Coincidences
April 13, 2023
I try to imagine my reader - the person thinking about my stuff.
How must they see me?
What can I give them that they can use in their own life, to prove to themselves that the things I say are not just the ranting of some delusional fool; but rather a field guide to living in a new world that is even now dawning upon us.
Surely there must be some kind of tangible comforting proof for the mind.
I can only speak from personal experience, but I think that you will be more than satisfied just by what shows up based on what you are thinking (the questions you are asking deep within) but then that has always been the case.
Our realities have always been a reflection of our thoughts, our concepts and our beliefs.
But let’s say that you are among the early ones who start looking for the new and greater reality before it becomes popularly established in this time and place.
New is always new, so how do you know that what you are experiencing is not just some misfiring of brain cells, an over-active imagination, or a lapse into insanity?
What works for me is coincidences.
The universe speaks through what shows up.
The universe shouts through coincidence.
Coincidences show up in my life with great regularity.
Like being on time.
It would seem that I can’t not be on time, even when I don’t know what time it is.
Coincidences always give me confidence that I am on to something.
I’ll list three major ones pertaining to my quest, which I think are the stuff of winning lotteries:
Go to my Self - Portrait project > Cincinnati > maybe 2/3 of the way down > the line that reads:
“Shortly before I was to leave for Cincinnati for the final show at Base, I got an email from Cincinnati.
“The subject line read: I just spent the weekend with you.”
It’s a story involving (among other things) a place called InkTank and Ira Glass of This American Life fame.
Read October in my Conversation withTim Folzenlogen project and then you tell me. That one is the stuff of mega lotteries squared.
My showing up in Montclair at this time with the first three Universe paintings completed, having decided to make Montclair my final stand in my epic journey, arriving just in time for the George Inness show at MAM, having the first of the Universe Series chosen by Ira Wagner (director of MAM) to hang in the museum, the other two chosen for the show at brand new Leach Gallery, me painting the same light as George who also made Montclair his final stand (or at least it is that body of work that he is most remembered for), both of us being philosophical visionaries.
His birthday is May 1; my birthday is May 2.
I’ve always thought that in the future people will look back on my life, my path, the decisions I have made, and surely they will think that I was some kind of wizard strategist with brilliant foresight.
I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
I never know what’s going on.
Indeed, I am often intimately, profoundly aware of all that is out there swirling around in the here and now, and that nearly everything I say and do has no part in any of it.
All that I ever seem to know for sure is my next inspiration, and that with my motivation foremost in mind, it always feels perfect.
I always act on it.
What happens next, is never what I expect.
Sometimes all hell will break loose.
Oftentimes, especially early in my course, I would be absolutely terrified. Scared to death.
But that would settle down over time and in retrospect, what I did or said always looks like genius, as well as being something that is only obvious.
“What the hell was I so scared about?”
The ultimate outcome always feels like that.
Like it’s nothing.
To accomplish it, to own it, is to forget about it, like it is nothing.
That’s what it always feels like afterwards.
Besides which, by then, I’m always deeply immersed in my next idea, and so I don’t really think about anything else anyway.