I was listening to ‘God Turn Me Into a Flower’ by Weyes Blood while laying on the grass one day, feeling the rush of the river in front of me. It wasn’t until the song began that a bee started dancing around me. I joked that I had turned into a flower.
It was spring. Earlier on my walk, I was searching the grass for dandelions, and I spotted three nearly equidistant from each other in a small patch of dirt.
Spring is supposedly the season of rebirth. Though I feel I am reborn and remade in every season. I grow into myself only to then become unfamiliar. I learn how to navigate the change in a changing body. I mourn the previous seasons and the previous selves that are housed within them.
‘God Turn Me Into a Flower’ is a song that acquires a security in that uncertainty.
‘And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow’ speaks to the themes of identity and the questioning of image, self, meaning, and purpose that are present in Natalie Mering’s previous record, ‘Titanic Rising.’ “God Turn Me Into a Flower” begins with the body and eventually transforms beyond it. It is self-reflective and plays with the myth of Narcissus in a way that is understanding toward the self and embraces softness as a strength.
There are lines where her voice becomes something solid breaking through water:
“You shatter easily and can’t pick up those shards” and “you yearn to be that dream you could never get to.” Then she moves back to vocals that are reminiscent of the gentle ripples born from those heavy words.
It is overwhelming to exist in a body while being hyper aware of oneself. To take in everything from the world and hold it within a singular body.
“To be soft when they push you down,” because when you are soft, you can bend and fold and still return to your original form. The flower moves with the wind and is rooted in the earth. It is touched by the sun and enveloped in water. It is elemental.
At 3:04, the lyrics fade into instrumentals. For the next three minutes, there is only the glistening sound of synthesizers, stringed instruments, and a humming that is eventually layered with open vocals, chimes, and the sound of birds. It is a slow transformation that represents the becoming of a flower. Your perception of change is not defined by time, but rather by feeling. It is a transcendent, nectar-filled state of being. The way the sounds move back and forth makes it feel as though they’re rippling like when you look at your reflection in a body of water and the wind is moving through it. The image is always changing, shifting, and moving with the elements. We are fluid beings.
I feel myself rising––I am no longer physical or in a body. I simply am. I have started in my body and now I am floating and wandering in this sweet soundscape. I have been turned into a flower.
It becomes a meditation of sorts––to go on a walk or lay in the grass, taking in the sounds around you and feeling how elemental you are too. There is no greater purpose you need to seek, and it is okay to not know what will become of yourself or the future in this moment.