Dale Biron พอดคาสต์

Can we turn "not knowing" into a friend? When it comes to the great ecological and related political challenges we face, can we turn “not knowing” and even "bafflement" into our ally? Yes, however our actions must be taken with great skill, curiosity, and most important, humility.โดย Dale Biron

"How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?" This fierce question by Poet Stanley Kunitz is the genesis for this episode. Truth is we'll never be able to address the ecological and political predicaments we face, unless we get better at letting go without giving up. Not letting go in defeat or resignation, but rather in a firm desire…

How can you "speak" a poem so the mind relaxes and the heart listens more deeply? Here are 6 simple "poem whisperer" principles you can put in to immediate use to inspire yourself and others with the poetry you most love. Dale Biron's Poem Whispering Principles If you love a poem, own it for yourself and others. Always read poems with just a skosh …

You may need "small islands of coherence" in your life, even more than you know. In this episode we will review an amazing poem by Pablo Neruda that might just be what you need... at least in one critical corner of your wonderful, unique, and precious life.โดย Dale Biron

What is beautiful is not only exciting, engaging, and pleasurable... It is wildly practical, as well. It simply works better than anything else! Please don't try to accomplish what is most important to you, without it.โดย Dale Biron

It's a serious question. Despite our intentions, we often sabotage our own best interests, including (and especially) doing things that conspire against our happiness. It doesn't have to be this way. Here are poems, stories, and quotes to deepen your ability to take your own side and yes, be more happy as well...…

Of all the poets I’ve included in my talks, workshops, and in 1-1 coaching over the years, Mary Oliver has been the best known and most loved. I’ve recommended her poems so often, I’ve lost track of the number. By featuring some of her best work, I hope to show why she’s been so cherished, loved, and well received over the years.…

3 Soul Talk Questions... What's the price of feeling disconnected from our soul? Has that price become too high to pay? What language is needed for our soul conversation?โดย Dale Biron

I recently published an article with a online publication on the Medium platform called "Better Humans." It’s turning out to be one of the most popular things I’ve published. At the heart of the article is our question for this episode, Can poetry make us less crazy? The actual title went like this – How to Use Poetry to Live a Better, Saner, and H…

What makes a good, or even great poem? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff, providing yourself with the language you actually love and need for your life? Here's a simple roadmap to get you started...โดย Dale Biron

What happens when hope must float in a sea of uncertainty, conflict, and loss? Can we create a more durable and resilient hope? A new fire-tested hope tethered to everyday joys, delights, and even tragedies along the way, a new hope tied not to a specific outcome but hope for doing the next right thing each step of the journey.…

What in your life would you work for, sacrifice for, serve and protect? The answer, of course is what you love and cherish. What if we were to widen our loving and cherishing boundaries? And beyond our closest loved humans and critters. In fact beyond humans to the wider community of sacred beings and the sacred elements that all living beings need…

How much can we safely ignore poetry? That’s a real question and we’re going to fearlessly try to answer it in this episode. What’s at stake? I would say many things are at stake. Join me now...โดย Dale Biron

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed and even besieged by the complexity of the world? Do you struggle to make sense and meaning out of our intense environmental, political, and cultural challenges? What if there were a tool that allowed us to develop our meaning-making muscles? What if we had a tool that helped us work more skillfully with paradox, c…

On one level, the people, critters, and things we love are familiar to us. At another level, it's far too easy to stop "seeing" and appreciating what is most precious to us. Our loves and connections then become obscured, a kind of secret, even to ourselves. Poetry helps us unlock these secrets, allowing us to reconnect to the wonders, delights, jo…

Be a tree. Listen to the magic of their beckoning poems and stories. Let them hear you out as they call out in you what is wise, rooted and clear.โดย Dale Biron

We are all heartbroken, so ignoring or denying it will not make it go away. However, to embrace our sorrow, and to embrace and help others with their sorrow can open up amazing possibilities. This episode is dedicated to poet-writer, Ross Gay who speaks eloquently and practically about the paradoxical relationship of sorrow and joy in his book call…

