Risky Business
“We dance around in a circle and suppose, while the secret sits in the middle and knows.” ~ Robert Frost
I recently read a book whose titled grabbed me, The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live an Authentic Life written by Mark Nepo, who recently came to Charleston on the invitation of the Sophia Institute. Nepo is a poet, teacher, and cancer survivor whose last and nearly fatal experience has allowed him to see with great clarity the tricky heart and soul of living. He observes that, as essential as it is to smell the roses, it can be just as beneficial when we fall into the pot holes.
Yet when I stop,
it appears to me briefly
that life is just a dance
around a still point, which
knowing is a joy and
refusing is a burden.
There is great poetry in and through Nepo’s prose which is what makes it such a poignant read. “Life takes time to live,” he says and (what a relief), we will stray from the path often on the road to the true and authentic self which is so easily covered in masks, expectations, and misunderstanding. Narrowing the gap between the inner and outer world, we will gain strength in navigating the chaos which is uniquely our own.
Nepo supports his concepts by using examples of other cultures and philosophies as well as his personal life. His simple instructions for the art of living is due to the understanding that we are part of an ancient and all knowing wholeness. “At the heart of it, this being open unexpectedly into the unity of things is a nameless ritual. And how we respond to these openings determines whether we feel part of something or part of nothing.”
By understanding the idea that when things fall apart, it is that very experience and the space that it leaves that allows us to recover with grace, and at times receive the consolation prize of joy. “We are constantly faced with the chance and choice to cooperate or self-replicate, to deepen our exchange with others or to remove ourselves, to lean into the space between us and get our hearts and hands around what matters, or to live at the expense of those we encounter.”
And in the end it is love which matters most significantly: “Simply and profoundly, the work of love is to love. For in that act, the universe comes alive.”
One of Nepo’s earlier works, The Book of Awakening, was selected by the cultural barista, Oprah Winfrey, as one of her picks for her Soul Series.
