David Whyte

"In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost." When you find yourself suddenly without bearings, as Dante Alighieri voiced so well centuries ago, where will you look for guidance? Throughout the ages, teaches David Whyte, the language of poetry has held a special power to hazard ourselves boldly at the fierce edges of our lives. On Midlife and the Great Unknown, you will engage with poetic imagination as it was meant to be as your companion and guide for the challenging terrain of midlife.

Midlife and the Great Unknown

Laura Mei

One of the great temptations of human existence is to base your life on contingency — that you will take the courageous step once all the conditions are absolutely and utterly right for you. For example, when you have the right boss, when you have the right job, when the car payments have been made, when the kids are through college, when you're on your deathbed. The thought is that "if only I can control the climate of my existence and get the temperature exactly right, then when I'm completely comfortable and have a sense of freedom and sense that I'm not beholden to anything, then I'll take a courageous step in my life". Of course, these conditions almost never come. Every courageous life has lived in the grit and difficulty of existence. One of the abiding phenomena of courage is the ability to cultivate a relationship with the unknown; to create a form of friendship, if you will, with what lies around the corner over the horizon; with those things that have not yet fully come into being.

I have spoken to the phenomena that occur at the frontiers of life — those moments when doors open, when extraordinary transformations occur — but sometimes we feel so far back from that edge that we wonder how we could actually get near any frontier at all. I do think it's very important for every individual to have a form of spaciousness in their life, a place where they can actually pay attention to the world which is uncontaminated by worry, or tension, or stress, where something other than what they expected has a possibility of happening. It's incumbent upon each of us to find a moment in the day where we can actually hear voices other than our own; where we can pay attention to the world and the beauties of the world. Beauty is not just a thing given to us, it's actually something we apprentice ourselves to. The more you look, the more you see. The more you hear in silence, the more revelation you find; the more being given to you on a daily basis from corners of the world that you did not even think were working on your behalf.

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