Tami Simon speaks with Mark Nepo, a New York Times #1 bestselling author and a cancer survivor who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 35 years. Mark has created several audio programs with Sounds True, plus a new interactive video learning course called A Pilgrimage of the Heart: Discovering Your Authentic Voice and Inner Courage, which launches March 19th. Mark will present at Sounds True’s Wake Up Festival this August, including a pre-festival workshop on writing and spiritual growth. In this interview, Mark speaks about how to relate helpfully to our pain, sincerity as a specific type of intelligence, the role of pilgrimage, and the spiritual path of the artist. (64 minutes)
Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for over 40 years. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has published 21 books and recorded 14 audio projects. Mark has been interviewed several times by Oprah Winfrey as part of her Super Soul Sunday TV show, and was interviewed by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages. For more, see marknepo.com.
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Each week on Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon interviews leading voices in the Mind/Body/Spirit space about a vast spectrum of fascinating ideas. Since 2009, Tami and her guests have been exploring the edge of understanding, nearly 1,000 episodes on the honest work of change, including spiritual discovery, awakening, intuition, purpose, trauma, and grief.
What if aging isn’t about decline, but about becoming brighter—like a meteor that grows more luminous even as it falls through the atmosphere?
Tami Simon speaks with beloved poet-philosopher Mark Nepo about his deeply moving new book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life. Drawing from Chinese wisdom traditions and his own journey through chronic pain and back surgery, Mark illuminates aging as the “heavenly pivot” (love that phrase) which is the transformative shift from living outwardly to inhabiting life from the inside out.
Join Mark and Tami for this episode to explore:
The meteor metaphor: how we grow brighter as our outer casing flakes away • “Entering time” versus moving through it—and why slowing down opens the eternal moment • The paradox of limitation: how loss simultaneously deepens and expands us • Breaking through to joy as the depth of being that holds all the waves • Why the heart, not the mind, must lead in the second half of life • Living with chronic pain and learning to let beauty in while suffering • The difference between being victims of life versus initiates into life • How grief changes everything and why we don’t get over it, we get under it • Being swift of heart—living without hesitation from the inside out
Mark’s wisdom arises from decades of spiritual practice, surviving cancer, and facing the inevitable losses that come with a long life—essential listening for anyone navigating aging, chronic pain, loss, or simply seeking to live more fully present to the life they have.
Listen now to discover how the second half of life can be your most luminous yet.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
How do we know our own authenticity? How can we return to our hearts when we find we’ve left them? As we evolve and change along our journey, how do we relate to the “former selves” in our past? In this podcast, Tami Simon and poet-philosopher Mark Nepo address these questions and more, as they discuss his creative process; his new book, The Half-Life of Angels; and how we can each touch the ever-present and wholly miraculous “spark of becoming” waiting to guide our lives.
Tune in as Tami and Mark talk about the introspective nature of the creative process; the metaphor of the soul as an inlet; congruency; how the heart shatters but inevitably heals; becoming a student to the mystery of life; the meaning of the word “admit,” and the practice of return; seeing through the lens of the miraculous; the intersection of meditation and creativity; the art of re-visioning; how a commitment to truthfulness grows in concentric circles; living from the deep versus diving and coming back up; the shift from being driven to being drawn; impermanence and perseverance; how the life of expression is one of discovery, relationship, and inquiry; why “there’s always a teacher next to you”; “becoming the poem”; and more.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
Mark Nepo is a New York Times bestselling author, poet, and philosopher whose many books include The Book of Awakening, Things That Join the Sea and the Sky, and The One Life We’re Given. Most recently, he has partnered with Sounds True to publish Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Mark about about our collective notions around creativity and the societal role of art. Mark details how his own ideas about creative expression have shifted over the decades, as well as why we should try to separate creation from commerce. Mark and Tami talk about the “messy, magnificent journey” of being human and why art must be a “witness to what is.” Finally, they discuss the necessity of holding nothing back during the creative process and why the pursuit of art is also the pursuit of timelessness.(71 minutes)
Can the simple act of being kind to yourself actually be a doorway to awakening?
In this special episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon brings together two remarkable teachers whose friendship has sparked a revolutionary approach to inner transformation. Kristin Neff—the researcher who first measured self-compassion and author of Fierce Self-Compassion—joins Caverly Morgan, a meditation teacher and former Zen monk, to explore how self-compassion practices can become what they call “a lifeboat” to our deepest nature.
Together, they reveal why self-compassion isn’t just a psychological tool for feeling better—it’s a direct path to recognizing who we really are beyond our limited sense of self.
In this interview, Tami, Kristin, and Caverly explore:
Why every moment of self-compassion is a moment of “letting go of identification with the small, separate, limited self”
The difference between witnessing awareness and embodied loving awareness—and why it matters
How gender conditioning shapes our relationship to both compassion and awakening practices
The power of “relational dharma” and why we sometimes need another person to help us access self-compassion
A guided practice for moving from suffering into the “stance-less stance” of presence
If you’ve practiced self-compassion but sensed there’s something deeper available, or if awakening teachings have felt too abstract or disembodied, this conversation offers a bridge between heart and awareness that could transform your practice.
This conversation offers genuine transmission—not just concepts about awakening, but the palpable presence of realized teachers exploring the growing edge of spiritual understanding together. Originally aired on Sounds True One.
Lorena Saavedra Smith shares how ancestral Pacha philosophy transforms the immigration experience into spiritual reclamation. Through the metaphor of the jaguar, she reveals a four-step method for calling back fragmented soul parts and reconnecting with nature’s wisdom. Discover how replanting yourself in new soil doesn’t require abandoning your roots—and why the matriarchs are calling us home.
Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
**SPECIAL ENCORE PRESENTATION IN SUPPORT OF WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY**
Anne Lamott is the celebrated author of many books of fiction, essays, and memoirs. Her works include Bird by Bird, Hallelujah Anyway, and Crooked Little Heart. In this special edition of Insights at the Edge originally recorded for The Self-Acceptance Summit, Tami Simon speaks with Anne about acts of “radical self-care” and how they are essential for anyone’s well-being. Anne talks about self-acceptance as an inherently feminist concept, especially around issues of body image and self-esteem. Finally, Anne and Tami discuss how it is necessary to fully accept oneself before being able to show up for others, and why modern society often argues the opposite.
Note: This episode originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listeners of Insights At The Edge get 10% off their first month at www.betterhelp.com/soundstrue.
