At the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which on this day is a temple, I wander back and forth through rooms full of gloriously confounding art. Eventually I stand before an untitled watercolour. Hilma af Klint painted this self-portrait in 1934, when she was in her early seventies. I see a pale, translucent, ghostly woman. I see what I want to see.

I stay with the self-portrait for a long time, as if waiting for af Klint to speak to me, to guide me, to tell me the many errors of my ways, to indulge my hope that the two of us are kindred spirts, to tell me to study theosophy more deeply or with all my heart, to say, ‘I have nothing to say to you.’ I stare into her unblinking eyes. I imagine her hand, already in blurred motion, reaching out to grasp mine or to gently but emphatically push me away.