the anxious poet’s podcast

Mini Poemcast - What My Migraines Taught Me

This poem is from my first collection- The Call of the Unwritten this is available by clicking here . 

The photo in the podcast episode image is from https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Strider_%28chapter%29

The quote from CG Jung is as follows 

“We think we can congratulate ourselves on having already reached such a pinnacle of clarity, imagining that we have left all these phantasmal gods far behind.  But what we have left behind are only verbal spectres, not the psychic facts that were responsible for the birth of the gods.  We are still as much possessed by autonomous (forces) as if they were Olympians.  Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth; in a word, neurotic symptoms.  The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor’s consulting room, or disorders of the brains of politicians and journalists who unwillingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world.” (Jung, Cw 13, par. 54)

 

Episode 45 - The Real Truth

The poems used in this podcast are The Real Truth from The Call Of The Unwritten, Inconsequence and Silence from The Call Of The Unwritten, Death Lodge from Arriving In Magic and No Such Thing As Right And Wrong from The Call Of The Unwritten. The book I mentioned is The Way of the Hermit: My 40 years in the Scottish Wilderness by Ken Smith. The piece about Death Lodges is from this blog Soul Craft Musings by Bill Plotkin This is a link to our film podcast Comparing Apples and Oranges You can purchase my books at Books 

Episode 44 - 'What Has Men's Work Ever Done For Us?' with Ben Burns & Simon Bubb

The poem I read at the beginning called Crying For A Vision at Ghost Ranch will be part of a new collection called Where Do Dreams Come From? The poem that Simon reads is A Man Lost By A River by Michael Blumenthal from the anthology, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade. The poem Ben reads is one of his own and it is called We Need Artists Today. If you want to know more about the Male Journey - the Men's work we have all been involved in go to https://www.malejourney.org.uk/ With massive thanks to Ben and Simon. Here is Ben's - Poet Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/BenBurnsPoet/ Here is Simon's Agent's page https://hatchtalent.co.uk/actors/simon-bubb/ 

Episode 43 - Mary Marken - Her Belfast Song

If you want to know more about Mary Marken and her novel Belfast Song go to https://marymarkenbelfastsong.com/

For more about the Podcast and my work in general go to www.adriangrscott.com 

 

 

Episode 42 - Naming Our Myths - Part Two

The two poems are to be published in my next collection - Where Do Dreams Come From. The books mentioned are The Book Of Symbols - Reflections on Archetypal Images - Taschen, Animal Life in Nature, Myth and Dreams - Elizabeth Caspari, Inner Work: Using Dreams & Active Imagination for Personal Growth: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth - Robert A. Johnson, The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols - Alain Gheerbrant. The App is called Temenos Dream www.temenosdream.com The quote from Hebrew Scripture is from Genesis 32:22-31. If you want to share anything with me about this episode you can email me at adrianscott@mac.com 

Mini Poemcast - Advice To Myself In Anxiety

The poem comes from my collection entitled A Night Sea Journey available by Clicking Here The Poem by Mary Oliver is called Don't Hesitate. Look out for the next full podcast Naming Our Myths Part Two coming soon. 

Episode 41 - A Christmastide Podcast

The Poems I read are available on my Website www.adriangorscott.com you can read all four of them there. The carol Diadem is from Kate Rusby's album 'While Mortals Sleep' Listen on Spotify . Thanks for listening in 2024 and I look forward to more chat in 2025. 

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.