Welcome to A Wild Green Heart, thanks for dropping by. Your whole self is warmly welcomed here.
New Zine: “Longing / The Seed”
Before getting into today's subject matter, a little news. This week I've picked up my latest zine from my friendly, local, ethical printers (MARC the printers - you can check them out here), once again self-published as part of the DIY collaboration that is Too Few The Poets Press. Watch this space, because very soon I'll also have news of a guest writer’s publication under TFTPP! Exciting times.
Anyway, here's the cover of the zine:
“Hang on a minute Jez, that's two zines!” you could be forgiven for saying. Well, kind of - it's two zines in one. Read one, then simply flip it upside down and read from the other end. 🙃
The poems and photos relate to my recent series on longing, which you can find here:
These posts included my poem The Seed, born out of a deep experience of longing in 2016 - which you'll have come across in part 3 if you were following - and there are several other seed-related works included in that half of the zine. Basically all the content is interconnected, but somehow it made more sense to divide it into two and to give each their own cover and introduction. All the poems from the Substack longing posts are included, along with several others.
I've got plenty of copies, which as ever I'm very happy indeed to send you for free if you're in the UK, or for the cost of postage overseas. If anyone wishes to help support this part of my work, £2.50 covers the cost of printing and posting one zine. Beyond that, a fiver seems a relatively modest amount to pay for fifteen poems, some pretty photos, owning something you can hold in your hand, and knowing you've also covered the cost of me sending it someone else. Simply drop me a comment or email me at jezdgreen@gmail.com and I'll pop one in the post for you. My PayPal can be found using the same email address.
We Are Forces of Nature
Next up I'm including a piece of new writing from a practice taught to me by my current mentor, Natasha Lythgoe. Natasha says this isn't poetry… but only in the sense that “poetry” can be an off-putting descriptor for what is, at heart, an embodied practice of re-membering our connection to all beings. But if you ask me, it's poetry. As a poet who believes in the deeply connective power of poetry, I'm admittedly biased.
Here’s an example of a piece of writing created using her process. See if you can guess what it's about…
I am life and I am death I am light and I am dark I am faithful and I am fickle I am constant and ever-changing I am smooth and I am textured I am gentle, I am forceful I am penetrable and impenetrable I am body without body I have been so many places I am one way and the other I am clear and I am opaque I am life and I am death
It's been a quiet week here. I did spend an afternoon wandering round Burrs Country Park in Bury with a friend. She insists I've been there before with her, but it was most peculiar: neither my memory nor my body had any familiarity with the place, despite there being a sculpture trail there. None of it was recognisable as something I'd seen before. It was a most confounding experience. However, we spent a long while watching a heron fishing at the weir, which more than made up for the strange void in my memory. He made sure I'll remember Burrs now! Here are a few of the magnificent shapes he demonstrated while expertly picking many small fish from the water.
Meanwhile, in my dreaming life, there have been some fairly wild adventures, including one that seems to contain something of the opposite energy to my Burrs experience. Like many folk, there are a few places in my dreams that I have visited many times over the years - both urban - usually inside buildings - and natural places.
In one particularly vivid dream, a group of us were on some sort of city tour in Manchester. I interacted with other group members, some of whom are real friends, others unknown to me in life. At no point was our guide visible - I think we had been sent off to see everything on our own as an immersive experience.
As we rounded a corner, we encountered a greatly realistic street scene from the city center of the 1970’s (the decade in which I was born, though not in Manchester). There were market stalls, vendors, part of Granada studios. We were all very impressed with how authentic it felt.
The group then entered into a large warehouse-like building, inside of which was a bar - one I've been to in dreams before. This time however, it was still under construction. The bar and pumps were there, and the floor with a few small tables, all very familiar from previous visits. However, it was surrounded by plastic sheeting, which we had to brush through to get in. The walls had not yet been built (certainly a curious way to go about constructing something, giving it the feel of a film set rather than a real pub). It was significant, because in this dream, the bar had become a really important place later in the Manchester scene, yet here it was, open but still in the process of being built, and with hardly any punters inside.
It was at this moment that it dawned on us all that this was not a historic reconstruction at all, but rather a covert experiment in time travel! We commented that even if they had recreated the street scene, it would have been very impressive - but we didn't even know time travel technology was possible, let alone that we were being used as some kind of guinea pigs for it.
One of the friends I was with was determined to enjoy the authenticity of the experience, and went to the bar to order us drinks. Peculiarly, my rational brain entered at this stage, and wanted to know how on earth she was procuring pints with currency from five decades later. No explanation was offered, but the pints were poured. In previous dream visits to this place, the beer has been what I can only describe as perfection; however, I didn't even drink it this time round, as a group of scruffy-looking kids aged about ten who were sat at the end of the bar downed it between them all, while I was distracted by marvelling at the whole time travel phenomenon.
As the dream progressed, we all spontaneously decided this opportunity was too good to simply return from. We decided to ignore the instructions our guide had given, and instead to disappear into the 1970’s, dispersing in pairs in different directions, so that we might all have a few years in which to explore.
We wondered if, when finally tracked down, we might emerge a few real years after we had entered. I suggested jokingly that that might be a good thing - we could miss out on world war 3 and an extreme right wing government. I looked up and noticed I was talking to Nigel Farrage, who didn't seem as pleased as me with that prospect. I was sure he wasn't in the group before, and the less said about him, the better.
We all went out separate ways, and I woke up at the point that two of us were in an open top train as it was pulling out of the station… As I returned to consciousness, I was left with the perplexing sensation that I had witnessed the construction of a place that I have already visited many times in dreams. As if I was watching the creation of a small section of my own subconscious mind. Intriguing and unsettling in equal measure.
I'll leave you with one of the poems from the new zine, though the words themselves are about eight years old. I shared it on my Instagram a few years ago, but not on here, so it will be new to some.
Truth
Seeking truth
I roamed the earth,
visiting temples and shrines,
cathedrals and mosques,
synagogues and sanctuaries.
I sought out ancient sites:
burial mounds, sacred rivers
and holy mountains.
I spoke to countless
devout men and women:
pious monks and nuns,
revered rabbis,
cherished clerics,
saintly sages, godly gurus,
venerable priests and
numerous numinous teachers.
I did not find the truth in
any of these shepherds:
not in their unique teachings,
nor in the sum of them.
Neither did I attain it in
any holy place, natural
or man-made, nor in all
the wonders of the world.
In despair, I sat and wept,
and as the cascade
of my teardrops
spilled upon the ground,
soaking into soil
and watering the land,
I finally encountered
the object of my search:
In the wrestling with ideas,
in the stinging of my tears,
and in the fissures in the ground,
through which they ran.Thanks for reading. I hope you've found something to nourish you this week. I'm curious: does anyone else have an experience of visiting somewhere they've been before, but finding nothing familiar? How about your dream life - have you ever time travelled in dreams? Or visited a familiar dream-place in a different era? Please do tell us about it in the comments!
Next weekend I'll be in the middle of a few days away with my son, so I've no idea whether or not I'll find the time, the subject matter or the willpower to post on Substack. Let's see how things unfold. Until next time, I leave you with Wild Green Blessings!
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