I’m a big fan of listening to the radio late at night. At least a couple times a year, my favorite radio show, Coast to Coast AM, does a show on numerology. With my deep interests in mathematics, mysticism and astrology, I could easily be enthralled for hours listening to the number crunching of various fortune tellers and diviners. My favorite is Glynnis McCants. Her explanations of how to get into learning all the basics of numerology are so accessible and fascinating. I’m not sure I necessarily believe that numbers have vibrations that determine our pasts, presents and futures, but it is interesting none-the-less.

Glynnis’ website explains how to find out your numbers and what they mean. According to her website, my life path is a 7. She describes 7s as:

SEVENS are another cerebral number. They have a loner quality. They need to learn to have faith. They have a love of natural beauty: ocean, green grass, plants, flowers, etc. If they do not have faith they tend to become very cynical and escape through drugs, alcohol, work, and geography. They have an air of mystery and do not want you to know who they are.

My attitude number is a 3. This means:

The 3 Attitude tends to be the joker. They have a sense of humor and are charismatic. The Peter Pan Syndrome, they don’t necessarily grow up. But when they’re in a good mood, It’s a big smile, bright eyes, and great conversation. If they’re in a bad mood, you don’t get to be happy around them. They have that effect on people.

Finally, she defines a personal year number. This number gives me an idea of what I should be setting my sights on this year. My personal year number is a 5, thus:

This is a time to look at having more freedom! Maybe you have been held down, and way too constricted in the way you are living your life. You may feel you were way too disciplined and felt trapped. This is year to play! If you can take a trip in the Personal Year of 5, you are going to be so glad you did! Something big, like going to Greece , Tahiti , or somewhere you have never been before. Also, take a look at the physical side of your life. Make sure you not abusing any substances such as food, sex, alcohol, drugs etc.. When it comes to commitment, it is not necessarily the year to get married, or move from where you live. It is more of a time to say, “What can I do to make myself feel better? What can I do to be happy?”

Hmmm… Is any of this me? Do my writings exhibit more faith or more cynicism? Maybe a little of both, but since I’m not “escaping” maybe its faith. Most folks probably think in 100% serious about everything I blog about. I’m talking about growing up, but am I really? I haven’t traveled yet, but if the numbers are demanding that I do so, who am I to argue? I’m just a product of the numerical vibrations that rule the universe.

Today was bittersweet.

It was bitter because I cut my hair that I had been growing for more than a year. It was sweet because I was once again able to donate my hair to my favorite charity, Locks of Love. I’ve been making these contributions since 2003. They started by chance one day as I happened upon a morning show that was doing a piece about the organization. They showed pictures of kids who couldn’t grow hair because of skin diseases and chemotherapy treatments for various types of cancers. It was sad, but it got even sadder for me when I remembered how tough being a normal kid was socially. I’m sure we all felt awkward at some time during our childhood, myself maybe more so. To a condition that kept you from growing hair on top of the normal pressures of childhood and young adulthood seemed like it would have been complete torture. So that day, I started growing my hair to show solidarity with sick children all over the world. Luckily my hair grew fast that year, and I was about to donate twelve inches my first time. This last time around, I was able to donate even more than that.

There were other reasons for growing my hair. I pushed this donation as far as I could. First, some chicks dig a guy with long hair. I’m sure even more chicks would be down with it knowing that I was doing it “for the children.” Lately, though having long hair was the number one outward sign that I could exhibit of my personal and spiritual commitment to rock-and-roll, individuality and freedom from society’s bullshit norms. I would walk around the people I was exposed to everyday — the popular kids, the future Wall Street thieves, the self-aggrandizing political insiders and all the other so-called important people of the world. I could feel their contempt, because with one simple act of patience and perseverance, I created both defiance and social commentary against them and their ways.

I held on as long as I could, though. I’m currently in the process of re-evaluating my own personal brand. It’s a safe bet that part of the brand will involve scaling back in this regard quite a bit. That, and the practical situations that I’m facing in the “professional” and “career” worlds have helped to move me toward this action. While I could look on this as another unfortunate instance in a global economic downturn, I’m now re-interpreting my new short-haired lifestyle as a perverse mockery of the straight world, the same straight world that has spread madness, poverty, war and pestilence for centuries, despite their citizens claims of importance, wisdom and enlightenment.

While I doubt that I will be able to contribute via my hair donations in the near future, there are other ways to help. I encourage you, my loyal readers, to check out Locks of Love’s website and learn about the various ways you can make the world a little brighter for a sick child.

I was listening to my new favorite Internet talk and music program recently, Ghosts of the Republic. One of the guests on this show talked about individual sovereignty and the concept of artificial entities he referred to as a “straw man.” I’ve heard these words used in terms of a philosophical argument or position, but not in terms of a legal entity. So I googled the term in order to find out more information. I didn’t find anything that concretely solidified the concept in my mind, but I was able to find an interesting article that tied the concept of the straw man to one of my favorite movies that appears occasionally in conspiracy lore:  The Wizard of Oz.

I first experienced the idea of The Wizard of Oz having some level of secret meaning by another movie called Eyes Wide Shut. It’s a pretty popular movie among folks who are into conspiracies. It also happened to be directed by classic filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, which I guess helped its notoriety. After watching that movie, I was pretty puzzled with all these strange rainbow references, so I started researching further. This led me to find conspiracies about mind control and sex slavery and secret programs like Project Monarch and Project MKULTRA and their ties to The Wizard of Oz.

Movies like The Wizard of Oz are weird enough on their own. The secrets behind those movies are downright distressing. I could blame the sleepless nights on Google, but knowing the whole story isn’t so bad once you learn to settle down and deal with it. Since my first exposure to the world of conspiracies and film, I have decided that I will never take what a movie (or the world) was literally showing me at face value again.