david whyte
listening to david whyte reminds me of something I had long ago forgotten. his words, written and spoken, feel like a homecoming. there is permission within them to lose oneself in the questions and the listening. to simply arrive at what is here, waiting for me. for us.
david calls this “the empty space beneath the breath where everything real emerges.”
david is a poet and a philosopher. he is the author of nine books of poetry and four books of prose, including his two most recent books, the bell and the blackbird and consolations: the solace, nourishment and underlying meaning of everyday words.
he is a speaker, teacher and writer. but more than anything, david is a man devoted to the mystery and expression of the soul. a man whose job in life is to “get it” and then to poetically, magically, beautifully, reveal it to us.
Some things we talk about…
- how to break the surface conversation and enter into the one that belongs only to you
- sense of humor as a spiritual discipline
- the role of the body in art and how to come into the traumatized parts from your past
- what it means to be a “real artist”
- being visible and vulnerable in your work and life
“listening to adult conversation as a child, I had the sense that these people were absolutely insane and had forgotten the priorities of existence. I basically began seeing adult life as a form of amnesia and was terribly disappointed by what I often witnessed.”
“you make this invitation to the soul inside of you and quite often you feel as if your well-controlled surface life is breaking down because of it. I see the soul as the part of us that’s trying to belong to the world in the greatest and biggest and largest, most breathable way.”
