Re-Emergence

Hey, gang! Welcome to my life – where anything is possible and nothing is as it seems.

I’m Freedom and I’ll be your host, coming at you from within the depths of Geistopia.

Welcome to my Life is a project, an experiment in Life and ART. A living storyboard, if you will. Its premise is that life is experiential, and that you can (and do) experience the life you choose. It is based on The Wheel of Life and The ARTs for The New Millennium as life building tools.

Welcome to my Life is an I T.V. Studios/Geist…House Players Production, in association with the Center for Creative Inspirationalism. JustUs Productions, the parent company, would like to give a ‘Shout-Out’ to the following for their ongoing, and sometimes unknowing, inspiration and support:

Princess Cuddlebug

Princess Sunshine

Craze & Co.

The Shaman

The Pillar

The Entire Putt-Putt-Putter Clan

Professor Siggy Chong

The VanMan and General Ralph Glossop (may they R.I.P.)

‘Blue 326’

The Looch

The Baker

Bert-on

Andy Pandy

The Mudder

The Prodigy

‘Blue 326’

The Piz-Niffer

Dancing Queen

Downtown Encyclopedia Brown

Mama Rabbit

And, of course, a very generous sponsor who (not-so-much) wishes to remain anonymous.

It is…Sunday, January 21, 2018. Time…prolific. [What’s funny to me is that is so not the image I wanted to paint…but it is SO the word that works.]

*Deep, breath. Sigh*

What can I say? Here we are once more – for those of you who are still willing to take the journey. And, to those who are new to it – Welcome. Please fasten the seat belt. Keep arms, legs, and most especially heads inside the car at all times. There is no standing, or stopping for that matter. NO poking nor screaming…and please, for the love of all, do not taunt the beasts.

*Another sigh. His hands clasp and grip before him…Deep breath.*

Sorry.

It’s just that it has been so long and this…this is such an odd and very rare moment. I feel like I need to stop every so often and be aware of it. It is a moment that has been a long time coming. [I think.]

So, I suppose, since this is a ‘re-boot,’ I should take a moment to truly introduce myself and the project and tell you what you need to know.

(And still not lose the interest of those who are ‘re-booting’ with us. Mwahahahaha!!)

I…am The Rev. Matt. ‘Freedom’ is a name I picked up a very long time ago, in a distant and yet oh so familiar life. I have carried it with me for many years. [Many more than I have carried the ‘title’ of Reverend…or the ‘personality’ it would inspire. I guess you could say that ‘Freedom’ was the first of three ‘titles’ I would receive along the way. It became the original ‘face’ of WTML. After all, that seemed the whole point of the thing – to be free. To live and love and laugh and cry and experience and die. The whole inspiration was the ‘The Beauty of Being’ (- here, there, then, now…)

Something had happened to me and suddenly I was awed at the power of simply being. I found life to be so fascinating, awe-inspiring, spiritual…Divine! And, G-d, did I want to share it with everyone. It was at this time, I received the nickname ‘Freedom.’

It happened at a party with family and friends. I forget exactly what the group was chatting about. I do know it was some other odd moment in my life. I know this because the conversation comes around to naming a child [a pup] Freedom. Someone looks up and says, “Man…that name suits you.”

And, so it did. For quite some time it did. I can’t tell you exactly how long after that party it was that I walked into a local supermarket at six in the morning on a Friday and as I made my way along the front aisle someone yells down one of the grocery lanes, “FREEEEEEDOMMMMMM!!!”

“Yo! Hey!” *Keeps walking as he throws hand above his head in a quick wave.*

It was the name I would wear when I took my first Vision Quest. Well, the first Journey, I suppose. It was a name that would guide me through many stunning moments and be known by some very fascinating beings.

And, it was the name that would be used when this venture doth begin.

The Reverend, as I said, would come later. It seems like much later *sighs* but it was only a year. That’s the thing about those first three years. *chuckling through nasal breath* there…was…just…so…much CRAMMED into so little time. All those major moments in the first three years seem lifetimes apart.

And, in the first five, I saw The Rise…and The Fall.

I was ordained by a friend in Reading, Pennsylvania. We sat, we chatted, we pow-wowed. It happened. We are both ordained through The Universal Life Church of Modesto, California. It is a quaint and lovely congregation, meeting in a beautiful old white church on an almost forgotten street…and I love each and every one of them to this day.

The project…well, the project is inspired by life itself. I cannot tell you now what happened then, but I was left so fascinated by how this thing called Life works. I got to see it, time and time again. All the things we hear and say but never really believe at work before my very eyes.

