So, where do you stand?

Just when you thought this blog was going to get all focused on emerging brands, here’s a spot of poetry for you:

Self Portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.
I have been told
In that fierce embrace
Even the gods
Speak of God.

David Whyte wrote this in his hotel room after visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Apparently he took inspiration from the painter’s vivid, coolly detached self-portraits, especially the one depicting you-know-who with his ear freshly lopped off.

Anyway, we’re off to Amsterdam next week to take a closer look and will send along a photo if they let us take one (the Dutch are pretty low-key about this stuff, but we wonder with all the big art heists going on in Europe these days).

In the meantime, here’s a sampling of some other poems from David Whyte’s web site. Mr. Whyte encourages us to step boldly into an authentic, engaged life and reading (or listening) to his poetry for the first, second or third time feels like stumbling onto a palm-lined oasis after weeks in the Sahara, no Pellegrino in sight.

OK, we dramatize a little…

Poetry & drama aside, it is worth a visit to the man’s web site to catch a good bespoke business model in action.