Levi Macallister

Introducing Clothes For Ghosts: Using Writing to Give Language to the Haunted Parts of You I started writing / working on this course about a year ago. Shot it all this summer before I went on tour for four months, and finished editing it last week. I’m proud of it. A few people have already started going through the course, and I’ve gotten some great feedback so far. Obviously, “great feedback” is always great to get, but what with this being something new for me, I admit that it feels that much better… I created this after spending the last couple of years working with my… What? Students?… one-on-one during our Coffee Dates. I started to notice that, almost without fail, similar questions and patterns of conversation would arise during our sessions, and I wanted to take some of the best of them to create an at-your-own-pace option for folks looking to do some “inner excavation” work through their writing. I’ve heard it said that “stories are survival information” — and they’ve certainly been that for me. I’m interested in the way writing and storytelling help us heal. Help us cultivate wholeness. The spirituality of the written word. I love to help people bring their inner world to surface, where they can see who they actually are, and live into an openhearted expression of that truth, for the sake of the world. So, this is that. Clothes For Ghosts. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Thanks for rocking with me. I truly hope it serves you. You can find out all about it under the “course” page on my website. Link is where the links go.

I tell stories. I write poems. I think out loud. I get lost. I get found. I get lost again. Come back around. I speak too soon. I wait too long. I hate rigidity and my resistance makes me rigid. I get stuck in fear traps. I try. I fail. I like weird shit. I’m interested in everything. I mess with language. I’m a recovering perfectionist seeking wholeness - where horizontals meet verticals encircled in paradox. For a long time, I thought of myself as more a pastor than a poet. I’ll have more to say about that, I’m sure. For now — in the words of Audrey Assad — “I have unmistakably found something that will likely surprise no one (except for me) — I am an artist.” (Well, at least, I’m on my way to being one.) What is A Becoming? TL;DR — I am. “To think is to unify, to make wholes where there are scattered fragments, not merely to imitate (or repeat information) but to contribute a new unity to the world and thus to contribute new form of insight to the world it would otherwise be without.” — Teilhard de Chardin I try to help people see. 🤷‍♀️ I do my best to offer language to those who long for an empathetic witness to this unspeakable reality called being alive. And - you know - there’s also a kid in me who just wants to dick around. He wants to explore. He wants to write about stuff that isn’t high and lofty. Transcendence is immanence, after all. ;-) He loves applesauce and peanut butter. Sometimes he peeks his head out. I’d love to give him more breathing room, here. I think he’s the main reason I’m writing this, now. He found something curious and playful about Substack. Maybe it’d be a good thing to re-develop a practice of casting my net to the other side of the boat and letting my freak flag fly. We’ll see how it pans out. Come hang, bby. Everybody’s doin it. (@jamietworkowski FINALLY) ;-) 📸: @softpoem

Over the years — whether I've been on tour and someone has offered to take me out for a favorite morning brew, or solicited a brain-picking over the internet — these one-on-one conversations tend toward the witnessing of one another's lives. I guess my old indoctrination as a Starbucks employee stuck: coffee is where people come together (although, feel free to bring yourself a whisky, or a water, or whatever). I've spent 15 years as a writer, touring performance poet, author, artist, (blah blah blah blah blah — enter whatever title you want to here), and am now offering coaching / consulting / creative direction sessions on a limited basis. Truth be told, I've been doing this on the down-low for the last couple of years, and there's no real telling where the conversations will go, but I've paid enough attention to notice recurring themes that I'd call my "areas of focus.” Most of them tend to revolve around being and doing "human" as folks who connect through written art and storytelling, but not everyone's a writer. I've worked with dancers, speakers, high-school-students, poets, spiritual directors, academics, mom-and-pop shops, big-money businesses and folks who just want to free themselves to journal "better," to name a few. I call these meetings Coffee Dates, and if you've any interest in meeting together, I'd love to hear from you. Okie-dokie. — 📸: @imanigivertz @iamdavidlawrence @altered_frame_media

