Matthew Peter Crowley
was born the youngest of seven boys in an Irish Catholic family in the small town of Bethany Connecticut. Dropping out of middle school, with perhaps death as one of his greatest teachers (losing his Grandfather at 3, brother at 7 and mother at 14), Matthew, as the expression goes, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, passed a high school equivalency exam and tried a year in community college. Dropping out again to pursue capitalism full time, he traded the adolescent pack of Marlboro reds and leather jacket for the more socially acceptable Cadillac and tie. Eighteen years and a million dollars later and having been duly punished for being a good salesman by being sentenced to management, he spoke a prayer aloud at dawn asking “…to be closer to the earth I love.” Forty minutes later he was, by grace, relieved of his duties and laid off by corporate America. In his own version of the “hero’s journey”, he road-tripped the next three years traveling the country and making more friends than he ever thought possible. Having successfully squandered his equity in the American Dream (a seemingly necessary part of the journey) and needing to get a job, he eventually landed in the highly unlikely community of Crestone Colorado, which is just east of the middle of nowhere, in the largest high alpine valley in North America. As unlikely as finding employment in this curious community of 1,500 souls was, he leveraged his previous experience, this time for the benefit of the earth, and landed a job. Matthew now serves as Operations Manager for a Japanese based not for profit organization. As it happens, Crestone Colorado is the sacred site representing “earth” for this international, spiritual organization. What was that prayer? Matthew highly encourages people not to be careful what they pray for. The author now lives off the grid at the edge of Edgeville in the home that called his name—Crow’s Outpost, with his partner Kelly and son Arthur, where he practices fatherhood, partnerhood, writing, photography, and noticing and remembering as much as he can.