the anxious poet’s podcast

Episode 40 - Naming Our Myths | Part One

The poems used in this episode are Taking Stock from the Call of the Unwritten - I Am Me And You Are You from Arriving In Magic - Bottle Digging from A Night Sea Journey -  all available to buy at www.adriangrscott.com 

This is the first quote used 

“I suspected that myth had a meaning which I was sure to miss if I lived outside it in the haze of my own speculations. I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: “What is the myth you are living?” I found no answer to this question, and had to admit that I was not living with a myth, or even in a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust. I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge. So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know “my” myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks…”  C.G. Jung

Here is the second 

“Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness.”
Martín Prechtel

You can see some of the items mentioned in the podcast on the cover. 

Episode 39 - A Retrospective | Part One

This is a selection of some of the best bits according to how many people downloaded it and the amount of positive feedback they received. They are from, in order, Episode 1, Episode 3, Episode 5, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 15 and Episode 19. Thanks again to Philippe Edwards, Patrick Ryan, Helen Mort and Ray Tonge. For more go to www.adriangrscott.com 

Episode 38 - 'The colly-wobbled, jelly-bellied quaking of it all.’

The poem quoted in the first half of the podcast  is by Rainer Maria Rilke it is in Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God - the opening lines are 'You are not surprised at the force of the storm'.

Here is list of Adrian's Lessons Learned with the quotes from his poems.

Lessons Learnt from my Breakdown

• Breathing

Advice to Myself in Anxiety

‘Breathe slowly into this, Don’t run; stay,

You are moored more firmly than you know.

There is a constancy in you not your own.’

• Talking

Anxiety Diary

‘My Jungian therapist said, right at the start,

that this breakdown was the best thing

that had ever happened to me.

I thought it was she that was insane,

and I wanted to stop right there and then.

I think now, she may have been right.’

• Walking

Rivelin Valley Vespers

‘By walking this same path,
with a slow and monastic doggedness,
I behold tonight’s road by low sunlight,
all made meaningful and prelude
by the merle blue devotion in my collie’s gaze.’

• Writing

 Writing as Therapy

‘Now here I am,

sitting in a round of delivery,

speaking lines gleaned from

a dark and no-mooned night,

when only my pen knew its way.’

• Seeing

 Afterword to a Traipsing

 ‘Laura Page has walked me around the streets

camera slung, capturing Sheffield with f-stops

and the right shutter-speeds for a city caught

in the headlights of forces it is yet to grasp.’

• Sharing

Writing as Therapy

‘In the morning session

I had spared no detail of my breakdown,

all the colly-wobbled, jelly-bellied

quaking of it all.’

• Volunteering

We are Bodies

‘We have turned sixty

Volunteering, cooking the cafe

Good soup, vegan and lentil

Aching knees, aching nerves

Bruised by the bruising lives we are

Bludgeoned into, but brightened

By the fellowship of fellow sufferers’

• Trusting

A Night Sea Journey

‘This is what the mythologists

call a night sea journey.

I am on a gurney bark sailing

through the dark into

an uncertain dawn.’

• Loving

 Birdsong on Long Line

‘A sleek throat sounds against the early dusk

a last verse to these long lines of walking,

and my heart welcomes this reckless chorus,

hopefulness beyond my walk’s ending.’

 

Thanks to Andy Selman for his wonderful accompaniment to the Birdsong poem - the whole Album Made I Sheffield can be heard on Spotify here

Made In Sheffield - Scott & Selman

You can buy Adrian's books here www.adriangrscott.com 

If you want to Adrian and Andy perform with the band Dusk Over Rivelin on August 15th in Sheffield click here for tickets. 

https://www.wegottickets.com/event/623931

Come along it will be a great evening. 

And finally Adrian would like to thank all who have listened and made the 9000 downloads and counting. Bless you all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 37 - Simon O'Connor - Love Wins

The poem Writing as Therapy at the beginning is from my collection - A Night Sea Journey available at Buy Here

Simon's poems are copyright to him. If you want to hear more about his poetry you can email him here - stjosephwinsford2012@hotmail.co.uk.

