Cornerstone, capstone and first vowel

Meaning

Most numbers in numerology are sums: letters or dates added and reduced. Three positions are different. They are single letters, picked out of the first name by their place, and read for the character of the letter itself. Two of them borrow their names from building.

• The cornerstone is the first letter of the first name. In a building it is the first stone laid. Ulune reads it as how a person approaches what comes, opportunities and obstacles alike.
• The capstone is the last letter of the first name, the stone that tops a wall. It is read as how a person brings things to an end, finishing them and letting them go.
• The first vowel is the first vowel of the first name. Vowels stand for the inner life in numerology. It is read as a glimpse of the inner self: how a person reacts when no one is looking.

Together they sketch a small arc: the first step, the private feeling along the way, the last step. All three come from the first name, the name a person hears most in daily life.

Each letter has a character of its own in the tradition, and Ulune gives every one a short line. Each also carries its Pythagorean value, which links it to one of the nine numbers. Two letters with the same value are read close to each other, but not the same. B and T are both 2, for example. B is sensitivity and warmth, sometimes shy; T is energy and feeling, active and cooperative.

The same letter can hold several places. In Anna, A is the cornerstone, the capstone and the first vowel at once. In Élodie, E holds all three places. Then every stage of the arc shares one letter.

In practice

Take a made-up person, Yolanda Mary Kyle, born 29 November 1984. Her first name is Yolanda.

• Cornerstone: Y, worth 7. Independence and depth: free-spirited, searching, sometimes undecided.
• Capstone: A, worth 1. Ambition and independence: quick to start, sure of its direction, sometimes headstrong.
• First vowel: O, worth 6. Principles and devotion: responsible, patient, protective, sometimes rigid about what is right.

Her Y comes first, before a vowel, so by Hans Decoz’s rule it sounds as a consonant. That is why the first vowel is O and not Y. The arc reads as a searching first step, a caring inner response, and a decisive finish.

Origin and history

These positions belong to modern name numerology. Matthew Oliver Goodwin’s guide (1981) gives a chapter to the first letter and the first vowel, read as a person’s approach to experience. Hans Decoz, whose rules Ulune follows, lists all three among the numbers of a complete chart, in his book with Tom Monte (1994).

How Ulune calculates it

• Ulune takes the full name at birth, as typed for numerology, or the chart’s own typed name. A name used now does not change the stones.
• The first name is the first word, up to the first space. A hyphenated first name counts whole: Jean-Pierre gives J, E and E.
• Accents are dropped and ligatures spread out, so É counts as E and Œ as O then E.
• Each Y is a vowel or a consonant by Decoz’s rule, and can be switched by hand. Only the first vowel depends on it.
• A first name with no vowel, such as an initial, has no first vowel. A one-letter first name is its own cornerstone and capstone, and Ulune reads it once.
• The first name’s letters also make the physical letter cycle: it starts with the cornerstone at birth, and each round ends with the capstone.

Correspondences

Each stone takes its Pythagorean value, which links it to one of the nine numbers.

The first initial is also counted in the balance number, and every letter in the name numbers.