@marceloasherQ

Spontaneous Prose (7 minutes)

I’m favoring the sounds of “F” this morning, because FUCK this. Feverous in my fecund mind, my heart following the form. Were it different — I wish — I suppose what I grieve would not be lost. But it is, for now. Maybe it must.

I scour the insides of my skull with a hot spoon, culling the meat from the bone, searching for favor but finding none — internally regarding my externalities as pretentious and sanctimonious. But maybe it’s me?

Does god know? Does the some- or everything we call “god” even have some faculty of knowing that in any way resembles what we endure? Or does god simply exist and experience and change?

Octavia Butler says that “God is Change.” Is my raucous resistance to this relational revolution an indication of separation from my own true divinity, that which i displace with my thoughts and run-amok emotions? We’ll see.

August 8, 2016

Blue-lit morning. Golden eyes sparkle — never fading — even in the brightness of dawn. Silken and dewey, you writhe. 

We knock heads. Face of my face. Understandings between embraces — the entire contiguous organism open, receptive, transmitting electromagnetic connectivity and transmuting pain into presence and joy. Undertow of emotions, sweeping the anxiety out and out until it washes into a billion diamond smiles.

Breaker of breakers. United and untied. Fancifully verbose yet precise — not a word wasted in this stillsuit of eternity.

Breath of my breath. I inhale your exhales — perfect in time, imperfect situation made pure. Whole. Unanimous pleasure. Guidance of intertwined fingers. Goddess of all that I am and will grow to be.

Regal.

With the morning’s digital clangor, I arise — rinse the night’s perspiration from my skin only to to fall back again. 400 threads. 4 million years. My soul, you are divine, infinite, correspondant even in formology. Your brilliance beyond measure, beyond expectation.

In you I find ever-present rest and equanimity.

7/18/18

I want to start this off by telling you that I am sorry.

Sorry might not even cut it, though, but I don’t know what else to say about it other than to plainly say: I am sorry. Like really fucking sorry.

I am sorry because I have not been holding up my part of the bargain, not really been sharing the load as diligently as I can. I’ve been sleeping on the job of my life’s purpose, but no one can fire me, so I’m left with two choices: 

Wallow in the missed opportunities and squandered moments wherein I could have been practicing. There are tangible consequences to my truancy. Those fallouts are ever-present in my waking reality.

Recognize the path I’m on isn’t going to lead me where I must go, and change courses entirely.

There are certain patterns of living that I have found my way out of (let’s not just yet get into other patterns I’ve slipped into, though) that through expressing my experience even on a small scale has had a broad impact on a few people in my general community in ways that have surprised me.

For some, this had led to distinct changes, others just an ongoing awareness that they bring up to me whenever we happen to be in physical proximity. Then there are those in between. People have reached out to me digitally or in person to let me know that a piece of writing or a show I played had some sort of impact on them. Some people have even thanked me. Some people have been low-key pissed that I’ve not been sharing all along. It’s not a common occurrence (mainly because of how infrequently I’ve shared my writing or music of late), but it hits me deeply and truly when it does.

Far more common in my life has been praise for photographs I have taken. That feels good too, but it’s not the same, and (sorry to those I collaborate with on camera projects) I have a lingering suspicion that while I have learned a great deal about myself and have had some irreplaceable experiences through its practice, that it’s really serving me as a placeholder creative outlet, one with more immediate gratification, and ultimately a deviation from the practices that matter more to me.

From another vantage point, though, I believe that my photography and video work will be much more lighthearted and creative again once I am not neglecting my more pressing creative practice of writing — fiction, essays, poetry, journalism, scripts, and music.

It’s a perverted form of selfishness, really. Much like the selfishness of smoking the petter part of a quarter of weed by myself in less than a couple days (I’m mainly abstaining these days). I have an abundance of strange magic in me that has been kept under a seal of repression for as long as I can recall. I cannot truly blame that repression on anyone else but me, in the end, but the years of religious and socially conservative indoctrination, peer ridicule, and being a queer who’s not-exactly-white/not-exactly-POC did not help.

But fuck blame, the nature of it and its affects are far more relevant to this diatribe. Repression, in my experience, is not living the life you are here to live, your life’s purpose. 

