A Peak into The Book of Realizations
Realization #3
THREE
![Picture](/uploads/3/4/9/8/34986166/published/3a.jpg?1719499397)
Trust it All, No Matter What. So, I did. The word three came to me as a title for a realization. It kept coming to me. But that’s all. Three. Three. Three. I wrote it down. But my mind kept saying: “You don’t have the content, so why would you write it down? There is an order to things, you know. What does three even mean, in this context.”
Of course, at 4 am one morning, I found myself having a light bulb moment. As we know, many things happen when that barrier between the busy world and the inner world is the thinnest. And there it all was.
Let’s pause here for a moment. Before I go down the rabbit hole of the number three, I would like to consider what this chapter is about, noticing. At least, that is what I believe it is about for me. You might derive other information and wisdom from it, but for me, it is about noticing and listening to the world around us. When we notice we are curious, we observe and pay attention to what is outside and inside of us. There is a difference between awareness and noticing. Awareness is the recognition of something. We can be aware of our breath. We have an awareness of that which we already understand or are familiar with. Noticing is the expectation of nothing and observing the world with that lens. Notice comes from the Latin notitia or ‘being known’. I didn’t know, I noticed, now I know. It is about an openness to receiving the unknown. That is how I distinguish the two. Let us now get on with my noticing’s of the number three.
I heard this statement on a radio show: "Three is the smallest element that establishes a pattern in the human mind". That got me doing a bit of research. Dave Wraith explains it in his blog for Alive with Ideas, Why Three is the Magic Number: “Our brains are pattern-seeking machines, constantly looking for relationships and meaning in the world around us. Three is the smallest number we need to create a pattern, the perfect combination of brevity and rhythm”. (1) I have always put things in threes, and now I am starting to understand the power of the triad.
So, why was I called to bring this all up? Why did three keep coming to me? It came with the realization that an extrinsic fact can tie into an intrinsic knowing to help enlighten it: to show us that the extrinsic fact was something we knew intrinsically all along and also to challenge us to start noticing it more and more. I knew three had some significance, but I didn’t know why.
Is there an extrinsic detail that you have noticed which you already knew intrinsically before you put the two together?
There is something to be said here in trusting our inner knowing. Perhaps there is no need to back it up with fact because we know and trust that if it is within us, it is outside of us too. Thus, I trusted the word Three as a title for a realization before I had the content. Similar to this book. I knew the title before I realized I had the substance that would be included. It is the moment when the intrinsic and extrinsic connect that we find creativity, harmony, and flow.
I have always used the rule of three naturally. It’s my favourite number. If I ask you to choose a number between one and ten, choose three. You know I will. Or don’t. I guess it would depend on whether or not you want what choosing three gives you. I wonder if it is a common thing. Three. Is it the most chosen number?
But it goes deeper than that. In the magazine that I founded and publish annually, Equine Leadership, I always suggest to authors that they choose three points in their article to elaborate on. Enough but not too much. In the last realization, you will notice that I put in three points to elaborate on. They came to me. I didn’t mentally go searching for three points. Three comes naturally.
So, the following are some confirmations of this realization that have come to me as I learn more about the number three.
In his book, The Outermost House, Henry Beston shares: “They say that great waves reach this coast in threes. Three great waves, then an indeterminate run of lesser rhythms, then three great waves again…Coast guards are all well aware of this triple rhythm and take advantage of the lull that follows the last wave to launch their boats.”
He also shares, “The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of the outer ocean on a beach.”
Traffic lights come in the basic form of three colours: red, yellow, and green.
Whether we look at threes that have existed for centuries:
The sun, the moon, and the stars.
Body, mind, and soul.
Mother, maiden, and crone.
Or, whether we are planning a presentation. We understand that presenting the knowledge in packages of three is the best way for the audience to absorb said information.
If we look to the body, we learn that “the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to 3 feet away from the body, in all directions…”, as stated in the book, The Science of The Heart.
When I look to the horses, they need the three F’s which are the basic needs for a herd, individually and collectively. For their physical, emotional, and mental well-being, they need to have Friends. They must have adequate Forage (food) and do best when they have the Freedom to display natural behaviours amongst a herd. Of course, the three F’s are terms developed by humans and their tendency for things in three.
