2013 May: Mark Nepo

This workshop is based on Mark’s new book, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. About Mark and the book, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality & Practice said,“A consummate master of telling stories and parables about people's hopes, dreams, yearnings, fears, sorrows and triumphs… Nepo has written a masterwork on the spiritual practice of listening which plays such a predominant role in our private and public lives.”

Beloved as a teacher, poet, and storyteller, Mark, the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awakening, is a gentle guide on our journey to discover our personal truths. Using ancient and contemporary stories, poetry, journaling and dialogue, Mark will invite participants to befriend their own stories and listen for their own wisdom in this reflective and experiential gathering.

We spend much of our time on earth listening and waking. When awake, we come upon the risk to be authentic. And taking that risk, we are faced with the need to stand by our core in order to live life fully. If we get this far, we are returned, quite humbly, to the simple fate of being here. And after all this way, it appears that a devotion to deep listening remains the simple and sacred work of being here.

Yet how do we inhabit these connections and find our way in the world? By listening our way into lifelong friendships with everything larger than us, with our life of experience, and with each other.

In this journey, Mark will open the work of listening on these levels. Our friendship with everything larger than us opens us to the wisdom of Source. This is the work of being. Our friendship with experience opens us to the wisdom of life on earth. This is the work of being human. And our friendship with each other opens us to the wisdom of care. This is the work of love. These eternal friendships are intertwined and inseparable. We need to listen for their wisdom if we have any hope of living an awakened life. These three friendships—the work of being, the work of being human, and the work of love—frame the journey of this workshop.

Bring a journal

“Much of my life has been devoted to staying in conversation with everything around me—with the mystery, with God or Source, with the rivers of change, with you. As I get older, I long even more for the wisdom and companionship of other living things; to stay in conversation with all I love, with all I admire, with all who have suffered and given of themselves to stay alive and to keep life going. In many ways, our stories are part of one story. Our pain is part of one pain. Our surprise at the beauty and fragility of life is part of one chorus of awe. My passion now is to stay as close as possible to the pulse of what is kind and true; to stay in conversation with what happens there and to experience more and more ways to listen.”