I’ve repressed myself in so many ways over the years — my spirituality, my sexuality, my gender identity, my cultural heritage, more fully engaging with my romantic partner. I have also repressed myself by not engaging with the things that matter to me most, the things that are true about me regardless of other people or my stage in life. Reading. Writing. Being in my body and not just my mind. Plying guitar. Singing. Being in the water (Cancer sun/Pisces moon, here). Spending time alone. Engaging with people. Letting people know how amazing I think they are (and the freedom NOT to engage with them sexually). Sitting in stillness. Being out in nature. Camping. Exploring the infinite, basically.

Much of the last few years has been hijinks and navel gazing. Not that there is anything wrong with doing those things, just as long as they are illuminating in some way. But even then, illumination when kept to yourself is somehow darker than blindness.

A good friend of mine once told me that a writer who does not write flirts with insanity. That may be true — although I am no flirt. I usually prefer others to make the first move. But in this scenario I’ve been throwing some major shapes, and so me and my own personal brand of insanity have been seeing one another for a good while now. I presume that we always will (even if from a faraway vantage point), but goddamnit if I could just get some balance going I suspect I could do things. New things. Meaningful things. And perhaps (PERHAPS!) it will run concurrently with me not feeling so financially jeopardized that the vegan ice cream goes on the credit card.

At the yoga studio where I practice, a group of regular attendees and some of the teachers went down to Tulum, Mexico, for a retreat. I heard them talking about it after class for weeks and weeks before it happened. The usual response of those hearing about the trip for the first time (and it’s >$3,000 + travel price tag) was more casual than me deciding if I can afford to grab a meal at a restaurant after class.

The unfazed nature with which they regarded such an expenditure of time and funds alarmed me, not in any negative way, more so just realizing how wide a gap there is between my economic reality and theirs (I can’t really afford the monthly membership to the studio, but can far less afford further mental unravelling), putting me in a state of nonplussed bewilderment about how I could be so far behind those who are essentially my peers.

Instantly, I remembered what one of the teachers there said during a late night open studio session, that his view of finances changed when he recognized money as simply a tangible placeholder for an authentic energy exchange. You put your energy out there and those that receive it will reciprocate appropriately.

It struck me that the reason why my finances are so screwy and my clientele has been so inconsistent isn’t really something I can entirely blame on an advertising industry that seems to mainly have budgets for projects that promote businesses or products that harm people and/or the planet. Really, it comes down to my own miserly output. I’m not doing my fucking thing, and I suspect that I will never be in a place of pecuniary stasis until I am (#everydamnday). And I’ll not be able to do that until I make the decision to not repress myself, to not deny who I am by not loving and practicing who I am without compromise. 

Aside from self-doubt, then, what’s my excuse? I only recently realized that my means of motivation has been out of focus. What I’m told is that I should seek to write for money and personal glory. Neither of those things are all that appealing unto themselves. Much more recently, I’ve found that what motivates me most about writing is healing, love, discovery, truth, and beauty. To me, those are far more galvanizing (and reciprocating) than invented coin and the pursuit of public praise.

So, again, I am really sorry for not doing my part. We are all crucial, inextricable elements of this Greater Thing together, and like Ralph Waldo Emerson opined in “Self Reliance,” if I’m not actively doing the “work” of what it is to be me, then no one else is either. And to repress who and what I am is to depress who and what I am. 

In order for this grand puzzle to work, we must all do our unique part, like the salmon that sims upstream, like the bear that eats part of the salmon and tosses it into the brush. Like the fungi that bore through the salmon and absorb its nutrients. Like the tree whose roots exchange sugar with the fungi for the nutrients from the salmon, grow tall as a result, and breathe oxygen into our lungs so that we may live out our life’s purpose.

We are the one’s driving out own flesh vehicles, and if we are stuck daydreaming and distracted to no avail, we are sleeping at the wheel. There is no autopilot. There is no cruise control — only active exploration or careening into a co-created void.

