122 Years - Ink In The Blood
De–sider, of the stars
“The old latin root of the word desire, meaning de-sider, of the stars. To have a desire in life literally means to keep your star in sight, to follow a glimmer, a beacon, a disappearing light over the horizon into some place you cannot yet fully imagine. A deeply held desire is a star that is particularly our own; it might disappear for a while, but when the skies clear we catch sight of it again and recognise the glimmer.”
- David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea - Work and the Shaping of Identity
Work: an opportunity for discovering and shaping; the place where the self meets the world.
Our greatest opportunity for discovery and growth is in the thing we most often want to get away from: our work. It’s where people spend the majority of their time, and it’s where many spend much of it wishing they were somewhere else, doing something else. And it’s where people often spend their time not being present, and not being themselves. Whyte points out that ‘as human beings we are the one part of creation that can refuse to be itself. Our bodies can be present in our work, but our hearts, minds and imaginations can be placed firmly in neutral or engaged elsewhere.’
Being engaged elsewhere is damaging to our souls. Work is a powerful force in the shaping of our identity. If we do our work unthinkingly, Whyte maintains, it can shape us away to nothing. Crossing the Unknown Sea is about us making work an equal shaping – an intimate conversation, a meeting place between our own voice and the voice we encounter out in the world.
