"Close" by David Whyte read by Krista Tippett

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2019

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Close" by David Whyte read by Krista Tippett David Whyte is an associate fellow at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. His books include The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words and The Bell and The Blackbird. His latest collection is David Whyte: Essentials.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Christa Tippett, the host of on being.
0:02.8	I love this new piece of writing by David White in his new book Essentials,
0:07.7	and I'm happy he gave me permission to read it to you here.
0:11.0	It's called Close.
0:12.9	Close is what we almost always are.
0:16.1	Close to happiness, close to another,
0:18.7	close to leaving, close to tears,
0:21.4	close to God, close to losing faith,
0:24.3	close to being done,
0:25.8	close to saying something or close to success,
0:29.4	and even with the greatest sense of satisfaction,
0:32.5	close to giving the whole thing up.
0:35.4	Our human essence lies not in arrival,
0:38.4	but in being almost there.
0:40.9	We are creatures who are on the way,
0:43.1	our journey a series of impending anticipated arrivals.
0:47.4	We live by unconsciously measuring
0:49.6	the inverse distances of our proximity,
0:52.7	an intimacy calibrated by the vulnerability we feel
0:56.6	in giving up our sense of separation.
0:59.8	To go beyond our normal identities
1:02.0	and become closer than close
	...

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