The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting

By Mark Nepo

Nothing compares to the sensation
of being alive in the company of
another. It is God breathing on
the embers of our soul.
—Mark Nepo, “The Way Under the Way”
When we shift from trying to be special to seeking what is special in everything, we discover “the way under the way”—the timeless terrain of that mysterious force which animates and unites us. The Way Under the Way brings you a sweeping three-part collection of 217 of Mark Nepo’s original poems and essays to open the heart, awaken insight, and support you on each step of your unique journey through life.
The first two works, Suite for the Living and Inhabiting Wonder (originally published by Bread for the Journey Intl.) bear witness to the messy and magnificent adventure of being human. Evolving these further, Mark Nepo integrates nearly 60 new poems into the thematic reach of the material. The Way Under the Way presents a wholly new work, centered on “the place of true meeting that is always near” and the natural rhythms of opening and closing that can become the art that keeps us vital.
“All we ever need is right where we are, if we can open the ordinary treasure that is always before us,” writes Mark Nepo. The Way Under the Way is an invitation to “ignite your own exploration of the nature and workings of the inner life.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781622037551

Mark Nepo

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 40 years. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has published over 20 books, including The Book of Awakening, Surviving Storms, and Finding Courage, and has recorded more than a dozen audio projects. Mark has been interviewed several times by Oprah Winfrey as part of her Super Soul Sunday TV show, and was interviewed by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Book preview

BOOK ONE

SUITE FOR THE LIVING

for Susan and Robert,

whose spirits

let me see

my hands

in the dark

THE NECESSARY ART

Poetry is the unexpected utterance of the soul that comes to renew us when we least expect it. More than the manipulation of language, it is a necessary art by which we live and breathe. It is the art of embodied perception; a braiding of heart and mind around experience. Consider how a simple fish inhales water, and somehow, mysteriously and miraculously, it extracts the oxygen from the water. In doing this, it turns that water into the air by which it breathes. This ongoing inner transformation is poetry. A much deeper process than fooling with words. For us, the heart is our gill and we must move forward into life, like simple fish, or we will die. And the mysterious yet vital way we turn experience into air, the way we extract what keeps us alive—this is the poetry of life that transcends any earthly endeavor. All this while the Universal Ground of Being we call Spirit is working its unknowable physics on us, eroding us to know that we are each