sky walker

God is bowling strikes again draws from a Southern expression for thunder booming in the sky, a phrase that simultaneously registers both a storm and divine intervention. Here, that saying invokes the visions experienced by Nat Turner, whose revelations ignited his famous 1831 rebellion in Virginia against enslavement.

Inspiring him to rebel, Turner’s visions revealed a sun darkened, thunder rolling through the heavens, and messages revealed in the trees. He understood the solar eclipse in February 1831 and these other natural phenomena as divine instruction from God to lead his people toward liberation. In his words, he was told that “the time was fast approaching when the first should be last, and the last should be first.” Conjuring Turner’s visions reflects on the way the natural world is a collaborator and witness in fights for freedom.