"In ancient Greece, 9 was the number of the Muses,
patron goddesses of the arts. They were the daughters
of Mnemosyne ('memory'), the source
of imagination, which in turn is the carrier of archetypal,
elementary ideas to artistic realization in the field
of space-time. The number 9, that is to say, relates
traditionally to the Great Goddess of Many Names
(Devi, Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Artemis, Venus, etc.),
as matrix of the cosmic process, whether in the
macrocosm or in a microcosmic field of manifestation."
— Joseph Campbell in The Inner Reaches of Outer Space ,
first published in 1986
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From Robert A. Heinlein’s Glory Road (1963): Her face turned thoughtful. “Would you like to call me ‘Ettarre’?” “Is that one of your names?” “It is much like one of them, allowing for different spelling and accent. Or it could be ‘Esther’ just as closely. Or ‘Aster.’ Or even ‘Estrellita.’ “ ” ‘Aster,’ ” I repeated. “Star. Lucky Star!” |