November Newsletter! About “The World is Your Lover,” Kickstarter Update & Shows

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Hey you,

I’ve got the magic hour candle burning.  The laundry is whipping around.  The sink is full of dishes.  I finally vacuumed my car out from the summer.  I feel like a bachelor (pardon the stereotype),  living off clif bars and pizza luce and refried beans.  It’s all good stuff,  but damn it’s been a lot of stuff!

I hope you’ve had more time for self care then me!  I plan to sleep more … once I finish this kickstarter,  record this album,  and complete the last season of The Walking Dead. :O) This weekend heading to teach at a yoga retreat,  so that should help!

Crashing Into Nature: Survivor Guilt and Butterflies

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Good morning to you on World Mental Health Day.  I want to re-post a piece I wrote for an excellent local mental health organization called Dissonance and share with you some struggles I had as a teen,  which sometimes linger and loiter into my adult years.

This blog was originally posted on the wonderful Dissonance blog,  a mental health + creativity support organization whose mission is as follows “Dissonance examines the intersection of creativity and wellbeing, working to create safe spaces, smash social stigmas, and shape education and business practices relating to mental health, addiction, and compassion in the arts. In short, we want to contribute to a healthier environment in the arts community. Collectively, we need to find new ways to support, sustain, and celebrate creativity.”

Please be sure to follow their work,  check out their programming,  and enjoy their blog at www.dissonance.website

Crashing into Nature: Survivor Guilt and Butterflies

I could easily say, “I wasn’t your normal American teenager,” but I don’t think there is such a thing as a “normal teenager” … or even “normal” in general. Sometimes I’ve heard that your first trauma is where you might stay stuck developmentally. And I wonder if that’s why often I feel reckless and distracted, and consistently on an emotional roller coaster, like the 16-year-old I was when I rolled my parents’ Buick LeSabre and hung upside down by my seat belt while the trance music blasted and the car interior bathed eerie electric green from the clock on the dash.

Gaelynn Lea’s Learning How to Stay cuts through the fog – album review

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Gaelynn Lea’s Learning How to Stay cuts through the fog

It’s the eve of the fall equinox and my self-diagnosed SAD is kicking in. The past week has been all rain and thunder and bluster. More chances to stay inside with the tea kettle and contemplate the cold cruel world. I keep returning to a song, over an over, and it is Gaelynn Lea’s Moment of Bliss.

Mary Bue Patreon Minneapolis Singer Songwriter

The New Frontier, The Wild West

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The New Frontier,
The Wild West

Hello dear music friend,

Last weekend I took a trip out west with my new beau.  It wasn’t super far west,  but a good 9 hours from Minneapolis to Western North Dakota where the landscape changes to plateaus and buttes and miles and grasslands.  Majestic beast roam:  Bison,  Elk, Wild Horse,  and Coyote howls.  The moon switched to new,  and a full day was spent walking to get water from a spring and then walking back to camp.  For some people,  this is their life …

“I Have Wrestled With The Angel And I Am Stained With Light” – Mary Oliver / April 2018 Newsletter

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Good morning, sunshine …

To begin,  a quote by Mary Oliver from a stirring article twitter brought to my awareness via Brian Pickings:

“It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.” – Mary Oliver

 

Majesty of Beasts Poem

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 Hi! I’d like to share with you the poem that became the lyrics to the title track of my last musical project “The Majesty of Beasts.” This song is about the beauty of the earth and its beings. It’s about humans wanting pretty things on their walls and in their bellies so much that we are devastating our beautiful home. It’s about violence. It’s about love. It’s about evolving beyond greed and recognizing the majesty of the earth so much that we can just let it be majestic … (There is also a reference to The Walking Dead, which I am obsessed with – but I’m behind in the series cuz I only have watched it on Netflix. It’s killing me!!)
Mary Bue Minneapolis Singer Songwriter

Dreams of Babies

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Last night I dreamt that I was super pregnant and about to have a baby. I was in the hospital with a sweet partner and my parents were there and it was ON.  I woke up from this dream bawling my head off.  WTF?

Why was I bawling? Because  I’m 36 and no baby in sight,  don’t know if it’s even possible? I don’t think that’s it —  Babies haven’t always been a dream of mine,  always a little indifferent about having one until recently when I’ve fallen in love with my friends’ kids and had inklings of how amazing it would be to have one.  Later on in this day I went running 16 miles to train for a marathon and had a beer with my friend, and have been geeking out at the computer doing work for hours.  I could not have this freedom with a newborn, no siree.

I’ve had baby dreams before.  Usually these babies are tiny,  smaller than the palm of my hand.  In one dream I carried the baby around in a teacup,  in another I kept her safe in a cough drop wrapper.  In one dream she was in a glowing orb of white light.

 

I’ve written about my musical projects as babies before as well.  Things to be protected in utero but released and let go to find their own ways in the world.

In real talk,  I’ve been depressed and heartbroken.  I’ve been working through heavy heart stuff and feeling like my life is sort of pointless.  I feel like I’ve been fucked with and rattled around a lot this past year.  I played a part in this,  and trying to stay strong.  The world is in such pain;  our country is a total shitshow.  It’s appalling.  So do we stay depressed?  Or do we take action?  Do we melt in paralysis of fear,  not leaving the house,  not looking for love,  avoiding being big & living out loud for fear of offending some lurking evil,  sometimes as close to heart as friends or lovers?

What I’m taking from this dream is that I’ve got all these unborn babies waiting to see the light of day,  ideas and songs and books and blogs and paintings and poems.  If I sit paralyzed in fear and pain all I’m gonna do is stuff myself with vegan quesadillas and gain 20 pounds back and cry in a corner.  I’m sick of it.  Real or imagined babies need us to do the work of making this planet more beautiful.  With our art,  with our action,  with our hope,  with our compassion.  With community,  with peaceful gatherings,  with conversations,  with healthy boundaries,  with deep solitude,  with therapy,  with poetry,  with film,  with song.  No more time to waste moping.  May your babies real or dreamy sleep sweetly tonight …

Painting of Tori Amos by Mary 😉

Mary Bue The Current Minneapolis Instant Band

July Newsletter: Minneapolis love & sail the unsalted sea with me

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Hiya friends,

Hope you’re full up of summer loving,  good tunes,  dips in lakes and seas,  and going easy on yourselves.  It’s all manic or go home in Minnesota.  We burn ourselves out in these warm months like crazy bears gorging out on berries and then we can hibernate during the winter and long for the hot summer days.  Don’t I know it!!!

Been an exciting time around here!  Last month I did this crazy thing with 89.3 The Current called “The Current Instant Band” where we were basically puppets to a live facebook audience,  telling us what to sing,  what genres to play,  when to take a solo.  Little do you know that I am terrified of improvisation.  Every since my first piano lessons,  ever since being in 6th grade jazz band and then freezing like a deer in headlights at the concert during my “Hang on Sloopy” solo time.  Ask any bandmate.  So this was a crazy leap for me.  Very fun, though,  i surprised myself.  It’s only taken me 20 years of performing to get there. HA!