Seasonal Alignmnent

Last year at my previous house in the village I always enjoyed watching the sun set having a clear view West. I soon noticed that the sun would set exactly in the V of a tree each evening during the first week of June. This always amused me as I took it as a sign that my holiday was due as this week has always been my time to get away. You could call this a kind of cosmic clock and it never ceased to make me quite giddy watching this surreal alignment.
  Last year was the same, but when I came home a week later on the 7th the sun continued to set in the V for the whole of June. As Ive said earlier this normally only happened for a week. It felt as though time had stopped and as the sun just set in that same place until July started. Could time be being manipulated ? Or was this just a regular anomaly that occurs every few years. I would love to know.
  What is interesting is that the earth sits 23 degrees on a slope on its axis ( what else eh ? ) I also know that there is a variation of several degrees on its rotation that acts as a wobble effect. Was this responsible for the sun hanging around longer in it setting position that normal last year ? Unfortunately I don't live there anymore so I cant check this out this year, well not unless I walk up the back path and the last time I did that after moving I burst into tears driving home. Too many memories there of esoteric rebirth, love , madness and death to be honest, on and magick. Anyway im straying from the point and my eyes are filling up so lets move on....

 

Above is the photograph I took as a reminder of how the view looked for one week each year, apart from last year when time appeared to " stop " !  Ive noticed that this photograph was taken on the 7 th of June and already you can see the suns setting position has moved slightly off centre of the V in the trunk. Why did it then stick there until July ?

Gigi D'Agostino - Silence "vision2" ( Underconstruction 1 )

Ive only just recently been able to listen to this track / album again. This takes me back to my peak experience days. It was Winter as it is now. I remember driving down our country lane and being aware of every snow flake as it fell. That spell of  cold weather that occurred over Christmas had its very own  separate atmosphere. It felt  as though it was almost holy, but in a pagan way.The frosts were particularly hard at night, and the moon was a Wintery cold white colour. One day there was even the rumble of an earth quake that occurred locally. All in all this was too much to deal with. I was overpowered by life in a bitter sweet way. The hollow silvery sound of this track captures perfectly how it felt inside.



There are also two very strange things about this mix. At the very beginning there is the sound of a crackling fire on a sea shore. At that time that fire crackling sound started to appear in adverts and various mediums in my sphere. It was very surreal. The second strange thing is the way the male singers voice merges into a male voice at the end of the first vocals. This is very well done and has a gender blending tone to it. This excites me. No idea why because its very odd.

Right Where Anyone Who Cares To Look Can See ?

It has only just hit me now, and my heart feels giddy with the realisation. This is not an artistic interpretation im about to suggest here, but a cold hard theory. I was once in a different reality where I experienced that which I craved. I bent agendas and life patterns, both of my own and others to achieve this. Not all this was done consciously.
   Anyway I created a moods where I had success. Next came a dispersion and complete breakdown of all I had achieved as life flooded in. I couldn't hold it back, and I thought all was lost for ever. I thought this for several years.
   Only now do I see after a brief moment of return to that situation, that it still exists somewhere. It can exist in tandem with the mundane life im living as another alternative reality. All I need to do is realise that there is still a mood when I can return in the mirage to old times. Call it a porthole that opens. It is still accessible, just as a drug user might access a state of mind at will. Of course the situation seems impossible and silly compared to the mundane life of today, but still it exists under its own self sustaining energy.
  I cannot access this everyday. I cannot sustain or aid this relationship on Face Book. Wrong tool you see. That would be like using a Laptop in Church ? To grasp this is hard. Very hard because I am slipping from my current reality. Of course I get stressed judging a surreal situation through wordly eyes ! The shocking proof of recent social mixings has proved this. How could I have forgotten this ? Of course this situation used to destroy me, but when balanced with todays new mood I see a nicer picture than ever before, after all we must have balance.  23 .Ive lived unbalance and eventually it leads to hell. Below is a poem I wrote years ago about this little accessible reality.

Temporary Loss

All seems now lost
Still circles have vanished
Empty rooms beckon
As the everyday is now
Waiting for high tides
To bring me free passage
Return to my dreams ?
But the question is how .

