Mark Nepo

One of the ideas that's been introduced to me, one of my great teachers in my life is actually a poet and a spiritual teacher.

His name is Mark Nepo, and you might be very familiar with him.

And he's been on the show a number of times now, and I've learned so much over the years from him.

One of the things that he talks about as a poet is this notion of distance.

I always start with gratitude.

I start with reading something from Mark Nepo, and then I check in with, uh, whatever might be on my schedule for the day.

But then I allow myself to just enjoy that little moment, short amount of time, where I'm connecting with my boy.

Uh, the other thing I'm doing right now that I'm not trying to optimize as much as I'm trying to enjoy is exercise.

The monk confused, implored, then what are you? Tell me please, what are you? Buddha could not repress his joy and he replied, I am awake.

It's a story by Mark Nepo from the Book of Awakening.

We are the beneficiaries of the Buddha being awake 2,500 years after his powerful awakening.

The reality of our present-day lives is blessed and energized by his experience of enlightenment, being a glow lit from within, a life of being awake.

But I think about that idea of having thick skin or being resilient and continuing in the face of some of these challenges that you've described, where so easily you can fall off or close off or whatever it might be.

And there was a guest named Mark Nepo, who's a spiritual teacher and a poet, probably one of the great poets of our time.

And he said during conversation in 2018, he asked this question, which I've been exploring with incredible guests over the years, over the past eight years.

The question was, when my heart begins to close, how do I open it again?

So once again, stories are powerful medicine.

Poet and author Mark Nepo reminds us that stories are small doses of what matters.

And he says, it is the telling that releases the medicine.

the telling that soothes our pain and shares our joy.

I'm so excited to have this conversation.

I did a conversation earlier in the year with Mark Nepo on midlife, which was a really interesting and philosophical conversation.

But you have spent 30 years studying midlife, which is really interesting to me that you have had so much focus on this, which we're gonna get into today.

But what's interesting, Margie, is culturally, I think we think of this stage as like a lens of crisis-

So the last poem I read is in the final chapter of The Belonging, and this one is in the opening.

After I fell in the canyon of grief, and it begins with an epigraph by Mark Nepo, we discover that falling in the canyon is our initiation.

After I fell in the canyon of grief...

I didn't land.

So the more fully we become ourselves, the less possible it is to be full of ourselves, I think is a pretty reliable formula.

Beloved poet, spiritual teacher, and storyteller Mark Nepo, and writer, speaker, activist, and founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal, Parker J. Palmer, have touched the lives of millions of people around the globe, seeking to live more courageously, authentically, and in ways that foster a more compassionate world.

For some time, I've dreamt of getting the two of them together to explore some of the greatest lessons they've learned over the course of their lives and careers about what it means to live well, to work well, and to relate to each other and the world in life-giving ways.

We finally did.

For more on Parker, his books, podcast, and other offerings, please visit newcomerpalmer.com. For more about the Center for Courage and Renewal, visit couragerenewal.org. And for more about Mark Nepo, his nearly 30 books, poetry, and live events, please visit marknepo.com. I'm Joshua Steinfeld, and this is The Courageous Life.

Well, I have to say this may for me be a career highlight and just a joy, a joy to be with the two of you.

I'm so grateful.

I had just been too scared to say it first.

And it really made me think about how everything, not everything is meant to last forever, right? Everything has a season and a reason and a time sometimes, you know? And that doesn't have to be ugly, right? And so it reminded me of, I really love Mark Nepo's Book of Awakening.

And his September 15th reading was beautiful.

I'm just going to give you three lines of it.