Table Of ContentFrozen every living and inanimate shout about me. Snagged woods no access. of being in a crowd, and
thing fell into sparkling and by brambles. Whipped by Branches glow in the dislike going out.
twinkling. A frozen ending. thorns. sunlight. Look out at the Spend hours frantically
Everything was normal A wicked witch’s spell. I dread other humans. sky from the top of this hill. sorting things out, but tend
and as it should be until one I’m waiting here patiently Tiny flakes fall. Cold dead I think I’m surrounded by not to accomplish much,
day I woke up and there was for His finger to reach inside skin. Push through spiny blizzards.One swoops over. irritable, nervous, restless
something wrong. me and freeze my blood too. undergrowth. A muddy Walk into it, the sun still and hard to please.
I didn’t know what it was, Allow my functions to grind plateau. Frozen ruts. out. My shadow clear as Restless, hopeless, morose
but it was a kind of persistent slowly but surely to a halt. The sound of traffic and summer but Snow down my and have a morbid
thing that I couldn’t quite The drums slow in tempo aeroplanes. Hard to think. neck. Watching valleys full imagination. No matter
ignore. Something was cold until nothing. All of these Leaning against barbed wire. of snow blow towards me. how ill, deny that anything
and it was inside, not outside. feelings finally paralysed by Two flocks of birds, above No shelter; eyes watering is wrong and refuse to see
It was like a place where the fractal forms crawling the bypass. An unattended from the cold wind. a doctor. Prefer to be left
someone had poked me with inevitably over every living fire dying. A circle of hot Snow faster and faster, alone.
an icicle. A splinter of winter. surface. grey ash. tapping on my coat. Falling Fit and healthy, strong,
The days passed like they Then all can become A bird dips then plummets. fast. Hypnotic. I’m becoming energetic mind and body,
do and I just got colder. The normal again. And I can set A cold east wind. a snow man. Hands too cold lively and entertaining,
cold spread until I was like about forgetting. almost. when ill, become violent and
a sculpture of ice. I didn’t Sun in the distance. This obstinate. May hit, bite or
sneeze any more, and I will be over soon. The cloud kick. Illness characterised by
couldn’t cry and if I tried to departs: a trailing ghost. restless, agitated behaviour,
come it was like a tendril of with extreme sensitivity to
porcelain. I was a solid man. Out of it, in it, light, noise, movement or
You could throw rocks at me being touched.
and it didn’t hurt at all. I just Set high goals. driving
splintered a little. out of it. Haunt ambition leads to
Perhaps fortunately, no- workaholism, an excessive
one noticed and everything sense of duty, always feel
carried on being normal and Walk up a long ago road Into the woods. A Desire company, lack self¬ as if haven’t done as well as
as it should be, all around me. covered with moss into snowy path. Walk into an esteem and want to prove should. Sensitive to others’
the woods. There is snow
But I was frozen. abandoned quarry. Caves self. opinions and easily hurt.
forecast. I want to lose myself everywhere. Warm air that Feel the disappointment May become despairing. Can
in a blizzard. No snow here smells of blood drifts out and and unhappiness that was lead to clinical depression and
though. Just distant traffic I’m too scared to go very far present in childhood, cannot suicide.
and birds speaking to one in. understand what is wrong. Very materialistic. See life
Fairy Dust another. I lose my way. Emerge Irritable and dissatisfied. as a struggle for financial
Sit on a dead tree. Grey blinking from the woods. A Friendly and open, yet security. Great fear of
sky. Grey feathers spread golf course. I’m hungry and feel that nothing is right. poverty even if financially
God’s got the fairy dust across the moss. A beak: I know I am far from food. I Restless, dislike routine, rifeed successf ul. Clean-living,
out again. Scattering every bloody flesh still attached. wish it would snow. stimulation and have trouble critical, meticulous, reliable.
which way. His giant fingers Red against pale green. A A dark pubic thicket in getting up in the morning. Fear the supernatural, prefer
touched the end of the street siren, far off. the crotch of a beech. A React badly to shock and daylight to darkness, have
All around the crows
and slowly but completely ruined house. A sign; private have intense fears, especially very fixed ideas.