Clouds of the past drift over a moon of the present
Gentle moments remembered
As magic unfolds
Silver moonlight reflected
As memories flicker
What wouldn't I give to once again watch them unfold ?
Slow moonlight shadows drift ghost like till dawn
As shining river valleys move forever seaward bound
Too soon , but too late have I found all the answers
To feel all I wanted
But have nothing to hold .


"  The Initiate gets to use everything, but own nothing... "   Dion Fortune

Lest Olde Acquaintance Be Forgot

 

 

Roll up, roll up !  See the grand return of a legendary spectacle. You wrote him off, but by means unknown to mortal man he has returned. Gasp in awe as you view his seemly impossible social concoctions, and blatant disregard for social conventions. Watch him dismantle rigid formalities as he dances with Lady Luck. He spins, he twirls, she dances...for one night only.

Does he really fear success ?

Of Water And Women In Pink

Well, well it doesn't take long for some strange new circumstances to arise. Two new things are worthy of a post. Today two people I know very well saw a neighbour of theirs walking on our single track road. They drove past her. Nothing unusual there, but as these two people had forgotten something they had to turn round and go back home. They did this immediately after passing our walking neighbour , on doing a u -turn they found she had vanished  ! She had not had time to go anywhere, besides its a single track road. Where did she go ? The worst part though is that they said she was uncharacteristically wearing PINK . This immediately reminded me of the woman in pink that appeared on a photo I took at Boscastle. This has rattled me.


Said neighbours husband recently bought a fresh car a while ago too. It was second hand, and a distinctive green colour. The first time I saw it a woman with curly short blond hair was driving it, so when my neighbour was driving the car a few weeks later I asked him who the woman was who he had bought the car off, as I told him I had seen her in the distinctive car before he had bought it. He replied that he had driven the car home after buying it and that no woman had ever driven the car to his home. It wasn't a local car either... I was somewhat embarrassed as he must have though I sounded like a complete lunatic ! I saw this woman in the car clearly too as I edged past her slowly on our narrow country lane. I was not mistaken.

Unfortunately this nieghbour is gravely ill at the moment and I think it may be terminal, or so its been suggested by his family. Im not sure if this has any leaning on the above events. These are worrying days. Very real and disturbing things are happening around me. Tonight a water tap switched its self on full blast, and by several turns at that, spraying my bathroom with water as I sat in the bath. Even by my standards that's an alarming water incident. I worry what this means....

What Once Was Easy Is No More

There is a new cold sterile reality. I don't know when it started, but the days of my adolescence and childhood saw a world locally where nature thrived. How can I tell this world no longer exists ? It can simply be revealed by my brushes with nature today..
   Having become a father I decided to collect some frog spawn to grow into frogs. I thought it would be fun for my daughter, as I did the same as a child. I remember collecting the spawn on cold windy April days, then releasing the frogs in June. How did things go nowadays ? Well the tadpoles have had to be released outside, into a pond as its nearly July, and they've only developed two legs so far. The very act of rearing them seemed impossible today, but it WASNT once...something has changed ! After all its not rocket science, is it ? There is a strange atmosphere nowadays. Nature is held in high regard, but doesn't play ball to our whims. Raising those frogs was an instance of hysterical optimism. It is no longer do able. Sad, but true.
   Things are similar when it comes to growing seeds into vegetables. I plant them, they sprout, but never amount to anything, even after a full summer. The rain pounds the loose soil. 1 in 4 seeds sold in shops are infertile, so said a recent gardening survey...
   The rivers in my valley used to hold good runs of migratory fish from July to December. Today your lucky if you see any, let alone catch one on a rod. All this when the rivers have never been so policed and clean and free of pollution. The water has a clear shallow look to it and there is no atmosphere in the river, I can feel the void of any decent fish life. The act of catching a Salmon seems today like a fairytale. Something profound changed. It has a deeper link than just the environmental. I can feel and believe this somehow. Times have changed, Yes, but also in a way I have yet to fully understand. Nature, especially connected to water is barren, gone, vacant.

  

Slippage ?

