The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America

much of our experience is predicated on the consciousness with which we enter it, our future possibilities already mortgaged to past limitations. The struggling company finds itself unable to see the chance of a more nimble future due to the suffocating weight of its past self-image. Beowulf’s final struggle and grasping of the luminous sword must

If we are suffering the consequences of asphyxiation from the smouldering fuel inside us, we are at least aware there is a fire and fuel there to find and breathe on.

the soul finds its existence through a loss of control to those powers greater than human experience.

There are energies and powers in the world that are greater than any human endeavor, even the mighty corporate world that lately we have come to hold in so much esteem. Despite everything our inheritance may tell us, work is not and never has been the very center of the human universe; and the universe, with marvelous compassion, seems willing to t

The first step to preserving the soul in our individual lives is to admit that the world has a soul also, and is somehow participating with us in our work and destiny. That there is a sacred otherness to the world that is breathtakingly helpful simply because it is not us; it is not defined by our human worries and preoccupations, and it never will

In my experience, the more true we are to our own creative gifts the less there is any outer reassurance or help at the beginning. The more we are on the path, the deeper the silence in the first stages of the process. Following our path is in effect a kind of going off the path, through open country. There is a certain early stage when we are left

THE LEADEN EYED Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s sore crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden eyed. Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but they seldom reap. Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve Not that

if we can see the path ahead laid out for us, there is a good chance it is not our path; it is probably someone else’s we have substituted for our own. Our own path must be deciphered every step of the way.

The new science of complexity echoes the wisdom long passed down in the poetic tradition. The way to build a poem or a lifelike and useful system is to fold meaning into the simplest elements and allow complexity to emerge from their natural self-generation. Deal with many simple elements instead of one complex system. Think locally, act locally, i