For gamblers, 777 is the top slot-machine jackpot; the digits add up to 21 for blackjack; and in craps, a roll that adds up to 7 wins.
Plenty of people will be betting on 777 in state lotteries. For only the fourth time in its history, the Pennsylvania Lottery will hold a Millionaire Raffle, with 7,777 prizes.
Environmentalist Al Gore is promoting nine concerts, with at least one to be held in each of the seven continents (including Antarctica), called Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis (www.liveearth.org). And cult fans of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, who died in a 1996 drive-by shooting, believe he will return from his "faked" death on 7/7/07.
The number seven arises so often, in such significant circumstances, that, as the Borg of Star Trek's fictional universe would say, resistance is futile.
There are Seven Dwarfs, seven wonders of the world, seven deadly sins, and seven days of the week - each named for one of the seven Roman gods.
The Bible says that God rested on the seventh day, and, indeed, 7/7/07 falls on a Saturday - the Sabbath for Jews and Seventh Day Adventists.
The earth has seven seas. In the sky, the constellation of the Pleiades is known as the Seven Sisters. The seventh son of a seventh son is said to be psychic.
Jesus said to forgive seventy times seven.
Christians celebrate seven sacraments and seven virtues. Native Americans honor seven directions: north, south, east, west, above, below and within. Hindus recognize seven energy centers in the body called chakras.
In baseball, Mickey Mantle wore the number seven. And in a 1996 Seinfeld episode, George Costanza vowed to name his first son or daughter Seven in Mantle's honor.
Still, seven cannot be all things to all people.
Three times a year (and this is one), the planet Mercury has an apparent backward motion, says astrologer Shelley Ackerman (www.karmicrelief.com). So 7/7/07 is a day to look back, not step forward.
