It’s with great pleasure that I present the work of Gil Hedley - poet, somanaut (inner-space explorer), human anatomy expert, healer, and man of many other skills and talents. Gil gave me permission to bring some of his beautifully written, stimulating, and thought provoking poems to Podcast Poetry Live.
To give you an idea of this literary artist here is some of what he reveals about himself on his website at gilhedley.com
I started out my adult learning journey at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, studying for my Ph.D. in Theological Ethics. During that time I also became a Certified Rolfer and spent five years studying psychodynamics and energy healing in NYC; I have been an avid student of personal and spiritual development my whole life.
My combined interests and training has supported my personal exploration of the human body and led me to develop an integral approach to the study of human anatomy.
Over the past 27 years, I have led hundreds of hours of Hands-On Human Dissection Workshops in the laboratory. Through this in-person work, as well as keynote presentations and online programs, I have encouraged thousands of fellow "somanauts" to appreciate, explore, and embody the wonders of the human form.
From his youtube channel – Somanaut
I believe that the dictum "Know thyself" can partly be fulfilled through knowledge of human anatomy. As somanauts, dedicated to exploring inner space, we can expand our human potential exponentially.
In this episode I read four of Gil’s poems, one from each of the four parts of his collection named The Seeming Space.
They are:
The Creator Aches from Coming into Form (Part 1)
Feeling Good from Coming into Form (Part 2)
If You Wait from Beyond the Leaving
Crack That Shell from The Seeming Space
The Seeming Space can be downloaded from Gil’s website, and contains over 100 high-quality poems, written over a decade. The preface to the collection summarises it succinctly -
The words that follow come in shifting voices, which together reflect a story about our coming into form. Sometimes “source” speaks comfort, or counsel, or challenge, always with tender love. At other times the “petty time and place personality” cries out for solace, and finds it within. May you as well.