To this day, I bear witness to ‘Ask & It Is Given.” ‘Tis true. Put it out there and it will come back to you. Somehow, someway, sooner or later (but always when the time is right) it will come back to you. Ask and it is given. (Or, the more cautionary version, “Be careful what you wish for.”)

WTML was to be my medium through which to share it all. It was supposed to be where I could bring it all together. [Maybe make sense of it myself.] Over the years, its face would change several times, and the overall vision of it grew quite a bit. But, through it all the basic premise was always the same – tell the stories.

Simple, right?

(One would think.)

Like so many facets of my life, WTML would see its share of challenges. (And, like some of those facets, it keeps coming back. Resurfacing time and time again.)

It is inspired by the stories and the journey of Life. But, it based on, and rooted in, The Wheel of Life and The ARTs for The New Millennium. These were concepts that evolved along those first five years of ‘The Journey.’ [And, like so many evolutions from that era, they are things I have yet to master or conquer.)

The Wheel had come to me along many pathways. Its purpose was very plain – Set a ‘goal,’ reach a ‘goal.’ It was a map from Alpha to Omega.

The ARTs? Well, the ARTs are what I consider kismet. So much of my life has leaned towards some art form or another. As a creative, the ART of something…(which is as good as saying the Science of something, but don't tell anyone I said that)...but, the ART of a thing made perfect sense to me. Along the way I would find a deeper meaning in the word ART. Something more revealing, truth-telling.

This would evolve into The ARTs for The New Millennium, which, simply put, states that All of Life is ART (though some we call Science.) Not only do they all work similarly, they can all work together. And, [as the Ancient ARTs revealed to me] if you master all of the ARTs you can truly master all of Life.

But, the past is naught…for now. It is but a stepping stone. A preface of sorts, telling what it is that brings us here tonight.

(Mmmm…but not just tonight.)

Tonight…we begin anew.

That all being said…on with the show….

Theme of the Week – Follow Through (Or, lack thereof.)

Lesson of the Week – Embrace What Is

Observation of the Week – TRUTH!!!…(is contrary and contrite.)

The ART of Gratitude.

*again with the deep sighing*

It’s horrible. It is. It’s like all this…stuff…just releasing with each and every sigh. It has been this totally crazy time. Oh, my Lord! The stories I could tell you from the past couple of weeks, the past few months, the past year…or more.

I don’t actually know when the last Blog post I made was dated. That is on another site. *tilts head off to the side* Over there somewhere. *hand waving as if brushing it off* We’ll get to that some other time.

For quite some time I have been trying to generate a post. I have tried both video and written, such as this. I have never been able to ‘get there.’ Time and time again, try as I might, I would inevitably find myself distracted, or even deflected.

I resolved that tonight I would do nothing else. Let’s see where that takes us, shall we?

Truly, tonight is like any other night in Geistopia - It is what it is, and it is always as it should be. [It’s like f’n Camelot, man.] The Spirit, she shifts as she is called upon to do by whoever graces her.

Tonight, she is curious. Tonight, she taunts and plays as she dervishes about. Tonight…she may reveal greater insight.

Life is as it tends to be for me. Let’s just leave it be said at that for now. No matter how many ways I could describe it, nor how many stories I could tell, I could never make sense of it right this moment. It is all part of a cycle. It is a cycle that has been happening for twenty years. It has changed rhythms and time-frames. It has worn any number of faces. But, for twenty years, my life has repeated a very interesting pattern of being.

This is something that was revealed to me during this latest episode of employment deprivation. The cycle is constant and consistent. I usually start to notice it around October. Always in full affect by mid December. This last cycle though, this one actually starts in June. It starts with a happening, a moment. [And now that I think about it I realize that very often something ‘happens’ in June.]

(See...revelations...)

This cycle has had me wrestling with a great deal. Truly, it has been the hardest, and the darkest, that I think I have ever known. [And, believe me when I tell you that I have known both very hard and very dark times.] This one…*rubs face and head in exasperation*…this one has just been…Whiplash!

I have no other word for it. To say, *in snarky, nasally voice* “Life has been a roller coaster,” would be to underplay it all. Oy, what I have experienced since last June…hell since October. I can feel it in my body, like I have been whipped and tossed around violently and at almost appalling speeds.

At the end of this latest cycl-one, I find myself left with all of these pieces of…something. The same pieces over and over again, coming back, returning, and resurfacing.

There is The Crafter…and the Clergyman; The Entertainer and the Adventurer; The Observer.

So many things that I am, and am not, all happening at once, functioning as one.