What do you think?
Rate this book
Your Face Is A Forest
The tea-soaked and rain-drenched musings of a nomadic punk bard. Encounters with the gods, the dead, and the spirits of forest and stream. Musings for the dreaming rebel in the leaf-strewn tavern, the urban poet following the course of buried rivers beneath her feet, and all those who await the return of the gods and the uprising of the trees.
Your Face Is A Forest is a collection of essays, poetry, and travel journals from Rhyd Wildermuth. This is the second edition of Your Face Is a Forest, now published by Gods&Radicals Press
Your Face Is A Forest is a collection of essays, poetry, and travel journals from Rhyd Wildermuth. This is the second edition of Your Face Is a Forest, now published by Gods&Radicals Press
146 pages, Paperback
First published November 7, 2014
27 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2015
It's hard to know what to say about Your Face is a Forest. I might have to resort to a list of thoughts in no particular order.
I love the way Wildermuth uses language. Reading his words, I felt saturated with language and ideas. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me.
It was wonderful to read the words of another person who experiences the land and the presence of gods and spirits in a very real, intense way. Of someone who is clearly intelligent, but isn't trying to be clever or glib about his experiences.
I was delighted to find a contemporary pagan work that felt rooted in reverent experience.
This isn't a book about livingroom paganism. It has mud on its boots and bits of leaves in its hair and acorns in its pockets. You won't learn anything about setting up an altar or casting a circle.
But you'll learn so so much about what it's like to live in the presence of the sacred--in a true way, full of awe, uneasiness, healing, heartbreak.
I love the way Wildermuth uses language. Reading his words, I felt saturated with language and ideas. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me.
It was wonderful to read the words of another person who experiences the land and the presence of gods and spirits in a very real, intense way. Of someone who is clearly intelligent, but isn't trying to be clever or glib about his experiences.
I was delighted to find a contemporary pagan work that felt rooted in reverent experience.
This isn't a book about livingroom paganism. It has mud on its boots and bits of leaves in its hair and acorns in its pockets. You won't learn anything about setting up an altar or casting a circle.
But you'll learn so so much about what it's like to live in the presence of the sacred--in a true way, full of awe, uneasiness, healing, heartbreak.
September 6, 2023
Rhyd Wildermuth is a writer and social worker based in Seattle. He writes for ‘The Wild Hunt,’ ‘Patheos Pagan’ and ‘Polytheist.com’ and blogs at ‘Paganarch.com.’ He describes himself as ‘a dream-drenched, tea-swilling leftist pagan punk bard.’ He is also a student of Druidry with OBOD. What drew me to his work was his boldness, passion, vision and the fact he proudly and outspokenly ‘worships gods.’
Your Face is a Forest is a collection of essays and prose. Rhyd describes his style as ‘weaving a forest from meaning’. This book’s a tapestry of poetic prose and prose poetry woven from themes that make sense as a whole only in the non-rational way trees make a forest. It’s rough, edgy and raw, and also a little rough around the edges, which adds to its anarchic charm.
Rhyd invites the reader to step into his life and accompany him through the places where he lives into forests behind to meet the faces of ‘the Other’ in ‘tasselled willows’, pines and alders, satyr dances and Dionysian revels. To find the tooth of an elk long dead and buried where cars now drive. A world full of life and another world behind it.
What I love about this book is that Rhyd speaks deeply and richly of both worlds. On pilgrimages to France and Germany he tells of the wonder of waking in a field of rabbits, playing flute with locals on unknown streets, sitting within the pink fur womb of a Berlin bar. He speaks of his despair at social inequality and the continuing repression of homosexuality in Christian colleges. He is a poet of the sacredness of this-worldly life on all levels.
He also shares some of his innermost visions of the gods and otherworlds. These have guided his life and thus form the reader’s guiding threads. Outstanding was a vision of Bran, which deserves quoting in full; ‘When I saw Bran, his great black cloak rippled in an unseen wind, his powerful form straddling a Breton valley between the River of Alder and the sea. But the cloak fled from his body, a myriad of ravens having stripped from his flesh sinew and skin, leaving only great white pillars of bone, the foundation of a temple and a tower. I do not yet know where his head lies.’ On his pilgrimages we find a mysterious tower on a mountain, a stone head in a fountain and a magical cloak. But Rhyd doesn’t give all his secrets away.
