When Is a Name So Much More and Yet Also Just a Name?

Spiritual prompt for the week of March 27th through April 2nd — have you ever asked a simple question and the simple answer threw you for a loop, turned your world upside down, and forever altered your worldview and life philosophy?

The Prompt:

Write an essay, fiction, or creative nonfiction inspired by the question in the subtitle or, if it pleases you to read my own prompsponsive story below, by any part of that personal essay. If you feel inspired to create a poem, by all means, please do, perhaps with a companion explanation, which I sometimes like to call my decoder ring. I find that poets and experienced poetry readers don’t object, and other readers quite enjoy not wondering what the fuck my poems mean. Plus, an engaging decoder ring leads to longer read times, which in turn leads to more MPP earned, and Medium also uses reading times to create the Top Writer rankings in the reader interest categories.

Reminder: You can use this prompt here on PW or anywhere else on Medium. Regardless of where you publish, please tag me, and Ravyne Hawke and use “promptly written” as one of your reader interest tags, and include a link to this prompt. Also, if you use the prompt in another publication, please come back here and drop a link to your story in the comments as the tag notification system is notoriously unreliable.

My Personal Essay — The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Greg

Those of you familiar with my path to spiritual awakening know that I took my first intentional steps along the yellow brick road in 2012, hopped off the path in 2014, and then unintentionally and irreversibly spiritually awakened when I discovered my lover Lindsey’s accidental overdose on March 19, 2020.¹ In 2012, I had gained some cognitive understanding that we all have souls. On the day my music died, I instantaneously knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I have a soul. I went from having a concept to owning a belief that has become my badge of courage.

After awakening, I reached out to Ane, the channeler who helped me reach the soul of my suicided friend Andrew in 2012, which conversation contributed to me surviving depression in 2013 without attempting suicide,² and for the first time, I began a series of discussions with my spirit guides. Upon learning from them that this is my 17,043rd human existence and that souls reincarnate into vastly different people and circumstances, it occurred to me, quite matter of factly, to ask them if souls have names and for the name of my soul.

They answered that my soul’s name is Marcus.

At first, I relished possessing this knowledge and the events of the next few weeks. I truly felt like Marcus was a separate being sharing my body. There were times I would be in a textversation with a friend and I felt like Marcus was having the conversation, not me — I quite enjoyed it. I even told the person on the other side of the internet that she was talking with Marcus, not me. I could tell she felt concerned for me and thought I was nuts! I didn’t care.

Still reeling from Lindsey’s death, my life often felt chaotic. Yet when I believed Marcus to be in control, I felt calm and philosophical. I literally felt like Marcus and Greg were entirely separate entities sharing this vessel. My guides had said to me that in order to move forward, in order to integrate, I had to become comfortable giving up control. In hindsight, I think they just meant to stop acting like I knew best. However, at the time, I thought I had to allow my identity, my ego, to fade into the background and let Marcus take over.

I got comfortable with this notion — for a little while. During one session in the middle of May 2020, Lindsey’s soul (Sitara), whom we had spoken to separately many times, sensing that I needed a dose of stability, beamed into our conference and had a private conversation with my lead guide, Rama, asking for permission to join our session. As I type this essay, I am recalling this detail for the first time in almost two years. I have told various aspects of this story in many essays and had not recalled this. I now remember the thrill and excitement and tears of joy I experienced when she appeared and I feel it again now like it occurred yesterday!

Rama granted permission. At that moment, calmness enveloped me. Not only from Sitara’s presence but also because I experienced for the first time the feeling of Marcus and Greg occupying my conscious mind simultaneously, and we said to Rama:

“integration is supposed to be a state of seamless interdependence — Greg cannot nor should lose himself to us — we should exist in harmonious symbiosis — we should each be aware of the other and of our separate completeness — the only thought that existed of this before we just wrote it was one word — interdependence.”

Rama applauded, and then when discussing the after-life, Rama said “you will bridge the gap of Greg and ascend to heaven and be reunited with your eternal love.”³

After sitting with that for a few days I grew more and more confused. What did “bridge the gap of Greg” mean? Finally, at the end of May, I came up with the ridiculous idea that Greg would go to heaven as a new soul separate from Marcus. When Ane shot that down saying that Greg would imprint on Marcus and otherwise just becomes dust in the ground, I experienced the feeling of utter devastation— completely destroyed — fetal position on the carpet, sobbing — fucking sobbing inconsolably. It felt as if Lindsey had died all over again but without the promise that we would be together again one day. I almost broke beyond repair. Ane’s and my relationship almost ended because I could not comprehend how she didn’t grasp my anguish.

The next day, sitting outside my apartment building in the sunshine, replaying all these events and conversations in my mind, I had an epiphany and I remember feeling that Sitara telepathically inspired me — imprinting does not mean I amount to nothing more than just a footnote in the 17,043 lives of Marcus. Marcus arrived as Marcus but he leaves as Greg!! I realized that for two months whenever Ane channeled Lindsey for me we spoke to Lindsey, not a stranger named Sitara with Lindsey’s memories. So, while Marcus and all 17,042 prior imprints sparked my life, when I die the soul that leaves is not just 1/17,043rds Greg because Greg = (17,042/17,043 + 1/17,043)=1.