ACROSS A GREAT DIVIDE!
Good morning Mr Magpie, how Why does this not add up? It’s like I’ve fallen out of bed from Don’t let it blow your mind. It’s like I’ve fallen out of bed from
are we today? A spider to a fly. a long and vivid dream. Across a great divide. a long and vivid dream.
Now youVe stolen all my magic A universal sigh. The sweetest flowered fruits were A giant turtle’s eyes.
and took my melody? A giant turtle’s eyes. hanging from the trees. Jellyfish float by. The sweetest flowered fruits were
You got some nerve coming here. Don't blow your mind with why. Falling off a giant bird that’s been Your rules do not apply. hanging from the trees.
You got some nerve coming here. The current’s just too strong. carrying me. As open as the sky. Falling off a giant bird that’s been
You stole it off give it back. Don’t let it blow your mind. Like I’ve fallen out of bed from a The holes we measure out. carrying me.
You stole it off give it back. Across a great divide long and vivid dream. It’s what keeps me alive.
Good morning Mr Magpie, how The words between the lines. Just exactly as I remember. Why does this not add up? Like I’ve fallen out of bed from a
are we today? Every wTord, every gesture. A spider to a fly. long and vivid dream.
You know you should but you None of this stuff is mine. I’ve my heart in my mouth. A universal sigh. Just exactly as I remember.
don’t, I throw my arms wide. Like I’ve fallen out of bed from a A giant turtle’s eyes. Every word, every gesture.
You knowT you should but you Open your heart and smile. long and vivid dream. I’ve my heart in my mouth.
don’t... Don’t look so serious. Finally I’m free of all the weight Don’t blow your mind with why. Like I’ve fallen out of bed from a
Open our mouths wide. No need to pull that face. I’ve been carrying... The current’s just too strong. long and vivid dream.
A universal sigh. Always I’m before you. Slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers. Don’t let it blow your mind.
“So why does this still hurt?” The cards that have been dealt out. All I want is the moon upon a Across a great divide Finally I’m free of all the weight
Don’t blowT your mind with why. Moving out of orbit. stick. The words between the lines. I’ve been carrying...
Why does this not add up? Turning in somersaults. Just to see what is. None of this stuff is mine. Slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers.
Don’t let it blow your mind. Ours not to reason why. Just to see what if. I throw my arms wide. All I want is the moon upon a
I’m reeling with this feeling. I can’t kick the habit Open your heart and smile. stick.
Across a great divide. Where er’r the current flows. ‘Just to feed your fast ballooning Don’t look so serious. Just to see what is.
A giant turtle’s eyes. Precious little time. head.’ No need to pull that face. Just to see what if.
Jellyfish float by. Distances and time “Listen to your heart!” Ahvays I’m before you. I can’t kick the habit
Your rules do not apply. The wind takes all the leaves. Good morning Mr Magpie, how The cards that have been dealt out.
As open as the sky. And then it will take me. are we today? Moving out of orbit. ‘Just to feed your fast ballooning
The holes wre measure out. The parts wTe have to play. Now you’ve stolen all my magic Turning in somersaults. head.’
It's what keeps me alive. I cannot help but laugh. and took ,my melody? Ours not to reason why. “Listen to your heart!”
