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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Christian O'Connell and this is a very

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Speaker 1: different kind of conversation for me to share, but one

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Speaker 1: I am so excited to be sharing with you. It's

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Speaker 1: with David White. Now he might not be a household name,

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Speaker 1: but over the last couple of months you might have

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Speaker 1: heard him on Tim Ferris's podcast, also on the music

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Speaker 1: Producer's Brilliant podcast, Rick Ruben, You've had people like Liz

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Speaker 1: Gilbert raving about his work. David White had a really

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Speaker 1: big and still dance big impact in my life as

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Speaker 1: a speaker, as a dad, and how I understand myself

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Speaker 1: and what it is to be alive. I came across

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Speaker 1: his work when I first moved here seven years ago

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Speaker 1: to Australia, and man, I really needed it. He's a poet,

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Speaker 1: but I think he's more of a philosopher, and I

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Speaker 1: can't think of anybody else that I've heard speak about

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Speaker 1: what it is to be us and make sense of

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Speaker 1: our joy, our heartache, our pain, our passion, our purpose

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Speaker 1: in a way that you just get. He just has

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Speaker 1: a way with words. He's quite incredible, and so that

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Speaker 1: two years ago, when I was turning fifty, I wanted

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Speaker 1: only do one thing. He does these walking tours all

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Speaker 1: over the world, and so I went to Western Island

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Speaker 1: all the way from Melbourne, a twenty three and a

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Speaker 1: half hour flight, and I went back to Western Ireland,

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Speaker 1: which is where my ancestors are from going back many

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years, and I did a walking tour with

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Speaker 1: thirty five other strangers from all over the world, mainly

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Speaker 1: crazy Americans, and had an amazing, a really genuinely incredible

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Speaker 1: week and actually got to know David and spent a

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Speaker 1: bit of time walking with him, talking with him, and

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Speaker 1: drinking Irish whiskey and guinness every evening in the pub

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Speaker 1: with him as well. So I was very excited when

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Speaker 1: he was here in Australia. And you can find out

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Speaker 1: more about going and see him at his website. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope you really enjoy this conversation. We go into

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Speaker 1: quite a few interesting areas my conversation with the Great

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Speaker 1: David White, got anything good?

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Speaker 2: Hey, this is the Christian O'Connell show podcast.

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Speaker 1: David, A great joy to be with you again. The

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Speaker 1: last time we were together in Ireland, when I was

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Speaker 1: there with thirty five other strangers and light minded souls

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Speaker 1: all over the world in Western Ireland. But actually i'd

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Speaker 1: love you to know how I first came across your work.

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Speaker 1: Seven years ago. I just moved to Australia and it

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Speaker 1: was a lot. It was a lot to set up

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Speaker 1: a new life. My wife and I had no idea

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Speaker 1: what it would be like to set up a new life.

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Speaker 1: We didn't know anyone here in Australia. So my wife said,

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Speaker 1: why don't you go on a retreat. I've never been

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Speaker 1: on a retreat in my life. And I suddenly went

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Speaker 1: on this retreat and I was the only man. There

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Speaker 1: were thirteen women and there many of them were getting

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Speaker 1: over breakups and people like me a man, or processing

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Speaker 1: issues with their dad. So I was representing men. So

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of energy there. And the woman facilitating this,

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Speaker 1: this amazing woman. She said, look, before we get into

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Speaker 1: the work this week, I'm going to open with the poem.

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Speaker 1: And I have to be honest. Before that moment, I

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Speaker 1: hadn't really felt the benefit of poetry. I thought, really

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Speaker 1: it was the domain of academics. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh God, here we go a poem. And then suddenly

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Speaker 1: she played a recording of the voice I know as yours,

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Speaker 1: and it was the first couple of lines in this

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Speaker 1: high place. It is as simple as this, and I'd

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Speaker 1: never received poetry like that, and I had a physical reaction.

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Speaker 1: You got to the last line of the poem about

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Speaker 1: the true shape of your own face, and I don't

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Speaker 1: know what happened. I found myself shaking and sobbing. And

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Speaker 1: this was right at the start of the retreat, and

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Speaker 1: I was trying as hard as I could not to

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Speaker 1: have this physical reaction to a poem. The rest of

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Speaker 1: the ladies were looking round at me, like, what's happening here?

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Speaker 1: And that was it. I became obsessed with finding out

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Speaker 1: who you were. And since then it's it's opened my

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Speaker 1: it's opened my heart actually to the wonder of poetry.

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Speaker 1: But really I always come back to your work, which

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Speaker 1: has deeply been a great companion of friendship, I think

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Speaker 1: with me over the last couple of.

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Speaker 2: Years, David Bravas. And that's why we write them, of course.

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Speaker 2: I mean, there are ways of overhearing yourself say things

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Speaker 2: you didn't know. You knew when you're first writing poetry.

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Speaker 2: If it's good poetry, it's surprising you're in new territory.

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Speaker 2: It's a bit like those those arguments you have domestic arguments,

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Speaker 2: I mean good domestic arguments where you suddenly find yourself

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Speaker 2: articulating something in your marriage or your relationship that you

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Speaker 2: hadn't until you were on your emotional edge. And once

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Speaker 2: you've once you've said it, you're in new territory and

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Speaker 2: you can't go back. That parm you you recited is

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Speaker 2: called Tillico Lake, and I actually it comes from an

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Speaker 2: experience I had on my own edge when I was

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Speaker 2: up high in the Himalayas eighteen thousand foot pass and

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Speaker 2: I was coming down with mountain sickness. I was starting

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Speaker 2: to hallucinate, and I just with the weather and everything,

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Speaker 2: everything had just been too hard. And I had this powerful,

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Speaker 2: powerful invitational experience to leave the trail and go off

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Speaker 2: of the ridges towards this great snow lake as it

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Speaker 2: was called, or Tillico Lake. And I had to use

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Speaker 2: all my wool power to stay on the trail actually,

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Speaker 2: or I would have died actually up on those ridges.

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Speaker 2: But it was a very powerful feeling. It was some

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Speaker 2: kind of longing. And the whole poem is in this

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Speaker 2: high place. Well afterwards we got down finally, when we

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Speaker 2: got down lower and the mountain sickness disappeared. With the

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Speaker 2: being able to breathe more air. We all fell sleep

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Speaker 2: in this pesture that was full of piles of yakdang.

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Speaker 2: Actually I remember sleeping between the piles of yakdan and

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Speaker 2: when I was sleeping, I had this dream of arriving

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Speaker 2: at the side of Tillico Lake. So it's a very

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Speaker 2: short onm you mentioned the first and last line in

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Speaker 2: this high place, it is as simple as this, Leave

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Speaker 2: everything you know behind, step toward the cold surface, say

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Speaker 2: the old prayer of rough love, and open both arms.

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Speaker 2: Those who come with empty hands will stare into the lake, astonished.

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Speaker 2: There in the cold light, reflecting pure snow, the true shape,

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Speaker 2: the true shape of your own face. The sense I

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Speaker 2: had in the dream of suddenly seeing I knew me.