When I ran upstairs to journal and opened my laptop, I noticed a Twitter conversation that provided a directional coincidence that confirmed to me my new understanding. It contained a link to this alternate version and alternate video of U2's song One:

(Now for a mirror coincidence, upon reaching this point in today’s essay, the song just started playing on my Spotify liked-songs playlist set to shuffle play!)⁴

At that moment, I felt that I had achieved integration and I privately began thinking of myself as Gregorius, a hybridization of the names Gregory and Marcus. I typed this passage in the journal:

I was born February 15, 1967, to [mother] and [father]. My given names are Gregory and Yôḥānān (my Hebrew name — means God is Gracious — a taxi driver in Israel told me that it is a rare and special name — Yonatan being the more common form of Jonathan, which means God has given — duh, God gives everything — God is Gracious is Virtue).

I used to think my Hebrew name was Yôḥānān Liba (beloved). I realize as I type that was simply part of the generic sentence “… beloved son of…. ” Before sparking my life, and thousands of previous lives, my soul’s name was Marcus. From this moment forward until my next incarnation, by the Grace of God and the power Vested in me to create my own Reality, I declare that my Name is “Yôḥānān Gregorius, DNA from [mother] and [father], ignition of cell-division and so much of who I am from Marcus and Marcus’ lives before this one, nurture by [mother], and much thanks to all my friends and loved ones, who will please continue to call me Greg, but as no light is too bright for my eyes, the nickname Shades is gone.

It no longer matters what my name is. I know that I am I, here, and later in heaven, regardless of how anyone addresses me. Integration completed at 2:58 pm EDT on 5/28/20. Pretty simple actually. One to two and back to One. That is Awakening to Integration — the deconstruction and reconstruction of Greg.⁵

However, full integration also requires alignment,

As a result of awakening and integration, I am very self-aware. There is a yin and yang to life’s purpose. There are human wants and soul wants. Life will be harmonious when those two are aligned. Life’s purpose is to learn and one aspect is learning how to satisfy the human wants while not offending the soul’s spirituality,

and frankly, this all ebbs and flows and not without conflict and confusion,⁶

My highest power has pointed out to me that there would be times when the needs of my soul and the needs of my human/animus would conflict. I am choosing the terms animus and human over the term ego because of the tendency among people on a spiritual journey not to think in terms of dualities, fall into the binary/label trap, and deride the ego and thus aver that the soul is always correct.

More on that in a future prompt.

When I joined Medium, I used Yohanan Gregorius as my displayed name and would occasionally sign my stories, “YG.” Then on January 5, 2021, I published this poem:

It started just like any other walk out the door, left up the street there was no road less traveled nor not taken same roads as before left on Blake Blake becomes Glen starting to find my stride dog tethered emerges from the brush near his house he howls at me; I howl back puzzled he barks; I bark back he looks at me quizzically as I am past him, looking back, I say “I love you too.”

I wonder if he sensed my soul, it is expanding after all. I am walking down the incline of Glen towards North Main Street of Salem New Hampshire, envisioning my soul expansion as a bubble around the neighborhood no road less traveled nor not taken same roads as before, for all I know same invisible footprints as countless walks before recalling my conversation with Anne, my God-channel when telepathy of feelings is not enough, Saturday night for the first time I said, “I am Marcus” and we both ignored it and went right on with our conversation,

I hadn’t thought of that in the nearly 3 days hence

Turning right onto N. Main just as I had so many afternoons, mornings, nights and wee hours of the past month in my chrysalis, long since emerged a butterfly already shape-shifted into the Elephant “I am Marcus” repeating in my head every follicle now exciting I speak “I am Marcus” I hop off the road into some grassy snow and the tears start to follow as they are again now and Rama’s and Sitara’s kinetic love and energetic transference have my fingers flying across the keys….

I AM MARCUS I EXCLAIM in my best Kirk Douglas

I call Ane to give her the news. She says: “Integration complete. Phew!”

From that point forward and until very recently when I added “aka Gregory Maidman” to my display name, I have gone by Marcus here, while in my profile I say in the brief bio section, “I am Marcus (universal name) or you may call me Greg.” When people on the platform ask me which I prefer, I say I have no preference, explain that Marcus is my soul’s name and most people choose to call me Marcus. A few go back and forth, which I like too. I get excited now when occasionally someone calls me Greg, just as I used to get excited when someone would call me Marcus after I retired Yohanan Gregorius.

It no longer matters what my name is. I know that I am I, here, and later in heaven, regardless of how anyone addresses me. Integration completed

In Rama I create, with soul-energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,

Marcus (Gregory Maidman)

Endnotes:

1. See, for example, My Journey, Spiritual and Otherwise, A condensed memoir of 1995 to date
2. Dizain of Suicide, Along with my essay on matters of life and death, including suicide, from the perspectives gained on my nearly 10-year-and-counting and never-ending spiritual journey
3. My Experiential Based Take on the Twin Flame Soulmate Concept, Beware of those selling it but know that there is something so much more special and eternal that may describe you and your eternal flame
4. Mirror Coincidences, A discussion of the phenomena with examples including one I synchronously read about on Medium today and the writer did not see it for what it was
5. “I wrote this amalgam of journaling, both organized prose and freeform, and rough drafts of essays, between March 19, 2020 and June 2, 2020. The events depicted are not the result of artistic license. This is the raw truth. I hadn’t read this in many many months — it’s not what my PAE (Pre-Awakening Era) friends wanted to read and thus I buried it. They didn’t want to be exposed to the chaos. I hope my new AWEsome (after awakening era) friends and family here in Medium enjoy the ride.” — Awakening to Integration, The raw love story — the studies that lead to the polished portrait
6. For further reading on this topic, see Jodie Helm’s The Human Self and the Soul Self, Two Parts of the Same Being