ROOT OF ROOTS RAGNOROK URPFLANZE THE KING OF LIMBS
AXIS MUNDI
The wind was rising, still is the healed stump of a Directly north was the Douglas Spruce during a biological revelation at its
so I went to the wood. missing bough. hospital, its three-piped Californian windstorm, and summit, nor any honey. But it
It lies south of the city, Thirty feet up, near the incinerator towef rising far looked out over a forest, the had become a place to think.
a mile from my home: a summit of the beech, where higher than my hill-top tree. whole mass of which was A roost. I was fond of it, and
narrow, nameless fragment the bark is smoother and A deep-chested Hercules kindled into one continuous it - well, it had no notion of
of beechwood, topping a silver, I reached what I had aeroplane was descending blaze of white sun-fire!’ me. I had climbed it many
shallow hill. I walked there, come to call the observatory: towards the airfield on the Italo Calvino had written times; at first light, dusk and
following streets to the city’s a forked lateral branch set city’s outskirts. Above a his magical novel, The glaring noon. I had climbed
fringe, and then field-edge just below a curve in the road-verge to the east, I could Baron in The Trees, whose it in winter, brushing snow
paths through hedgerows of trunk. I had found that if see a kestrel riding the wind, young hero, Cosimo, in an from the branches with my
hawthorn and hazel. I set my back against the its wings shivering with the adolescent huff, climbs a hand, with the wood cold as
Rooks haggled in the trunk, and put my feet on strain, its tail feathers flared tree on his father’s forested stone to the touch, and real
air above the trees. The either tine of the fork, I out like a hand of cards. estate and vows never to set crows’ nests black in the
sky was a bright cold blue, ^could stay comfortable there. I had started climbing trees foot on the ground again. branches of nearby trees.
fading to milk at its edges. If I remained still for a few about three years earlier. Or He keeps to his impetuous I had climbed it in early
From a quarter of a mile minutes, people out walking rather, re-started; for I had word, and ends up living and summer, and looked out over
away, I could hear the noise would sometimes pass been at a school that had a even marrying in the canopy, the simmering countryside,
of the wood in the wind; a underneath without noticing wood for its playground. We moving for miles between with heat jellying the air and
soft marine roar. It was the me. People don’t generally had climbed and christened olive, cherry, elm and holm the drowsy buzz of a tractor
immense compound noise of expect to see men in trees. the different trees, and fought oak. audible from somewhere in
friction - of leaf fretting on If I remained still for longer, for their control in territorial I also came to admire some the vast nearby fields. And
leaf, and branch rubbing on the birds would return. conflicts with elaborate of tree-climbing’s serious I had climbed it in monsoon
branch. Birds don’t generally expect rules and fealties. At home, contemporary exponents, rain, with water falling in
I entered the wood by its to see men in trees, either. my father had built me and in particular the scientists rods thick enough for the
southern corner. Debris was Blackbirds fussing in the leaf my brother a tree-house in who research the redwoods eye to see. Climbing the tree
beginning to drop from the litter; wrens which whirred the garden, which we had of California and Oregon. was a way to get perspective,
moving canopy: twigs and from twig to twig so quickly defended successfully against Sequoia semperivens, the however slight; to look down
beech nuts, pattering down they seem to teleport; once years of pirate attack. In my giant redwood, can grow on a city that I usually looked
onto the coppery layer of a grey partridge, venturing late twenties, I had begun to to over three hundred feet across. Above all, it was a
leaves. Sunlight fell in bright anxiously from cover. climb trees again. Just for the high. Most of that height is way of defraying the city’s
sprees on the floor. I walked I steadied myself in the fun of it: no ropes, and no branchless trunk; then comes claims on me. Anyone who
up through the wood, and observatory. My weight and danger either. a flaring crown, dense with lives in a city will know the
midway along its northern movement had made the In the course of my branches. These latter-day feeling of having been there
edge I came to my tree - a tree-top rock, and the wind climbing, I had' learned to spider-men have developed too long. The gorge-vision
tall grey-barked beech, whose exaggerated the rock, so that discriminate between tree exceptional techniques of that streets imprint on us,
branches flare out in such a soon the summit of the beech species. I liked the lithe ascent. They use a bow and the sense of blockage, the
way that it is easy to climb. was creaking back and forth, springiness of the silver arrow to fire a pulling line up longing for surfaces other
I had climbed the tree describing arcs of five or ten birch, the alder and the young over a firm branch. This is than glass, brick, concrete
many times before, and its degrees. Not an observatory cherry. I avoided pines - then used to raise a climbing and tarmac - the need for a
marks were all familiar to me. that day; more of a mast-top brittle branches, callous bark rope into the tree. Once in wild place of some kind.