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Speaker 2: Actually that was emerging. And the interesting thing is the

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Speaker 2: way we mature as human beings is from the inside out.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: We have all these outside experiences, but they're affecting us

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Speaker 2: at a very very deep core. And I often think

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Speaker 2: there's a part of us which has always gone ahead

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Speaker 2: of us, as matured at a much higher rate than

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Speaker 2: our outer surface self, that is caught up in all

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Speaker 2: the little imprisonments and besiegements of our of the way

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Speaker 2: we've put together our life, and quite often, you know,

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Speaker 2: getting below the horizon of what you think, you know,

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Speaker 2: you suddenly come across this part of you that's actually

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Speaker 2: matured way ahead of your present life. And one of

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Speaker 2: the reasons we won't look in there is we know

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Speaker 2: that when we do that, our present peripheral life will

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Speaker 2: fall apart actually or be undone, and we don't know

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Speaker 2: whether it will be put together in the same way

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Speaker 2: or not. And so it's one of the reasons we're

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Speaker 2: rightly afraid of going in there, rightly afraid of writing,

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Speaker 2: you know, the lines that will speak from that place,

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Speaker 2: and in some ways rightly afraid of hearing it. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons where we intuitively know that

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Speaker 2: good poetry represents something insiders, that is, as a kind

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Speaker 2: of moveability beyond our are often rigid surface lives.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, it touches. There's some opening. It opens

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Speaker 1: up parts of us I guess that have been thought

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Speaker 1: or I don't know, you've lost contact with. And it's

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Speaker 1: funny how I've often thought about the energy of some

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Speaker 1: of your work, and obviously what you're shaping and connecting

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Speaker 1: to in you as the poem emerges, and then how

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Speaker 1: we receive it, because you're talking about what was going

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Speaker 1: on for you and what that poem represents the energy

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Speaker 1: inside it. And for me it was you know, I'd

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Speaker 1: literally had just move the other side of the world

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Speaker 1: and I had to leave everything behind, everything that I

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Speaker 1: had left behind in the UK, my mum, dad, a job, friends,

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Speaker 1: everything at our family home, and it was refinding some

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Speaker 1: new version of myself here in Australia. And I hadn't

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Speaker 1: really thought about it actually until you're talking about what

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Speaker 1: was happening for you when that emerged. How does your

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Speaker 1: relationship with your your palms change over the years as

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Speaker 1: you do, Does it remain the same what that means

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Speaker 1: to you now? For example, No.

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Speaker 2: I mean a good palm. If it is good, it's

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Speaker 2: a living thing. You know, it's not about something. It

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Speaker 2: is the thing itself, So it has its own life

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Speaker 2: and so it matures also. And you hear it from

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Speaker 2: other people's mouths, just as I heard that that little

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Speaker 2: palm from your mouth. It opens up new levels and

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Speaker 2: new understandings. You know, I have hundreds of palms memorized,

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Speaker 2: and that's how I work on stage and are online,

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Speaker 2: and I'll often work with a palm for years and years,

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Speaker 2: and then suddenly a new level will open up just

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Speaker 2: because it coincides or has a kind of symmetry with

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Speaker 2: something that's occurring in my emotional maturation or in my

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Speaker 2: inner life, or in some form of vulnerability. I'm feeling

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Speaker 2: at that threshold in my existence. So the poems and

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Speaker 2: other palms are companions. They're like friends. You think you

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Speaker 2: know them and then they always surprise you.

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Speaker 1: At one time a good friend yeahs, like a good

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Speaker 1: friend does, yes, I think you know where you are

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Speaker 1: with them, and then all of a sudden they surprise you,

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Speaker 1: will challenge you in some way, and they're revealed something

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Speaker 1: maybe you didn't know about yourself. Well you didn't want

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Speaker 1: you didn't want to admit about yourself. There was a

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Speaker 1: one poem last year my mother in law died suddenly

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Speaker 1: and my wife was obviously heartbroken. She said, would you

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Speaker 1: do the eulogy? And I've never done a eulogy, And

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Speaker 1: it's a deep honor to do somebody's eulogy in try

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Speaker 1: and bring their life and their essence into words. And

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Speaker 1: I found it very hard actually actually putting eulogy together

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Speaker 1: and thinking, how do I best do this and talk

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Speaker 1: about the amazing life of my mother in law? And

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Speaker 1: what I did is I interviewed all the family and

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Speaker 1: got their stories about this marvelous woman, and then, using

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Speaker 1: the words that kept coming up, I put it together

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Speaker 1: them to the EUUGI, using everyone's words about her. But

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Speaker 1: about two nights beforehand, I couldn't end this eulogy, and

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Speaker 1: so before I went to bed, I sort of intuited.

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Speaker 1: This sounds crazy, but I think you and I what

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Speaker 1: I said to my mother in law, I'm really struggling

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Speaker 1: about how to end your eulogy. I need your help. Please,

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Speaker 1: could you just give me some clue. I'm missing somebody's voice.

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Speaker 1: It's yours. I don't know how to end this with

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Speaker 1: your voice. You're not here and we didn't know you

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Speaker 1: were going to go that. I don't know how to

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Speaker 1: end your own eulogy. During the night, I was visited

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Speaker 1: in a dream by her. She did, and she was saying,

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Speaker 1: do you remember when you came back from Ireland? And

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Speaker 1: he'd been on David's walking tour, and I was full

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Speaker 1: of your poems and I was talking about the people

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Speaker 1: I'd met and quoting lines of yours, and she said,

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Speaker 1: you told me about this pom you wrote about your

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Speaker 1: mom when you lost your mom. Here you were very

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Speaker 1: very close to the farewell letter. And I woke up

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Speaker 1: in the morning, very early, actually getting goosebumpser telling you this.

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Speaker 1: I woke up on in my I don't remember. I

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Speaker 1: know so many of your poems, I don't remember the

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Speaker 1: farewell letter. And I went on to Google and I

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Speaker 1: found it and I literally I started crying because I

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Speaker 1: knew this is what you want to say. Oh I did,

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Speaker 1: so I ended the eulogy with the farewell letter, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think afterwards people going where did you get

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Speaker 1: that power from? It just destroyed me in the right way.

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Speaker 1: And it's such a I think it's an amazing, amazing

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Speaker 1: testimony to love and letting somebody go. And it feels

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Speaker 1: like a hymn and a conversation. The farewell letter.

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Speaker 2: David, Yes, yeah, I wrote that after my mother, my

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Speaker 2: Irish mother had passed, and you know, being the firstborn

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Speaker 2: son of an Irish mother, you have this you feel

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Speaker 2: blessed by reality and by garden, by everything, and so

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Speaker 2: when she went, I felt this incredible absence and vacancy.

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Speaker 2: And what was really disturbing was I had this sense

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Speaker 2: that my mother was was actually concerned with other things

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Speaker 2: now and not with her son or her daughters. She

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Speaker 2: was not a mother anymore. Actually she was she was

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Speaker 2: on to greater things, and it was it was quite remarkable.

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Speaker 2: And I had this series of experiences of having dreams

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Speaker 2: where I would I would be just about to find

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Speaker 2: out what my mother was up to and where she was,

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Speaker 2: and then I would wake up and had I had

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Speaker 2: the dream that appears in the poem actually where she

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Speaker 2: was sat on her old bench by her roses. She

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Speaker 2: had these beautiful red roses as Dublin Bay roses is

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Speaker 2: the name of the variety. I have them now at

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Speaker 2: my house where I live, in memory of her. But

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Speaker 2: she was sat there, you know, all of her later years.

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Speaker 2: And in the dream, I was suddenly sat there and

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Speaker 2: I had a letter from her. And in the dream,

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Speaker 2: as you do in a dream, I knew that when

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Speaker 2: I opened this envelope, I would find out everything about

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Speaker 2: where she was and what she was up to. And

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Speaker 2: I was so happy in the dream. But of course

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Speaker 2: I came to open the envelope in the in the dream,

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Speaker 2: and that was the moment I woke up, and I

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Speaker 2: was so appalled, and I tried to get back to sleep.

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Speaker 2: I tried to put my head back in the same place,

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Speaker 2: close my eyes. It was no good. And I said,

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Speaker 2: you know, you already know what your mother would say

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Speaker 2: to you, and just go now to just go now

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Speaker 2: to the kitchen table and write the letter that your

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Speaker 2: mother wrote you in that envelope. So I didn't. That's

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Speaker 2: the farewell letter? Shall I read it?

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, I would love that if it's okay

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Speaker 1: for you. I don't want to bring up some sad

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Speaker 1: times in your life.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, it was a wonderful time. So a volume

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Speaker 2: called Everything Is Waiting for You Farewell Letter. One thing

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Speaker 2: to know was that my mother lost her own mother

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Speaker 2: when she was thirteen, and that was the end of

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Speaker 2: my mother's childhood really, and the family was split apart

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Speaker 2: by the bad old church in Ireland, and my mother

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Speaker 2: had to flee with her sister at fifteen years old

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Speaker 2: to England to get out of their clutches. And so

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Speaker 2: my mother's mother appears in this too farewell letter. She

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Speaker 2: wrote me a letter after her death, and I remember

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Speaker 2: a kind of happy light falling on the envelope as

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Speaker 2: I sat by the rose tree on her old bench

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Speaker 2: at the back door, so surprised by its arrival, wondering

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Speaker 2: what she would say, looking up before I could open it,

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Speaker 2: and laughing to myself in silent expectation. Dear son, dear son,

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Speaker 2: it is time for me to leave you. I am

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Speaker 2: afraid that the words you are used to hearing are

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Speaker 2: no longer mine to give. They're gone and mingled back

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Speaker 2: in the world, where it's no longer in my power

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Speaker 2: to be their first original author nor their last loving bearer.

