An Extraordinary View

East Meets West

Note the silver wood grain tie and green felt lining...

Catching the Catcher's Signal

Shadows and Light in the Backyard

The conversation

Introduction to FS4D and Librarian-Evolution by Jane Oberg

Chapter I

In the beginning…  I first saw/met  G on July 4th, 2010, standing in the corner of his sister’s beach house kitchen. It was one of those across-the-room introductions when I hoped to remember names since we were all going out on a boat to watch Nantucket fireworks from the harbor.  But I do not recall seeing G again that night; in fact, I did not speak to him for weeks. That night, invisible behind his camera, he took a photo he showed to me months later:  “Oh you took a picture of me.” “No, I didn’t; I took a picture and you just happened to be in it.”   At the end of July I met him at Bartlett’s Farm where we re-introduced ourselves (yes, I forgot his name), and he engaged me in a conversation about his “Project.” After telling him I was a college writing teacher, he told me about how his teacher-friend Brooklyn-Howard developed  the FS4D theories which H later developed into a Masters thesis. He then offered to send me a newspaper article describing details of the educational experiment.  I gave him my email address and, shortly after, received the promised article.   My response began a series of brief email exchanges leading to a lunch invitation to Sconset: “…there's [sic] really so much a bite at a time for good digestion come out to Sconset and visit for a bit.”   Not taking it seriously, I thanked him for the invite, assuming I would not hear from him again. But I did, accepted, and found myself driving 6 miles to Sconset, wondering what I was in for. There was no lunch, but lemonade, cheese and crackers,  along with meeting  teacher friend from NYC (a bright articulate woman who had successfully used the Freespace “syllabus” in her classes) made for an enlightening visit.  Her enthusiasm about using a picnic basket to engage her  students’ interest in learning, along with G’s stories about the basket’s place in his “project” proved provocative. I left intrigued, but convinced the encounter was simply a one-off, that I was just another member of a large audience for G’s project pitch. Only part of my assumption turned out to be true.  Early in December I once again ran into G, and since a friend and I had just planned a holiday party, I invited him to come. He accepted, showed up in his then trademark patch-tartan trousers, and told us an amusing story about their history.  From this event began a series of six-mile visits which would draw me more deeply into the world and concepts of FS4D.

I would learn about his FS4D 10/10/10 exhibit at the Sconset Casino (an extension of his and “Brooklyn”  Howard’s collaboration) which  featured the appearance of George Mercurious, a persona G assumes to introduce and promote FS4D concepts. The art/i/facts from this exhibit would gradually introduce me to some of the project’s “simple complexities.” I learned not only that this has been a twenty-year preoccupation, but also more about the persona of the aforementioned GM, developed by G to play a major role (in a cast of many) in other productions, exhibits, and promotions.

Of course, I had many questions: How, when, and where did the FS4D project begin, and what keeps it going?  How and why did GM develop, and what were FS4D’s major influences? Before I learned any answers, however, I found myself re-invented as Molly (Jane) Madras, “cast” as a librarian (G’s former position when working with BH), and carrying responsibility for “work” I barely understood, often found confusing, but nonetheless enjoyed.   One of the key concepts of FS4D is the significance of living in the present/moment, the NOW (yes, E. Tolle’s books figure into this). Maintaining one’s focus in the moment opens up and accesses “freespace” allowing the “flow” of creativity, thus producing open/transparent communication. Other relevant thinkers whose work influences FS4D include:  R. Buckminster Fuller, P. D. Ouspensky and Joseph Campbell. Their work on 4D reinforces the concept that 4D includes all time:  past, present, and future. It represents time as a natural phenomenon, a part of nature determined by sunrise and sunset, before humans, attempting to control  “it,” divided “time” into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years, consequently printing it onto calendars and clocks.   Other aspects learned via the 10/10/10 artifacts were the significance and roles of “surfaces,” which  neatly accommodate almost every concept FS4D promotes:

1) Green felt represents Nature (with an always capital N).

