Who knew there was a national “Pi Day”? Well I sure did not last night when I dreamt about the symbol pi. It is the only piece of my dream that I actually remember, and in the dream I kept telling myself that I had to remember that symbol – that it would be important for me to know when I woke up. So I focused on the symbol. My first reaction to the symbol was that it was the Greek letter for pi, but then I started guessing what else it might be since it was at a distance. I wondered if it was the roman numeral for 2 (II) or was it the Hebrew symbol for life or chai. Ironically the capitalized version of the Greek letter pi does resemble the roman numeral for two and the lower case letter does resemble the Hebrew symbol for life.

All of this was communicated to me through a dream, much of which seemed oh so random upon waking up. But it wasn’t random at all. I learned through my lovely nerdy friends via Facebook News Feed (no offense ladies and gents – just not something most people would know, including me who is a different type of nerdy), that TODAY of all days is Pi Day!

In a million years, I would have never thought that their would be an interest in celebrating the symbol pi which represents the circumference of a circle that’s number goes to infinity. Perhaps to mathematicians and physicists, it is a concept to be amazed by because the number never repeats itself. This sequence of numbers may be like a beautiful painting to an art lover, the concept of God’s divine love by spiritual seekers or an awe-inspiring theory to a philosopher. Apparently Pi Day also celebrates the birth of Albert Einstein’s, which makes the mathematical significance to celebrate more intriguing.

Well why did I have this dream last night? Of course it was to tell me to celebrate Pi Day — NO, I don’t think so! Although I do have deep respect for Albert Einstein and appreciate learning that today is his birthday so that I may consciously think of him, there are other layers of this pi left to examine. Albert Einstein was said to have gotten so deep into his mathematical theories and equations, that towards the end of his life he began to believe in the concept of God. Personally, I have always felt that math/physics and religion/spirituality run on a parallel path right next to each other. Both reaching for the same comprehension of the world, but neither seeing the other. Someday, those two paths may actually cross or become apparent to more people in the world. There are some, like Amit Goswomi, a theoretical quantum physicist, who envision this type of idea. (I actually took two quantum physics courses taught by Dr. Goswomi as part of my master’s program at UPRS. That stuff will blow your mind and is not easy to keep up with when your highest math courses were the basics that got you out of college.)

I feel that this dream happened this way in order to grab my attention again. To remind me that I am still connected to the larger consciousness that has me subconsciously knowing that the symbol pi would be important for me to remember today, so that I could have a synchronistic moment between my dream and waking life. For days I have been focused on the desire to remember a dream so that I could reawaken my dreamwork side and blog. My dreams tend to slip away from my memory every morning when my child’s whine wakes me up from sleep. Then it is pop out of bed, although I try to do my prayers every morning first, and immediately attend to the needs of my child until nap time arrives. By then I cannot even grasp on to a fragment of my dream, and another day goes by without me writing or doing dreamwork.

Since the pi symbol represents the circumference of a circle, I am drawn to thinking about the image. A circle has so end and no beginning. The circumference is measured by drawing a line to dissect the circle in half. Well that image connects me to my thesis that I use to give presentations and workshops at IASD. That workshop is very much on my mind at this time since I am making preparations to head to Virginia this June to give my first 1 1/2 hour workshop at this conference. The image of a dissected circle is used in my PowerPoint to discuss Joseph Campbell’s theory on the “Monomyth”, in order to present the Tarot as a pictorial mythology that should be looked at as a circle in which there is really no end to the amount of times we may travel around and around in a spiral, hopefully ascending to a higher level spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally. The pi number has no end, just as I view our cycle through this spiral of life, and it never repeats the sequence of numbers as life has so many mysteries awaiting at every turn.

The Hebrew symbol chai meaning life is important in Judaism. It reminds those of the Jewish faith to enjoy life and is often used in context of wishing for good things to come in the future. Here is to hoping that this dream was an omen of good fortune in my future, mostly in the reference to my career in dreamwork and teaching. So l’chaim!