David whyte seminars

His dynamic recitation and explication of poetry creates a bridge to individuals grappling with the challenges of life and leadership that are difficult to articulate. As a poet and a seeker of self-knowledge, I wanted to meet the man behind the words and learn something of his repertoire of over poems. I live my life in widening circles, that reach out across the world …. LOIS P. Is it possible to achieve both, and why is this concept so important to you and your present work?

The blackbird is the world calling to you as it finds you now and perhaps, even more importantly, as it finds itself, with no need for improvement. Hearing the bell and hearing the blackbird, at one and the same time, is the encapsulation of a way through all our present difficulties in this polarized, conflict-ridden world.

In fact, it may represent the essence of contemplation, not as passivity or removal from engagement, but bringing together that simultaneous sense of intimacy and distance that all human beings feel at one and the same time in one physical experience.

We live at that crossroads of intimacy and distance in a marriage, in a work, and indeed, just walking across the park. Every day we are constantly trying to eliminate distance or create it in our lives, we are constantly trying to create intimacy or run a hundred miles from it; our unhappiness lies in constantly choosing between the two. The image says there is a way to hold both by understanding the essence of our identity as always being at that crossroads, that the foundational miracle of human incarnation is the ability to experience and hold them both together at one and the same time.

You are irretrievably alone, and you also belong to others and to the world in ways you cannot ever fully comprehend. Both are true, and letting that meeting place come alive inside you is where good poetry and perhaps more importantly the life human beings have wanted for themselves since the beginning of conscious time become a real possibility.

That radiance you have always carried with you as you walk both alone and completely accompanied in friendship by every corner of the world crying Allelujah. In a world that relies heavily on escapism, you continually invite your readers to come to ground in reality.

Perhaps more accurately, it is our fear of not being large enough, generous enough, or brave enough to fully incarnate that power. One of the reasons we refuse to make proper, clear invitations to others, why we are fearful of making invitations, whether in leadership in the corporate world, or in the intimacies of a marriage, is that the invitation is always interpreted and received in larger ways than we intended.

For over 15 years, Whyte has been consulting the corporate world in North America and Europe and arrives in Dublin in two weeks time to spread his message of "leadership through courageous conversation".

Whyte firmly believes companies need a new language and a new approach in this new century where respect for old hierarchical structures is on the wane. It has too little poetry, too little humanity and too little good business sense for the world that lies before us," he writes in his most recent book, Crossing the Unknown Sea: work and the shaping of identity Penguin. He also believes a new type of business leader he doesn't like the word manager as it brings up images of domination, command and control will come to the fore as workers now expect to have adult-adult relationships with their bosses rather than what were often parent-child type relationships.

Drawing on his own artistic prescience, Whyte believes such new leaders will be "the attentive, open-minded, conversationally based, people-minded individuals who has not given up on their intellect and can still act and act quickly when needed".

Perhaps in time, we will find this somewhat optimistic leadership model comes to life as a necessary reaction to the increasing distance we place between each other with email messages, mobile-phone texting and the like. With such leadership, Whyte says comes opportunities for "real conversations" in the workplace which he describes as the frontier between the self and the world. People must be encouraged not only to know their craft, their products, their work and the people they serve, but to know a little of themselves," he says.

In essence, Whyte's message is simple if difficult to achieve. He is telling us all to be honest in our relationships with those with whom we work and equally importantly with those with whom we live while remaining true to what we genuinely want to achieve in life and work. To confront "the deep wells of loss, bitterness and exploitation" in work, Whyte believes we all have to look beyond the surface personalities to see what really motivates the people we work with and for.

Then, both leaders and workers need to be frank about what strengths and weaknesses they have and how to best work with them. We need, he claims, most of all to be deeply honest with ourselves and make changes if we discover we are simply following the wrong course. Whyte has the personal experience of changing career path and work patterns in his own life, about which he writes in his book, Crossing the Unknown Sea. This semi-autobiographical book is in itself lyrical and deeply insightful into the human condition.

It is looking at the landscape through the lenses of foundational power, intersectional engagement, and revelatory awareness so to bring us into a profound sense of home and belonging as the earth.

Through this workshop, David and I attempted to bring these lessons to the participants. We brought in elements from my homescape, lowland urban forest plants that were honorably harvested for workshop attendees to co-create nature mandalas, an activity that encourages a way of meeting and knowing the natural world that invites communion and revelatory understanding.

Mandalas are found in almost every culture, and can serve as a sacred reminder of the path we seek to walk. My nature mandalas, which I co-create monthly, are a continuing practice of learning the land—connecting to the plant and tree life that make up my homescape, learning from them of the medicine and food they offer, leaning into their seasonal stories, remembering our interrelatedness and meant-for-ness.

This is a practice of forming what theologian Steven Bouma-Prediger calls an ecological perception of place. That is, a practice to get to know your ecology by becoming familiar over time with as many components of your ecology as you can. In other words, this is a practice of learning to listen and attune to storied and sacred land. And so this workshop was one that brought us through the terrain of our imagination, a journey that led us to participate with the sacredness that is within the wild world that exists all around us.

It was a time of inviting a profound shift in how we understand ourselves in relationship with the environment that values it for its inherent integrity and particular revelatory qualities. May we all be inspired to engage this deep work of practicing listening in place!

The work of Waymarkers and Mary DeJong inhabits the unceded ancestral lands of the the first people of Seattle.

I honor the Duwamish People—past, present, and future-and recognize with gratitude the land herself upon whose lands I live and work. I recognize that my aspects of my offerings benefit from the colonization of Duwamish Land and from the knowledge cultivated by the Salish Sea peoples. In response to a call by the Duwamish Tribe, we invest monthly in a more just future. Guidance and Wisdom from the Sacred Wild.

Waymarkers Journal How the sacred wild will mark your way.