Zusatztext Once again! Mark Nepo draws us to the heart of what matters. He illuminates love with the light of his own understanding. Marianne Williamson The Exquisite Risk is a celebration of an honest life! lived on purpose. Mark Nepo's words! like water on a stone! gently but firmly score a path for us to follow! a path that leads us into the place of remembering what a life is for; an invitation to tell the truth! remain close to the earth! and love well. What! more than this! can we ever ask of a book as our companion? Wayne Muller! author of Learning to Pray ! Sabbath ! and How! Then! Shall We Live? Every page of The Exquisite Risk is alive with Mark's compassion! rich with his soulfulness. If you are looking for one of those rare books that offer companionship on the journey! you will find none better than this. Parker J. Palmer! author of A Hidden Wholeness ! The Courage to Teach ! and Let Your Life Speak An inspiration . . . The Exquisite Risk affirms that there are essentially two responses to lifea risky opening up to love and a controlling move into success and isolation. The direct reporting of Mark Nepo's epiphanies moves and flows in a wonderful sequencing of revelations that deepen and fill out as we read. . . . An exquisite gift.Robert Inchausti! author of The Ignorant Perfection of Ordinary People Informationen zum Autor Mark Nepo Klappentext A fresh perspective on the art of being alive and essential insight into how we can minimize what stands between us and an authentic experience of life, in the spirit of works by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass "Once again, Mark Nepo draws us to the heart of what matters. He illuminates love with the light of his own understanding."-Marianne Williamson In these fast-paced times, the exquisite risk facing each of us every day is to slow down so that we may experience life rather than simply manage it. In The Exquisite Risk, poet and teacher Mark Nepo encourages readers to become quiet enough and open enough to listen to what truly matters-our own hearts, our loved ones, the wonders of nature-in order to live a life with nothing held back. In rich, lyrical prose, Nepo shares his own spiritual path, including a battle with illness that helped him understand how daring to embrace all that life has to offer can bring us to a deeper appreciation of its meaning and beauty. OPENING THE GIFT Before stories were recorded, what happened to the living was told and retold around fires, on cliffs, and in the shade of enormous trees. And it is said that somewhere on the edge of what was known and unknown, a man and a woman paused in their struggles to survive and faced each other. One asked the other, "Is there more to this than hauling wood?" The older of the two sighed, "Yes . . . and no." This may have been the beginning of our sense of being and our search for meaning. I imagine these two faced everything we face. For the journey is the same: how to open our pain and listen to all that matters, so we can make it through and rejoice from day to day. Like those before us, we have the chance to wake and love, the chance to welcome the gift of surprise and befriend the Whole. For beneath the life of problem-solving waits the struggle to be real, from which no one is exempt. We each are asked to make our way through the drama of our bleeding to the stripping of our will, through the tensions of our suffering to the humility of surrender where we might learn the ordinary art of living at the pace of what is real. So, is there more to this than hauling the wood of our history around? More than just replaying our patterns? Whether yesterday or five thousand years ago, there has always been the need to break our habits in the worldthe need to give up what no longer works. Ultima...

Autorentext

Mark Nepo

Klappentext

A fresh perspective on the art of being alive and essential insight into how we can minimize what stands between us and an authentic experience of life, in the spirit of works by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass

"Once again, Mark Nepo draws us to the heart of what matters. He illuminates love with the light of his own understanding."-Marianne Williamson

In these fast-paced times, the exquisite risk facing each of us every day is to slow down so that we may experience life rather than simply manage it. In The Exquisite Risk, poet and teacher Mark Nepo encourages readers to become quiet enough and open enough to listen to what truly matters-our own hearts, our loved ones, the wonders of nature-in order to live a life with nothing held back.

In rich, lyrical prose, Nepo shares his own spiritual path, including a battle with illness that helped him understand how daring to embrace all that life has to offer can bring us to a deeper appreciation of its meaning and beauty.

Zusammenfassung
A fresh perspective on the art of being alive and essential insight into how we can minimize what stands between us and an authentic experience of life, in the spirit of works by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass
 
“Once again, Mark Nepo draws us to the heart of what matters. He illuminates love with the light of his own understanding.”—Marianne Williamson
 
In these fast-paced times, the exquisite risk facing each of us every day is to slow down so that we may experience life rather than simply manage it. In The Exquisite Risk, poet and teacher Mark Nepo encourages readers to become quiet enough and open enough to listen to what truly matters—our own hearts, our loved ones, the wonders of nature—in order to live a life with nothing held back. 
 
In rich, lyrical prose, Nepo shares his own spiritual path, including a battle with illness that helped him understand how daring to embrace all that life has to offer can bring us to a deeper appreciation of its meaning and beauty.

Leseprobe
OPENING THE GIFT

Before stories were recorded, what happened to the living was told and retold around fires, on cliffs, and in the shade of enormous trees. And it is said that somewhere on the edge of what was known and unknown, a man and a woman paused in their struggles to survive and faced each other. One asked the other, "Is there more to this than hauling wood?" The older of the two sighed, "Yes . . . and no."

This may have been the beginning of our sense of being and our search for meaning. I imagine these two faced everything we face. For the journey is the same: how to open our pain and listen to all that matters, so we can make it through and rejoice from day to day.

Like those before us, we have the chance to wake and love, the chance to welcome the gift of surprise and befriend the Whole. For beneath the life of problem-solving waits the struggle to be real, from which no one is exempt. We each are asked to make our way through the drama of our bleeding to the stripping of our will, through the tensions of our suffering to the humility of surrender where we might learn the ordinary art of living at the pace of what is real.

So, is there more to this than hauling the wood of our history around? More than just replaying our patterns? Whether yesterday or five thousand years ago, there has always been the need to break our habits in the world—the need to give up what no longer works.

Ultimately, there is always the need to risk being new. Yet even succeeding, to be authentic—living as close to our experience as possible—is arduous. For being human, we remember and forget. We stray and return, fall down and get up, and cling and let go, again and again. But it is this straying and returning that makes life interesting, this clinging and letting go—damned as it is—that exercises the heart.

They say that, after a time, the two who paused on the edge of what was known and unknown stumbled into humility. "Please, tell me, is there more to thi…