Three is considered a holy number, a sacred number. Three represents our spiritual journey through life. I guess for me, three is about noticing, about being open to the unknown. It is about keeping my heart and mind free from clutter and busyness to be receptive to all that wishes and needs to come my way, a space for the intrinsic and extrinsic to connect. ~*~
Of course, at 4 am one morning, I found myself having a light bulb moment. As we know, many things happen when that barrier between the busy world and the inner world is the thinnest. And there it all was.
Let’s pause here for a moment. Before I go down the rabbit hole of the number three, I would like to consider what this chapter is about, noticing. At least, that is what I believe it is about for me. You might derive other information and wisdom from it, but for me, it is about noticing and listening to the world around us. When we notice we are curious, we observe and pay attention to what is outside and inside of us. There is a difference between awareness and noticing. Awareness is the recognition of something. We can be aware of our breath. We have an awareness of that which we already understand or are familiar with. Noticing is the expectation of nothing and observing the world with that lens. Notice comes from the Latin notitia or ‘being known’. I didn’t know, I noticed, now I know. It is about an openness to receiving the unknown. That is how I distinguish the two. Let us now get on with my noticing’s of the number three.
I heard this statement on a radio show: "Three is the smallest element that establishes a pattern in the human mind". That got me doing a bit of research. Dave Wraith explains it in his blog for Alive with Ideas, Why Three is the Magic Number: “Our brains are pattern-seeking machines, constantly looking for relationships and meaning in the world around us. Three is the smallest number we need to create a pattern, the perfect combination of brevity and rhythm”. (1) I have always put things in threes, and now I am starting to understand the power of the triad.
So, why was I called to bring this all up? Why did three keep coming to me? It came with the realization that an extrinsic fact can tie into an intrinsic knowing to help enlighten it: to show us that the extrinsic fact was something we knew intrinsically all along and also to challenge us to start noticing it more and more. I knew three had some significance, but I didn’t know why.
Is there an extrinsic detail that you have noticed which you already knew intrinsically before you put the two together?
There is something to be said here in trusting our inner knowing. Perhaps there is no need to back it up with fact because we know and trust that if it is within us, it is outside of us too. Thus, I trusted the word Three as a title for a realization before I had the content. Similar to this book. I knew the title before I realized I had the substance that would be included. It is the moment when the intrinsic and extrinsic connect that we find creativity, harmony, and flow.
I have always used the rule of three naturally. It’s my favourite number. If I ask you to choose a number between one and ten, choose three. You know I will. Or don’t. I guess it would depend on whether or not you want what choosing three gives you. I wonder if it is a common thing. Three. Is it the most chosen number?
But it goes deeper than that. In the magazine that I founded and publish annually, Equine Leadership, I always suggest to authors that they choose three points in their article to elaborate on. Enough but not too much. In the last realization, you will notice that I put in three points to elaborate on. They came to me. I didn’t mentally go searching for three points. Three comes naturally.
So, the following are some confirmations of this realization that have come to me as I learn more about the number three.
In his book, The Outermost House, Henry Beston shares: “They say that great waves reach this coast in threes. Three great waves, then an indeterminate run of lesser rhythms, then three great waves again…Coast guards are all well aware of this triple rhythm and take advantage of the lull that follows the last wave to launch their boats.”
He also shares, “The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of the outer ocean on a beach.”
Traffic lights come in the basic form of three colours: red, yellow, and green.
Whether we look at threes that have existed for centuries:
The sun, the moon, and the stars.
Body, mind, and soul.
Mother, maiden, and crone.
Or, whether we are planning a presentation. We understand that presenting the knowledge in packages of three is the best way for the audience to absorb said information.
If we look to the body, we learn that “the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to 3 feet away from the body, in all directions…”, as stated in the book, The Science of The Heart.
When I look to the horses, they need the three F’s which are the basic needs for a herd, individually and collectively. For their physical, emotional, and mental well-being, they need to have Friends. They must have adequate Forage (food) and do best when they have the Freedom to display natural behaviours amongst a herd. Of course, the three F’s are terms developed by humans and their tendency for things in three.
Three is considered a holy number, a sacred number. Three represents our spiritual journey through life. I guess for me, three is about noticing, about being open to the unknown. It is about keeping my heart and mind free from clutter and busyness to be receptive to all that wishes and needs to come my way, a space for the intrinsic and extrinsic to connect. ~*~