Shaping Ourselves, Being Shaped
Episode 276, Jan 22, 2023, 07:39 PM
What happens when we find out that we are not, as we had thought, separate from the world, but are instead participants in a vast context that stretches back into deep time and that holds us and makes us, even as we make it?
From this vantage point perhaps we get to see that in being living, sentient, relational beings in such an inescapably relationship-rich context we are in some ways very small, and in other ways have the enormous power to shape what we pay attention to, and what we cultivate in response to the the world. And that it is exactly this capacity to choose that can make the difference between our making cultures of kindness, care and inclusion, or those that tear us apart.
What happens when we find out that we are not, as we had thought, separate from the world, but are instead participants in a vast context that stretches back into deep time and that holds us and makes us, even as we make it?
From this vantage point perhaps we get to see that in being living, sentient, relational beings in such an inescapably relationship-rich context we are in some ways very small, and in other ways have the enormous power to shape what we pay attention to, and what we cultivate in response to the the world. And that it is exactly this capacity to choose that can make the difference between our making cultures of kindness, care and inclusion, or those that tear us apart.
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and 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 on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.
Here's our source for this week:
WORKING TOGETHER
We shape our selves
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
- to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking
of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round
a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we,
in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and find the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
David Whyte
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
From this vantage point perhaps we get to see that in being living, sentient, relational beings in such an inescapably relationship-rich context we are in some ways very small, and in other ways have the enormous power to shape what we pay attention to, and what we cultivate in response to the the world. And that it is exactly this capacity to choose that can make the difference between our making cultures of kindness, care and inclusion, or those that tear us apart.
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace. Find us on FaceBook to watch live and 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 on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.
Here's our source for this week:
WORKING TOGETHER
We shape our selves
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
- to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking
of the way
the intangible air
passed at speed
round
a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So may we,
in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and find the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us.
David Whyte
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash