When I heard this week’s theme, Faith in Art, I knew I had to share a recent special sequence of events with you. A sequence that unmistakably demonstrated to me the mystery of the spiritual - the stuff that’s beyond us - being revealed via the medium of art.
The only backdrop needed for this tale is to know that I have, for many years, loved the name Aurora and had always dreamt of giving the name to any future daughter I might have, and now do have. And also that, we’d been trying for a baby for a little while.
So, if I can take you back to last summer; almost a year to the day.
My husband arrived home from his work as a GP one Tuesday lunchtime. “What are you doing home so early?” I asked, at that time enjoying the long summer holidays - a perk of my teaching job. He told me that there was no afternoon clinic booked and so was a free agent for the remainder of the day. “Great!” I exclaimed, “Let’s go do something.”
Sometimes that would mean the cinema or a nice walk but this time we plumped for an art gallery, the Tate Britain, to see an exhibition there.
In one of the rooms towards the end, I was immediately drawn to a particular painting. I walked over, took it in and then looked at the description box next to it - my eyes widened when I registered the name of the painting: The Aurora Triumphans. The painting shows the Roman Goddess of the dawn, Aurora, breaking the shackles of the night and welcoming the rising sun.
Standing in front of the painting, (with what I appreciate now was a slightly crazed confidence) I whispered with that silent voice in my head to the little person I reckoned was just starting out within me, ‘Hello Aurora.’
Getting pregnant isn’t always easy, but luckily on this occasion the rest of the story continues as you might hope; we found a nearby pub for a bite to eat which just happened to have a chemist next-door. I popped in. A test was bought, we took it at home and there were TV-ad-worthy squeals of joy when that famous blue line emerged.
That day reminds me of the verse in Jeremiah that reads: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
For my, self-confessed, non-medical mind, the Aurora painting sighting was all the pregnancy test – and later, gender reveal test - I needed. (Yes, I actually did say to the sonographer when she announced I was having a girl – “Oh yep, I knew that.”) Embarrassing, but such was my total faith in that piece of art.