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The sound of a bell still reverberating, or a blackbird calling from a corner of the field, asking you to wake into this life, or inviting you deeper into the one that waits. Either way takes courage, either way wants you to be nothing but that self that is no self at all…

David Whyte

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The Bell and the Blackbird

Topic: Courage, Integrity, & Purpose

THE BELL AND THE BLACKBIRD

The sound of a bell
Still reverberating,
or a blackbird calling
from a corner of the field,
asking you to wake
into this life,
or inviting you deeper
into the one that waits.

Either way
takes courage,
either way wants you
to be nothing
but that self that
is no self at all,
wants you to walk
to the place
where you find
you already know
how to give
every last thing
away.

The approach
that is also
the meeting
itself,
without any
meeting
at all.

That radiance
you have always
carried with you
as you walk
both alone
and completely
accompanied
in friendship
by every corner
of the world
crying
Allelujah.

David Whyte

Poet, The Bell and the Blackbird, Many Rivers Press

Humanism, Arts and Sciences
The Bell and the Blackbird

Whyte, David. The Bell and the Blackbird. Many Rivers Press, 2018.

David Whyte


David Whyte

“Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet / confinement of your aloneness / to learn / anything or anyone / that does not bring you alive / is too small for you.”

David Whyte is a poet and philosopher who believes in the power of a “beautiful question” amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life — amidst the ways the two overlap, whether we want them to or not. He shared a deep friendship with the late Irish philosopher John O’Donohue. They were, David Whyte says, like “two bookends.” More recently, he’s written about the consolation, nourishment, and underlying meaning of everyday words.

–“The Conversational Nature of Reality” Read David Whyte’s interview with Krista Tippett from On Being.

“Work is a very serious matter indeed. We freight our work with meaning and identity, and fight hard and long for some kind of purpose in our endeavors. Vocation is a moveable frontier between what we want for ourselves and what the world demands of us.”

–David Whyte [David Whyte, Website – Link is in Resources].

 

Resources

  • David Whyte: A lyrical bridge between past, present and future, April 2017 | TED2017
  • "The Conversational Nature of Reality" Read David Whyte's interview with Krista Tippett from On Being
  • David Whyte, HomePage featuring his recent book of poems - The Bell and the Blackbird
  • Everlasting, by David Whyte, from The Bell and the Blackbird, Gratefulness.org

Related Quotes

  • Don’t Go Back To Sleep - Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi, A Great Wagon
  • Good-by, Proud World - Ralph Waldo Emerson, From the Poem "Good-by"
  • God’s Grace - Sun Myung Moon,
  • Part of the Whole - Albert Einstein,
  • For a New Beginning - John O’Donohue, For a New Beginning
  • A Point of Pure Truth - Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

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