our seasons, as it were: into maturity at 21, engaging us in midlife crisis at 42, retirement at 63, and the golden age of ultimate attainment at 84. These are approximate ages, of course, but they fairly well punctuate the lifetime, eventuating in the life-seasons that we commonly experience.
When the Septide of a significant event comes around, as it does for 9/11 this year, it offers the opportunity of alignment with other notable occasions that may not have been so evident until this moment; it offers the opportunity for better understanding of what the event has to tell us, by its concurrency with other Septide occasions.
Exactly four Septides prior to the 9/11 disaster--to the very date! (9/11/73)--the democratically elected leftist government of Salvador Allende, a peaceful nation up to that point, was overthrown by a military coup in which the CIA is known to have been involved, an instance where our government (the Nixon administration) was guilty of illegal interference with another.
But that's not all. Short of such precision by a mere few weeks, another disastrous occasion of the last century also stands in Septide relationship to the attack seven years ago on the Twin Towers! It was sixty-three years ago (7 x 9) in August, that we unleashed nuclear destruction on a world not even forewarned of it.
There may have been good reason to do so, as many still claim, but it relies on the assumed legitimacy of mass murder of non-combatants--which was subsequently claimed for the Twin Towers disaster by its alleged perpetrators, as it was claimed also for the overthrow of Allende, which brought on a 19-year terrorist dictatorship to a previously peaceful nation. Those who commit terror are always sure they are on good ground.
It may be time for us to shift our focus from who actually sponsored the WTC 9/11 disaster to the wider implications of using terroristic methods as a means of modern international engagement, whether in acknowledged warfare or otherwise; and the particular tendency of American power to engage in strategies that eventually lead to such developments (regardless of who actually carries them out!)