When you read or hear a "just right" poem, you will know it. The poem will delight and stun you. It will do something vital for you. Strangely, the poem will feel as if it owns you. Then, in turn you’ll feel a second wave of owning the poem back. I call it a great and sacred “claiming.” In this week’s episode, I’ll share how the process works, whil…

The meta-crisis is a multitude of overlapping, interconnected global crises of ecology, perception, culture, politics, education and spirituality.The "complexity trap" means we're trapped and ineffective. At one extreme, we are blind to (or deny) complexity, so we refuse to act. At the other extreme, we are buried in complexity such that the mind a…

In this episode we take on a very human feeling. A feeling we all have at times, yet a feeling no one wants. When we are in the grip of "aloneness" we often feel trapped. When our sense of separation becomes intense we can feel depressed, alienated from others, from the natural world, and ultimately ourselves. As we’ll see in this episode and refle…

Systems theory will never be the same after we hitch up some world-class William Stafford poetry to it. "Traveling Through The Dark" Stafford's most famous poem, provides a straightforward and powerful lesson in the perils of the "specious present" and in turn how to move beyond falling victim to either ecological doom or a reality-free unearned ho…

Sometimes the most serious subjects require the lightest, most humorous touch. These featured poets are masters at using with and humor to help us along our path, troubles and all...โดย Dale Biron

Silence is a powerful tool. It's essential for any meditation practice. Yet it can also be challenging, an acquired taste as they say. What would it mean to embrace silence more fully? To love it. Here is a featured poem, a number of quotes, and a discussion about silence that I hope you will find helpful.…

Do you ever lament the fact that the half-life of your clarity and best insights are often quite short? Here is a featured poem that suggests that this is only human. This is a poem that delights in the delicious, awakening act of discovering the truth again and again. Rather than try to "fix" this challenge, why not "feature" it?…

"Hello just right poem... I have found you." That's the new subtitle for this practical poetry podcast. I'm headed back to the future, as they say. For many years I've delighted in helping clients, students and workshop participants find just the right poem at just the right moment. I learned long ago through my own experience that finding the righ…

Love may be the only workable response to the ecological devastation we face. Even fierce resistance goes better with love. To confront the sheer magnitude of our ecological polly-crisis and predicament without art in general, and poetry in particular, is not only a recipe for despair, it also reduces the likelihood of success by some major and ter…

Eco-grief is real and growing. We ignore it at our peril, especially for those who wish to act in healing support of the natural world. Poetry is a potent tool for working with all kinds of grief. In this podcast, we'll explore how poetry can become one of our most practical means of working with eco-grief, with all its complexities and paradoxical…

In this episode, featuring the amazing poet William Carlos Williams, we will explore how stories that seem so right can be so wrong and damaging. Specifically, we’ll take on an incredibly enduring cultural story referred to as “The Tragedy of The Commons” most recently presented in a 1968 essay in the journal Science. It would become one of the mos…

In this episode, featuring the amazing poet Rumi, we will explore the ecological predicament we're in and how poetry can play a vital helping role. It’s never been more critical to understand the history, facts, and context of our ecological crisis. However, if we only dwell on the difficult and painful facts, we risk overwhelm and eventually despa…

Can we be smart but not wise? Our old wisdom is failing us in dramatic ways. We have ecological challenges everywhere we look, from climate, to soil erosion, to deforestation, to habitat destruction, to vast plastic and chemical pollution, to extinctions, to ocean acidification. What happens when we forget the new ecological stories we most need to…

“Internalities” Imagine all those things we might begin to count, if only all the humans were counted. Internalizing the costs of bellies unfed, mistakes unredeemed, minds unopened, histories untaught, context revered and protected, just as delicate roots beneath the brilliant and beautiful daffodils. Yes, and how democracies have hobbled themselve…

Today, like every other day, mother earth kept doing her wondrous magical spinning thing. As the sun thrummed a vibrational magic, the light and dark doing its eternal dance. That's when that big old mother earth smile happened, realizing this day was named for her. She said to all, please, take what you need. So the remaining bears, the wolves, ha…

