Call it what you want: coincidence, the Universe, G-d and the Holy Spirit, Divine Inspiration. Sometimes synchronicity is too obvious to ignore. I’m sure there are some people who can ignore it. I am not one of those people.

leaning in to synchronicity

I have been a writer as long as I can write. I think I self-published my first “collection” of poetry in third grade; my second collection came along in sixth grade. I’m not saying they were any good; they were the kinds of poems you’d expect an elementary schooler to write. But I was dedicated. I was going to be A Poet. And you know what? I was right. I have several pieces that have been published.

My point here is that my eye for the symbolic, for the thematic, is not something that started when I began painting. The eyes in my head at the time of my birth are the eyes I still have, and they have always been wide with wonder, curiosity, and the ability to make associations that others may miss.

It is no wonder that my visual art style relies so heavily on making associations among multiple influences. When I talk about my process — Spiritual Archaeology, for the new folks around here — I refer to this as synchronicity. If you’ve heard me get excited about it, you may have heard me talk about “pings.”

Folks: things have been pinging. steadily. for several months.

and by several months, I probably mean a year? maybe more. I have a very relaxed relationship with time.

As the lead practitioner of Spiritual Archaeology, I am bound by my own tenets. So here I go; “lean in to synchronicity” I shall.

the coming storm?

Last fall and winter (2023), everything pointed to sunflowers. So I painted sunflowers. Sunflowers are a drought-tolerant annual flower that a lot of farmers in this part of the world grow, and I had recently started a job inspecting and analyzing because I needed the money for my car payment.

Interestingly, as I was wrapping up my sunflowers, a friend did a spiritual reading for me with some oracle cards, and pulled a Corn card.

Friends, Corn needs a lot of water. at the same time this friend did the reading and said “Girl, you need to take care of your emotional and spiritual health or you are going to burn out!” a different friend reached out and said, “Girl, you need to take care of your emotional and spiritual health or you are going to lose the beautiful peaceful inner garden you’ve created post-burnout.” at the same time these two friends gave me this very blunt and caring advice, I was in the middle of the research phase for my current body of work, which is based on The Tempest, my fear of drowning, and storms. You know: water.

Friends, Corn needs a lot of water. Elle is not a drought-tolerant plant girl.

And if that wasn’t enough! (because it never is, right?) The film adaptation of The Tempest I selected gender-flipped the lead role, casting Helen Mirren as Prospera, rather than the traditional casting of a man as Prospero. Suddenly the primary relationship is mother-daughter, and a very fraught mother-daughter relationship it is!

Remember those poems I wrote? In 2018 I collected them into a chapbook, and then a full-length book, titled The Dryness and the Rain. The epigraph at the beginning of the book was from a song by the same title*, and reads thusly:

when the dryness and the rain

finally drink from one another

the gentle cup of mutual surrender tears

The things—they keep pinging. I don’t know if I am choosing my symbols or if they are choosing me. I’m just going to lean in and add more layers until the paintings tell me they’re done, and I have excavated whatever it is this body of work is digging up.

*The Dryness and the Rain lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, Terrorbird Publishing LLC