CONSILIENCE
A Companion Blog to The Ash Girl
Consilience is a scientific method of validating a hypothesis across multiple disciplines. The biologist E.O. Wilson reclaimed the root of the word, which means “a jumping together” in his book of the same name. In it he posed the radical notion that the arts and social sciences might be invited to that auspicious table. This blog, and The Ash Girl, is a bit of an homage to E.O. Wilson’s proposal. Each post offers a deeper look into the story, the symbolism, the science and the themes from the author’s point of view (by chapter) and welcomes you to add yours.
In this way we might come to some expanded understanding and shared awe of our half-known worlds.
Amelia Disappears
Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in 1937 triggered thousands of articles, books, and theories about what happened to her and her co-pilot and the avid interest of entire nations that still has echoes today. As happened with much of this book, Amelia’s part in the events in The Ash Girl revealed itself in what felt like serendipity.
Magic Number 3
The Ash Girl is structured as multiple sets of Borromean Rings, where lost parts are reclaimed and the pathway to wholeness paved, when the ‘properly chosen third’ shows up.
3 is the universal number of wholeness so let’s keep that in mind as we unpack CHAPTER 3!
Story Time
Once there was a story and no one to tell it.
Chapter 5 LEAPS in time ahead to 1945.
“BUT that is 3 YEARS,” some early readers cried. “I wanted to see Ben and Charlotte fall in love, the proposal.” Frieda trying to explain to Charlotte who and what she really is in a way that won’t make her descent harder than it already has been. All of that happened between the lines on the page, within the words that this telling offers and you have the power to re-appear it. Because.
Echelons
“I fell asleep in the river reeds. I dreamed in my dream.”
Chapter 7 is delirious with dreams within dreams and story within story as Asmeret navigates the very narrow space between worlds by following the darkest days of her life to see where the light begins. This carries us through echelons (layers) of the whole.
Flying Lessons
“Teach me to fly.”
Chapter 9 is a flying lesson; wherein Asmeret and Charlotte (and Frieda) are ‘leveling up’ their own ‘powers’ (been hanging out with my nine-year-old nephew who uses this language daily), and learning to hear and use their gifts with the help of their teachers coaxing them into experimenting, taking risks, and trusting their instincts.