He is parish Priest at St Joseph’s RC Church, Winsford, Cheshire.  

Episode 36 - The Sacred Question

The poems used in this episode are - Sometimes by David Whyte (in Essentials) - No Such Thing As Right Or Wrong from The Call of the Unwritten - Accompaniment from Arriving In Magic - Christ Before the High Priest from Arriving In Magic - Thomas Wanted To See Nail Marks from A Night Sea Journey. All my books are available at https://adriangrscott.com/product-category/books/

You can view the painting mentioned 'Christ Before the High Priest by Honthorst on the National Gallery Website https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/gerrit-van-honthorst-christ-before-the-high-priest

You can purchase the book The Quest of the Holy Grail (Penguin Classics) on Amazon or any good bookshop. 

 

 

Episode 35 - Sabbath

The main book I reference in this episode is Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel. The artwork for this episode is taken from one of the wood engravings in the book by Ilya Schor. It really speaks to me of the way the workaday world holds us captive and the great promise of cessation and rest that the idea of sabbath offers. The first two poems I read are When Will You Be Ready and This Is All The Life You Have from Arriving in Magic. Purchasable at www.adriangrscott.com . The last one - A Moment In Each Day is from A Sheffield Traipsing that will be available on my website from the 15th of March. This is the day of my Book Launch and if you are in Sheffield and want to join me - it will be at 7pm at the Kelham Island Museum ( more details on my website). To book a ticket click here - https://www.wegottickets.com/event/609358 

Living Our Own Story with Lara Scott

The Poems used in this episode are Lara's Surgery from Arriving In Magic and Advice to Myself in Anxiety from A Night Sea Journey available to purchase at Books The Novel Lara reads from is Still Life by Sarah Winman Click Here for More 

Christmas Podcast - ’Citizens of a Wintry Heaven’

The two poems that I shared Francis and the Crib at Greccio and Winter Drive Along The A66 will be available on my substack page The Anxious Poet's Substack The Kate Rusby song is from her album While Mortals Sleep Listen . The Phamie Gow version of Emily Dickinson's poem “Hope” is the thing with feathers can be heard here Listen. The article by Edward Kessler Jewish-Muslim dialogue: feeling the other’s pain can be found in the Tablet - 7th December 2023. The book by Zambia Malik is called We Are Muslim's Please.  Have a happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Adrian x 

Episode 32 - An American Odyssey - Part Two

You can read a version of this Podcast at The Anxious Poet's Substack The Poem - You Stride On, My Son,  Ahead of Us, Up Enchanted Rock is in my book A Night Sea Journey available at www.adriangrscott.com The rest of the poem are on the Substack. The Native American Pipe Music is from R. Carlos Nakai - Canyon Trilogy. 

Episode 31 - An American Odyssey - Part One

You can find the poems and photographs in this episode here  Adrian's Substack Page  The book quoted is The Journey of Crazy Horse by Joseph M Marshall. 

Episode 30 - Wild Places - A Source of Solace and Hope

Belden C Lane is Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies, American Religion, and History of Spirituality at St Louis University, He is author of Backpacking with the Saints, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, and Ravished by Beauty. The poem he quotes is by Wendell Berry.

It is called Our Real Work -

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

My prom Aravaipa Canyon is as yet unpublished if you want a copy email me at adriangrscott@me.com 

The other Poem is Two Beggars and a Wolf in A Night Sea Journey available at www.adriangrscott.com 

The Wordsworth Sonnet is XXXII in his collected works - Surprised by Joy. 

Deep thanks to Belden for his robust vulnerability and friendship. 

 

Mini Poemcast - The Call of the Unwritten

This poem can be found in my first collection of the same name - The Call of the Unwritten. https://adriangrscott.com/product/the-call-of-the-unwritten/