Synkroniciti is excited to welcome poet and visual artist Rebecca L. Oxford of Alabama with two inspiring poems to open our “Patterns” issue. Rebecca draws our attention to the balance between the individual and the community.
“Synesthesia Song” recognizes that being our most authentic and healthy creative self does not only create happiness and stability in our lives, it benefits the world.
“I am the maker of the song I sing./ I have the goal/ To build and shape new sounds/ And spark red flames/ That warm the freezing world.”
Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in other sensory or cognitive pathways. For example, a person might see colors when hearing music. Synesthesia often involves the five traditional senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing, but can also involve other perceptions, including nociception (the perception of noxious stimuli as pain), thermoception (the perception of temperature), chronoception (the perception of time), and interoception (the perception of internal body states and conditions), as well as the perception of motion and even memory. When we embrace our unique colors, sounds, or perceptions, we create valuable experience that illuminates the mystery of being human, not only for ourselves, but for others.
“A Writer’s Reflections” asks if the writer’s gifts have ever helped anyone else–if writing has been useful other than to minister to the writer. This reminds us of the counterbalance on creativity–that it should both build up the individual and nurture the community.
“Did anything I ever said or wrote/ Unfold gently on an open palm? //Did any of my writings prompt a truce,/ Light a candle, or expand a hope?”
Read Rebecca’s centering poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
At age 78, the age when Grandma Moses first sold a painting, Rebecca Oxford is fully embracing her artist-and-poet identity. In 2025 she showed her artwork in juried exhibitions (two in Alabama, two in Texas) and is now creating her first poetry chapbook. As a university professor, she presented invited conference plenaries in 43 countries. Her 15 books concern spirituality, language learning, psychology, and peacebuilding. She jointly initiated and led three book series: Tapestry ESL Program (Heinle/Thompson); Spirituality, Religion, and Education (Palgrave MacMillan); and Transforming Education for the Future (Emerald Publishing UK).
A polio survivor, she agrees that life-threatening illness is a “soul journey” (Jean Shinoda Bolen, 1996). Rebecca and her husband share two long-haired cats, Steely Dan and Robert.