Post by jeannerené on Jun 2, 2007 22:30:07 GMT -8
David Whyte (1955-)
Yorkshire, England .... currently U.S.
My poet friend, Patrick .... we met at a Barnes and Nobles monthly poetry meeting ... has for sometimes kept telling me to read David Whyte's poetry ..Patrick has traveled to hear Mr. Whyte read his poetry and lecture ...... Well I've finally have gotten around to it, tonight and I am sorry I didn't look into his poetry sooner. I can now understand Patrick's admiration.
Mr. Whyte spent his childhood at some point in Yorkshire, England. His studies were in marine zoology and he spent time on the Galapogas Islands training as a naturalist. Mr. Whyte has also led anthroplogical and history expeditions in parts of South America.
Not only is Mr. Whyte a poet, but he is as well a lecturer predominately in corporate settings, using poetry through workshops "to bring an understanding of the process of change, helping clients to understand individual and organizational creativity, and to apply that understanding to vitalize and transform the workplace."
Mr. Whyte has published four books of poetry, two books of prose and several audio tapes.
Poetry Books:
Songs of Comming Home
Where Many Rivers Meet
Fire in the Earth
The House of Belonging
I hope you will explore more of David Whyte and his poetry at the Many Rivers website. I found his lists of clients very interesting.
Link:
davidwhyte.bigmindcatalyst.com/cgi/bmc.pl?page=home.html&node=1015
Online sources used:
-> Many Rivers Company
-> Sounds True, wisdom for the inner life
-> Poetry Chaikhana, Sacred Poetry from Around the World
*********************
POEMS BY DAVID WHYTE
***
SELF-PORTRAIT
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in *that* fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
~ David Whyte
(Fire in the Earth)
****
Yorkshire, England .... currently U.S.
My poet friend, Patrick .... we met at a Barnes and Nobles monthly poetry meeting ... has for sometimes kept telling me to read David Whyte's poetry ..Patrick has traveled to hear Mr. Whyte read his poetry and lecture ...... Well I've finally have gotten around to it, tonight and I am sorry I didn't look into his poetry sooner. I can now understand Patrick's admiration.
Mr. Whyte spent his childhood at some point in Yorkshire, England. His studies were in marine zoology and he spent time on the Galapogas Islands training as a naturalist. Mr. Whyte has also led anthroplogical and history expeditions in parts of South America.
Not only is Mr. Whyte a poet, but he is as well a lecturer predominately in corporate settings, using poetry through workshops "to bring an understanding of the process of change, helping clients to understand individual and organizational creativity, and to apply that understanding to vitalize and transform the workplace."
Mr. Whyte has published four books of poetry, two books of prose and several audio tapes.
Poetry Books:
Songs of Comming Home
Where Many Rivers Meet
Fire in the Earth
The House of Belonging
I hope you will explore more of David Whyte and his poetry at the Many Rivers website. I found his lists of clients very interesting.
Link:
davidwhyte.bigmindcatalyst.com/cgi/bmc.pl?page=home.html&node=1015
Online sources used:
-> Many Rivers Company
-> Sounds True, wisdom for the inner life
-> Poetry Chaikhana, Sacred Poetry from Around the World
*********************
POEMS BY DAVID WHYTE
The Faces at Braga
In monastery darkness
by the light of one flashlight
the old shrine room waits in silence
While above the door
we see the terrible figure,
fierce eyes demanding, "Will you step through?"
And the old monk leads us,
bent back nudging blackness
prayer beads in the hand that beckons.
We light the butter lamps
and bow, eyes blinking in the
pungent smoke, look up without a word,
see faces in meditation,
a hundred faces carved above,
eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.
Such love in solid wood!
Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence
they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.
Engulfed by the past
they have been neglected, but through
smoke and darkness they are like the flowers
we have seen growing
through the dust of eroded slopes,
then slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.
Carved in devotion
their eyes have softened through age
and their mouths curve through delight of the carvers hand.
If only our own faces
would allow the invisible carver's hand
to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.
If only we knew
as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,
we would smile, too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.
When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.
And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.
If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carvers hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers
feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.
Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration
to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver's hands.
~ David Whyte ~
(Where Many Rivers Meet)
In monastery darkness
by the light of one flashlight
the old shrine room waits in silence
While above the door
we see the terrible figure,
fierce eyes demanding, "Will you step through?"
And the old monk leads us,
bent back nudging blackness
prayer beads in the hand that beckons.
We light the butter lamps
and bow, eyes blinking in the
pungent smoke, look up without a word,
see faces in meditation,
a hundred faces carved above,
eye lines wrinkled in the hand held light.
Such love in solid wood!
Taken from the hillsides and carved in silence
they have the vibrant stillness of those who made them.
Engulfed by the past
they have been neglected, but through
smoke and darkness they are like the flowers
we have seen growing
through the dust of eroded slopes,
then slowly opening faces turned toward the mountain.
Carved in devotion
their eyes have softened through age
and their mouths curve through delight of the carvers hand.
If only our own faces
would allow the invisible carver's hand
to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.
If only we knew
as the carver knew, how the flaws
in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,
we would smile, too
and not need faces immobilized
by fear and the weight of things undone.
When we fight with our failing
we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself
and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.
And as we fight
our eyes are hooded with grief
and our mouths are dry with pain.
If only we could give ourselves
to the blows of the carvers hands,
the lines in our faces would be the trace lines of rivers
feeding the sea
where voices meet, praising the features
of the mountain and the cloud and the sky.
Our faces would fall away
until we, growing younger toward death
every day, would gather all our flaws in celebration
to merge with them perfectly,
impossibly, wedded to our essence,
full of silence from the carver's hands.
~ David Whyte ~
(Where Many Rivers Meet)
***
SELF-PORTRAIT
It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have been told, in *that* fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.
~ David Whyte
(Fire in the Earth)
****