Today while visiting friends I saw a man whom I remembered had denied having a certain conversation with me a while ago. It was odd at the time, and I specifically remember him asking me for advice regarding a quite trivial subject. Was he lieing as he denied all recollection of our conversation ? It was after all just a trivial discussion, so maybe he just forgot. Yes, that would be no great surprise. The only trouble was ( and I now wish I hadn't ) I remember telling my wife about that conversation. Surely now I would be vindicated. Oh , dear she cant remember anything about it either. Well that's odd because I remember quite specifically telling her, and getting quite animated in the process.
   They have both "forgotten " then ? Something is very wrong here. I seriously thought today that maybe I have at sometime slipped into another of those alternative realities that are supposed to run in tandem. I feel this little story somehow is evidence that's been left behind and not cleaned up. Its a bit scary really. I feel like ive spotted something very rare. This has never happened before.



Funnily I came across this link today that echoes my suspicions !


/http://www.paranormics.com/holographic-universes-know-your-place-in-it-video/

Seek And Ye Shall Find ?

Mmmmm, psychological tests. Well a while ago I took one, the on line type I may add. The after affects were quite unpleasant. I did not enjoy the experience. Not only did I fair badly, but I found it very hard to relate to the questions as they were often in the form of very subjective situations often revolving around what traits I thought should be a priority in differing circumstances. Often these were social conundrums that were placed before me, and often ones that I cant relate to, such as a work scenario set in an office or large group of colleagues. I found making a decision on these questions most vexing.
   I don't pretend to be the picture of normality, but I think these tests very quickly demoralise. The very fact that some of us have made it past mentally horrific life events relatively unscathed proves that we are not made of conventional stuff. Conventional thinking would have failed us. The fact I found myself classed as " unhealthy " in this test is nothing to be ashamed of, rather just the taint upon me that events have left. A taint is better than a medicated normality I believe. I witness this difference everyday.
  Still that doesn't take away the deep uneasiness of " failing " a test, but its not the end of the world, and we all know ourselves anyway what our vices are, and we don't really need a test to blatantly tell us our faults. And I just thank my lucky stars that my job does not rest on the results. Well if Im looking for an up side my " aggressive side " and my sense of " individuality " are strong !! I think that's good, no ?? Some may say not... ( and Im sure its an open secret but there is no normality anymore, never mind normal people. Life has put paid to that ! )

Really ?!

Apologies, I know its Christmas night, but what I just heard on my radio is an example of the insanity of fate.  A few days ago a Dustbin wagon ran over and killed 6 people who were Christmas shopping in Glasgow.

 Today a man in Manchester was charged with running over and killing someone. 

But worst of all ive just heard an Ambulance, oh yes, an ambulance in Scotland has run over and killed someone who worked at an ambulance station. This happened in the ambulance station car car park on Christmas day  !!!  There is almost a very dark humour working here.  Whats going on ???   More of these incidents will occur, you watch !


Last year over Christmas a Police helicopter hit a crane and crashed into a Glasgow pub killing I think it was about 10 people. Again this was over Christmas too.

Of the Problem of Face Book and the World in General

" ...then Father Perdurabo laughed. But those disciples nearest him, wept seeing the Universal sorrow. Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal joke. Below these certain laughed. Then others wept. Others next laughed. Next others wept. Next others laughed...

Last came those that wept because they could not see the joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the joke, and thought it safe to act like Father Perdurabo.

But Father Perdurabo laughed openly. He also at the same time wept secretly; and in his self neither laughed nor wept. Nor did he mean what he had said. "  



O.K this is very deep to be linked to Face Book, but it captures how vastly perceptions vary from person to person, and how any statement made must not be taken too seriously, as peoples motives for their reactions or what they appear to say are not always straight forward by any means. This is particularly true in a crowd or even on Face Book I suppose...   : )

The Lurker At The Threshold - H.P Lovecraft

" I often think, " he said " how fortunate most men are in their inability to correlate all the knowledge at their disposal. Bates, I believe, illustrates the point very well. He has recorded what seems to be dissociated knowledge, he constantly skirts a terrifying reality, he seldom makes any genuine attempt to face it; he is hampered by the superficial, by the vestigial superstitions which have no reality apart from the expected conventional behaviour- and the belief-patterns of the average human being. If the common man were even to suspect the cosmic grandeur of the universes, if he were to have a glimpse of the awesome depths of outer space he would either go mad or reject such knowledge in preference of superstition... "    


Its true, there comes a time after so many years of quoting instances of bizarre happenings that are personal to you , that you finally and quite conscientiously have to admit that your " on to something " . This does however not fill in any missing pieces to form a magically all revealing picture. Maybe we dare not do that for ourselves, but Ive met those who I suspect have at some point and are paying the price today ?! Time will tell.

