Not a seven-year itch in sight for this anniversary!

It has been seven years to the day that I launched my blog and website.

As it is with the achievement of any grand goal or big dream, there is a sense of accomplishment and relief. Starting the blog was something that had been brewing in me for years and to have it come to fruition was an incredible feeling. You can read more about it here.

In the seven years since the launch so much has happened. From my babies growing up, to books being written and published, to the life-changing experience of bushfires–and today I write this while in lockdown as we continue to feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this anniversary I thought I’d keep it simple and look at the significance of the number seven. It proved to hold more insight and answers than I realised.

I’m not a numerologist, but over the years I’ve been fascinated by numbers (especially repetitive ones) and I always believe they carry messages for us in that precise moment. For many of us, seeing 11:11 on the clock is a common occurrence and it can simply mean that you’re on the right track and that your thoughts are manifesting rapidly. So it can serve as an important reminder to keep your thoughts positive.

Considered a master number, 11 represents intuition, awareness, and enlightenment. In this sense, seeing 11 can be interpreted as receiving messages regarding your own awakening and emergence.

To look more deeply at the number seven, I turned to my trusty book, The Numerology Workbook: Understanding and Using the Power of Numbers by Julia Line.

According to Line, just some of the universal meanings of the number 7 include:

• As a representation of rest, reflection, and contemplation since God rested on the 7^th (Although I’m not religious, this point becomes relevant later on.)
• The way it governs the rhythm of life. In the ancient past, there were 7 planets that influenced Earth.
• The number of days of the week.
• The moon cycles which can be broken down into a four-phased cycle consisting of 7 days each.
• The number of colours in the spectrum.
• The number of notes in the musical scale.
• The number of chakras (or energy centres in our body).

And on and on it goes with the number seven featuring as a powerful and significant number. My favourite would have to be that it “represents the triumph of spirit over matter.”

The symbolism of seven also shows up in nature with “plants of a pure strain having seven outside petals.” The Lotus is a pure type of plant often associated with the Buddha and representative of his teachings. Line goes onto say that:

“The Buddha believed that the creative spirit was the origin and foundation of all things.”

Serendipitously, the home page of my website and blog features a photograph of a Lotus with the caption: “Like the Lotus flower which rises out of the mud, transformation requires a letting go of the old to make way for the new…and beautiful.”

Thinking back to the number seven symbolising rest, out of a three-card reading I did for myself this week from The Enchanted Map Oracle Cards by Colette Baron-Reid, all three cards were conveying the message of rest. That this is a time of rest and recuperation, not action. I could feel that the message of rest was not just directed at me, but at everyone.

This is exactly the feeling I’ve been experiencing going into lockdown. There’s a slowing down that happens. We’re spending more time at home, and for many of us, that’s where we feel most comfortable. My husband often refers to me as “The Hermit” for this reason, because I love being in my own home. It is my sacred space where I feel protected from the energy and goings-on out there in the world. It is my happy place.

So what does all this mean for you today?

Maybe you too have been feeling that there are messages coming through to you to steer you in one direction or another.

• Have you been listening to the whispers of your soul? Maybe you too are going through a cycle where now is the time to rest and finally we have an opportunity to do so…so long as we don’t resist the call of what we think we ‘should’ be doing.
• Have you been taking advantage of opportunities to rest or have you soldiered on?
• Have you been in constant overwhelm and on the edge of burnout?
• Is this experience highlighting for you negative patterns and beliefs that you’ve outgrown?
• Is this the perfect time to gently let go of that which does not serve the future vision of yourself and your life?

If the 7 is as significant to you today as it is for me, maybe we can acknowledge our past efforts and take stock of where we want to go.

Until we take a breather and actually feel into what our next phase will look like, it’s as though we are going on an adventure with no map. Sometimes spontaneous outings are exactly what we need, but in this grand thing we call life, do we really want to be coasting aimlessly?

Ironically, more and more I am understanding that the journey is equal to the destination, and yet as we accumulate life experience, I believe there’s magic in seeing if where we are is where we want to stay.

Author and podcaster, Sharon Halliday, celebrates 7 years of blogging!