The Art of Appreciative Attention — with Poet & Teacher John Brehm

The Art of Appreciative Attention — with Poet & Teacher John Brehm

As we approach the end of the year, Geoff and I wanted to offer something a little different—something quieter, more spacious, and genuinely nourishing. This week’s Peacemakers Podcast feels like exactly that.

Geoff opens with one of his own poems, a tender moment he rarely shares publicly, and we talk together about how poetry has shaped his way of slowing down and really seeing what’s right in front of us.

We’re joined by our friend John Brehm, poet, teacher, and longtime companion of Zen Peacemakers, who leads us into what he calls the art of appreciative attention. John invites us to lay down the old habit of treating poems like riddles to decode, and instead approach them as living presences—something we enter, savor, and let work on us from the inside out.

Through Joy Harjo, Elizabeth Bishop, Rilke, and his own new anthology The Poetry of Grief, Gratitude, and Reverence, John shows how poetry can dissolve the boundary between ourselves and the world, opening a gentler, more curious way of being.His teaching is beautifully simple:Notice what you love, and let that be enough.

As we close out the year, we’re grateful to share this unique, heartfelt episode—an offering to help us pause, reconnect, and remember the deeper threads of our practice.

Thank you for listening, for practicing with us, and for being part of this circle.

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