Humans love knowledge, and they think there is no knowledge without breaking down complexity into simplicity and building up complexity from simplicity. Only in this way the human mind, that is simple, can understand the world, that is complex.
Easy numbers are the best tools for this work, so Human culture tend to divide things into 3 or 4, but also 2, 6 and 10 (Humans have a duodecimal numeral system, so 10 is equal to 12). for example, they divide the day into 4 periods (Night, Morning, Daytime, Evening) that are further divided into 3 periods (e.g. Earlynight, Midnight, Latenight), that are further divided into 4 hours (Human hours last 30 minute).
In order to make these recurrent numbers familiar and concrete, Humans have associated a symbol, an image, to each one of them:
• The first quarter is associated to Water, the second to Air, the third to Fire and the forth to Earth.
• The first third is associated to Impulse, the second to Culmination, the third to Cadence.
• The first half is associated to Feminine, the second to Masculine.
• The first sixth is associated to Seed, the second to Sprout, the third to Flower, the fourth to Leaf, the fifth to Fruit, the sixth to Ferment.
For example, they divide human life into four seasons: a Water season (from 0 to 21), an Air season (from 21 to 42), a Fire season (from 42 to 63) and an Earth season (from 63-84). Every season, called “età” in Human, is further divided into three periods of 7 years, called “lustri”.
Let’s focus on thirds and quarters, called respectively Moments and Elements.
Thirds are mainly used to describe three distinct moments of a continuous and linear (not circular) process:
• Impulse is the archaic period, it is the feet pushing on the ground to make a step: you don’t move, but you are making the motion possible.
• Culmination is the classic period, it is like the feet in mid-air during the step: motion is actual and not potential.
•Cadence is the modern period, it is like the feet touching the ground after a step: motion is mature and ready for the next step
Fourths are mainly used to divide circular concepts into simple elements. They are formed dividing a circle into four halves:
• Cold half and Hot half
• Wet half and Dry half
Coldness represents contraction (movement towards the inside) while hotness represents expansion (movement towards the outside).
Wetness represents aggregation (joining things together) while dryness disgregation (separating things the one from the other).
Water is Cold and Wet: it represents things that are forming (contracting while aggregating), like grass growing under the snow in Winter.
Air is Hot and Wet: it represents things that are alive (expanding while aggregating), like nature in Spring.
Fire is Hot and Dry: it represents things that are fierce (expanding while disgregating), like the sun in Summer.
Earth is Cold and Dry: it represents things that are concentrating (contracting while disgregating), like the earth during Fall.
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