·E31

31: Mystic Poet Chelan Harkin on Poetry, Prayer and Unlocking Creative Flow

March 3

59 mins

Episode Description

Mystic poet Chelan Harkin doesn't write poems, she transmits them. At 21, after giving herself permission to write a "bad poem" every day, a creative channel cracked open and poems have flowed through her ever since.

Her work has drawn comparisons to Rumi, Hafiz and Khalil Gibran. Poets whose words slip beneath the thinking mind to reach something deeper, older and more alive within us.

Celebrating World Poetry Day this month, this episode features Chelan speaking with Wonderstruck's Elizabeth Rovere about:

✦ How a Hafiz poem she heard at 17 unlocked her heart and set her entire path in motion

✦ The "bad poem experiment" and how permission to fail became the key to creative flow

✦ How praying to her favourite dead poets led to a synchronicity that changed everything

✦ How our deepest fears, when met with consciousness, can transform into our strongest allies

✦ The extraordinary story behind her book The Prophetess which stands in conversation with Gibran’s The Prophet

This is a conversation for anyone who has suspected that the sacred isn’t elsewhere, but closer, more available and more alive than we ever dared to believe.

00:00:00 Introduction

00:07:06 The Poem That Changed Everything

00:13:47 The "Bad Poem Experiment"

00:19:22 Say Wow: The Poem That Went Viral

00:23:44 Praying To Her Favourite Dead Poets

00:30:50 The Meaning Of Authentic Service

00:35:55 Suffering and Our Great Cocoon

00:39:21 Writing The Prophetess

00:43:33 Meeting Hajjar Gibran

00:51:53 Fear as a Life Force

00:58:32 Closing Reflections

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