First Book Club for 2014: “The Three Marriages: Re-imagining Work, Self and Relationships ”

This year, in line with the Committee’s interest in creating opportunities for our friends and members to learn about spiritual practices and put them into practice, we are starting up a Book Club.  We plan to have three Book Club events in 2014.

We are so delighted to have Dr Lesley Porter as our special guest for our first Book Club group session on 19th June 2014, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm at  Reading Room in the Leichhardt Libary, Piazza Level, Italian Forum, 23 Norton Street Leichhardt. Please RSVP by email to inquiries@slam.org.au

Dr Lesley Porter is deeply interested in sacred, spiritual and poetic moments in everyday life, work life and scholarship. Her work is at the interface of how leaders, therapists and practitioners create their unique transformative practices through the doing and making of their work. As a therapist and writer involved in supervision and training she turned to David Whyte’s work in 2005 when she managed a large primary health team. She is a keen reader and interpreter of his ideas in her various roles with teams and practitioners working with: illness and wellbeing narratives; ethical engagements in work and therapy; poetry and poetic inquiry. Lesley is a member of Adelaide Trauma Centre, a community of practice group using body sensitive approaches in trauma work.

Our first text for 2014 is “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationships” by David Whyte. You can buy it in most book shops – but here is a web link to the online retailers, for example  Fishpond, or purchase the downloadable audio version from David Whyte Online Store.

David Whyte (www.davidwhyte.com) has created a unique, international reputation as a poet and poetry narrator, a talent and a role that he uses in therapeutic work with corporate bodies. I first encountered him when working in the UK at the University of Northampton. The doctoral students were using his approaches in their transformational leadership works.

This book is about re-thinking the work/life “balance” conversation so that the struggle to achieve it disappears!

For those not familiar with a Book Club… Book Clubs are for people who love reading and learning, and want to share their passion with people of like minds. The idea is that people are notified of a text – a book, a paper or any kind of writing about a shared interest.  For us, our shared interest is spirituality and leadership. If we want to become a part of the club event we procure the text, and read it in time for a book club group. This is when people come together and discuss the text in order to share and hear about how we have read it, what we have learned, what questions the reading provoked in us. Even if you have not read the text, or all of it, you are most welcome to join us.

For this first Book Club session, if you have not had time to procure the David Whyte book, please read some reviews of the book (eg Amazon) in preparation. The following Book Club session will be on 20 August, same location and time, to continue the discussion.