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Speaker 2: You can hear motherly words of affection now only from

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Speaker 2: your own mouth, and only when you speak them to

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Speaker 2: those who stand motherless before you. You can hear motherly

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Speaker 2: words of affection now only from your own mouth, and

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Speaker 2: only when you speak to them, and only when you

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Speaker 2: speak them to those who stand motherless before you. As

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Speaker 2: for me, I must forsake adulthood and be bound gladly

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Speaker 2: to a new childhood. You must understand this apprenticeship demands

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Speaker 2: of me an elemental innocence from everything I ever held

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Speaker 2: in my hands. I know your generous soul is well

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Speaker 2: able to let me go. You can only have your

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Speaker 2: mother say something about you like that in a pot.

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Speaker 2: I know your generous soul is well able to let

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Speaker 2: me go. I know your generous soul is well able

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Speaker 2: to let me go. You will, in the end be

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Speaker 2: happy to know my God was true. And I find myself,

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Speaker 2: after loving you all for so long in the wide,

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Speaker 2: infinite mercy of being mothered myself. Ps. All of your

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Speaker 2: intuitions were true.

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Speaker 1: I am once more moved to tears here in that.

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Speaker 1: It's a beautiful, beautiful. There's a generosity in it, hearing

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Speaker 1: you read it. There's a generosity in actually letting someone go,

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Speaker 1: which is actually a very hard invitation in in grief

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Speaker 1: because as a part of you it doesn't want it

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Speaker 1: to have happened. You want to see the person again,

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Speaker 1: and she resists that for so long. And there's a

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Speaker 1: generosity in that, David, where you know you allow your

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Speaker 1: mom to be mothered again.

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Speaker 2: It's beautiful, yes, And we have all heard of the

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Speaker 2: dynamic or experience it ourselves at the bedsides of the dying,

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Speaker 2: where when you're holding onto them so tightly, they actually

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Speaker 2: find it hard to go. And it's often when people

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Speaker 2: leave the room for a moment. I mean, nurses talk

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Speaker 2: about this again. And it's often when the family leaves

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Speaker 2: the room to get a cup of tea or coffee

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Speaker 2: that they'll take the opportunity to slip away. And we do.

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Speaker 2: We hold people as they're dying because we're afraid of

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Speaker 2: their death more often, quite often more afraid of their

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Speaker 2: death than they are themselves. Actually so interested at the end. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and then we hold them afterwards too, in a way

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Speaker 2: in which we're not allowing them to be free. We're

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Speaker 2: not allowing them to go off and have not only

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Speaker 2: their own life, but their own death in a way.

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Speaker 2: And so, but that's all part of the grieving process.

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Speaker 2: I always say there's only one cure for grief, and

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Speaker 2: that's grief itself. You know, it's feeling it to its

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Speaker 2: very very bottom.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very painful truth, isn't it. And you

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Speaker 1: actually only get to really understand it when you are grieving,

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Speaker 1: and there is You're right, there's no I think one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest pains in our life and being human

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Speaker 1: is is unexpressed and unfelt grief.

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Speaker 2: What's strange about it is that it's a kind of intimacy.

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Speaker 2: It's it's in your grief you're actually feeling the hole

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Speaker 2: that they left in your life and in others' life,

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Speaker 2: so you're actually you're actually feeling what their gift was

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Speaker 2: simply by it not being there. The Great Dominique and

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Speaker 2: mystic of the European Dominique. In Mystic of the thirteenth century,

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Speaker 2: Master Eckert was once that was once asked what God was,

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Speaker 2: and he said, God is pure absence. What you need

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Speaker 2: to be in an advanced day to understand that. Yes, really,

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Speaker 2: he's really saying that we experience almost everything through distance

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Speaker 2: or the inverse calibration of how close we are. You know,

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Speaker 2: quite often in a relationship, we won't measure how we're

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Speaker 2: doing by how intimate we are. We'll say, oh, we're

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Speaker 2: not too far apart today, we're not doing too badly.

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Speaker 2: And so human beings often often find their way through

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Speaker 2: what is absent in their life, and part of the

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Speaker 2: task of poetry is to articulate that absence in your

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Speaker 2: own life, so that so that you can start moving

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Speaker 2: along that excess of invitation that the absence is causing.

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Speaker 2: And we call it longing, and we think of longing

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Speaker 2: as mooning about, but actually longing is this kind of

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Speaker 2: gravitational poll which is inviting you to move along it

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Speaker 2: to the horizon where you will understand why you were

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Speaker 2: invited in the first place.

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Speaker 1: And do you think that gravitational poll that you speak

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Speaker 1: of is that the journey inwards to discover and find

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Speaker 1: more of our true self?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we're all born with a certain kind

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Speaker 2: of felt absence, and it's germane to the way each

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Speaker 2: of us holds the conversation of life in such an

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Speaker 2: incredibly unique way. It's incredible to think that every human

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Speaker 2: being is the representation of a conversation which has never

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Speaker 2: quite occurred in the whole history of time and will

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Speaker 2: never again occur. And that's why in all of our

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Speaker 2: theologies on this earth, an individual life is seen as

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Speaker 2: unique and sacred because of that. You may share commonalities

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Speaker 2: with other people, but those commonalities are caught in you,

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Speaker 2: and caught in me, and caught in the listeners to

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Speaker 2: this show now in a way which has never quite

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Speaker 2: never quite been constituted or constellated before. And so each

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Speaker 2: of us is this unique threshold of experience. And it's

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Speaker 2: interesting to think that each of us is given a

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Speaker 2: relationship with what is missing in our life in a

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Speaker 2: unique way too. Everyone feels longing in a slightly different

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Speaker 2: way with a different coloration, and everyone's longing is quite

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Speaker 2: unique and you can never name it because part of

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Speaker 2: the journey is actually finding out for yourself. You know,

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Speaker 2: when you're when our children leave the door at a

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Speaker 2: teen years old or twenty years old, whatever it is, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you suddenly realize you actually never knew who they really were,

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Speaker 2: and how could you because that's what they're out in

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Speaker 2: the world trying to find out themselves. So how could

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Speaker 2: you know the essence of who they are? They're out

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Speaker 2: there and this astonishing pilgrimage trying to find it out

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Speaker 2: for themselves.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is me right now. My r eighteen

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Speaker 1: year old daughter leaves in a couple of days. Time

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Speaker 1: she leaves home, she'd be the last daughter to leave home.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, you're right, she's going out in the world

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Speaker 1: to find out what she's about, who she is. And

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Speaker 1: at fifty one, I think there's still some part of

396
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Speaker 1: me that's still doing that as well. Yeah. They are

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Speaker 1: a mystery, aren't you, aren't they? Yeah, it's a very

398
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Speaker 1: big time. We're a big crossroads at the moment, David,

399
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Speaker 1: my wife and I we've got this big we know

400
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Speaker 1: that there's a big event happening Sunday, and it's almost

401
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: the fear of it, you know. I remember listening to

402
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: one of your talks the last couple of years and

403
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 1: you're talking about BeO Wolf and it's the mother of

404
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: the fear that you should fear. And I think that's

405
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: what it is. It's that longing and it's what being

406
00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: a dad has given me in the last twenty years.

407
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 1: And you're it's fearing the absence again of what would

408
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 1: I do without that?

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Speaker 2: And the invitation is, you know we feel from the

410
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 2: surface of our lives, is to turn away from that vulnerability.

411
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Speaker 2: But there's a lovely there's a lovely line by Albert Camue,

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Speaker 2: the great French writer and philosopher, and it's a wonderful invitation.

413
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Speaker 2: He says, lived to the point of tears, lived to

414
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Speaker 2: the point of tears. And that's not an invitation to

415
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 2: modeling sentimentality. That's an invitation to feeling everything and to

416
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 2: the depth that you feel it and speaking it into

417
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Speaker 2: the world. And of course that'll be your challenge for that,

418
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Speaker 2: that desperdida, that goodbye you have on Sunday is for

419
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 2: you to articulate that folly probably to everyone, but also

420
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Speaker 2: especially to your daughter in a way that's freeing.