Around the base of its trunk, crow’s-nest in a sea swell. - and planes. And I found the canopy, their rope-skills
its grey bark has sagged and From that height, the land that the horse chestnut, with are so great that they can
wrinkled, so that it resembles was laid out beneath me its limbless lower trunk and move about safely and almost
the skin on an elephant’s leg. like a map. Dispersed across prickly fruit, but also its freely. Up there, in that aerial
At about ten feet, there is a it were more fragments of tremendous canopy, offered world, they have discovered a
branch that crooks sharply woodland, some of whose the tree-climber both a lost kingdom: a remarkable
back on itself; above that, the names I knew: Mag’s Hill difficulty and an incentive. and entirely unstudied
letter ‘H’, scored with a knife Wood, Nine Wfells Wood, I explored the literature of ecosystem.
into the trunk years before; Wbrmwood. To the west tree-climbing: not extensive, There was nothing unique
which has ballooned with over corduroy fields was a but exciting. John Muir had about my beech tree, nothing Robert Macfarlane is the
the growth of the tree; higher main road, busy with cars. swarmed up a hundred-foot difficult in its ascent, no author of The Wild Places’.
■pm ■■
i n b
I AM SPITTING CLICHES
JUST
I SOUND LIKE A MUG
dumb words are all I have
I AM A DISSOLVING
SAY
LIVING GHOST
feeble and undressed
HOUSES ARE CRUMBS
WHERE YOU WANNA BE
ZHKZ 3UC
FIELDS WALLPAPER
I’ll take you anywhere
windows in the dark
ROADS ARE LIKE SCARS
you want to go.
HURTLING THROUGH VAPOURS
I can turn you on and
ALL THOUGHTS ARE TRANSPARENT lost to the wind
I can make you happy.
SOLIDIFY DISSOLVE
YOU ARE A LIVING GHOST OPEN.
I CLAW AND I GRASP
CLING ONTO A RAFT
I fail to comprehend
NO MORE
TURN ON A TURNING WHEEL
THE PEOPLE ARE ANTS
what compels me on
HOUSES ARE CRUMBS
FIELDS WALLPAPER
jump between the lines
ROADS ARE LIKE SCARS
someone has cut a hole
The Book Of
and thrown the first stone
with no effort at all
the book of forgiveness along the underground
the book of request
the bottom of your chin
the book of the dream
the straightening of your neck
that was ok
WEATHER COMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS
a laugh stretched on your lips
the book of the dark >
underbelly
i am back a child HAVE TO GET THESE WINDOWS REPLACED
the book of apologies
the future open mouthed
the book of replacement
and anything is possible
the book of unreal THEY FLAP IN THE RAIN AND WIND.
P o s s i b 1 e
the book of autosave P o s s ii b t e
the book of wallpapers THERES NO ONE LEFT IN THE HOUSE
the book of disconnect before we turn to ash
the book of teleportation with a lighti ness of touch
BUT YOU AND HER.
the book of unwrap this page in me
my own thoughts scatter the ink
scatter the ink LIE DOWN, I SHALL BE BACK FOR YOU.
