Poetry and any art form I believe is meant to marry what is with what can be, so that we do not ignore the truth of what is.

As the Buddhists talk about that, seeing things as they are, which is a hard, simple, and difficult practice.

I'm pretty excited to share this episode with you. It's a conversation with poet, spiritual teacher, multi-time, near-times, best-selling author Mark Nipo.

He was on the show last year, I think it was, and we went deep into his journey. His incredible path, his earlier in life, cancer, and how that profoundly changed him.

His work as a poet, and as a teacher, and a writer, and a world traveler, and a questionnaire of pretty much everything, and an internal student.

Such profound learnings, and incredible, beautiful, vulnerable, open journey.

Mark is back with me today. He's actually written two books that are released this year, one is called The One Life We're Given, and this incredible collection of poems that span three decades of his life,

along with a whole bunch of really powerful new ones, and that's called The Way Under The Way.

And this is a really deep, wide-ranging conversation. We get into poetry, poetry is life. What it means, poetry is the utterance of the soul, poetry is truth.

We get into writing, we get into a lot of what's going on in the world today, and we kind of get into what it means to lead and to be in the world today.

And to breathe and to find space as we navigate, shifting landscape. You're going to get what I call the full New York City experience with this particular conversation.

The conversation is immensely powerful and deep and honest, and at the same time our normal studio was going through some shifts.

So we ended up in a room that we were told beforehand was extraordinarily quiet, and we found out once we arrived that in fact there was construction going on right outside the door, and it happened to be right at the nexus of where, let's say, say a lot of sirens that are going by.

So rather than shutting down this conversation, because Mark was in town for a limited time, and I know how beautiful his soul is and how powerful these conversations are with him, we decided to go ahead with it.

So I just wanted to give you a little bit of context. As we're talking, you will be joining us in the full New York City experience with the soundscapes that come along with it, that you sometimes hear peaking through in the podcast, tiny bit one where in our actual studio, but you will hear much more present in this conversation.

So enjoy that. It will be like you're just sitting in the room there with us with that excited to share with you this conversation with Mark Newville.

Fancy a fever tree and vodka. Yes, vodka, not gin, because this is fever tree Mexican lime soda. Yes, soda, not tonic.

With Mexican lime and Japanese Yuzu for a zesty, refreshing lime soda, that's just sweet enough. Delicious with vodka or on its own.

Fever tree Mexican lime soda, mixed with the best. Now that hits the spot.

It's good to be with you again. It's great to be with you too. I appreciate it. Maybe a year ago was it?

I think it was a year ago. Something like that. It was when your last book came out. It was when this is quite a time, you know, so many of my work on things for years, like you put scenes in a garden and many are harvesting in these years.

So last year inside the miracle, we spoke around that, but during this last year, very unusual. I've had two books come out, one life we're given, finding the wisdom that waits in your heart, which came out in July.

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