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Speaker 1: For her.

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Speaker 2: So uh yeah, left to the point of tears, you've

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Speaker 2: got You've got a wonderful opportunity coming right up.

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Speaker 1: You'll laugh about the tears. So I've got this. I've

425
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: got this mysterious eye infection that just happened or we

426
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 1: literally woke up one morning the other day with it,

427
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: and my eighteen year old daughter Lois, who's off this Sunday,

428
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Speaker 1: she saw it and she goes, I know what that is?

429
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Speaker 1: And I went, do you the doctor, doesn't? She goes,

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Speaker 1: I think it's the weight of all the tears you're

431
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Speaker 1: going to cry this Sunday. And I leave. I was like,

432
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: maybe there's something in that. Maybe she was trying to

433
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,959
Speaker 1: make me laugh and cry and roasting me say that.

434
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 2: I always say that our children live with as spies

435
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,919
Speaker 2: and saboteurs for years, watching our every psychological move, and

436
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 2: then and then they've got the psychological stiletto in one day.

437
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: She's done it in my eye, you know, exactly? Very Shakespearean, yes, exactly.

438
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,159
Speaker 2: Yeah is that? And yeah, there's lots of young and

439
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:13,399
Speaker 2: interpretations to that. Not wanting to see that's looking out

440
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 2: and one eye. I don't want to all of those things.

441
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're right, the inclination is to turn away.

442
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,679
Speaker 1: So I've been thinking, well, I must be very strong

443
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: in front of her. You know, it will upset her

444
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: seeing me upset, because the fear is I don't want

445
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: to be upset. It's about the loss of control and

446
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,640
Speaker 1: thinking that I need to hang on to some kind

447
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: of image of what a dad should be, especially my

448
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: Irish heritage of some stoic and you know, stiff upper

449
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,439
Speaker 1: lip and all that rubbish.

450
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 2: But actually, you know, you know, the power of the

451
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 2: of a father's love in a daughter's life is there

452
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:59,720
Speaker 2: even now I'm breaking down, is there even after she's

453
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 2: left the house. So the articulation of your love for

454
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 2: your daughter, the articulation of your love for your for

455
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 2: your daughter, will carry with her into the world because

456
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 2: when her daughter has a strong father behind her, she

457
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 2: can go you know, lots of places with confidence and

458
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 2: without you actually being there physically, but you that that

459
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,199
Speaker 2: articulation is very powerful and will be a companion to

460
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: her as she goes off.

461
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that. And actually I saw the

462
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 1: beautiful relationship you have with your daughter in Ireland two

463
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: years ago. You know, she she was singing, She hung

464
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 1: out with us, she came to the pub with us.

465
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 1: You know, she was great company. But I was really

466
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: I was really impressed. What a beautiful, loving, respectful relationship

467
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: you both have together, David.

468
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. And she's said she's got my mother's

469
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,160
Speaker 2: Irish singing voice to her.

470
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: My god, God, what a voice. She flowed everyone I know.

471
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 2: And she's also got the relationship to silence and presents.

472
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: I always remember when she was just five years old

473
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 2: and we had a Christmas gathering and everyone people were

474
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 2: taking turns to sing in the Irish way, and I

475
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 2: turned to her and her father shouldn't do this, you know,

476
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 2: in public, and said, Charlotte, will you give us a song?

477
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 2: And I almost caught myself saying, don't do that. But

478
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 2: then she just, you just dropped her hands and bolted

479
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: out this song in front of everyone. I said, oh, well,

480
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 2: there's no there's no harm there. And she's been like

481
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:39,479
Speaker 2: that ever since. Actually so, and she's also memorizing poetry

482
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 2: as I do. She'll be able to do what I

483
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 2: do eventually. Actually, I think she works her way into it, how.

484
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: Lovely, how beautiful. Now tell me you're in as people

485
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: are listening there and to this and they're enjoying your work,

486
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: and how you have the conversation you're here in Australia,

487
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: so talks about the show you got Sydney this weekend

488
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: and then you're in on Tuesday doing a workshop here.

489
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: What can people expect?

490
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 2: David Well, I found myself saying to an interview the

491
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 2: other day with ABC here as when she asked, what's

492
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 2: it like? I said, I suppose it's like a quiet

493
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 2: rock concept. Imagine, I said, imagine that Nick Cave concept

494
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: without the music, but with the lyrics and the narrative.

495
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: And that's why I work. I work, you know, as

496
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 2: I said, I have hundreds of poems memorized, so I

497
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: can work extemporariously, but I'll usually have a theme. And

498
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 2: actually in Sydney between ten and at ten am and

499
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 2: one pm here on Saturday, I'll be working. I'll be

500
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 2: taking people on a psychological pilgrimage through the West of Ireland,

501
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 2: actually to many of the places that I visited myself

502
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: and spent time and so it's a it's it's a

503
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 2: kind of theological journey through the Irish, the Irish landscape,

504
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 2: going to these remarkable places. But it's also a psychological journey,

505
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 2: the way human beings could go through thresholds of understanding

506
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 2: and loss and.

507
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 1: Gain and.

508
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: Maturation. So that's that'll be Sydney. I was just up

509
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 2: in Byron depp Bay. I did two different mornings there.

510
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 2: We had to sellout crowd. It was great, the lovely

511
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 2: Byron Bay Theater. So intimately it's a beautiful place. And yeah,

512
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 2: I have this Sydney theater whose name escapes me right now,

513
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: but I'm sure it's they're all online. And then Wednesday afternoon, no,

514
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: Tuesday afternoon in Melbourne. Yeah, we tried to do We

515
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 2: tried to do just a big occasion in Sydney, but

516
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 2: the poetry hooligans in Melbourne rose up as one, absolutely

517
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 2: and heartily, so we put up up reading there and

518
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 2: there's a good few hundred people already signed up. So

519
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 2: it's going to be it's going to be lovely.

520
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: Actually, well I'm going to be I'm going to be

521
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: one of them. And tell me this. When you do there,

522
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: when you are doing your your spoken word, do you

523
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: there's something magical about the voice these days we live

524
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: in a world where you know it's for k TV

525
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: and the movies we watch incredible high definition Instagram. I

526
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: think it's very visual these days. But what is still

527
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: the power of the voice. Because I've seen you, I've

528
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: done you walking tour in Ireland, there's something which happens

529
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: with the poetry, your own poetry, when you're doing it

530
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: in front of us, there's a there's something else that

531
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: happens between us, someone's between the words in a way.

532
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: Can you speak to about the power of our voices,

533
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: which I think still has more magic over the image

534
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: the visuals.

535
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: Yes, the I mean the vice literally of another person

536
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 2: literally passes into your body. And it's not just in

537
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 2: the malleus of the ears, you know the mechanism of

538
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 2: the ears. It actually the vibration of another person's voice

539
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 2: passes through our bone structure and in our face, but

540
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 2: also in our in our whole body. In a way,

541
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 2: it's one of the reasons when a person has an

542
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 2: aggressive or unpleasant voice, we don't want to be there.

543
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 2: Actually we will immediately go into a defensive posture. So

544
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 2: we all know the power of an invitational voice in

545
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 2: when we're trying to deepen a conversation. And I always

546
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 2: say that every real conversation is based on vulnerability. Actually,

547
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:44,479
Speaker 2: when vulnerability ends, the conversation, the real conversation ends. So

548
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 2: the and every vulnerability is a kind of invitation. So

549
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 2: it's really interesting to ask yourself what kind of invitation

550
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 2: you're making to the other to the other person. So

551
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 2: I'm trying to, you know, with a I mean, I've

552
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 2: worked for years with the voice in the breath, the

553
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: breath in the body, and the body on the ground,

554
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 2: and that's the key to someone really listening to you.

555
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 2: If I take my voice out of my body like

556
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 2: this and up above my shoulders, you know, and I

557
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 2: immediately become a lot less interesting just talking about something.