From the desk (and heart) of @marceloasherQ

Although I’d love to go through the joyful process of focusing on an individually-crafted message for each of the people in my life, both the feasibility of such an effort and the time sensitive nature of what I have to say require that I reach out with the quickness. Given the breadth of life I have lived so far, you might know me as a student, musician, parent of three daughters, high school literature teacher (in Argentina and in Virginia), writer, yoga practitioner, newspaper designer, web developer, content marketer, editor, journalist, outdoors enthusiast, traveler, photographer, filmmaker, insurance sales person, poet, pizza slinger … or one of many other roles I have stepped into over the years. But I’m coming to you now fulfilling a task that’s at once something I’ve never quite tried before and a culmination of everything I’ve ever been: a director, cinematographer, and producer of an ongoing cultural exchange documentary series that seeks to uncover global connections through music and film. As an introvert, reaching out in such a public way is not my norm (I’m growing). Being super vocal about my own projects can sometimes feel too narcissistic for me to do, but I feel that this project is so far beyond “me” that I’m unusually inspired to share it with you, hoping that perhaps you’ll seize the opportunity to be a part of it as well. Someone I deeply respect recently told me that “art” projects (like this) are much more difficult to crowdfund than goods or causes. I insist, however, that Street Muse is all three — a film you can purchase, a humanitarian effort you can support, and an artistic project you can experience and enjoy. This series began in 2012, when my dear friend and incredible musician (and excellent human) Nate “Gull” Rappole traveled with a small film crew to Kenya to perform his unique music and to interact with the local culture. After more than a month in Africa and many hours of editing, the hour-long Street Muse Kenya  documentary came to be. 

Over the past year, Nate, myself, and a few others have put in countless hours trying to ensure that the message of Street Muse does neither goes unnoticed nor ends with Kenya. We want to bring this project to as many nations as we can — not to impose any western (or personal) ideals on other people, but rather to connect with and showcase human culture as it is. You can help make this happen. Ultimately, the underlying message of this series is for everyone — not just music music and travel enthusiasts. Street Muse is here to show that as humans, we are one people, and that cultural exchange is one way that we can choose to wage peace. Yes, differences between us do exist, but my experience and belief is that through investigating and unpacking those differences, we inevitably find significant points of connection that far overshadow perceived details that make us believe we are “separate” from one another. And in a socio-polticidal climate that is plagued by countless lines of division, this is my way of helping to foster peaceful, collaborative unity among all peoples. While you can learn additional details from the Kickstarter campaign, I’ll leave some key points here:

We plan to explore Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam to learn how ecology influences the types of instruments and sounds humans make

The Street Muse Kenya team raised $10K in Kickstarter in 2012, but wound up spending more than twice that on overall production costs

We need to raise $25,000 by February 19 in order to reach our mark and receive any funding — it’s all or nothing

As of this writing, we’ve only recently broken the $6,640 mark

There’s less than one week left of the campaign

We have a long way to go, but you can help shorten that distance by getting involved. Whether it’s with $1, $1,000 (our largest pledge to date), or sharing to your social networks — every bit counts and is greatly appreciated.  Street Muse allows us (all of us) to bridge cultural gaps through music, and is a unique way to gain insight from personal connections and exchange.   We are currently screening Street Muse Kenya in Virginia, but would love to bring it to other cities over the next few days and weeks. Reach out to me if you like what you see and can help facilitate (in whatever way) a screening/Q&A/music performance night near you.

~Let’s continue this conversation together ~

Donate to Street Muse

Watch Street Muse Kenya

Matthew Paul Butler (MPB) wants you to feel what he feels.

What he feels when he’s listening to Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan and Songs: Ohia’s Jason Molina. What he feels when he’s writing or performing — perhaps putting down the microphone, unplugging the guitar and inviting you to hear the sound of your own voice and all the voices of those around you, together in the ever-present moment.

He wants you to feel connected, finding the way between you and yourself or you and something greater — even if that “something greater” is just the combination of yourself and anyone sharing in the experience.

MPB’s music is equal parts delicacy and anarchy — indie neo-folk soul rock — emotional and musical nuance and egress. His post-church, visceral spirituals are often raucous and attention grabbing, but with enough subtlety to incline you to turn up the volume (or stand closer) and let your eyelids fall in sweet meditation. You’ll experience a range of emotions set to lingering, distorted chords to sparse yet deft acoustic fingerings that provide reason to reflect or to throw down and dance.

Growing up between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the U.S. as the son of a charismatic preacher in a time when western Christianity drew a line through the music industry and proclaimed anything not overtly evangelistic to be unfit to be heard meant listening to the music he wanted to listen to was a conscious act of rebellion, carried out until early hours in the morning with a tape deck radio and foamy headphones.

MPB has in some ways strayed from his youth of leading music in churches, but there’s an obvious similarity between his father’s work as a minister and his as a minstrel. Both get to travel to meet new communities and reconnect with old friends, swapping stories about what it means to be alive, what it means to feel, to get bent, to disown old ways of doing things and to seek a new path.

Far from faithless, MPB’s beliefs are found in the expression of his day-to-day living, in composing melodic poems directed to strike you at your center and move you to do more than fold your arms and bob your head because you’re, as one lyric intones, “too cool to dance.”