Listening Is A Personal Pilgrimage with Mark Nepo

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Mark Nepo describes deep listening as a very active and engaging process, a pilgrimage of sorts. It is an act of opening our hearts to whatever is before us. This is ultimately a transformative journey that is constantly unfolding and emerging. Deep listening informs our friendships, our giving and receiving, our place in the web of relationship with all life. We find our own footing when we’ve been truly seen and witnessed. Here, Nepo gives many examples of deep listening and how it can lead us to more effective lives. He shares how nature can be our teachers and describes the ocean as having “incredible power and yet, at the same time, it is so sensitive and gentle that if you stick your finger in it, it will register that ripple across the entire mass of it. It’s clear, it reflects everything that looks into it. It accepts everything that enters it without losing any of itself. It is formless and yet it doesn’t lose who or what it is. This is a great teacher for us to know we can be who we are without needing to insist on our identity.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who, for over three decades, has been teaching in the fields of poetry and spirituality. As a cancer survivor, Mark remains committed to the usefulness of daily inner life. He devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship.

He is the author of many books including:

• Reduced to Joy (Cleis Press 2013)
• Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred (Atria 2012)
• The One Life We're Given: Finding the Wisdom That Waits in Your Heart (Atria Books 2016)
• The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Sounds True 2016)
• More Together Than Alone: Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World (Atria Books 2018)
• Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression (Sounds True 2019)

His many audio learning courses include:

• Staying Awake: The Ordinary Art (Sounds True 2012)
• Holding Nothing Back: Essentials for an Authentic Life (Sounds True 2012)
• More Together Than Alone: Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World (Atria Books 2018)

To find out more about the work of Mark Nepo go to www.marknepo.com. 

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• How taking a walk with his grandmother taught him that receiving can be giving
• His discovery that we are enough as we are
• How birds sing at the first rays of light to establish a web of relationship
• How we can find our own footing when friendship is evoked and when we have been truly seen and witnessed by another
• Why we don’t need to “fix” each other
• What is paradox and how we can hold it
• How we can be inspired by the life of Beethoven
• How the story of a moose caught in ice inspires us to keep each other company through the dark
• How the ocean is a great teacher

Host: Justine Willis Toms     Interview Date: 12/6/2013     Program Number: 3490

Music Playlist

From Album: Fresh Impressions
Artist: Georgia Kelly and Steven Kindler
1987 Global Pacific Records #GPD 329

Opening Essay: Track 01 Sicilienne by Eric Satie
Music Break 1: Track 09 Pastorale d'eté by Arthur Honegger
Music Break 2: Track 05 Gnossienne #2 by Eric Satie
Music Break 3: Track 06 Gnossienne #3 by Eric Satie