I once made a side trip on a vacation to meet up with a dear friend of mine that I hadn't seen for quite some time.
At the conclusion of our first day of catching up,
We decided to call it a night and rode up in the hotel elevator together.
My friend,
Looking at the elevator console,
Found humor in how there was no button for the 13th floor.
I remember him remarking,
They just assume that people staying on the 14th floor don't realize they're actually staying on the 13th.
A pronounced avoidance of the number 13 seems to exist almost everywhere.
What is so awful about the number 13 that mainstream society seems to avoid it and often go so far as to practically deny its existence?
The reasons are not purely religious or spiritual,
But both factors do weigh in on the discussion.
In the ancient world,
12 was viewed as the perfect number because it is a highly composite number with a large amount of divisors.
This is partially why we now have 12 months in a year,
And days are divided into 12-hour halves.
Over time,
Anything totaling 13 became viewed as somewhat of a misfit or unnatural.
Further fueling this way of thinking was the biblical account of the Last Supper,
In which the 13th guest was Judas Iscariot.
Similarly,
Norse mythology details a dinner party in Valhalla,
In which the 13th guest was Loki,
Which brought about chaos.
And chaos was exactly what monks in charge of the calendar experienced each time there were 13 full moons in a year,
Because it disrupted both the scheduling and attendance of religious services.
Of course,
It didn't help anything when it was discovered that witch covens traditionally consisted of 13 members,
And that the 13th card in tarot decks is the Death card.
More and more,
The number 13 went from being an odd duck to a widely recognized symbol of bad luck.
Not everyone thinks this way,
However,
Especially practitioners of witchcraft.
There are 13 lunar cycles in a year.
The moon itself is associated with divine feminine energy and the goddess.
In sacred geometry,
The number 13 is also associated with feminine energy and is representative of cosmic balance.
Both Mayan and Aztec calendars were tied to the number 13.
In Celtic traditions,
The Oum tree calendar,
Which is associated with the moon as opposed to the sun,
Contains 13 months,
Each of them linked to a particular type of tree.
It's important to note that in early times,
Chaos was not considered to be evil.
Rather,
It simply meant change or transformation,
Which many still view as being divine in origin.
So what we see in the Last Supper,
The Feast at Valhalla,
And even the Death card in tarot is,
In essence,
Change.
Whether or not change is in and of itself bad or unholy is up to interpretation,
Which is usually guided by the surrounding situations in which the change took place.
A number of us are very resistant to change,
And perhaps therein lies the most sound explanation as to why the number 13 earned such a bad rap.
Not all of us are exactly fond of upheaval,
But it's necessary to recognize that not all change comes about aggressively or even violently.
Sometimes we welcome change.
Sometimes we become filled with anxiety at the mere mention of it.
Some changes which we resist,
We later interpret as actually having been beneficial to us.
In Wicca,
Witchcraft,
And paganism,
Change is viewed as nothing more than a doorway.
Thirteen is representative of the cycles of life,
And it is a number that is therefore actually sacred to witches.
So,
Perhaps the best interpretation of the number 13 is how you personally view it,
No matter how you add it up.
The crow flies from me to thee,
To send the message,
Blessed Be.
