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Kindly recorded for Brain Pickings. Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2021/07/26/david-whyte-the-truelove

POEM TEXT / CONTEXT

David Whyte reads his poem "The Truelove"

What To Remember When Waking

David Whyte, Poet, Author, Lecturer holds a degree in Marine Zoology and has traveled extensively, including living and working as a naturalist guide in the Galapagos Islands and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Andes, the Amazon and the Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures and workshops. http://www.davidwhyte.com

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David Whyte - The Three Marriages

David Whyte reads his poem "Everything Is Waiting for You." 

Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/8560

"Everything Is Waiting for You" by David Whyte

David Whyte reads his poem "No One Told Me." 

Find more at www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/8560

"No One Told Me" by David Whyte

David Whyte reads "Vulnerability," an excerpt from his book "Consolations." 

"Vulnerability" by David Whyte

“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet / confinement of your aloneness / to learn / anything or anyone / that does not bring you alive / is too small for you.”

David Whyte is a poet and philosopher who believes in the power of a “beautiful question” amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life — amidst the ways the two overlap, whether we want them to or not. He shared a deep friendship with the late Irish philosopher John O’Donohue. They were, David Whyte says, like “two bookends.” More recently, he’s written about the consolation, nourishment, and underlying meaning of everyday words.

Find more www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/8560

David Whyte — The Conversational Nature of Reality

Where does it hurt? That’s a question the civil rights icon Ruby Sales learned to ask during the days of that movement. It’s a question we scarcely know how to ask in public life now, but it gets at human dynamics that we are living and reckoning with. At a convening of 20 theologians seeking to reimagine the public good of theology for this century, Ruby Sales unsettles some of what we think we know about the force of religion in civil rights history, and names a “spiritual crisis of white America” as a calling of this time.

On Being with Krista Tippett

Ruby Sales — Where Does It Hurt?

Go to the doctor and they won't begin to treat you without taking your history — and not just yours, but that of your parents and grandparents before you. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson points this out as she reflects on her epic work of narrative non-fiction, "The Warmth of Other Suns." She's immersed herself in the stories of the Great Migration, the diaspora of six million African Americans to the north of the U.S. in the 20th century. It's a carrier of untold histories and truths that help make sense of human and social challenges newly visible at the heart of our life together.

Isabel Wilkerson — The Heart Is the Last Frontier

Before Pope Francis, James Martin was perhaps the best-loved Jesuit in American life. He’s followed the calling of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, to “find God in all things” — and for him that means being a writer of books, an editor of America magazine, and as a wise and witty presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. To delve into Fr. Martin's way of being in the world is to discover the "spiritual exercises" St. Ignatius designed to be accessible to everyone more than six centuries ago.

James Martin  — Finding God in All Things

Could we learn to talk about whiteness? The writer Eula Biss has been thinking and writing about being white and raising white children in a multi-racial world for a long time. She helpfully opens up words and ideas like “complacence,” “guilt,” and something related to privilege called “opportunity hoarding.” To be in this uncomfortable conversation is to realize how these words alone, taken seriously, can shake us up in necessary ways — but also how the limits of words make these conversations at once more messy and more urgent.

On Being with Krista Tippett 

Eula Biss — Let’s Talk About Whiteness

We take in the extraordinary wisdom of Congressman John Lewis, on what happened in Selma on Bloody Sunday and beyond — and how it might inform common life today. A rare look inside the civil rights leaders’ spiritual confrontation with themselves — and their intricate art of "love in action."

On Being Studios | Krista Tippett Public Productions

John Lewis — Love In Action

"Everlasting" - a poem by David Whyte, from his new book of poetry, "The Bell and The Blackbird."

The Bell and The Blackbird

Everlasting - DavidWhyte

Poet and philosopher David Whyte discusses his inner life and the importance of loneliness: "I've always felt that when you do feel loneliness, it's always a kind of inverse measure of what you actually belong to." Part three of The Lonely Hour's mini-series, Inner Lives. 

Original illustration by Payton Cosell Turner.

#33 How Loneliness Tells You Where to Go, with David Whyte

Self Portrait 
 
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong -- or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.
 
~ David Whyte ~
(Music: "Small Moments" by Above and Beyond)

Self Portrait (David Whyte) +  Small Moments  (Above and Beyond) - 2019 edit

Poem text and context: https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/08/19/david-whyte-sometimes/

David Whyte Reads "Sometimes"

Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning, hosted by Krista Tippett. Every Thursday a new discovery about the immensity of our lives — and frequent special features like poetry, music and Q + A with Krista.

David Whyte — The Conversational Nature of Reality

On Being Studios

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