Mark Nepo's Blog, page 24

On and Off the Path

It's the light above the path

that points to the path that

makes it a path.

The way the sun off the moon

lights the oar with the peace

we were looking for while we

sleep it off adrift in the boat.

It's the light above the heart

that points to the heart that

makes each path necessary.

The way going there always

brings us here. The way loving

another always brings us

to ourselves.

It's the light we drop and

leave that makes each

giving a path.

The way a carpenter builds

home after home; knowing

that the sawing, the planing,

the hinging, the building

is his home.

It's the light we are but never

see that makes each soul a path.

The way the blossom of all

we feel and all we hide makes

the search for beauty unnecessary.

STAYING AWAKE: THE ORDINARY ART, A YEARLONG JOURNEY GUIDED BY MARK NEPO

SPRING 2012—SPRING 2013

FOUR WEEKENDS (FRI. 6:00-9:00 P.M., SAT. 9:30-5:30 P.M., SUN. 9:30-12:30 P.M.):

APRIL 13-15, 2012

JULY 13-15, 2012

NOV 9-11, 2012

APRIL 12-14, 2013

Those who wake are the students.

Those who stay awake are the teachers.

This journey offers a chance to work with Mark in a small group setting as a way to deepen your own path in the company of a small circle over a year of your life. The group will meet for four weekend retreats in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The course experience will explore staying awake as an applied art of spirit while unfolding the archetypal dynamics we all encounter in our struggles to engage our full humanity. The retreat is based on the 8CD box set of teaching conversations that Mark has recently recorded for Sounds True under the same name. Mark has been exploring these themes for thirty-five years.

On a personal level, staying awake is not something we can manipulate, but only live into. Each of us is born instinctively awake and yet it takes courage to stay awake, to remember that all we encounter is real. As such, staying awake is a timeless practice we must ultimately enter alone, but one we can enliven together. The journey back to wakefulness is an invitation each day to delve into what it means to be alive.

From inside this aliveness, it seems the point of experience is not to escape life but to live it. Mysteriously, truth is a secret hidden in the days until opened by our experience. For at the center of our experience, each of us holds an aspect of wisdom waiting to be discovered, and everything we meet, if faced and held, reveals a part of that wisdom to us. Each of us has a language of truth in our heart that only living our life can give voice to. And being a spirit in the world centers on how we meet the life of experience that no one can escape. In this, life is the master and we remain the student.

Using ancient and contemporary stories, poetry, journaling, and dialogue, Mark invites participants to befriend their own stories and listen for their own wisdom in this reflective and transformational journey. This course is an invitation to engage with profound and life-giving material that will deepen the way you perceive and relate to the world.

I bear witness to a mysterious truth that life has given me: that we are stronger, gentler, more resilient, and more beautiful than we imagine, and that the resource we call life is never far away. I know this because every time my heart has been broken or shattered, I have felt certain that it could never be put back together. And every time, without exception, not only has my heart mended but it has become larger, stronger, and more loving for the breaking. The mysterious and unfailing journey of how this happens is the ordinary art of staying awake and it involves the deep and continuous act of being present in all ways in all directions, which is the practice of holding nothing back.

—Mark Nepo

REGISTRATION FOR THE YEARLONG JOURNEY INCLUDES A SIGNED COPY OF THE SOUNDS TRUE BOX SET.

CLASS SIZE LIMITED TO 22. REGISTER EARLY.

CONTACT EILEEN.STRYKER@ATT.NET FOR MORE INFORMATION.

A note about payment options.

Ten early tickets were offered in two payments of $500. The remaining tickets are only available at full price. Once tickets are sold out, we will be collecting names for a wait list. Please contact Eileen Stryker directly if you wish to be put on the wait list.

Going Inward

I've been walking the acre

of my soul. It's been so long.

And there's the hill I used to

sit on. I'd watch the stars reflect

in the river when it was tired of

running. I wonder what the view

is now. But it takes at least a day

to get there and another to sit still

in the grass and another to wait for

the stars to come out and another

for the river to tire. Sure life keeps

taking us away. But the only time

I'm free of fear is when I drink

from that river.

A weekend-long workshop based on The Book of Awakening, with Mark Nepo

The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have



Details on cost and location are pending.

A workshop guided by Mark Nepo

"We travel so far only to land where we are. We imagine other lives, only to meet who we are. We seek out love in special ways, only to find everyone is special. Humbly, we can't avoid this journey. It is precisely through it that, if blessed, we wake to the life we want by being present to the life we have. In this timeless, common way, we venture out into the life of experience, only to rediscover more deeply what lives at the center. In this way, as our soul meets the days, we are always beginning. In this way, our very lives are a book of awakening, just waiting to read by our heart and lived on our path."

—Mark Nepo

This workshop is based on Mark's New York Times #1 bestseller The Book of Awakening, which Oprah Winfrey chose as one of her "Ultimate Favorite Things." The book has been translated into more than twenty languages. Beloved as a teacher, poet, and storyteller, Mark is a gentle guide on our journey to discover our personal truths.