558
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 2: As soon as I take my body down into the breath,

559
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 2: down into the body, down into the feet, the feet

560
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 2: on the ground, there's someone else there, and there's someone

561
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 2: who's inviting you to listen to them. And so then

562
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 2: you've got the responsibility of making sure that what people

563
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: are listening to is actually good for them, that they'd

564
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 2: want to actually be surprised, they'd want to be in

565
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 2: many ways emancipated into a larger understanding of their world

566
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: and themselves and that's what good poetry does, and good

567
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 2: narrative and good storytelling. It's in all of our great

568
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 2: it's only the last few hundred years we've got caught

569
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 2: up in the visual in such a and the visual

570
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 2: world is a kind of tyranny because in our evolutionary past,

571
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 2: you had to look at fast moving things because they

572
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 2: were often quite threatening to you. You had to look

573
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 2: at brightly colored things because brightly colored things are usually poisonous.

574
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 2: So when we're looking at a television screen, they're making

575
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 2: sure that something's happening all the time. If you're ever

576
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:36,720
Speaker 2: in a pub and there's a television screen in it,

577
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 2: it sucks all of the conversational light out of the

578
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 2: people's eyes are constantly darting there. Why because we're made

579
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 2: that way. We were made to survive by making sure

580
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 2: we knew what was coming out of the corner of

581
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 2: our vision and what was coming at speed, and what

582
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 2: was highly colorful. So the visual environment is a kind

583
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 2: is quite often a threat environment in good ye of

584
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 2: course it's not. And good artful television, there's good artful television.

585
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 2: There's good artful film, of course.

586
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

587
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 2: But the general place of screens in our life is

588
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 2: really a distraction away from another deeper form of conversation

589
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 2: in our life, of really listening and of listening in

590
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 2: the silence. Listening in silence is totally different than just listening.

591
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 2: So a relationship with of the vice with silence in

592
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 2: the presence of another.

593
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. There's so many points there. I want

594
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 1: to pick up on, David, because you're right, even as

595
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: I as someone who's taught for a living for twenty

596
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 1: seven years, when I go back and hear myself ten fifteen,

597
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, I'm speaking from a different place physically.

598
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: It is much more higher up here. And you know,

599
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: I was obviously then nervous, and I didn't quite know

600
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: who I was then or what was in my heart.

601
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: And as I have and different things have happened in life,

602
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: You're right. It's embodied. Real voice is embodied. It's deeper

603
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:05,880
Speaker 1: in the body, isn't It's we all know when someone's nervous.

604
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: Instinctively it is high pitched, and sure it's very high up,

605
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: almost like they're just in their head, they're not in

606
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: their body. With the magic of the voices and how

607
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: we listen, it's a full bodied sport. It's an embodied thing,

608
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: the true voice.

609
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can see it when someone's flung on

610
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,280
Speaker 2: stage against their will and they have to introduce someone.

611
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 2: I'll say something, they go, you'll see them go up

612
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 2: on their toes actually, and the voice will be just

613
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 2: will be just coming from almost from the top of

614
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 2: the head. And they really don't want to be there.

615
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,959
Speaker 2: They don't They want to escape, and the voice wants

616
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 2: to escape. And it's because it's such an it's actually

617
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 2: a compliment, because they know intuitively that the voice is

618
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: an intimate way of meeting. And to begin with, when

619
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 2: we're first on stage in front of other people, we

620
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,439
Speaker 2: don't know how to meet one hundred people all at once.

621
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 2: And we also know that that one of those hundred

622
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 2: people will be noticing any bs that we have. There's

623
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 2: always someone out there who will see your vulnerability. So

624
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: the game is up, you know, and or here your here,

625
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 2: your your hear something you're trying to cover over. So

626
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 2: it's so being in front of other people and speaking

627
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 2: in other people, we're rightly afraid of it for good reason.

628
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 2: For good reason, it's because you will not escape. Notice,

629
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 2: you will not escape being examined, You will not escape

630
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 2: being vulnerable, being vulnerable, and your vulnerability is being exposed.

631
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 2: So you need a good sense of humor about yourself

632
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,839
Speaker 2: to go on stage, which noticed you have in spades, Christian, so.

633
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 1: As to you David as well. The thing about voices

634
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: is that people don't realize is that they kid themselves,

635
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:57,960
Speaker 1: that they can lie to themselves and other people. It

636
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: happens every day. Actually, our voices are way more revealing

637
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: than we give them credit for, don't you think.

638
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 2: Yes, it's it's a really astonishing and quite often we'll

639
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 2: cover over what we've heard. Actually, no, intuitively we've heard something.

640
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 2: You know, say, you're in the presence of an untrustworthy

641
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 2: character who's trying to convince you of something. We all

642
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:31,839
Speaker 2: know that that disconcerting difference between between the words you're

643
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 2: hearing and what your what your stomach is telling you

644
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 2: and and it's actually asking you to speak from that stomach,

645
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 2: and when it's not spoken, when you're not speaking from

646
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 2: your from literally from your gut, then there's a kind

647
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 2: of disembodied feeling, which is that that telling disturbance that

648
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:57,839
Speaker 2: says we're in the presence of something we either need

649
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 2: to get away from or or we need to say

650
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 2: no to I was just going to say. When I

651
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 2: was first on stage and working with a lot of

652
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 2: these issues literally of life and death, I would get

653
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 2: into places where I'd just be terrified on stage and

654
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 2: be in front of six seven hundred people and I'm

655
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 2: suddenly talking about death, and at that time I wouldn't

656
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,879
Speaker 2: have had the equanimity that I have now to talk

657
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 2: about death. I would be disturbed by it. I feel vulnerable.

658
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 2: I'd feel overwhelmed, particularly with a loss of people or

659
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 2: friends that I'd lost, and my knee would start shaking.

660
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 2: I would start getting a twitch in my face. You know,

661
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 2: my whole body was unable to hold it. But part

662
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 2: of the discipline and the apprenticeship to my voice was

663
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 2: staying there and just trying to feel it more while

664
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,239
Speaker 2: I was on stage. It was a really fierce apprenticeship.

665
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 2: And if I needed silence, I'd just fall silent, and

666
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 2: everyone intuitively would know what you were doing when you

667
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 2: were wrestling with something and you let you let that

668
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 2: voice have a ground, you let it have space, and

669
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: sometimes it just comes out in a cracked way to

670
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 2: begin with, mouse like correct way, But if it's authentic,

671
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 2: that's your voice at that moment, that's all you've got,

672
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 2: and you you slowly embody the mouse until you become

673
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 2: the lion. And that it's an incredibly humiliating in the

674
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 2: best form of humiliation, humiliating, an instructive way to go

675
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: just to start to listen to your voice. I'm just remembering. Actually,

676
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 2: I always had an intuitive relationship with the human voice.

677
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 2: When I was thirteen or fourteen, I started to notice

678
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 2: that my voice was very different depending on who I

679
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 2: was with. When I was with my mother, who I

680
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 2: was the most comfortable with, it was very easy. It

681
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 2: was rested in my body. When I was with friends

682
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 2: at school, it was easy rested. If I was in

683
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 2: the presence of the school bully, you know, then my

684
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 2: voice would be high and squeaky. When I was in

685
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 2: the presence of my father it would be very fragile, too,

686
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 2: And so I started actually practicing being able to speak

687
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 2: in all those different relationships. And I remember my father

688
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 2: being really surprised because we're going through the normal kind

689
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: of distancing that a thirteen year old needs from the father,

690
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 2: and I, you know, so heeping away as much as

691
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:31,959
Speaker 2: I could. But then suddenly I said, I was saying

692
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 2: to my father where are you going down? And he'd say, oh,

693
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 2: I'm going to see your uncle Tom. I'd say, can

694
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 2: I come along with you? It's not really surprised, but

695
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 2: I would practice sitting in the car having keeping my

696
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 2: voice in my body while I was talking to my father.

697
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:50,319
Speaker 2: We were both looking forward, which is the best kind

698
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 2: of masculine conversation when you're at that age, not into

699
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 2: each other rise. But it was it was great practice, Yeah,

700
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 2: it was, and it really helped my literally my conversation

701
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 2: and my relationship with my father.

