Synchronicity Comes Calling

When the spark of synchronicity flashes, we are reminded that there may be some order after all in this chaotic universe of ours… It is late February and life events have slowed me down physically and creatively. Mama Ephemera’s footprints have been few and far between and not at all muddy, despite days and days of rain. So in the spirit of this, the shortest month, here’s a shortest essay. More to come in March, because, well, march!

My mind and spirit, though quiescent, have been aching to stir like sap in the trees, like buds studding the branches. I’m recovering from another joint replacement, a hip this time, and am eager for healing to get on with it already so my shiny new ball-and-socket can carry me into the woods, or just down the sidewalk for heaven’s sake. As if there were any quick path through these housebound days of winter.

Then yesterday, I saw beyond the window the first forsythia petals opening. That color amidst darkness called to mind one of the color studies I worked on last month. The collage I made for the color black displayed, without my intending it, the power of this color-that-absorbs-all-color to stand back and allow other colors to show off, to grab attention. Colors like the cool yellow of those thin petals.

It was a nice set-up for this morning, when the synchronicity spark flashed: a prompt from my phone, of all things, to revisit photos from a September 2018 tour of Dale Chihuly’s glass art installation for the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. A friend and I arrived in late afternoon. As darkness fell, the glass sculptures seemed to come alive, so intense were their colors, shapes, textures.

I’m inspired to answer the call of that spark by tuning in to color for a few days. Be it subtle color—a gray among the browns, lying in wait for me to notice, to wantonly spend my attention on it—or color that hollers “Look at me!” like Chihuly’s eye candy.

May the lights in your darknesses, no matter how small or how bright, warm you with reminders of transformation and beauty.