Everything is already recycled. Creation is a restatement. A fresh arrangement of old matter. Matter so old its years are counted in light.

The cycle of life as it pertains to the physical is something I managed to grasp early on. Take some vegetation, compost it, water it, and out it springs into new life. It’s an easy process to understand, partly because it gives itself away. Smell anything in the lifecycle of, say, a log, and it’s easy to trace it to its other forms. It’s the mossy freshness. The earthy funk.

What has been less clear to me is how the intangible is recycled. What is the process of recycling the human spirit? Where is the soul’s funk? For me that one’s a bit harder to sniff out, but every once in a while its essence bubbles to the surface. For me it’s hard to watch this video and not see a constant resonance across everyone captured in its lens. In the street performers I see the energy of a musician, as timeless, tattered, and true as the instruments they’ve worn down with their bodies. Young and old, black, brown, red, and white, they are the fresh arrangement of old matter. Their energy is the funk.

Judge for yourself: