Solar Synchronicity?

I’ve recently been writing a new play, (my first ‘proper’ play) called Single Numbers Only. It follows nine single people over nine days leading up to the ninth of September 2009 (09.09.09). As you might have guessed, numbers and puzzles are a large thread running through the piece. The tarot also feature heavily – none of the characters actually have names, but are given ‘titles’ inspired by the names of tarot cards.

As part of the play’s promotion, I’ve been looking for an artist to create a tarot card for each of the characters and recently put out a call online. The writer Stella Duffy who is one of my linked friends on Facebook suggested I contact Laurie Lipton, who makes jaw-dropping pencil drawings.

With a budget of less than zero, I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford to commission her, but had a look at some of her work anyway, which was very dark and gothic, with dancing skeletons and amazingly intricate detail. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a different gallery that something spooky happened. I found the following picture, which comes from her book of illustrations to accompany the Splendor Solis, an alchemical manuscript from the 16th Century. The image shows the marriage of King and Queen, Sun and Moon.

‘So what?’ I hear you say. Well, while writing the play I’d had a rather odd episode where I wrote a scene late one night and very drunk (nothing new there). The next day I read the scene and found I’d ‘invented’ a legend concerning the birth of a child – half human, half god, who would rule the world and bring bounty to all. The ‘moonchild’ was born and murdered – but followers of the legend believed that the child would one day return, at a time when the planets aligned – a time that could perhaps be seen as the marriage of the sun and the moon. One of the characters recited the nursery rhyme that kept the story alive:

Didn’t your mother ever teach you the rhyme? ‘Moonchild, moonchild, come down to earth, as we honour the holy hour of your birth, as the sun and the moon and the earth collide, the sun the groom, the moon the bride. As the planets above us unite and entwine, let your blessed moonlight shine…’

I had no memory of writing the scene and had no idea of where it had come from. Had I simply read about the marriage of sun and moon somewhere and it had somehow trickled out of my subconscious? Or, in keeping with one of the themes of the play, was this some sort of sign? A curious case of solar synchronicity?

Single Numbers Only will have a rehearsed reading at the Kings Head theatre in London on Thursday May 7th at 3 pm. Entry £5.

Splendor Solis artwork reproduced with kind permission from artist Laurie Lipton.