Ninth Birthday: Slow Steps and Appropriate Thoughts

We celebrate nine years of Turning Towards Life with a conversation about the relationship between life's everyday demands and a deeper, more stable presence that we can rely upon. We explore how remembering what lies beneath can help us to meet life's complexity as active participants, grounded in something mountainous and enduring that holds us no matter how turbulent our circumstances become.

This week is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

This is Turning Towards Life, a weekly live 30 minute conversation hosted by Thirdspace in which Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn explore living with depth, attentiveness and care. Find us on FaceBook to join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast in all the usual podcast places.

Episode Overview
00:00 Celebrating Nine Years of Turning Towards Life
02:52 The Essence of Conversation and Connection
06:11 Exploring Mary Oliver's Poem
11:30 The Mountainousness of Life
17:24 Finding Joy Amidst the Drama
23:36 Slowing Down
29:28 Closing Reflections

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain by Mary Oliver

Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking
The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping
Under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
That we have smothered for years now, a century at least.
I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,
And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.”

Mary Oliver
Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash

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