Coincidences, serendipity and the total eclipse of the sun indeed!
Not much in common there, you might say, but read on, dear friends, read on...
This week my friend Mark who lives in Texas, gave me a running commentery on the eclipse and when I asked him 'How are the animals reacting?' He replied 'I dunno, but the purple martins have.stopped chirping'. I'll question him on this enigmatic response when he's here in Italy next month and when I've promised him a trip to Cittadella, la bella Cittadella. But, really! Just four and a half minutes of wonder for purple martins. Fear and trepidation more like
My dream whilst at school was to be a meteorologist, but I wasn't eligible for get a University place because I flunked maths (apparently my exam answers were too imaginative).
But I guess, looking back at my early life, I think I should have been an astrologist, because the moon and the stars have alway been a lifelong fascination for me, Typical question asked..... 'How come it spins in a way that it always keeps its smiling face pointing towards Earth? Such things stirred my imagination; still do.
I check out observatories in my travels. When I'm in London and in particular, Greenwich Obseratory, a visit there is a must. In fact one such visit was during an eclipse a few years back. After the lecture, I asked the speaker 'How is it that the moon exactly covers the sun during an eclipse?'
Anwer;' It's a coincidence' A coincidence?! What nonsense1'
It's been doing that before we came out of the trees, (I mumbled under my breath)
So much for coincidence! My imagination prefers to think it is all by design.
So if a solar eclipse is not a stellar coincidence...how about this...........
....in a week which has seen these three things occur simultaneously
The eclipse; a magical but tiny fullstop in our lives.
My blog; about the magnetic Sibillini mountains, They pull in meteorites from space. and walking around you can find them scattered about if you look hard enough; very hard.
A Guardian article; About Le Marche, the hidden secret of Italy
Now, on to Serendipity (defined as the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way). This is where we come into the picture; human beings as philosophers and creatives
I gave an on line lecture at the Siena Art Institute a couple of years back and had listed the people who had come into my life as if by chance. The list was long. And they were all serendipitous occurences.
Too many to relate, but here's a good example,
My wedding day!
We were asked by my to be wife's friend, Renata if she might recite a poem at the ceremony in Castelfranco. She asked me to find it for her in Italian, it was Ithaka by Cavafy.
I said I would.......... but I forgot, much to the fury of wife, soon to be and Renata. So on the evening before the special day, I rushed into town to look for a book of his poems. This idea was greeted by scorn and laughter and I was assured that I didn't have dog's chance in hell of finding one. In Castelfranco? You must be kidding! But I found a little bookshop, the only one in town, and I asked the owner if he by chance had the book in store, or at least the poem Ithaka, by Cavafy. and, giving me that Italian outstretched arms shrug, he told me he'd never heard of it, or him. And there I stood, aghast with an accompanying fear laden numbness. Then, guess what? From the end of a long corridor came a voice. Ithaka? I'm reading it at this very moment!!
A customer, perhaps an angel., shouted down the hall.
Wow! and the earth began to spin again and the next morning the poem was read beautifully by Renata, and the day was saved. Possibly marriage too.
So, I trust in, believe in and champion serendipity. And angels.
As most artists do.
Art is not, and never can be a learned rational activity, and we believe in Muses, Angels and we love this planet. We love nature, trees and want to protect all that is wonderful in this world, its trees, forest. oceans and animals.
And our Art is our gift back to life. Our way of saying thank you.
EXTRA INFO...
My next art and creativity workshop in English isThursday, May 30 (arrive) to Wednesday, June 5 (leave) at Cittadella
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