A ramble

Its a very odd night tonight. Ive had a very good day relaxing with family at a lake. When I came home tonight though it felt like a different day from the morning I set off from, that's odd.
 I woke up suddenly by the lake side at one point during the afternoon as I felt there was something I was missing. When I looked out to the lake two people, at least one was female came silently gliding by stood bolt upright on what looked like surf boards. They were using a pole to propel them selves along. They moved in total silence and with a very dramatic unusual smooth movement that just looked ancient. Everyone else around me was too busy to noticed them pass but I woke up to see them. Just a funny moment that's all , but it seemed to represent something very ancient to me.
  Right now in a field outside my garden the lambs that have been taken away from their mothers are bleating, and this noise is carrying across the dale on this very soft humid night. Its a distinctive sound though and it could be a noisy night ahead. My daughter is unsettled too and wants to sleep with the light on. There is an odd tap from the attick. The church bells are now chiming. Time to sleep....

A ramble for old times sake lol

999 seems to be strong at the moment

Summer always brings the triples. It brings everything....

Is Blogging Worthwhile ?

"  Everyone interprets everything in his own experience . If you say anything which does not touch a precisely similar spot in another man , he either misunderstands you or worse doesn't understand you at all "    Aliestair Crowley   

This quote came to mind after an altercation with Soul Wreckage . What is the point of trying to change anothers mind about a subject they are passionate about ? By all means we should blog our opinions for others to laugh at / dismiss or mull over , but to aggressively try and rock others from their personal  beliefs is a silly waste of time . Its all subjective !

DO WHAT THOU WHILST SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW ...


I think the worst thing though is the suggestion that I don't live what I preach . I couldn't have lived it more . As Dion Fortune said for a belief or way of life to be valid it must be of worth and use during a crisis . It was . It worked for me in the same way as Christianity does for others . The truth is it is the same . The results come from within , you choose the meaningful props . Bingo !

How I see life today ( in a nutshell )

So what is the meaning of life Im asking myself as the rain pisses down for yet another day outside my cosy , warm kitchen ? Well its all about the flesh and the constant barrage of destruction waged against it . This takes the form of disease , fatal accidents , cruel coincidences and the mindless recklessness of others actions that lead to damage to your own person through no fault of youre own . Just to exist qualifies your entry in to the game of chance and the game you can not accept ever losing . To resist and stagger along through this , seeming to be oblivious to all this carnage around you or just hoping to god you may be yourself be spared this picture is the only way to make it from day to day . Oh , and maybe reproducing will give you the chance to temporally stick two fingers up at the cosmos of destruction and entropy .

And what of the mind , or Higher Self ? Well you must always see some meaning behind everything and then expand this to the unseen in life . Watch out for those acting strangely familular though you have never seen them before in your life . Picture what you want and align this with places or legends you love . Drift along in a haze and don't analyize to much and things will change... Beware as nothing lasts forever though , and all spiritual things go BANG eventually . Enoy it while the goings good as you will soon find your self half way through life and not having to much longer to try and get some sort of satisfaction . Beware the " tipping point " .  And just how you get back again to point you started from ( everyday life ) is a very steep learning curve , or more accurately a descent ! Now start re-reading back at the top to start the whole cycle again... 

Yes Im tired today ...

A full circle reveals the truth ?

