Synchronicity and the Glint of Two Lights
Here's a quote some of you of a certain age or bent mind should recognize:
"A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."
Over the holidays I was in a bookstore doing last minute Christmas shopping and an Edward Hopper book caught my eye. I pulled it down and flipped it open to this page:
Bingo. Two Lights! I had to snap a pic with my phone because of the randomness of the moment. I have a client in Maine whose house has a view of the Two Lights lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth; we have been discussing, for some time, an art piece to speak to the place and the light and the history. He once was walking years ago and met a very old neighbor who actually remembers Hopper sitting and painting Two Lights right there next to his property.
Back to the holidays: less than 24 hours later, I went to see the movie "Aquaman" with my son. It's a DC comic come to life in epic scale and BOOM! there is Two Lights. It's the house where Aquaman grows up. His dad is the lighthouse keeper. Same same from the Hopper painting, complete with the golden light. Bizarre. I thought, "I need to mention this to Tom in Maine."
The next evening I was watching another superhero movie on the tube with my boys. "Ant Man and the Wasp" is a Marvel comics epic special-effects mashup involving interdimensional travel using a massive machine with steam punk details and space ship vibes. Right there in the middle of the movie is the machinery for shrinking and transporting, and the primary element of the machine looks exactly like the Two Lights lens-- a complex, highly engineered, cylindrical construction of glass and brass that weighs nearly a ton. The actual lens was commissioned in 1874 and shone for 120 years before being upgraded to a modern beacon. Then Antman's girlfriend's genius scientist dad bought it?!
Plate of shrimp effect EXACTLY. What is the universe doing to smash a lighthouse into my reality with such emphasis? Three times in two days? True, "Light House" is kind of where I live metaphorically but... Come on...
I'm sitting here writing this in the studio, music playing, and in the background are the lyrics:
"Everything that falls your way, I say There is a deeper world than this that you don't understand There is a deeper world than this tugging at your hand Every ripple on the ocean Every leaf on every tree Every sand dune in the desert Every power we never see There is a deeper wave than this, swelling in the world...”
Can't make this stuff up. Sting is singing. I am scribbling. I was planning to write about quantum entanglement to sew this together, but it's stitched. Tight.
That quote that starts us off is from the 1984 movie "Repo Man."
Be sure to listen to "The Seventh Wave."
And stay tuned for how this all shows up in my art. It always does. Love love. After all, it's the seventh wave.
"At the still point of destruction At the centre of the fury All the angels, all the devils All around us, can't you see? There is a deeper wave than this rising in the land There is a deeper wave than this nothing will withstand."
Love is the seventh wave, but it's up to us to see it, make it real. All together now,
Bruce R. MacDonald
P.S. Coincidence--(n.) a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection. "Life"— See above--"lattice of... "
