An audio New Year’s gift
For the last couple of years I’ve been making a lot of audio “mixtapes.” Some, like this one, were made for students in the MFA in Design for Social Innovation at SVA, where I teach with Hanna du Plessis. Some are for public “adaptive space” learning groups or learning cohorts in client organizations. This one was made as a parting gift for grad students at the end of the Spring 2022 semester.
A poetic lens…
Creating together in complexity is difficult and full of uncertainty. Intellectual understanding doesn’t always help us make sense of our experience of those difficulties and uncertainties. This audio “mixtape” explores poetry as a source of language and framing, in four chapters: wonder, emergence, “lost,” and trust.
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Contents
Introduction: Complexity brings us to our edge
David Whyte notes that our identify is most real in the conversation where “who we think we are” meets the world as it is.
Part one: Wonder | 3:07
Gregory Orr’s poems invite us to a certain kind of attention toward the world.
Part two: Creating in complexity is participating in unfolding | 10:13
Working with A.R. Ammons’ poem, Poetics
Part three: Lost | 19:00
After an introduction from Sonja Blignaut, David Whyte helps us consider David Waggoner’s poem, Lost
Part four: Trust | 31:40
With so much uncertainty, where can we put our trust? We hear three answers from David Whyte, Mary Oliver, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Closing with O’Donohue | 44:06
A poem so short you can memorize right now.
“Music”
Audio samples gathered by Marc Rettig over the years. See PDF transcript.
People and sources
David Whyte
Davidwhyte.com
Clear mind, wild heart (and other downloadables–see his site and more through this link to Sounds True)
Gregory Orr
Gregoryorr.net
Interview with Krista Tippett of OnBeing
Sonja Blignaut
Bio on her company’s site
Talk excerpted for this mix—Navigating uncertainty: pioneering habits of mind
David Wagoner
Bio on the Poetry Foundation site
John O’Donohue
Resources and memorial site