3.3.2024

A few more steps on the synchronicity path . . .

Hello everyone—and a special welcome to new readers!

By way of context: There’s a running theme here at EP that has to do with patterns appearing in my Inbox (or research, or et cetera), and opening the door to some sort of Tarot connection. But lately, I’ve been noticing a different kind synchronicity signal, which has to do with sound.

My synchronicity “rule” requires three closely related instances from three very different sources, occurring within a fairly short period of time—preferably a couple of days. This new case fits the rule, but it starts off with something so minor I wouldn’t have remembered it under ordinary circumstances.

Specifically: I was looking at the label on a package, and just as I read a phrase on the label, someone on a nearby television spoke exactly the same words. Really. Same words, same time, exactly.

An identical occurrence happened the next day. Different place, different words, but spoken aloud just as I was reading them.

Both instances were so small that I didn’t even register what the words were. So I was perfectly willing to chalk the whole thing up to what most people think of as “coincidence.”

However . . . the next day, I was walking through the parking lot of a small grocery store near my house. I had headphones on, listening to a live writing workshop, and as I crossed the parking lot I saw four fresh eggs smashed on the ground. I stopped to look at them because—oddly enough—the yolks were all intact. Four bright yellow circles in a tiny transparent pool of egg whites.

At that moment, I heard the workshop presenter say this (lightly paraphrased) in my ear:

Oh let me think of an example. Say you went to the store for eggs, and you really needed eggs but you got home and dropped the carton. You could either be upset because most of the eggs broke, or you could be grateful that one egg survived.

Which seemed a little beyond coincidence.

I should hurry up and tell you that I have no interpretation or explanation for these events. The most obvious idea about the egg thing doesn’t seem to fit, as I’m an annoyingly glass-half-full kind of person.

And even if I needed such a reminder, that seems like a lot of bother for the universe to go to.

So my only response for now is (of course!) to see what happens if you Google “Tarot and eggs.” And as usual, the answer is quite striking.

Here you see samples from two of the three Egg’s Tarot sets created by “Amira di Transilvania.” Each hand-cut set has 33 cards, and is priced at $150+.

Obviously they are “Tarots” by attribution only—but they are certainly striking! Amira has many card decks for offer in her Etsy store, including several on the vintage-erotica side, as well as a Pathology Tarot, surreally composed with old medical drawings.

There’s also a deck styled after the 20th-entury designer Piero Fornasetti, who is quite famous for his line of super-luxe furnishings and decor. But I had no idea until I did another search that he was also a Tarot aficionado!

Nina Fox—whose art-themed Tarot blog I introduced just recently—was way ahead on the Fornasetti connection, though. Here’s one of her Tarotcasts from 2016:

Nina goes on to observe:

I believe that this is a lesson in the many faces of existence. Maybe we all need to turn a more discerning and inquisitive eye when someone whips out 20 photos of their pet or child. Instead of seeing these photos as boring or obsessive, to see these images as an expression of the many facets of life and love that one person sees in another being.

That lovely thought brings me to today’s flashback, and my 2022 egg-themed Easter post . . .

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The Cosmic Egg Tarot

In the spring of 1987, Tarot theorist Guido Gillabel was inspired by the mythic dimensions of Easter to create 22 major arcana designs—based on the archetypal symbolism of birth and rebirth. He executed the designs in minimalist (almost diagrammatic) ink drawings, and produced a limited edition of 2.5”x 2.5” decks.

I’m lucky enough to own set 11/99.

Here are The Fool and The Empress from Gillabel’s original deck.

Two years later, artist and collaborator Carol Herzer translated those original designs into a series of richly colorful paintings, producing a slightly larger (3.4” x 3.4”) deck:

A tiny booklet accompanies each of the decks, offering Gillabel’s brief commentaries.  For example:

0. The Fool represents “the cosmic egg,” out of which everything arises and in which everything finally disappears.  He is the breath of the universe, in and out.  He identifies himself neither with the one nor with the other.  Thus he is free from the limitation of identification. 

 . . . freedom / liberation, folly / purity . . .

In revisiting these two wonderfully inventive decks, I discovered that Guido’s brother Dirk (who is also Carol Herzer’s life companion), had created a counterpart to the “Cosmic Egg”—in this case, the “Physical Egg.”

For his playful project, Dirk painted directly on empty egg shells, spontaneously creating simplified images that reflect the essentials of Tarot iconography.

So . . . this gifted trio has provided us with three ways to contemplate the archetypes of origination and return, permanence and change.

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More soon, C