Eleventy-eleven

Eleven is an especially fruitful number. It begins to push past the conceptual boundaries we set by patterning our reality based on our form—we have ten fingers and ten toes. Eleven teaches us to expand beyond the idea that we are central to our world.

~Hilarion 

Much of our perception of reality is based on our physical form. This is especially true of our systems of numbers and measurement. Our ten fingers provided the starting point for counting, which led to the base ten numeric system. The widely used metric system of measurement is also founded on units of ten. Percentiles—our way of comparing parts to the whole—are completely dependent on the concept of ten; we represent the sum of all parts as ten times ten.

As long as we interpret reality based on our bodily form, we are stuck viewing reality through the lens of separation consciousness. We see ourselves as separate from all other beings and things as well as the divine, and we measure and calculate based on the shape of our body. We perceive the rest of reality in comparison to ourselves.

This limits our ability to understand anything or anyone that is not just like us. Our worldview is inherently prejudiced and we struggle to experience anything that doesn’t conform to our ideas of “how things are.”

Eleven is the first of master numbers: 11, 22, 33, etc. It evokes the energies of connection consciousness—the concept that we are intrinsically connected with all of creation in divine loving consciousness. Eleven numerically represents a spiritual step outside of our normally limited mindset into the expansive idea that everything is one thing. It symbolizes our inherent commonalities and promotes an expansive joyfulness in exploring them. Eleven is the key to perceiving the reality of the sharing—the intrinsic divine conscious connection of all that is.

Let’s spend a few minutes in an exercise to open our hearts and our minds to the message of eleven, in conscious connection with the splinter of divinity that resides within us—our sharing within. We will allow our breathing to slow and regularize as we picture a sphere of golden light in the center of our chest. Cycles of breath in and out strengthen the light and distribute it throughout ourselves and our surroundings, symbolizing the divine connection we share with all existence. We’ll continue breathing light in and out until we feel calm focused and centered in our connection to the divine.

With eyes closed, we’ll imagine we have eleven fingers. What would that look like? Would there be extra finger be on our left hand or on our right hand? How would that hand be shaped? How would the additional finger change the hand’s function? Or would we have three hands with three fingers each and a pincer with two fingers? Or would we have only one hand with eleven fingers and rely on cooperation with others to manipulate objects in our environment?

Having eleven fingers, would we also have eleven toes? If we had more than two hands or feet, would we move differently? How might this affect the design of tools and musical instruments? How would sports change with an additional hand or foot or more?

How might having an extra finger and toe affect our social interactions? What would handshakes or greetings look like? How would we dance? What might music sound with an eleven-note scale? What would base-eleven math be like? 1; 11; 121; 1,331; 14,641; 161,051; 1,771,561 and so on. It feels totally foreign and outside of our conceptions, doesn’t it? Imagine a top-eleven list.

We’ve just pondered a few of the many potential differences in our daily reality that would result from a very minor change in our physical form. This exercise has helped us to recognize that our concept of the human physical form shapes our ideas about reality and how we experience it.

This is the gift of eleven—freedom of perception. The next time we see the number eleven, we’ll remember that all of creation is interconnected and reality is far more expansive and more wonderful that we usually allow ourselves to recognize.

Divinely unique and beautiful reader, how might eleven free up your perceptions?