I should mention that of course, I'm talking about myself here. When we are afflicted by this malady, we are often the last to know. Just ask your friends, loved ones, significant other...โดย Dale Biron

Many environmental activists I've spoken with agree on one thing. We won't make it through this narrow and ever more harrowing tight spot we're in without art. Since some have enjoyed my "Poetry Monday" posts, I've decided to begin "Saturday Songs." Here's a humble offer. A song I wrote called "Wolves In The Streets."…

Robert Bly is the perfect poet for those interested in and working toward healing the planet. (Not to mention healing ourselves.) Bly brings just the right combination of inspiration, surprise, humor, and a much needed deep wisdom. Enjoy this first podcast episode of the new format and focus.โดย Dale Biron

What if a kindness stalks you unmercifully? How about a thank-you note that comes at you so hard, then won't let you be? Then what if some special show of gratitude goes rogue and swallows your heart?โดย Dale Biron

Here's a poem for those days and times when you're feeling so discouraged you need a reminder that these times will pass. Not to mention remembering how important our daily practices are for maintaining a little sanity and centeredness. The poem is called "Why We Do Our Daily Practices" and is included as the title poem in a collection I published …

A poem by Dale Biron for Poetry Mondays...โดย Dale Biron

Before we’re done with this episode, we’ll cover some amazing opportunities, even in the face of all our challenges. That’s the “light” part! (But first, some questions to nibble on.) How are you making sense of this war? What are you reading? Who are you talking with and to whom are you listening? What are you believing? Have you formed an opinion…

A poem of peace dedicated to the Ukrainian people.โดย Dale Biron

After reading some memorial poetry and prose in honor of Barry Lopez, who passed in 2020 this poem came to me. His wife said he often made this statement: "I want to live a life that helped."โดย Dale Biron

When it comes to the fate of human beings in the natural world, now is a time for a new kind of hope, not a trivial hope. Only hope burned clean in the hot fire of faith is workable now. The faith our moment-by-moment breathing proves real. The faith in redwood, hawk, river, soil, ocean, cloud. The faith our hands and feet provide, and those of our…

Can a poem describe you better than you can? Yes, it's true, and maybe that's one of the reasons we love them so much. Let's explore this question further. My advice? Just let your poem-loving hedonism rule...โดย Dale Biron

Use this poem when you're feeling the most alone. For times when few are paying attention. For the times when your work is misunderstood and seems least likely to make a difference. Be reminded, the whole world is ready and waiting for your next courageous move.โดย Dale Biron

This is the first in a series of short poems offered up on Mondays for your listening pleasure. These will be in addition to the regular twice-monthly podcasts. Think of it as a kind of "micro-dosing" of poetry. Enjoy.โดย Dale Biron

The earth is blaring an ear-piercing, mind-numbing, heart-breaking alarm telling us we’re in deep trouble. We're in trouble with unprecedented levels of species extinction, topsoil loss, habitat destruction, melting solar caps, chemical contamination, fishery collapse, climate-caused fires, droughts, and sea level rise plus, of course all the human…

Friends don't let friends read boring poetry. So how can you find your personalized collection of exciting, inspiring, life-changing poems? Here are my three simple, down-to-earth guidelines after helping thousands of people discover the poetry they loved and needed in their lives.โดย Dale Biron

So many of the stories we grew up with and our culture keeps telling us no longer make sense. And in terms of their lived outcomes, they are increasingly turning out to be disastrous. Our minds and hearts reject these narratives, these patterns, these meanings. The very purpose of art (and especially poetry) is to create new stories, new patterns, …

Wild women poets are courageous, connected, and creative, and they ask and receive much from their muses. You won't want to miss the final podcast episode in a trilogy honoring more amazing, powerful, and attitude-altering women poets.โดย Dale Biron

Available now! A second full dose of wild women poets served up fresh, defiant, and highly captivating for both head and heart. Let me tease with some provocative words from this episode from wild women poet, Audre Lorde: “When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is bett…