My 11.11.11

My life path is supposedly (or supposed to be) that of a “master,” with master number 11 (12+ 19+ 1942= actually, either a 20 or an 11, depending on how you count the numbers).

My first name, Ann (A1, N5, N5) is also an 11.

My surname, Kreilkamp, has two K’s, both 11’s.

In short, my life is riddled with this number 11.

This does not mean my life has been easy. I face huge challenges, getting bigger all the time. That’s the way I like it. For me, the question is always, just how much, really, can I integrate internally at this point?

Okay. And here’s the kicker: my full name, Ann Renee Kreilkamp, adds up to a 1. That’s my presentation in this lifetime: singular, an initiator. Not surprisingly, my soul chose the position of first-born out of eight children.

But what is the meaning of the 11?

Here’s from a numerology website. It really rings true. (Geez, if only I had had this information 50 years ago!)

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Your Life Path is 11

Your Life Path (sometimes called Destiny) is derived from your birth date. Your Life path is the road you are traveling. It reveals the opportunities and challenges you will face in life. Your Life Path number is the single most important information available in your Personality Chart!

You have the potential to be a source of inspiration and illumination for people. You possess an inordinate amount of energy and intuition. There is so much going on in your psyche that you are often misunderstood early in life, making you shy and withdrawn. You have far more potential than you know. You galvanize every situation you enter. You inspire people, but without your conscious effort. Energy seems to flow through you without your controlling it. This gives you both power and sometimes emotional turmoil. You are a channel for information between the higher and the lower, between the realm of the archetype and the relative world. Ideas, thoughts, understanding, and insight – all of these can come to you without your having to go through a rational thought process. There seems to be a bridge, or connection, between your conscious and unconscious realms, attuning you to a high level of intuition through which even psychic information can flow. All of this amounts to a great capacity for invention. Many inventors, artists, religious leaders, prophets, and leading figures in history have had the 11 prominent in their chart.

Because you are so highly charged, you experience the consequences of a two-edged sword. You possess great abilities, but indulge in much self-reflection and self- criticism. You often feel highly self-conscious. You are aware on some level that you stand out. Even when you try to blend with your environment, you often feel conspicuous, alien, and out-of-place. You are blessed with a message, or a specific role to play in life. But you must develop yourself sufficiently to take full advantage of that opportunity. Until that time, your inner development takes precedence over your ability to materialize the great undertaking you were chosen to perform. Consequently, 11s seem to develop slowly, but they simply have more to accomplish in their evolution than the average person. Thus, your real success does not usually begin until maturity, between the ages of 35 and 45, when you have progressed further along your path.

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The 11 of course, reduces to 2, which is, one might say, the antithesis of 1 (with 3, their integration). What is the antithesis of the self-centered 1? Well, of course, the Other, the 2, who seeks to harmonize and balance. (Rather like Aries and Libra in astrology, opposites as complements.)

And then, of course, the 11 is composed of two 1’s!

I’ve spent my lifetime working to integrate my 1 self with my 11 life path. Four husbands later, during my 60s I began to integrate the male and female within my own being, to truly follow my life path as an 11. Of course I knew about this business that Jung called “individuation” for decades. I wrote about it, talked about it, counseled astrological clients with it, etc. But I didn’t really live it. Didn’t live unity consciousness of the duality within myself until these last few years. And as I do this, my relationship with the world has changed dramatically.

With the 11 life path integrated within my 1 being, I no longer seem to “need” a primary relationship. That’s one change.

Another change: each time I find myself in “conflict” with another, I automatically notice the qualities of the “other” that are my own; i.e., I recognize the drama as the outpicturing or projection of aspects of my own self that I have not yet fully integrated. With this understanding, compassion arises for both of us as duality is absorbed within a larger unity. I move from 3rd dimensional consciousness, through fourth, to fifth dimensional awareness. This may be what the 11.11.11 date is all about. There are some commentators that point to it in this manner. See this post.

And another change, this one ongoing, spurred recently via the long, repetitive Zikr group dances of this past weekend’s retreat. The word zikr, from the Arabic “remembrance,” helps us confront the ego, because it puts the ego, so to speak, right in your face.

The zikr dance usually involves one or two more or less short phrases chanted or sung or intoned with small, simple, movements usually while holding hands in a a circle with others (there were sixty of us at the retreat). The voice and body movements are repeated over and over and over again. Zikrs can be short, say 30 minutes, or they can go on for hours. Even 30 minutes seems endless to the ego, which craves stimulation.

When I came home last night and my son Colin asked me how it was, and I described zikr to him, he shuddered, said he’d be so bored it would drive him out of his mind. Yes, that’s it! At least hopefully; hopefully the endless facing of the ego self that arises over and over again during zikr, tries to insert itself between the ground and the sky where unity abides, does “produce results,” though don’t count on it! The ego is rough, seductive, determined, nasty, and wily. And, when threatened, furious and explosive.

It’s very hard, it turns out, to be “driven out of one’s mind.” Momentarily, perhaps. But the mind keeps reinserting its famous fatuous self, usually in disguise of course, until noticed, at which point it might recede (grumbling), and then pop right back in, with some other guise. A judgment here, a reflection there, a comparison . . . anything to stay alive, stay in the driver’s seat, drive the dance its own way.

So the zikr dances, internally, while they may appear to be bland and boring, on the inside are, shall we say, extremely dynamic? And the rewards, even though fleeting and evanescent, as you can imagine, are infinite. The infinity of group intention, leaning into unity . . . The infinity of cosmic consciousness, the divine heart of being that holds our group heart beat . . . that radiates out to heal the world . . .

The zikr asks us to remember, to remember who we are, to move “toward the one.”

The Sufi invocation:

Toward the One,
the Perfection of Love, Harmony, and Beauty,
the Only Being;
United with All the Illuminated Souls,
Who form the Embodiment of the Master,
the Spirit of Guidance.