2) Wood-grain, usually represented by printed-contact paper,  represents the tree- of-knowledge, more specifically, lost or hidden knowledge that impedes intellectual progress.

3) Red-check gingham signifies people, the picnic aspect and food, and perhaps even intellectual nourishment.

4) Clear-plastic transparent surfaces, including magnifiers, suggest how truth ultimately permeates.   Other prominent motifs/symbols include:

• Ying-Yang watch faces that may also incorporate longitude and latitude grids; compasses and keys

• “Annotated” art works including DiVinci's  “Last (ing) Supper” and “The Creation of Adam” include FS4D  surface: between G-d’s finger and Adam’s is a green “felt” spot and the Apostles’ table includes touches of red gingham among other “alter/ations.”

Using “found” objects, G also creates miniature “assemblages” as responses to Joseph Campbells’s appeal for new mythologies:

• Annunciation Tryptich>a Renaissance Annunciation image that integrates several of G’s family photos

• Monarch Nativity> miniature nativity set upon which G has placed a monarch butterfly

• Geode Resurrection>A plastic form of Christ, removed from a Crucifix, leaning against a fragment of tree branch, and a Buddha image set into a purple Geode

• Mermaid Ascension> a composition form of a mermaid  carrying the plastic form of Christ

Most significant to me (as Molly-Librarian) is the vast collection of book that serve as both inspiration and validation of FS4D principles, philosophies and concepts. The predominantly non-fiction categories include: philosophy, art, religion, history, poetry, photography and pop-culture among others. From where they have been accumulated I have yet to learn. Whatever G’s focus, it can almost always be verified in one of these books. As I read through them,  I often find page corners turned down at the most relevant passages. Tucked inside some of them are bits of paper markers, many covered with G’s writing and symbols (wave-like swirls, figure eights, and “stars”).

As a writing teacher I would be remiss not to mention that part of G’s engagement with FS4D is daily “automatic” stream of consciousness writing that pours out onto pages and pages—some legible, some not, but always re/presentative of key concepts. My/our goal is to organize it,  especially what is included in piles of notebooks as chronologically as possible.  Once organized the material will included into a “guide/source/reference” format and become the basis for projects.

After nearly a year, my knowledge and fascination about FS4D continues. Every day I either learn something new or find another way to apply the knowledge to how I experience the world.  As G has taught me, I try to stay in, not stray from, the moment, especially when stressed; if I lose the moment or if it leaves me, I immediately attempt to reclaim it, and re/turn to the nOw, the present. And this is making all the difference.

Jane Oberg
Spring ‘11

 
     

An Early Freespace Definition

Ours is a Facebook Story

I first met Greg about two years ago online, he would give feedback on my poetry and prose on my Facebook page. He was one of those who just truly appreciated whatever I had to say, I would ramble on about things , express feelings of frustration and anxiety, still he appreciated it. I am blessed to have friends and readers who see through my work, and put their faith in the message of hope I convey.

It was only after early this year that I was introduced to Greg the artist. He gave me this task of creating a blog for Freespace 4D, and I bravely took it. I did not understand it at first but at the days went on I found comfort in knowing that I do not have to be alone in this, I can involve as many people as I want to involve. Freethinkers, Artists, Revolutionaries, Health Nuts...Dreamers. 

We are not alone. We are ALL ONE. 

This is Greg in March, something was said about this photograph "Mind moves faster than pen then tries to slow down to accomodate pen and loses the trail ... writing is such an experience of being so lost then found..."  and this is true. 

We are still on the beginning stages of this project, but I can see so many possibilities, and see YOU in it. 

Working on Freespace has been a mixture of fun and bewilderment and confusion, and I sometimes find a need to step back and yet it always brings me back to this space. 

It's like being asked to describe the shape or color of AIR... how can we even begin and end?

And yet we see possibilities....because our imagination can lead us to creation... We let our hearts work... and the universe responds. The work of heart is a work of art ... Through art all things are possible. 

Juno