The workshop will explore our ongoing need to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships we encounter. It is an invitation to personalize the common and unrepeatable journey we all encounter in being human. Topics will include "Being Kind," "Meeting the World," "The Stones in the Way," "The Need to Continue," "To Know Someone Deeply," "The Pain of Becoming," "The Magic of Peace," and "Facing Sacred Moments." Using ancient and contemporary stories, poetry, journaling, and dialogue, Mark will invite participants to befriend their own stories and listen for their own wisdom in this reflective and transformational gathering. This workshop is an invitation to engage with profound and life-giving material that will deepen the way you perceive and relate to the world.

Bring a journal.

Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—his frank and astonishing voice—befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail.

—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of You and Yours, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and Red Suitcase

Mark Nepo is one of the finest spiritual guides of our time.

—Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness and The Courage to Teach

Mark Nepo is . . . an insightful religious thinker and a decidedly credible voice of contemporary spirituality… an eloquent spiritual teacher.

—Herbert Mason, Professor of History and Religious Thought, Boston University, translator of Gilgamesh, A Verse Narrative

What Is Body Intelligence?

In the Whole IQ, Body intelligence is a reflection of the outer world of tangible forms and relationships in our lives. The tangible forms are not to impress people. Rather they are expressions of who we are. Michele talks about the "creative lifecycle" that she teaches where we aligned and connected with ourselves and world from the inside out.

The Early Sky Is Degas Yellow and You Are Still Asleep

I love this time of day. The only leaves left are

small silhouettes against the sky. They will go

unnoticed once the world wakes. Yesterday

while we were driving, George was setting

up the sawhorses outside his shop. As we

rolled through Parchment, the sun I so love

flooded the intersection and I couldn't see the

light was red. I started through it. You called out

and I blamed it on the sun. You questioned my

sight. We argued briefly. Then you wondered if

I should be using a table saw. I bristled at the

limitation. The sun then flooded on you. And

for a moment, I was able to drop my stubborn

denial that things are slowly breaking down.

For the moment, I could step out of me and

see how hard it is for you who cares so much

for everything you love. I know saying I'll be

careful doesn't always help. But as we turned

onto E Ave, I felt how much you love me. So

much goes unnoticed once the world wakes.

We are small silhouettes against the early

sky. I love this time of day.

Reading at Kalamazoo College, by MARK NEPO

STETSON CHAPEL, KALAMAZOO COLLEGE, at 7pm ET.

Mark Nepo will offer a publication reading from his new book of stories, As Far As the Heart Can See, (HCI Books, audio book by Simon & Schuster, Fall 2011).

This event is free and open to the public.

Going Home

It was the middle of the day.

Early September. Light skirting

out from under the leaves. I was

taking the compost to the edge of

the yard when I saw you pinching a

pot on the old bench near the bird

bath we'd lugged from Albany. Mira

was lying in the grass, sun closing her

eyes. Something in the quiet light

made me realize that we were now

in this moment all we'd hoped for.

I put the can down and sat next to

you. Watched your hands shape

the clay. I wanted to run my fingers

through your hair. A small cloud

bowed and the sun warmed my

hand on your knee.

Press Release: The More We Get Together

Robert McDowell's new book, The More We Get Together, is now available!

Do you believe, as the song says, that the more we get together the happier we'll be? Whether you do or not, you may wonder how such a thing can happen. Our paths to equanimity and happiness depend on spiritual practice and our capacity to love. How well we walk these paths depends on our communication skills—the words we choose and share, and our evolved, wholly present sexual unions.

Just as Robert McDowell's Poetry as Spiritual Practice has become a beloved inspirational companion, The More We Get Together: The Sexual and Spiritual Language of Love offers an original practice of poetry, journaling, and storytelling that makes all of the connections between sex, language, love, and spirituality.

By discovering our own unique stories through each other, spiritual practice, and the heroic act of writing, we can take our relationships and the work we do to new levels of evolved and healing consciousness.

Would you like to communicate in writing and conversation with honesty and accuracy? Would you like to discover greater self-confidence? Would you like to connect more deeply with family, friends, colleagues, and your sexual partners? Do you want to deepen your spiritual practice? If your answer is Yes to any or all of these, then you'll want to take advantage of my special offer today at http://www.poetrymentor.com/together.... If you want to take your relationships and your spiritual practice to new levels, if you want to connect with a compelling, compassionate guide for the work of hear change, order The More We Get Together today.

"In the torrent of self-help books on relationship, sex and intimacy, The More We Get Together offers a key to be found nowhere else: the power of language to carry us into the core of what we most yearn for with another. Archaeologists tell us that humankind first used words to learn to communicate the matters of the heart. We are still learning, and McDowell shows us the way."

—Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words

"Poetry exposes me to a different way of experiencing the world. I instantly translate the poems into pictures. I can see fields of grain or rain in Autumn. It is fascinating to see all the patterns and rhythms that can be woven into language. I always enjoy learning about the different ways that other people think of and experience the world."

—Dr. Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism

Purchase The More We Get Together, and do it today to enjoy the benefits of bonus gifts from dozens of your favorite authors and teachers.

The Vitality of Your Whole IQ

When you ignite your Whole IQ, the true Mind is able to serve your Spirit and Heart intelligences rather than seek to control them. When we live from greater wholeness, we see so many more creative possibilities!