C O I YOU ARE OUT OF TOUR DEPTH
THE
E R Ft Y
G O
ROUND
I WILL TAPE MYSELF UP
BUILD MYSELF A RAFT FROM WHATEVER IS HANGING AROUND
AND PUSH OFF FROM OUR IMAGINARY DESERT ISLAND
THAT I FORGOT TO TELL YOU EXISTED, AT LEAST TO ME
WISH YOU WELL LIKE A BRAVE TIN SOLDIER
WITH ALL THE STRENGTH I HAVE LEFT IN ME ■
LET THE CURRENTS AND FORCES OF NATURE DO WHAT THEY WILL
HAVING NO INTEREST IN THEIR WHOLESOME FUCKING WORTHY FLUORESCENT REALITY
FORESTS OF THE MIND
JAY GRIFFITHS
‘Yes.’ An anthropologist who by the warmth and breath of knowledge’ and trees songlines of the Amazon.
knew my situation of the forest, green and have long been associated Ethereal, quiet almost
I remember saying that telephoned me and invited vital, and it was as if I were with wisdom; the Buddha to inaudibility, the songs
word as if my life depended me to go with him to the drinking in something of its meditated under a tree are sometimes whistled,
on it and perhaps I’ll never Peruvian Amazon to visit essence, its spirit, its soul - and in India, Sadhus have sometimes voiced, and
know it did. shamans who worked and I needed that so badly always retreated to the sometimes they sound like
with the formidable mind- because I had lost my own. forests for wisdom. Native panpipes from miles away,
I didn’t even manage to
medicines of the forests. Americans honoured the music half-heard from a
say it loudly. I said it with Before I visited these
I had to say yes to the idea of a Sacred Tree. I’ve source unknown, where
my eyes shut, as someone shamans, I would never
journey and yes to the story been with indigenous people melody is more like scent, a
might plead for help, or as a have used the term soul-
because sometimes the tree in the Amazon when they sweet resin in the air from
child would make a wish or loss, but that was what I
of life may be a literal thing. have watched their forests an unseen tree. I felt as if
as a singer might close their felt, my psyche unhappily
cut down, their lands I was not only drinking
eyes at the most significant From Lima, we took a lost and lonely.
obliterated. They wept. the forest but hearing its
note of the song. small plane, then a car, Shamans consider that
‘Destroying the forests is essence.
then a peque peque: one of their job is to travel in the
It was a heartfelt yes, the same as destroying The shaman fell quiet for
the little motorized dugout landscape of the mind, to
but whispered because us,’ they said. 'We are the a while, and then began
canoes which zip up and search for someone’s spirit
whispering was all I could land.’ The deforestation another song, from his own
down the rivers of the and to bring it back strong.
manage. It is the whisper of the Amazon is also a locale, the specific trees
Amazon. From the river,
which often starts the deforestation of the human and groves of forest. He
we walked to the shamans’
story. Hush. The noise mind. was singing one of his own
centre, through the forest,
of traffic fades. Station songlines. Although it is
which stings you, bites you There are some terms of Shamans are the forest’s
announcements fall silent. the Songlines of Aboriginal
then strokes you with leaves psychological well-being doctors and therapists;
Trains grow quiet. Quiet. Australia which are the
soft as a kitten’s ears. One which can sound like their medicines are a free
Quiet as the pause when most famous, I would
tree’s bark smelt of nutmeg, descriptions of trees: to be pharmacy. The Amazon
you wait for the right word. argue that the whole world
and the air was alive with ‘grounded’ and ‘well rooted,’ has its artists, musicians arid
Zurrumurru - whisper, in is wreathed in songlines,
smells, from honey-scented able both to ‘stand firm’ philosophers who intricately
the Basque language. Hush. people’s love of land made
flowers to the zinging smell and also to ‘branch out’. link the forests with the
Step out of the station, step into music.
of sap and the sour smell of Forests have long been pathways of the mind.
sideways into the woods.
a mossy fetid, pool. I could linked to the psyche, and it Forests are rich in all the The song lay in hot silence
Step across the boundary
almost smell the sunlight. seems a human universal to psyche’s expressions of art, for a while, unsung, then
and the trespass of story
Palm fronds rattled in the see trees as good ways of music, language and culture, from the shadows, came a
will begin. Just say yes.
