Dare I say,
is becoming my favorite writer. Via a Substack rabbit hole, I recently purchased his book, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America.I was intrigued because I’ve often pondered our cultural contracts around work. Particularly the one where it seems we are expected to shed the full spectrum of our emotional and spiritual bodies as we walk through the proverbial office door. This is, in part, why I named my publication what I did.
Several times, I have read a passage of this book and felt tears slowly rising to my eyes, as if it plucked a string within me, shaking something loose.
This passage, from the first Chapter, The Path Begins, exquisitely expressed a notion that many of us know: the essence of waking up in a life that doesn’t quite feel like ours. A life that is out of integrity with the core of our being. Further, it describes the journey that ensues—the essence of shedding a role or identity—being “thrown back on ourselves” and reckoning with what we find there.
Perhaps you’ve traversed this path before, this divergent path off of the path. If so, this is for you.
Music track: Dune Road Sunsets by Slow Traverse
Waking Up in the Dark Wood of Your Life