Im in a very odd mood at the moment . Im weary of the world again . Once again I sit in my house after work and I can not settle to anything . This goes on month after month . The days working are fine , but its the nights that are the problem . I went through something like this a few years ago and I tried to start drinking , well I tried a little Vodka with my Ribena ! It didn't do me much good apart from give me a nice deep sleep and a strange smell in my nostrils oddly. My appetite increased greatly to resulting in routine fried breakfasts , and you can guess the result of that ! Eventually I was so disgusted with my self and the fact I had stooped to the level of everyone else that I disapproved of who acted in that manner , and I also thought I had become as I read once a mimic . 
   There is a time in life when you go off the rails . When you are younger you soon pass through this stage and get back on course . When youre older you loose the bouncing back ability and time , so much time has compounded all you feel about the world . I feel as though Ive been alive so damned long . I feel ive been so conscious all through it , though In reality its been less than 5 years in this state of revelation .
   Without sounding insulting to anyone reading this Im basically living in the ordinary world like most of you now . How ive fallen . I was once living somewhere else and I could see a different view as I looked on at everyone else living in that dull limited world . Yes I could not understand how you all lived so mundanely and with no magic in your lives . Today Im on the other side of this pane of glass with the rest of you and there is no way back for me . Listening to that album from which I posted previously brings back that otherworldly feeling intensely . That album catches how it felt to be living in another existence . Yes eventually I fell from grace and back to this world . So here I sit trying to find some solice in the nice , quite life I have at the moment . Of course I couldn't take much more of the other existence , but that's soon forgotten .
  My god , is this it ? My life is fine if a little hard and un-relenting . Its what happens after my work is done that's the problem . Someone told me a while ago that I was waiting for the next big thing , and he was right , I am .
 

Beyond coincidence ?

Im often embarrassed writing this blog . Not because I shame at the seemingly tall storeys Ive told on here , but rather because they are often very timely and in synch with another's  posts or experiences . This often to the sceptical person looks as if Im copying ,  and I cringe at giving that impression to anyone at all reading this post . For that reason I sometimes decide to keep some instances to myself . But today or rather this afternoon something quite dramatic happened . At 4.30pm our kitchen clock just dropped off the wall and  smashed on the floor shattering glass everywhere . Ive no idea why this happened .
   This set me off thinking about other strange similar happenings Ive experienced . Before my daughter was born there was a large heavy mirror hung over the fire place and opposite I decided to hang a canvas sea picture of an stormy coastal bay .  When this picture was reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall , the image of the bay was reversed and it suddenly now looked like the entrance to Boscastle harbour , a little too much like it for me . Although this amused me ( and I now suspect it was the subconscious reason I bought the painting In the first place ) I was still a little rattled none the less . One day on returning home I found the strong wire holding the mirror had snapped . The mirror was on the ground but intact although it had bent my steel fish wall hanging which I had just brought home from Boscastle . I cant explain how that wire snapped , It was very strong , but I believe it had something to do with the reversed reflection of the painting . I felt that intensely . Said picture is now hung else where . The clock falling off the wall today just cast my mind back to that incident and I this afternoon again checked it was secure as It would be fatal to Evie if it fell on her .
   I now have hung another sea picture In its place and it fell down a while ago which is better than the mirror I guess ! Some visitor's were here when it happened and I saw the picture actually rise one corner itself as if unhooking itself before it fell off onto my surprised guests . Of course I said nothing of this odd movement to them , and only later did I really admit to myself that's what had happened .
 
You know Ive only just remembered as I write that three strange things also happened while I was away in Maryport for a weekend recently . Somehow they had slipped my mind until now.. .  I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and as I approached the bedroom door it swung open in advance just as if someone had opened it for me . I was so tired I was quite blasé about it as you often can be about such things at the time . When I got back into bed a large chest with double doors swung open forcing me to get up and close them , by now I was a little scared ( and I had a toddler wanting a 5.30am Pepper Pig DVD viewing at the time ! ) and the next few days were spent expecting to walk into a room and find someone there .
   More oddly though something happened as I walked past a shop that night after popping out to look for a DVD to watch ( there was no Internet or TV !!! )  I saw a packet of bread just fall off a shelf in a deserted shop . Now when I was a teenager I was plagued with items falling off shelves as I walked past them and this all came flooding back to me . This was a very unhappy period in my life and I believe that some things that I experienced back then were the first startings of what ive gone on to experience today . I spent a lot of time back then at Christian youth groups with an equally troubled relation and I guess both of us were of a similar mind set . Funnily I dreamt about those times last night which is odd .
   I have so many odd things happen to me that sometimes I don't dwell too much on them until like today I get a reminder .
   You see sometimes I feel cursed because the more of the truth I tell the more unbelievable I sound . This was ALWAYS going to be a problem with this blog unless you are of a special mind set . I am never far away from the unexplained although my busy lifestyle often helps me keep sane ! ? These things for me are second nature . They never leave me alone for long . It is indeed a strange night .

When you least expect it !