hot moist air, and the whole seeking truths. Across the and the destruction of the tiny leaf sprout of song. All
forest surged with life. world, people have trusted Amazon is like napaiming the songs seemed sung in
My story began when I had
trees for their solidity the Berlin Philharmonic; the key of green. The song
been suffering depression
As evening came, we settled
and steadfastness, both burning gas flares through seemed alive like a plant, and
for months. Many people
into the shamans’ hut; and
literally and metaphorically. the Louvre; slashing every in a whistle I heard a wisp
know that lifeless place,
a long night of the mind
Intriguingly, the words copy of Shakespeare; of slender stem, and then
where every way you look
began. The medicine they
‘tree’, ‘trust’ and ‘truth’ are bulldozing the Sydney the music grew, elastic and
seems closed off to you: No
gave me was like drinking
all related words, as if the Opera House and torching gently energetic as a sapling
is written on all sides, on
hemlock and stars, as bitter
human race has always the scores of Mozart. sprung with green meaning;
every path.
as the one, as brilliant as
trusted trees to embody the songline twined like
the other. Cicadas and Meanwhile, as I lay in
I was lost in that bleak, truth. a vine, melody winding
a whirring night bird the shamans’ hut, the
hollow emptiness, haunted into leaf. This music was
feathered the night with One Amazonian elder forest night was quite
by thoughts of suicide, all green and vivid and was
noises and all the forest says the Amazon is ‘a literally en-chanted. One
my vitality gone. Then, so strongly suggestive of
seemed mating and purring, wide expanse, similar to of the shamans chanted
one day, into this abyss of plants that I felt myself
rustling, cocooning and a perceptive human head.’ incantations, the songs
lifelessness someone threw plantlike, rooted in brown
watching. I was surrounded We speak of the ‘tree or icaros which are the
me a rope, a lifeline. leaf-mould and thirsty for
M
O
T
D
d
s
}SI
the sun. The music jumped The forests are a place After my stay with the our gift: to move and learn, life, with its generous,
up to the light, clambered of transformation, of shamans, I felt happy to be a student always. The regenerative grace, fill it till
like a vine, streaked for the shapeshifting. In the as a grasshopper. The mind, let loose, is a walking, it spills and lick it up again.
heat of noon and wetness. woods, the spirit can stretch depression I had felt did not asking, searching thing, The earth is hot with,
Then, at its height, the and change, can move like return for years. What was questioning, questioning, bursting with, fermenting
music descended a few a willow, elastic in spring. so effective? A combination whose root, of course, is to with, dizzy with, hooting
tones as a leaf would drop, The whole tone of a day of the shamanic treatment seek, to go on a quest. with - life, life which will
swinging down from the can be shifted by taking and music, but also the always walk the wild way,
It is as if a tragedy has been
canopy to the forest floor. a walk through the trees sheer shining vitality of the the curly way, in fecund riot
written into the world.
in the park, even in a city- forests which, as all wild and feral grace.
It’s common knowledge that People prey to depression feel
centre. Woodlands can places, was in itself a tonic
the Amazon is the source of that tragedy individually, but The forests are, for me,
absorb bad moods and calm for the human spirit.
huge numbers of medicines I think there is something the opposite of depression.
