397: Two Set Out On Their Journey

What happens when we widen our perspective to view our individual lives as part of an endless flow of generations? How do we honour both the weight of our immediate concerns and the liberation that comes from seeing them as moments in an infinite tapestry?  How might we practice radical amazement at the extraordinary nature of existence itself? What if our most profound joy emerges not from escaping life's difficulties but from embracing them while remembering the timeless quality beneath our temporal experience—that mysterious essence which precedes our birth and continues beyond our death? Perhaps our original light-heartedness—that which we carried as children—offers a way forward, now transformed by time and sorrow into something deeper.

This week’s conversation is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

You can join our Episode 400 Live, 8 June 2025, here

Episode Overview
00:00 Introduction and Announcing Episode 400 Live on June 8
05:13 Exploring the Poem: 'Two Set Out on Their Journey'
09:56 Finding Out We Are Not Alone
14:58 Navigating Grief and Impermanence
20:03 Radical Amazement and Bigger Horizons of Time
25:11 The Journey of Life and the Light Heart
30:04 Conclusion and Reflection

Two Set Out On Their Journey
We sit side by side,
brother and sister, and read
the book of what will be, while a breeze
blows the pages over—
desolate odd, cheerful even,
and otherwise. When we come
to our own story, the happy beginning,
the ending we don’t know yet,
the ten thousand acts
encumbering the days between,
we will read every page of it.
If an ancestor has pressed
a love-flower for us, it will lie hidden
between pages of the slow going,
where only those who adore the story
ever read. When the time comes
to shut the book and set out,
we will take childhood’s laughter
as far as we can into the days to come,
until another laughter sounds back
from the place where our next bodies
will have risen and will be telling
tales of what seemed deadly serious once,
offering to us oldening wayfarers
the light heart, now made of time
and sorrow, that we started with.

Galway Kinnell

Photo by Hoi An Photographer on Unsplash

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Join Us Live in 2025

Episode 400 Live, June 8 2025
On Sunday 8th June 2025 it will be our 400th episode and we are planning a Turning Towards Life live gathering on Zoom. You're all very welcome to join. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet us and to meet others. You can book a place for Episode 400 Live on June 8 here.

Turning Towards Life Live Season 1, from September 2025
We also have the launch of our Turning Towards Life live programme which is going to run in six month seasons from September. It's going to be in person on Zoom once a month. We're very excited about it. A chance to expand beyond the bounds of a podcast into forming a community of learning and practice. You can register your interest for Season 1 of Turning Towards Life Live here.

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About Turning Towards Life
Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.

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