I feel so honored to have an endorsement from @levithepoet a spoken word poet, author, and friend! Levi’s ability to find the depth of everything is so inspiring. It’s been amazing to watch him follow his curiosity in his art with such authenticity and integrity that is honestly really rare to see in spiritual spaces. When I first began dreaming of this book I got to have a long conversation with Levi about my evolving thoughts on purpose, and hearing his story about how he has navigated this wild and unpredictable life helped me see that these ideas would resonate with more people than just me! Check out Levi’s work, follow him, and also preorder his upcoming book, Pay Attention, You’re Alive! You Don’t Need a Calling: An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto for a Life of Purpose comes out June 23! Preorder wherever books are sold. Check out damongarcia.com/calling for more info!

If you don’t know how to be an Instagram poet, don’t be, and don’t worry about it. Write as many words as there are grains of sand, or Abraham’s children, and cast your glitter into the night sky. Watch them constellate into outlines for others to name. Like Orion, like the Big Dipper, like the Little Dipper, and do not mock them for giving fickle names to your image, the way God does not—does not— berate us for the many names we’ve given her. If you are not Rupi Kaur, it’s fine. Blunder away. I have wanted to be Conor Oberst and David Whyte and Adam Duritz and Eminem and yet here I remain, and isn’t that a beautiful thing? The amount of times that someone has written to let me know that I am not a real poet are astounding. By all means, do what you want with your time. I have no rebuttal but “okay.” You could be planting a lilac or writing real poetry and letting us read it or burying the seed to watch it crack. Who cares? Let everyone have their say. It has nothing to do with you. I hope you fall in love with your failure to be anyone else in the world.

march. got the book proof and fixed the book proof and the book is officially in production and so now i gotta figure out a show for the book to book shows. that was fun to type. speaking of poets and books, the mr. david gate was in town at the same time as bry and we went with the llewellyn’s to maiz-de-la-vida our hearts out. skinny dennis’d the evening away and got to see chris and rend collective for the first time the next day in a building i’ve run past a thousand times with no idea what actually happens inside of it. they were amazing. kate, ben and i went to craig’s with bouj-y for his birthday and the ice cream cake thing with the fire was unreal (the sprinkles!) and the table next to us left a full drink mostly untouched when they left so obviously that became my drink. took a couple bathroom selfies (NO BIG DEAL) and got frank out to fontanelle for some traipsing around. savannah released her record and hosted the coolest listening party. doing that feels like the height of vulnerability and she killed it. got to see abby play some of my favorite songs and also talk to ai about how it needs to stop talking with seth (and laphraoig). back to hangs with ben and mark and i love that we’ve done this for so long. jen helped me shoot some rad book-things that’ll start to roll when i enter into my REALLY ANNOYING PROMOTIONAL ERA. jason was in town and seth was there too except he left before i took a picture (we were all just so in the moment you know don’t @ me whatever). kelly told me about pen15 on hulu and it’s cracking me up, and there are a couple ego-less (or maybe they’re egoic?) bears in five points. i also want that mycelial network t-shirt. don’t forget to listen to the new bon iver concerts live record today, and also lets do some shows this year, and also ily.

Tomorrow night in East. DM for address / RSVP.

VIOLET—To Be Trusty—Zine No. 07 of 07. To those of you who have collected this series and/or picked one up along the way: thank you. It has been so fun to create these, and I never imagined that when I started they’d go so far as to turn into a whole book release. Evidence of the fact that you just don’t know what can come of idea you’ve got until you start to make something out of nothing, I guess. It’s been good for me, and I want to keep making zines into the future, but this is the last of this series edition. Hope you love it. There are 25 VIOLETs available, now. Get them at the place where you get them. Thank you. ❤️