headaches. They change
for curing diseases of the Our minds need what is far wider happening, the Where depression is dull,
us. In the woods, you may
body, but it is also a cure wild, that unmistakable, tragedy of divorce from the forests shimmer with
be lost in your thoughts,
for the mind. Not, I would unforgettable, elemental the essential wildness of vitality. Whereas depression
willingly lost, creatively lost,
emphasise, in the form thing, wildness the universal life, and separation from is a congealed stasis, the
which allows you to enter
of chemical . extraction, songline, sung in green gold its fundamentally comedic forests wriggle, dance and
the mind’s forests, where
turned into pills, but the which we recognize the nature. Tragedy works jump. Where depression
the wind within can blow
true and whole curing, moment we hear it. We through crushing the spirit, is a horribly lonely illness,
you somewhere sought
resulting from the totality come from this wild song in overwork, commuting, the heart of forest-
and as yet unfound. A
of medicine, shaman, song and we are most fully alive rush-hour exhaustion; wisdom is the irrefutable
child may go to the woods
and forest. What they when we resonate to its worries, debts, bills, stress interconnectedness of all
to dream themselves into
amounted to was, in a wildest pitch with intense and the bad news which we life. Having felt condemned
a different character, to
word, life. It is this which and necessary love. all know. But tragedy is not to depression, I experienced
effect their changeling
can be found in the forests the whole of the picture. the shapeshifting
masquerades away from the
All humans are essentially
of Britain or Australia, the transformation of the
eyes of adults. In the wild
wild creatures and hate For still, in spite of it all,
forests of the Americas and forests. Having felt the
dreamwood of childhood,
confinement. We need there are still the trees.
beyond: wherever there are cold, silent approach of
children can play disguise-
what is wild, and we thrill Still, the wild reverie of
forests there is life. And something potentially fatal
games which begin ‘Let’s
to it, our wildness bubbling the woodlands is within
the shamanic role? It is in depression, I found in the
pretend’ and if children
over with an anarchic joie ourselves and the forests
findable, wherever there are Amazon something which
can’t pretend, then they are
de vivre. We glint when are enchanted; sung.
musicians, artists, poet-seers spoke of the warmest
condemned to reality.
the wild light shines. The Among all the tragedies of
and writers willing to go to opposite, a riot of language
more suffocatingly enclosed destruction, still, comedy
the trees for wisdom; willing Scented with story as it in irrepressible gusto, life
we are - tamed by television, erupts on the wild side,
to listen to earthsong. is with wild garlic, the growling, flowering, leafing,
controlled by mortgages and growth an absolute demand,
woods may be a moment hooting and budding,
That the forests are the bureaucracy - the louder new shoots thrusting up,
of beginning, the pause flickering in a forest fiesta
lungs of the world, we know our wild genes scream yearning for sky. For, at
on the threshold before of verdant and noisy verbs,
That the world needs the in aggression, anger and some level, we have never
the journey, and then the the forest chattering with
forests in order to breathe, depression. really forgotten the comedy
woodlands may tell an language, a whole universe
we know. But forests are of life.
unending story. A child, laughing with life.
Walk. The drum begins.
also sources of spirit, as I
leaning against a tree, may
Follow it. Follow the drums The spirit of comedy
found when my spirit was And what it says is - yes.
listen to a blackbird, watch
of thunder. Follow the sun. is the spirit of life, both
so lost. The terms for
a rabbit, a fox or - if they are
Follow the stars at night as leguminous, a vegetable
‘spirit’ and ‘breath’ are linked
very lucky - a badger. In the
they lean their long slant exuberance. It is playful,
in many languages: anima -
forest is a child. But inside
down the far side of the sky. this spirit. Wildness and
Latin - means both ‘breath’
the child, will always be the
Follow the lightning and comedy share a love of
and ‘soul’; psyche - Greek
forest. Breathe the forest
the open road. Follow your rudeness, tickling the pink
- means ‘breath’ and ‘soul.’
deeply enough in childhood,
compulsion. Follow your with the horn of plenty.
My acute feeling of soul
and the birds will still be
calling. Put your boots on. The comedy of life is
loss, of being dangerously
singing seventy years on.
We were made to walk rebellious, in the riotously
de-animated, was cured by
through our lives wildly festive nature of nature.
the animation, the spirit, of
awake: our minds mobile, Everything and everyone is
the forests. Jay Griffiths is the author
quick, changeable. To be a a player in this harlequinade.
of ‘Wild: An Elemental
nomad in one’s mind is in Comedy unfurls through
Journey’.
