Power of Three

By Melanated Glow

Growing up in Seminola, a Black community in Miami, it was always said that the people in our neighborhood die in threes. Of course, as a child I didn’t believe it. I thought there was no way that that could be true every single time, so I started paying close attention to the pattern when a new cycle of 3 started. Eventually I concluded that they were right. I never fully understood it. Why 3’s? With further reflection on the number, I realize that the number has consistent meaning in life.

The number 3 is represented everywhere in our history and culture, whether we are mindful of it or not. Not only is it one of the “Golden Numbers” that occur naturally, but religions also use 3 to represent important theological concepts as with Christianity and the Holy Trinity. As Christians give homage to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, those that study Ancient History see the connection to the religion in the stories of Asar, Aset, and Heru in Ancient Kemetic culture that became Osiris, Isis, and Horus with the Greek renaming convention. In these instances, the number three represents life, its creation, and recreation.

Some people say that there are three sides to every story. Your side, their side, and the truth. This saying takes individual perspective into consideration, as a group can observe the same situation and generate different conclusions for what transpired. There seems to be a passivity when delving into the essence of the number three, especially as creation is concerned. It corresponds to the need for the silent note, the quiet, or the darkness for things to be created. With creation there is a quiet, subtle, and creative energy. Even in our physical state, we pay close attention to our physical body with little focus on our mental and spiritual aspects of ourselves although those are the bodies working on our behalf to bring our thoughts to fruition. Sometimes we are not actively aware of their presence because the power is applied discreetly.

Since disease of our physical body can be a direct result of our mental bodies, our healing sometimes takes place in our thoughts. Not only is life and death in the power of the tongue, but it is in the thoughts of the mind. The only reason the words that someone else speaks can affect you is if those words impact your thought process or actions. So, at times we cause disease to our bodies in the thoughts we receive or because of our spiritual imbalance, making health a Holistic approach. It is the balance of your whole self: mind, body, and soul that our ancestors understood was needed for optimal health.

As we uncover the meaning of numbers, we see that they are more than just digits we write on paper. They have meaning. Writing this article made me think of writing in school in how in an essay we had the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion or how each 24-hour cycle is broken up into morning, afternoon, and night. There is a fullness in the number three that is powerful. We are the fullness of this existence and even, so we are born, we live, and we die. That is a cycle of 3. Even eating is a three-step process in that we consume, we process or digest, and we eliminate what isn’t used. As we get deeper into the meaning of everything we experience, as all things are with purpose, we will see the power of the number 3 in our lives.