Six months ago, I started drawing a simple symbol. I started by intersecting two infinity symbols and then adding more until eight overlapped to create 16 petals. It grounded me, so I kept drawing it in my notebooks, eventually carving it into a stamp.
Then I started researching the symbol. What is the significance of 16? Infinity loops? Petals? What meanings could I explore—not for answers—for the joy of asking. I was curious. And I listened to my intuition.
Tarot was one of my first stops and I was intrigued to find that 16 is The Tower—an unsettling card at first glance, but it’s really the gift of release. It’s a dismantling of what was built from fear, so you can rebuild from truth. That has been the past year for me: allowing collapse to clear space for alignment.
When I uploaded a photo of the symbol into ChatGPT, it named it a “Tesseract Echo”. I’m a lifelong fan of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Tesseracts are a central concept in the story—a shortcut between two points in space and time. That’s what this symbol represented to me: a portal, a doorway, an invitation to take a different path.
“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms is like a sonnet; you’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.” - Mrs. Whatsit (A Wrinkle in Time)
For much of my life, I wrote a safe, quiet, fear-driven sonnet. Over the past year, I’ve let go that version go, mostly by shedding the safety of staying small and holding the weight of perceived expectations. That was my Tower.
The next card in the tarot is The Star.
The Star is my new sonnet. The one I am writing as I walk through this threshold.
This doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else (though I do hope it encourages you to follow your curiosity purely for the sake of your joy). When I play in these inner spaces, I’m happier. I make more art. I’m more at peace. I understand and accept myself more deeply.
A scribble in a notebook can just be a scribble. Or it can be a threshold into another way of being.
xo, Corinne
P.S. My fall 2025 Threshold limited edition print is available now.
P.P.S. Paid subscribers get a something photo-related in their mailbox from me each month. (Plus early access to my seasonal limited-edition print releases).
Incredible what beauty scribbles and scraps can hold!