David Whyte (Part 1)

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin

Arts, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Whyte is a celebrated Irish poet, philosopher, and speaker whose career spans nearly forty years. Known for ten volumes of poetry and multiple best-selling prose collections, Whyte’s latest collection, Consolations II, which contains 52 new essays, continues his trademark exploration of ordinary words and the profound choices that frame our lives. His writing continues to illuminate the connections between inner solitude and communal life, drawing critical acclaim for the depth of his insight into everyday experience. In 2025, he embarked on a major UK book tour, held worldwide retreats and workshops, and launched the “David Whyte Companion”– an online archive of his work and teachings. Whyte’s "Three Sundays Series," monthly immersive online sessions, remain a centerpiece for his global audience, tackling themes from love, to human identity, to personal courage. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Squarespace https://Squarespace.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://DrinkLMNT.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Athletic Nicotine https://www.AthleticNicotine.com/tetra Use code 'TETRA' ------ Sign up to receive Tetragrammaton Transmissions https://www.tetragrammaton.com/join-newsletter

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tetragrammaton So this is close.
0:29.4	Close is what we almost always are.
0:32.2	Close to happiness, close to another, close to leaving, close to tears, close to God, close to losing faith,
0:41.4	close to being done, close to saying something, or close to success, and even with the greatest
0:48.3	sense of satisfaction, close to giving the whole thing up. Our human essence lies not in arrival, but in being almost there.
0:59.0	We are creatures who are on the way.
1:03.0	Our journey a series of impending anticipated arrivals.
1:07.0	We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity. We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity.
1:13.8	We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity.
1:19.6	I see you closing your eyes and nodding your head to concentrate.
1:22.1	I had the same feeling when I wrote the line.
1:24.1	I said, there's some part of me that understands what I just wrote.
1:27.6	You know, I just need to take a second with that.
1:29.7	We live by unconsciously measuring the inverse distances of our proximity.
1:34.8	As I said, you know, oh, we're not too far away.
1:37.6	Or I'm not too far away from writing.
1:39.3	Oh, I almost feel like writing.
1:41.2	I'm not writing yet, but the inverse distances of our proximity,
1:47.0	calibrated by the vulnerability we feel in giving up our sense of separation.
1:54.0	To go beyond our normal identities and become closer than close is to lose our sense of self in temporary joy,
2:02.6	a form of arrival that only opens us to deeper forms of intimacy,
2:08.6	that blur our fixed controlling surface identities.
	...

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