David Whyte: Being at the Frontier of Your Identity

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April 23, 2013

David Whyte: Being at the Frontier of Your Identity

David Whyte April 23, 2013

Tami Simon speaks with David Whyte, a passionate speaker, poet, and author of four Sounds True audio programs, including Clear Mind, Wild Heart and What to Remember When Waking: The Disciplines of an Everyday Life. In this rebroadcast of one of the most popular Insights at the Edge interviews, Tami speaks with David about how each of our lives unfolds as a great conversation with reality, which is the source of originality. David also shares some of his poetry, and explores how our innate sense of exile is actually a core human competency, how vulnerability enhances our perception, and what it might mean to tap into the invisible support that is always available to us. (61 minutes)

David Whyte grew up with a strong, imaginative influence from his Irish mother among the hills and valleys of his father’s Yorkshire. He now makes his home in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The author of twelve books of poetry and four books of prose, David Whyte 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, Amazon, and Himalaya. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, lectures, and workshops. David’s life as a poet has created a readership and listenership in three normally mutually exclusive areas: the literate world of readings that most poets inhabit, the psychological and theological worlds of philosophical inquiry, and the world of vocation, work, and organizational leadership.

Author photo © Bodi Hallett

Listen to Tami Simon's in-depth audio podcast interview with David Whyte:
Being at the Frontier of Your Identity »

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Subscribe to Insights at the Edge to hear all of Tami’s interviews (transcripts available too!), featuring Eckhart Tolle, Caroline Myss, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Adyashanti, and many more.

Meet Your Host: Tami Simon

Founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She hosts a popular weekly podcast called Insights at the Edge, where she has interviewed many of today's leading teachers. Tami lives with her wife, Julie M. Kramer, and their two spoodles, Rasberry and Bula, in Boulder, Colorado.

Photo © Jason Elias

Also By Author

David Whyte: Everything Is an Invitation

A good poem, says David Whyte, is revelatory; it takes hold of us and surprises us with new understanding. David Whyte is the bestselling author of ten books of poetry, three works of prose, and the celebrated Sounds True audio program What to Remember When Waking

In this podcast, Tami Simon speaks with David about his writing career, his creative approach to leadership, and the conversation with life to which we are all constantly invited. Tami and David discuss the willingness to have courageous conversations; the generativity of “a well-felt sadness”; reframing regret; the seven steps of invitational leadership; “robust vulnerability” and choosing the path we really care about; anguish, anxiety, and being OK with the unknown; letting go; “apprenticing ourselves to our own disappearance”; and more.

Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

The Practice of the Imagination, with David Whyte

In this short video, poet David Whyte takes listeners on a journey into the nature and practice of the imagination. For David, while we ordinarily think of the imagination as the ability to think up new things, the poetic tradition sees the imagination as the ability in each of us to form a central image which provides a container for our own belonging. As we explore this image – and as it unfolds within us – we come to discover our innate aliveness.

David is the author of three inspiring audio learning programs with Sounds True:

When the Heart Breaks: A Journey Through Requited and Unrequited Love

Clear Mind, Wild Heart: Finding Clarity and Courage through Poetry

What to Remember When Waking: The Disciplines of an Everyday Life

Enjoy this short video with David on the practice of the imagination.

David Whyte: Being at the Frontier of Your Identity

Tami Simon speaks with David Whyte, a passionate speaker, poet, and author of four Sounds True audio programs, including Clear Mind, Wild Heart and What to Remember When Waking: The Disciplines of an Everyday Life. In this rebroadcast of one of the most popular Insights at the Edge interviews, Tami speaks with David about how each of our lives unfolds as a great conversation with reality, which is the source of originality. David also shares some of his poetry, and explores how our innate sense of exile is actually a core human competency, how vulnerability enhances our perception, and what it might mean to tap into the invisible support that is always available to us. (61 minutes)

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A Message of Gratitude

Dear Sounds True friend,

At this time of thanks-giving, I want to thank you, a beloved member of our extended Sounds True community of listeners, readers, authors, and learners worldwide.

Thank you for your interest and willingness to be an explorer of your inner world.

Thank you for your perseverance, your willingness to be here, with all of life’s great joys and terrible griefs and sorrows. Thank you for being ”on the journey,” with all of the ways life breaks open our hearts and asks us to expand and hold a larger space of love.

Thank you for your courage to be you, beloved and singular, the you that carries a unique gift, some special look, a cry and a laugh never heard before, a contribution we need. Thank you for being yourself and extending yourself to others, even in small ways, which often turn out to be huge.

My own prayer this Thanksgiving is to remain steadfast and true. Please know that here at Sounds True we remain so—and we love doing so in connection with you. We are here because you are here. This thanks-giving, I bow to the strength and goodness of our human hearts.

With you on the journey,

Tami

P.S. Here is a thanks-giving offering, a classic poem from Mary Oliver:

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be 
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few 
small stones; just 
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t 
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence, in which 
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver, Thirst

Tami Simon

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