David Whyte: It's All Storytelling

From the outer landscape to the inner one, Whyte takes us on a poetic journey of the soul. He describes the Irish culture as one that refuses to choose one context over another. He says, "One of the useful things about the Irish psyche, or the Celtic psyche you could say including Scotland, Wales and Brittainy is that it refuses to choose one context over all the others. It is always about not choosing, but holding different worlds together. I think that is very useful for the post modern world where our focus is so fragmented. Whereas the old native Celtic tradition would tell you that you can actually hold many different things together, but you must have a deep interior focus in order to actually do it. You must have an internal foundation which is able to anchor you in the world while you are involved in all of these different layers and levels." He tells the story of the Tuatha De Dannan who are supposed to have lived betwixt and between things and how, in the Irish myth, they turned sideways and disappeared. Whyte encourages us with his storytelling and poetry to live in the world without engaging in conversations that make you too small for yourself; to not be pinned down by the names others put on us or, we put on ourselves.

David Whyte is a poet who's poetry reflects a living spirituality and a deep connection to the natural world. He is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, conducting workshops with many American and international companies. He is the author of five books of poetry, as well as two nonfiction books on the transformative power of poetry, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (Currency 1994) and Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work As a Pilgrimage of Identity (Riverhead 2001) Where Many Rivers Meet (Many Rivers Press 2001), Everything is Waiting for You (Many Rivers Press 2003) and River Flow: New and Selected Poems 1984-2007 (Many Rivers Press 2007). To learn more about the work of David Whyte go to www.davidwhyte.com

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