E5 : The Reticent
Type 5
Scrunched way up in the small left-hand corner of the head, observing chaos
The ennea-symbol, itself, provides a couple of insights into the cosmogony of Type 5. Considering the connecting lines – 5 has a line to 7 in one direction, and 8 in the other — 5 sits between 7 and 8, from one perspective. And these two types (7 and 8), as a general energetic character trait, exhibit ‘Big Me’-ness, each filling up a large amount of ‘personality’ space. So the compression that ‘fetus 5’ experienced during its primordial gestation left it with little or no room for physical existence; its only recourse was to take up residence mainly in abstract space, in the setting of the mind, significantly shoved out from corporeal existence by these two Jupiters.
The second metaphorical insight provided by the e-symbol: Imagine now, that 5 is born and shot downward to its permanent homepoint, to what’s been called the Existential Gap, at the bottom of the Enneagram. This continues the theme of questioning physical existence and participation. The space between 5 and 4 is the flaw in the Enneagram’s otherwise closed star-crystal. The fracture where the status quo is broken and progressive consciousness enters the human domain. The acute angles of the connecting lines to E5 and E4 allude to a severe dilemma being chewed on down here. Fangs sunk deep into abstract meat.
Five then sits at the precipice of our earthly condition, uncertain about whether to show up and participate…or maybe simply observe the goings-on inside the (ennea-) circle of humanity, and then turn the other way to stare out the window (out the gap) into conceptual space, into things beyond current collective reality.
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