February. Mardi Gras edition + some. I wanted to post more than twenty pictures so here’s a nice little collage. Couple great birthdays this month for John and Todd. I sat at both of them and just marveled at how I got so lucky as to have made such incredible friends out here, and been invited to celebrate with them. Their genuineness and kindness. The way they support and show up for one another. The way they’ve shown up for me. It’s such a gift. I went to New Orleans and got to have a reunion with my lifelong besties and spend Mardi Gras with some of the most welcoming people I know, and make some new friends and dance and laugh and parade and play and wear some shorts-ish and talk Taco Bell. I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun. Brene Brown has this great interview where she talks about how joy is the hardest emotion for people to experience because you’re always wondering when the shoe’s gonna drop, but the most incredible thing happened while I was there: I was there. I wasn’t anywhere else and I am rarely not everywhere else. Nothing but thank-yous to give. Also air mattresses aren’t meant to hold three people and also I got sick after but it doesn’t matter. Also maybe Sharon Osbourne was there and maybe she wasn’t but I’d like to choose to believe that it was her. Had the second-to-last of our first-year-intensives in The Healing Collective’s spiritual formation program immediately after getting home, and I’m thankful for Mallory and my cohort—it has felt at times like the first place I’ve enjoyed a depth of spiritual community since Mars fell apart, and that’s been interesting for my nervous system but something I’m grateful for (minus my vulnerability hangovers and imposter syndrome). Hillary and Josh were in town for their Holy Hurt event at Spero and it was remarkable. Well done, genuine, helpful. Brought up a lot, which is a post for another time, but still… what fullness! Submitted my book for print and am stoked. Garrett’s godmother stayed with us the last few days and we all went to Skinny Dennis and doted over Frank with pup cups and Ilya and Shane are doing great and it was a beautiful end to a beautiful month. Love love love.

January. My family came to Cheekwood. Worked with some of @lindsayderrico ’s contemplation cards. Burnt some words in a @sperodei bonfire. Played putt-putt with Ben and Amy in a virtual world. Made a whiteboard poster in my bedroom that I’m gonna make into a poster-poster for yours. Ate tacos and saw the Preds play (thank you @cay_mackenzie ). Read some lovely fiction and celebrated Alex’s birthday eating red velvet all looking like he stabbed his guests. Been thinking about my dad a lot. I took that picture of him, on the Great Wall of China, when I was sixteen. Mom found it and I barely remembered. He’s been gone for fifteen years now and I keep thinking of him being scared and it’s breaking my heart. Watched a Niners game by myself in a jersey someone gave me and told me I had to wear to try to help Garrett’s team win and I’m pretty sure it actually made them lose instead. On well. We went to see The Bone Temple and ate Cheesecake Factory after and I got a pizza-style chicken parm that could’ve fed thirteen people. I love and am so thankful for his friendship. Made a Memento Mori zine for people’s birthdays as inspired by @thuhtyler . Starting reading The Tears of Things (and tear-ing) the morning Rene Good was killed. Feeling a lot—by some grace—without leaving my body. What a gift Father Rohr has been to my life, and my love, and my faith, and my humanity. Timely work, to say the least. The ice-storm has ravaged Nashville and I’m so grateful to @dadrockrachel & @softpoem who housed me and Frank during the outages—miracles, period, and more-so, given everything (including a turtleneck). Came into the new year with two things: “if you’re going to create, create collaboratively,” and “ask for help.” Both exciting, humbling and necessarily communal. Working on it. Was talking to Amy last night about what a wonder it is to come back around to things, like what a kindness it is to not have to “deserve” to be loved. Everything transforms. Thank God. Got to eat the best damn vegetable soup-puree thing ever, compliments of the best damn chef in town, @bentlaw , and talk Kesha with him and @johnpritchard . In the faces of my friends and family, kindness beyond measure.

Fernie, B.C. I wrote this poem while living with @markgriffith for a few months. We drove to Fernie to snowboard one morning and it was cold and it was beautiful and it was dark outside and I was writing into my notes app and we stopped to pee next to a lake buttressed against a mountain with a lighthouse on top of it, glowing in the predawn light. This is one of the pieces that will be a part of my new book of poetry and short essays, “Pay Attention, You’re Alive.” Background jams from @alexsugg ’s age-old project, Songs for Story. #levithepoet #spokenwordpoetry #poetry #writing

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