702
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. Yeah, it says so much. You're right,

703
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:12,200
Speaker 1: there's a I'm fascinated by, you know, how people find

704
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: their voice, you know, and there's so much literature out

705
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: there about how you find your writing voice. And yet

706
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: the one way we express ourselves in this world is

707
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: through our is our speaking voice. And as much as

708
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: it's about finding I actually increasingly now aware of, it's

709
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: about allowing and everything you just talked about there. It

710
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: was a lot of people when they say I struggle

711
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: to speak freely in certain situations. You know, whether it's

712
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: a parental figure, someone at work, replacing that parental figure

713
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: in a relationship with their own children, it's actually about

714
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 1: allowing and allowing themselves to almost have the permission to

715
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: take up space, because actually when we speak, we're saying

716
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: I matter, I am here. You know. It's amazing how

717
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: actually that was an act of real maturity and courage

718
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: with your dad.

719
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 2: It was when I think, when i'd think about it,

720
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 2: actually about that young thirteen year old lad. But I

721
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:10,240
Speaker 2: always had an intuition about my poetry, the writing portrait

722
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,359
Speaker 2: since I was seven years old or so, and I

723
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 2: think it was just part of that necessary following of

724
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 2: that absence I spoke about in the earlier part of

725
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,240
Speaker 2: the interview.

726
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: And what do you think that was for you? David?

727
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: What do you think it is now? The absence?

728
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: Well, the absence was what I have now, actually what

729
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 2: I'm able to embody now with my voice on stage,

730
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,280
Speaker 2: working with very very difficult dynamics that it's very hard

731
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 2: to put language to, and reciting poetry that takes you

732
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 2: into incredibly vulnerable places while standing in front of a

733
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 2: thousand people. And so that's what that was. The I

734
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 2: could not have done that at thirteen years old, but

735
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 2: that was my intuition of what I needed to do.

736
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 2: You did to work with the way my voice was

737
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 2: absent from my body. Actually, particularly in fierce circumstances, you know,

738
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 2: where you might feel threatened or you might feel overwhelmed,

739
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 2: not knowing what to say.

740
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:19,239
Speaker 1: One thing, having listened to you and seen you live

741
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: a lot and listen to your beautiful three Sundays, is

742
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: you also use humor beautifully. And I was like, if

743
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:32,879
Speaker 1: you're laughing, you actually feel safe because the one thing

744
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: that they do about absence. You know, when something's very

745
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: serious or very terrifying, there's the absence of laughter. But

746
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: actually you use it beautifully, not as an avoidance technique

747
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: like so many of us do sometimes, but actually as

748
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: a way. It's all part of the work you do

749
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,279
Speaker 1: and how you have the conversation is And I know

750
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,280
Speaker 1: that's an Irish thing because you know, whenever I'm in Islands,

751
00:44:55,280 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: you're surrounded by comedians and storytellers and a real life

752
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: of language and how it's used and played with. It's

753
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: it's like a melody. As much as there's great singing

754
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:09,439
Speaker 1: an island, that the voice in conversation storytelling that it's

755
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: like a melody. It's like an instrument. And one thing

756
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: I've always loved is the way you use humor as well,

757
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: and you've got a really enjoyable laugh. Some people laugh

758
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: and I don't quite get the feeling that they're enjoying laughing.

759
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: Yours is a real joyous, bellowing, full bodied laugh. And

760
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: even as I think about David's laugh, it's making me

761
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: smile because I've been in the presence of that laughter

762
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: and it reverberates through all of our bodies. Yeah, I

763
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: think humor to you is just as important as the

764
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,240
Speaker 1: precision you can have with the words to talk about

765
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: what it is to be human.

766
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 2: You know what humor represents. It represents the multic and

767
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 2: textual experience of existence and the understanding that whatever context

768
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:59,320
Speaker 2: you have arranged for yourself, there's always another larger context

769
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 2: that makes you your context absurd. And so it's you know,

770
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 2: we're never just one person. We're all of these different people,

771
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 2: including the vulnerable child insiders that's never grown up, and

772
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 2: you have to bring all parts of you along and

773
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 2: so to be able to laugh at yourself with your

774
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 2: absurd ideas of how you should live your life at times,

775
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 2: and the way that those ideas are exposed in public

776
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 2: in humiliating ways, you know, in front of other people.

777
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 2: This is you know, this is absolutely necessary. You can

778
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 2: be as efficient as you want in your life, and

779
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 2: and and the larger reality will will. You know, while

780
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 2: I was just trying to get out of an Airbnb

781
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 2: and Byron Bay, actually, I suddenly noticed this very large

782
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 2: lizard standing in the in the living room and it's

783
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's called an Eastern water dragon,

784
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: and massive creature. I've never seen one before. My love,

785
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 2: I just about leapt out of my skin. I'm trying

786
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 2: to pet and uh so I I stopped this thing

787
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 2: to try and get it out the door, but it

788
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 2: went the wrong way. And so I'm having this this

789
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 2: trace around the Airbnb of this dragon like creature I've

790
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 2: never I don't even know if it's if it can

791
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 2: bite or anything, but but I mean, we're we're often

792
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 2: humiliated into the next dispensation of our life. And and

793
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 2: you know, parenting is often a constant humiliation of your powers,

794
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 2: you know, of your patients, of your integrity. Every parent

795
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 2: falls down in their integrity at one time or another,

796
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 2: and then and then having to let them go and

797
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 2: going from this godlike figure when they're so young to

798
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 2: being a walking embarrassment you know, as you come in

799
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 2: the kitchen and they suck and they immediately leave. You know,

800
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 2: you're just not wanted in that way anymore, And so

801
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 2: you're humiliated into the next level of maturity of parenting,

802
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 2: which is giving them some distance, giving them some space,

803
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:34,919
Speaker 2: giving them some freedom from your specific advice, no matter

804
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 2: how good it is, and saying fairly well, So there's

805
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 2: a lot of humor in parenting, but there can be

806
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,919
Speaker 2: a lot of tragedy if you don't have a sense

807
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 2: of humor about yourself.

808
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: It's so true, You're right, I remember just going. You

809
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 1: go from almost getting standing ovations at nighttime in front

810
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: of your kids and almost being a golden god, and

811
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,840
Speaker 1: then suddenly now with eighteen and twenty year olds and

812
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 1: suddenly now being reduced to a consultant dad with up

813
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: reduced hours and reduce powers. And like any consultant, you

814
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: don't really listen to half the stuff they say that like, yeah,

815
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: just give us your findings, dad, and yeah, I'll have

816
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: a look at it when I get round to it.

817
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I'm just like some kind of assistant. Yeah,

818
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,479
Speaker 1: a consultant now on the sidelines really of their lives.

819
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, Hang on a minute, it wasn't What

820
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: do you think I was always just a consultant at

821
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: the side of it. I was never really the central

822
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: driving force that I'd kidded myself that I was. Yeah,

823
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 1: it's life is a series of humiliations. You're right. If

824
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,279
Speaker 1: you can have a sense of humor about that, I

825
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:40,800
Speaker 1: think you can navigate.

826
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know the root of that word is

827
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 2: as humorous actually, both in humor and humiliation. Yeah, I

828
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 2: didn't know that. What have a fancy ideas you had

829
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 2: about yourself? Your your suddenly returned to the ground of

830
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:01,959
Speaker 2: your being, and those abstracts notions you have had about

831
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 2: yourself as shown away. Also, there's this whole dynamic of

832
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 2: having to let go of what seemed like sacred promises. So,

833
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 2: for instance, the promise you make over a newborn child,

834
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,879
Speaker 2: whether you're a father or a mother, or a godparent,

835
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 2: or an uncle or an auntie or just a good friend,

836
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,280
Speaker 2: they are always promises of complete and not of safety.

837
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 2: Nothing's going to happen to you on my watch, and

838
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 2: I'm going to make sure you're kept safe. And that's

839
00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 2: a really appropriate promise for the child and for the infant.

840
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 2: But if you kept to that promise when they were

841
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,880
Speaker 2: fifteen years old, you'd ruin the child's life if you

842
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:47,759
Speaker 2: tried to provide ultimate protection. No, you're meant to have

843
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: let go of that actually many years before they're fifteen. Actually,

844
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 2: so it's kind of a magnified version of many of

845
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:57,879
Speaker 2: the promises we make in our life that are now

846
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:02,240
Speaker 2: out of season. And we have a lot of advice

847
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:08,240
Speaker 2: in our theological and religious literature and psychological literature about

848
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 2: making promises. There's an almost nothing about the breaking of promises,

849
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 2: which is just as necessary. Actually, so there's so to

850
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 2: speak to the breaking of promises can be quite freeing

851
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 2: for people actually to understand that there's all of us

852
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 2: that in our lives are always grappling with a promise.