Tonight as I was excitedly talking to someone about my future holiday to Glastonbury I briefly saw a brilliant white light for a second on the floor . About this time 2 years ago , shortly before the birth of my daughter I saw bright sparks of electric blue in the air . They were singular and brief . Sometimes they were very near , sometimes in a field as I drove past . Again today as then it is very stormy wild weather and there is a harsh bright atmosphere . I feel a magic in the air as of then . Sparks and lights are rare occurrences for me , but I think they herald huge advancements . As always to look directly at them sees then vanish . They are a sign of magick , but this isnt my doing . It is however very positive . Thats quite certain !

Gravity

I must admit I seem to have an uncanny knack of acquiring what I want . This is common when reguarding everyday items that are very specific or rare . Overtime Ive see this pattern . These items are not of much monetary value but they are things that I badly wanted . They are often items ive owned in the past and are now out of fashion , hence I know when they appear that something is amiss . Other people who know me well have also commented that this seems true . Someone told me this would be so for me several years ago because my birth date was the on Winter Equinox . He was right .
  This gift also can be expanded to the question of people . I forged a remarkable friendship with someone for a while that defied lifes constraints and rules . I danced on the rules as they say . I saw people change their lives to further accommodate my situation . I watched a kind of gravity at work as my events were pulled by brute force toward me . Of course such events take a mental toll and I couldn't keep it up for ever as life changed cataclysmalicaly  for me .
     As always there was a twist , but isn't there always ? I noticed that these twists appear when events are about to bear fruit . Ive come to call these little irritations or obstacles ; a snake at the gate !  ie: Some last minute unexpected obstacle . They always seem essential when life's path is changed for your benefit . They are to be rejoiced at as they are a symptom that progress is in situ .

 Today ( next June ) im bound for Glastonbury and I feel a return to the esoteric . This isn't quite yet though and I need some ordinary world time first . At the moment the thing I find most amazing is a bland ordinary day or weekend ! This shows where ive been these last few years . It proves ive been somewhere else . The ordinary may well disappear soon but this time I must keep one foot on the ground because when the time comes for it all to end I cant afford the cost I had accumulated last time . Balance must be the key !
  The journey continues today on Blogger as this scene enables me to find a remarkable likeness of myself to some extent , a sounding board or mentor of much experience . Yes my life has been tough at times but I have also been " lucky " when it really counted . I feel this is a balancing equation and sure this must be the sign of some kind of order ? I use the term order very loosely .
 

Reality is dead

Today I caught myself bellowing with laughter at the news on T.V , there is no reality anymore . It hit me quite gently that each subject has so many contradictions and information and mis-information and views from people with agendas on either side who are all good and accomplished liers , that what ever is represented as worthy of my attention by my T.V can not be deemed judgable as this total analysis leads to no absolute truth , nor even  anything close . It was not always like this .
    The very act of claim and counter claim muddies the water and believe me 24hour news channels wallow in this murkiness often creating their own little minute by hour reality's that evaporate in an instant as facts change .
   This week several reporters made quite childish analogies regarding politics complete with babyish actions and sounds you would expect in a play ground .Strange indeed . I couldn't believe my eyes . This is cutting edge . This is something new evolving right now . Keep an eye out for it on your news . Where it goes is any ones guess ...v

Number 9

Im quite proud of this blog . Obviously there are some posts that are " fillers " as I cant make everyone of them about my direct experiences . Some of them  are just short descriptions of a moment that moved me . I can assure you though that they are 100% reliable in their ability to truly describe how Ive felt these last few years .
   I sometimes worry what people think of what ive written , especially people I know in real life , family or relations . I live where I grew up . I am not anonymous . The intensity of what ive been through made me disregard all thought of my own reputation . I feel people respect my views though . No one has called me a   nut case , at least not to my face !
   So where is this blog heading today as situations have changed ? Well I think a broadening of subjects will occur . Maybe I will report any examples I find that back up what ive been through . This will probably be from books though . I feel some others have been through similar experiences as me if I read between the lines but telling your story is a very personal thing ( it took me long enough ) and I shall wait in hope !
   It means a lot to me just knowing someone does understand what ive experienced . This is unique and important . This blog has kept me sane ( you may disagree? ) over the years . Blogs do that . They are worth their weight in gold . See what I did there ? lol  Seriously though If someone comes across this blog in the future its a record of change at the highest level .  Number 9