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.