853
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 2: We now have to break one that was previously sacred

854
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 2: in its season and completely appropriate, is now imprisoning both

855
00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 2: myself and the person to whom I've made the promise,

856
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 2: and articulating that I have a piece actually written called

857
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 2: to Break a Promise, and it's a little poetic manual

858
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,640
Speaker 2: about how to do it. First lines are, I would

859
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 2: love to hear that I wrote it in this amazing

860
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 2: ruined medieval fishing cottage that's part of this monastic ruin

861
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 2: right on the edge of Connemara. You might have gone there, actually, Kong.

862
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: Yes, you're on my with you. Yeah, beautiful, I remember that.

863
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,720
Speaker 2: Remember that that ruin out over the river on pillars.

864
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 2: It had three walls left, and the peaked roof the chimney,

865
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:27,439
Speaker 2: and a fireplace, and then a slot in the floor

866
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:29,319
Speaker 2: where the monks used to drop a net down to

867
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 2: catch fish. But the fourth wall has fallen into the river.

868
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 2: If you're ever in there by yourself and you spend

869
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 2: some time in silence, you're you're watching the river flow

870
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 2: away from you. It's a fast flowing.

871
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 1: River, yes, powerful plant.

872
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're really looking at everything that's already gone. Actually, actually,

873
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 2: when all of us when we're looking at a river,

874
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 2: are actually looking at something that's no longer there. It's

875
00:52:56,360 --> 00:52:59,920
Speaker 2: already gone. And so I was in there, and I

876
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 2: was grappling with this relationship I had that I needed

877
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 2: to let go of. So I wrote this piece. And

878
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 2: you can feel the architecture of that medieval fishing cottage

879
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 2: in the poem to break a Promise, Make a place

880
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 2: of prayer, To break a promise, Make a place of prayer.

881
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 2: No fuss now, no fuss, now, just lean into the

882
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,960
Speaker 2: white brightness and say what you needed to say all along,

883
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 2: nothing too much, words as simple and as yours as

884
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 2: the birds sung above your head or the water running

885
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:38,080
Speaker 2: gently beside you. Let your words join one to another,

886
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 2: the way stone nestles on stone, the way water just

887
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 2: leaves and ghost to the sea, the way your promise

888
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 2: breathes and belongs with every other promise the world has

889
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 2: ever made. Now let them go on. Let your words

890
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 2: have their own life without you, go with the river.

891
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 2: Let the promise go with the river. Now stand up,

892
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 2: walk away. Have faith. That's to break a promise the

893
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,800
Speaker 2: less time. You are very practical, just to say have faith.

894
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: And because when I did walk away, I said, you know,

895
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:21,399
Speaker 2: if the promise is still real, it will come back

896
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 2: to me. Actually I won't be able to let go

897
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 2: of it. But if you spent forty five minutes on

898
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 2: a freezing cold January day and a medieval stone got it,

899
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 2: you probably need to give the promise.

900
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: Away and do your own survival.

901
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:38,880
Speaker 2: I did give the promise away, and it's incredible freedom.

902
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 1: Actually it's a great questionation.

903
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 2: What's the promise? I need to let go of because

904
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,759
Speaker 2: there will be one. What's the promise I need to

905
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,879
Speaker 2: let go of that's imprisoning me and the people are

906
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 2: the person to whom I made that promise.

907
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something like an old stori or version of ourselves,

908
00:54:57,880 --> 00:54:59,640
Speaker 1: someone that you know, at the time we thought we

909
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: need to be, or have to be, or should be. Yeah,

910
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:04,359
Speaker 1: and then some sort of that story is keeping you

911
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 1: too small, and there's a larger story which is trying

912
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:11,479
Speaker 1: to trying to cool you forward, I guess in your life.

913
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when I started off as a serious

914
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 2: young man poet, you know, I grew up from long

915
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:20,040
Speaker 2: lines of rebels on my Irish and Scots and Yorkshire side.

916
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 2: I grew up where the Luddykees used to meet. I

917
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 2: grew up in a raving socialist part of West.

918
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,360
Speaker 1: At what a hot genetically that is a melting pot.

919
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 2: I know, the Irish side, the Scots side. When I

920
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 2: was first invited to come and speak in the corporate world,

921
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:39,399
Speaker 2: you know, I had this inner promise in me, which

922
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 2: was to keep my integrity as a poet, not to

923
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 2: sell out. You know, it's a pretty fierce inheritance, the

924
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:48,719
Speaker 2: poetic tradition. People have gone off to the gulags for

925
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 2: a line of portrait, you know. And so you're standing

926
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:57,799
Speaker 2: in this very powerful, courageous tradition, and in some ways

927
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:01,879
Speaker 2: I'd made an unconscious promise to it not to never

928
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 2: to betray it. So when I was invited into the

929
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,240
Speaker 2: corporate world and the organizational world to speak because people

930
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,239
Speaker 2: heard me and said, oh, we need you here, I

931
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 2: said no, because because I'd made this promise, and I

932
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 2: was asked again, I said no again. And then I

933
00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 2: was asked three times sincerely, And in the Irish tradition,

934
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 2: if you're asked three times, you have to go so

935
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 2: and then the scary thing was that I did not

936
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 2: have to compromise my work. Actually, so that meant me

937
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:38,840
Speaker 2: letting go of this old idea right about the organizational

938
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:45,320
Speaker 2: world being somehow the enemy of creative and artistic endeavor.

939
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 2: And I was able to let go of that. But

940
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 2: it was a promise that I'd made to myself quite unconsciously,

941
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 2: actually consciously and unconsciously, and a promise I had to

942
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,400
Speaker 2: undo consciously and unconsciously.

943
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:03,440
Speaker 1: Say, and yeah, actually, if there's one place where you

944
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:07,279
Speaker 1: know poetry and the language of the heart and understanding

945
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:11,000
Speaker 1: our own longing and belonging in the corporate world. It's

946
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 1: so needed in boardrooms and in meeting rooms because often

947
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,480
Speaker 1: they want you to exclude or exile that essential I guess,

948
00:57:19,600 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: vulnerable part of yourself, your heart and soul, leave it

949
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 1: out in your car and in the staff car park.

950
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 1: And actually what's really needed is to bring more of

951
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:27,520
Speaker 1: that into the workplace.

952
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I work. I have an institute for conversational leadership now,

953
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 2: actually I work with others, a great team of people

954
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 2: that I founded quite a few years ago, and I

955
00:57:40,600 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 2: look at seven the seven elements for deepening any conversation.

956
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 2: You know, when you're you could talk about conversational leadership,

957
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 2: which is the best kind of leadership, but you could

958
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 2: talk about invitational leadership. Just as I said earlier, there's

959
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 2: no conversation with that real invitation. And actually, when you're

960
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 2: in that position of responsibility in leadership, people are unconsciously

961
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 2: or consciously looking to see what invitation you're going to

962
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 2: make to them. And there used to being existentially disappointed

963
00:58:12,840 --> 00:58:17,720
Speaker 2: in finding out that actually there's no invitation. It's true, yes,

964
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 2: to go away so they can get their work done.

965
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:25,480
Speaker 2: So a real invitation is really quite powerful It's also

966
00:58:25,560 --> 00:58:31,480
Speaker 2: disturbing because as a leader, you invite, you invite someone

967
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 2: for a specific gift or task, and they always have

968
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 2: more to bring the new ask of them, and so

969
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 2: you always have to make room for the greater consequences

970
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:49,200
Speaker 2: of what you've invited into your life. So that's a process,

971
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 2: and it's a difficult and vulnerable process to stay in

972
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 2: those conversations. And you know, the word corporation is a

973
00:59:03,160 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 2: telling word. It just means a body, a body of people.

