Mark will share stories, poems, and metaphors for the first forty minutes, and there will be a live conversation with Mark for the next thirty minutes, after which Mark will share again for the final fifty minutes.

Given the trying times we are living through, we need to hold each other through our suffering, and to ask for the story that has brought each of us to today, and to complete each other by listening with an open heart. In this online event, Mark will explore how a life of meaning and love unfolds through adversity, how love awakens everything, and how care erases the walls we keep building between us.

Every generation and tradition discovers, again and again, that our spiritual journey on Earth is not to strive from here to there, but to unfold from in to out. How we do this is both personal and Universal. But do it we must, if we are to flower and offer our nectar to the world. This exploration will unpack and bear witness to the turning inside out we all endure that lets Spirit show its beauty through our humanity.

Every so often, across the expanses of time, a mountain remakes itself, a forest clears itself, and the ocean reshapes its shore. And once in a generation of two, humanity remakes itself, such as we are right now. And such a remaking is both profound and painful. But here we are, being asked to put aside our old hypocrisies and all the ways we have pushed each other away. Here we are, being asked to be fierce and tender in our call to love each other until justice and healing are the same thing. Yet how do we participate in this remaking of humanity? I think one heart at a time, one truth at a time, one kindness at a time. And we can begin by remaking ourselves.

Beloved as a poet, teacher, and storyteller, Mark Nepo, the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awakening, has been called “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time,” “a consummate storyteller,” and “an eloquent spiritual teacher.” His many books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Mark's new book - Surviving Storms: Finding the Strength to Meet Adversity - is available now!

Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—his frank and astonishing voice—befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail.

—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of You and Yours, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and Red Suitcase

Mark Nepo is one of the finest spiritual guides of our time.

—Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness and The Courage to Teach

Mark Nepo joins a long tradition of truth-seeking, wild-hearted poets—Rumi, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver—and deserves a place in the center of the circle with them. 

—Elizabeth Lesser, Cofounder, Omega Institute, author of Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow

Nepo is a consummate storyteller with a rare gift for making the invisible visible.

—Publishers Weekly