Weekly Reflection: ADMITTING ALL
If I could, I’d leave something soft for each of you, dead and alive, near and far. Something you might wake to or receive on the other side that might affirm that it’s all been worthwhile. Whether we stayed in touch or not. Whether we understood each other or not. Whether we stuck pins in each other or put each other’s likeness on the mantle. Something soft that lets us know that love outlasts all quarrel. A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe a relationship that has endured a hardness and that has grown into a softness. How did this happen? This is from my book of poems in progress, To Open Life Between Us.
The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life
June 19–21, 2026 | Omega Institute | In Person
What if creativity doesn’t fade with age—but deepens?
Join Mark for a three-day, in-person retreat exploring how imagination, honesty, and self-expression mature and evolve as life does. Set within the beautiful Omega Institute, this gathering offers spacious time to slow down, listen inwardly, and meet life more fully.
Through poetry, storytelling, and shared inquiry, we’ll explore creativity as a lifelong companion—embracing change not as an ending, but as an opening into deeper presence and vitality.
This retreat is for anyone longing to stay awake to life, to keep creating from the inside out, and to discover how growth continues to unfold in surprising and meaningful ways.
A weekend devoted to the truth that the second half of life isn’t about winding down—it’s about opening up.
Upcoming Events with Mark in 2026-2027!
March 2-7: The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, a Mastery week, The Modern Elder Academy in Baja, Mexico, SOLD OUT, Click here to sign up for the waitlist. – IN PERSON
May 15–17: The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, The Sophia Institute, Charleston, South Carolina. Click here to register – IN PERSON & ONLINE
June 19-21: The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, Omega Institute, Click here for more information. – IN PERSON
January 10, 17, 24, 2027: The Language of the Soul: The Power to Awaken, Connect, and Heal. A 3-session webinar guided by Mark Nepo. 1-2:30PM ET | 10-11:30AM PT. Click here for more information. – ONLINE
April 2027: Weeklong Retreat with Mark Nepo in a castle outside of Milan, Italy — Click here to learn more and register – IN PERSON
"Love outlasts all quarrels."
Thank you for this poem, Mark. It's "spot on" for a particularly relevant relationship in my life right now. It's so integrative. Expanding out, it brings me into a large sense of patience in the relationship, of giving the other time and space, and brings me to a sense of peace and calm. A sense of allowing the other person to be exactly who they are and who they are not, and being perfectly all right with that, and allowing myself to be exactly who I am and who I am not, and being all right with that, as well.
What if we can?
What if we offer something soft every day in how we speak, how we forgive, how we choose to understand instead of defend?
Maybe softness isn’t something we leave behind at the end.
Maybe it’s something we trace into our relationships slowly until hardness becomes tenderness.
Your question about relationships growing from hardness into softness feels like that living imprint.
Perhaps this is the quiet dignity of tending human relationships: shaping them, mending them, beautifying them - so that light remains for one another.