974
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:08,720
Speaker 2: So corporation is simply a group of people that have

975
00:59:08,760 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 2: come together to do something that that's impossible for an

976
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 2: individual to do alone. And wherever two or three are

977
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 2: gathered together, there will be drama. My Irish niece went

978
00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 2: went off to university to study drama. Before she went,

979
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:28,200
Speaker 2: she said to me, she knew I worked in the

980
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 2: corporate Well, she didn't know how it worked for a

981
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 2: poet to be in the corporate world, but she said,

982
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 2: I don't suppose the major corporations of the world will

983
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:37,840
Speaker 2: be knocking on my door when I have a degree

984
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 2: in drama. And I said to her, Marlene, I said,

985
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:44,920
Speaker 2: a degree in drama is what would most prepare you

986
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:46,280
Speaker 2: for corporations?

987
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: It's a world of amateur dramatics I found.

988
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, we think it's so buttoned down, but it's all drama.

989
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 2: Every organization trama. Oh my god, no.

990
01:00:00,320 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: And you're right, as a you're right. So many of

991
01:00:02,400 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 1: the leaders I've worked with, it's they make themselves very alone.

992
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: Actually I've done this in running my teams the radio

993
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: shows of the year. I've made myself too alone with it.

994
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: You think that the job is about showing that you

995
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,560
Speaker 1: have all the answers. And actually the real turning pointment

996
01:00:17,600 --> 01:00:20,080
Speaker 1: for me was when I moved here to a different

997
01:00:20,120 --> 01:00:22,320
Speaker 1: country and I realized I needed a different way to

998
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 1: leading people who didn't know who I was. I didn't

999
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: have the same accent, and I didn't have the shame

1000
01:00:27,240 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: shared history. And it was brilliant. It was a radical

1001
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 1: letting go of everything that Actually I thought that was like,

1002
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 1: you know, my arrows, but they weren't. They're actually creating

1003
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: distance between me and the people that I needed to

1004
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: work in a deeper way with. And it was about

1005
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:45,320
Speaker 1: more vulnerability I've found. And actually, yeah, I didn't realize

1006
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:49,400
Speaker 1: that I wasn't being very invitational. Yeah, I was frightened

1007
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 1: of being of them. Seeing that I was scared or

1008
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do next.

1009
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you needed help. One of the is things

1010
01:00:57,280 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 2: that comes out of vulnerability is asking for help.

1011
01:01:00,160 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 1: It's so hard. I found it so hard, David. Why

1012
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: is that I found it so hard to be a

1013
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 1: burden to somebody I thought was a sign of weakness.

1014
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 2: Yes. I spent a whole year actually working with what

1015
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:14,960
Speaker 2: I call visible and invisible help. And I gave myself

1016
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:18,520
Speaker 2: the task of every day of the year asking someone

1017
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 2: for help, some visible kind of practical help. So it

1018
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 2: might be someone to come over and help me with

1019
01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 2: the electrics in the house, you know, and or fixing

1020
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 2: a tap, or or something to do with my computer,

1021
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 2: or advice or about about an intellectual dynamic I was

1022
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 2: working with. And there were two things I found. One

1023
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:46,959
Speaker 2: was how much incredible buoyancy I got in my life.

1024
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 2: So many things got done it was just yes. And

1025
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 2: the second thing was how much people loved to be asked,

1026
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 2: especially if you said you are really good at this,

1027
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 2: I'm not very good at it at all, would you

1028
01:02:02,160 --> 01:02:06,040
Speaker 2: come and show me how to do it? And people

1029
01:02:06,080 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 2: are incredibly complimented. Yeah. Then the other kind of help

1030
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:13,240
Speaker 2: that we have to ask for is what I call

1031
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 2: invisible help. Well, we've called it invisible help since the

1032
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 2: beginning of time, and you know, one version of it

1033
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 2: we inture in the sense of there being other realms.

1034
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:25,760
Speaker 2: You know, in religion it's the angelic realms or whatever,

1035
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 2: or the invisible helping us. But you can think about

1036
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 2: it in a very very practical way too, Christian, in

1037
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 2: that invisible help is the help that you do not

1038
01:02:36,640 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 2: as yet.

1039
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:41,320
Speaker 1: Know you need. Beautiful, Yes, unless.

1040
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:46,360
Speaker 2: You're on your absolute scintillating edge paying attention to the world,

1041
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 2: you'll walk right past it, even though it's exactly what

1042
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 2: you need. We can all think of moments in our

1043
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 2: earlier in our lives where someone offered us help, either

1044
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:02,120
Speaker 2: psychological or practical, and we put our hand down and

1045
01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:04,800
Speaker 2: said I could do it myself. When the going gets

1046
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 2: tough to death get I don't need help, and we

1047
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:09,600
Speaker 2: walk past it. And then seven years later we look

1048
01:03:09,680 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 2: back and said, oh my god, if I'd have just

1049
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:16,439
Speaker 2: accepted that help, I could have saved myself seven years

1050
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 2: of drama. So it's really interesting to ask yourself, what

1051
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:24,560
Speaker 2: help is being offered to me right now that I'm

1052
01:03:24,560 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 2: walking right past that I'm refusing It just makes you

1053
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 2: look at the world and look at other people, and

1054
01:03:31,680 --> 01:03:34,200
Speaker 2: look at the dynamics of your existence in a completely

1055
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 2: different way. You start paying attention as if everything's speaking

1056
01:03:38,880 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 2: back to you, which it actually is, actually and actually

1057
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:47,120
Speaker 2: inviting you into the next dispensation of your existence, the

1058
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 2: next territory, large and more generous territory of your life.

1059
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:55,120
Speaker 1: It's beautiful because yeah, even now I'm thinking, oh, that's

1060
01:03:55,160 --> 01:03:57,920
Speaker 1: a much better way rather than seeing sometimes life as

1061
01:03:57,960 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: a having an adversary relationship with it, or what's it

1062
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: doing to me? Now? What's it demanding of me? Now?

1063
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: It becomes more of a collaborate, more of a companion

1064
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:09,880
Speaker 1: or soul mate, and you can co create that way

1065
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 1: with it by having more of an open heart.

1066
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 2: I guess maybe I could finish with the poem on

1067
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 2: that theme.

1068
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:16,480
Speaker 1: There'll be one.

1069
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 2: It's it's called Everything is Waiting for You. Your great

1070
01:04:22,840 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 2: mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.

1071
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 2: Your great mistake is to act the drama as if

1072
01:04:29,400 --> 01:04:32,600
Speaker 2: you were alone, as if life were a progressive and

1073
01:04:32,680 --> 01:04:36,880
Speaker 2: cunning crime with no witness to the tiny, hidden transgressions.

1074
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 2: To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.

1075
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 2: To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

1076
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:50,560
Speaker 2: even you, at times have felt the grand array, the

1077
01:04:50,600 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 2: swelling presence, and the chorus crowding out your solo voice.

1078
01:04:56,200 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 2: You must note the way the soap dish enables you,

1079
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 2: or the window latch grants you courage. Alertness is the

1080
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:10,960
Speaker 2: hidden discipline of familiarity. Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

1081
01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:14,680
Speaker 2: The stairs are your mentor of things to come. The

1082
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 2: doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you.

1083
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:22,160
Speaker 2: And the tiny speaker in the phone is your dream

1084
01:05:22,280 --> 01:05:27,440
Speaker 2: leader to divinity. Put down the weight of your loneeness

1085
01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:31,160
Speaker 2: and ease into the conversation. Put down the weight of

1086
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:34,880
Speaker 2: your loneeness, and ease into the conversation. The kettle is

1087
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 2: singing even as it pours you a drink. The cooking

1088
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:41,919
Speaker 2: pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good

1089
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 2: in you. At last, all the birds and creatures of

1090
01:05:46,360 --> 01:05:54,000
Speaker 2: the world are unutterably themselves. Everything, everything, everything is waiting

1091
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 2: for you.

1092
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:58,680
Speaker 1: Thank you, Oh, what a lovely, beautiful way to bring

1093
01:05:58,800 --> 01:05:59,640
Speaker 1: it all together.

1094
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure.

1095
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:02,880
Speaker 1: Thank you, David Loss of Love. Thank you for your

1096
01:06:02,920 --> 01:06:04,480
Speaker 1: time and your words. I Know

1097
01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:08,400
Speaker 2: A Christian O'Connell Show podcast