Other deities include Arianrhod, Ceridwen, Brighid, Dionysos and the unnamed gods and spirits of the city streets, buried forests and culverted rivers. What I liked most about these sections is that rather than kowtowing to being acceptable, Rhyd speaks his experiences directly and authentically. This was encouraging and inspiring for me and I think will be for other polytheists whose encounters with the gods go beyond known mythology and conventional Pagan text books. There are few modern authors who speak of the mystical aspects of deity and Rhyd does it exceptionally well.
I’d recommend Your Face is a Forest to all Pagans who are looking for real, undoctored insights into nature and the gods. Because it’s not only about Paganism and is written by somebody fully immersed in the beauty and pain of life and the search for love I’d recommend it to non-Pagans too, particularly those interested in spiritual journeys and visionary prose and poetry. Quoting Rhyd’s dedication, to ‘Everyone who’s ever looked into the Abyss / And brought back light for the rest of us.’
Your Face is a Forest is a collection of essays and prose. Rhyd describes his style as ‘weaving a forest from meaning’. This book’s a tapestry of poetic prose and prose poetry woven from themes that make sense as a whole only in the non-rational way trees make a forest. It’s rough, edgy and raw, and also a little rough around the edges, which adds to its anarchic charm.
Rhyd invites the reader to step into his life and accompany him through the places where he lives into forests behind to meet the faces of ‘the Other’ in ‘tasselled willows’, pines and alders, satyr dances and Dionysian revels. To find the tooth of an elk long dead and buried where cars now drive. A world full of life and another world behind it.
What I love about this book is that Rhyd speaks deeply and richly of both worlds. On pilgrimages to France and Germany he tells of the wonder of waking in a field of rabbits, playing flute with locals on unknown streets, sitting within the pink fur womb of a Berlin bar. He speaks of his despair at social inequality and the continuing repression of homosexuality in Christian colleges. He is a poet of the sacredness of this-worldly life on all levels.
He also shares some of his innermost visions of the gods and otherworlds. These have guided his life and thus form the reader’s guiding threads. Outstanding was a vision of Bran, which deserves quoting in full; ‘When I saw Bran, his great black cloak rippled in an unseen wind, his powerful form straddling a Breton valley between the River of Alder and the sea. But the cloak fled from his body, a myriad of ravens having stripped from his flesh sinew and skin, leaving only great white pillars of bone, the foundation of a temple and a tower. I do not yet know where his head lies.’ On his pilgrimages we find a mysterious tower on a mountain, a stone head in a fountain and a magical cloak. But Rhyd doesn’t give all his secrets away.
Other deities include Arianrhod, Ceridwen, Brighid, Dionysos and the unnamed gods and spirits of the city streets, buried forests and culverted rivers. What I liked most about these sections is that rather than kowtowing to being acceptable, Rhyd speaks his experiences directly and authentically. This was encouraging and inspiring for me and I think will be for other polytheists whose encounters with the gods go beyond known mythology and conventional Pagan text books. There are few modern authors who speak of the mystical aspects of deity and Rhyd does it exceptionally well.
I’d recommend Your Face is a Forest to all Pagans who are looking for real, undoctored insights into nature and the gods. Because it’s not only about Paganism and is written by somebody fully immersed in the beauty and pain of life and the search for love I’d recommend it to non-Pagans too, particularly those interested in spiritual journeys and visionary prose and poetry. Quoting Rhyd’s dedication, to ‘Everyone who’s ever looked into the Abyss / And brought back light for the rest of us.’
September 23, 2016
More like 2.5 stars. Random Little Free Library find.
I most enjoyed the first part where the author realizes he is gay and rejects the soul crushing expectations of his life. To me it seemed the most direct and honest components of his self examination journey. I mostly randomly dipped into the rest. His following travels and poems were a bit of a snore for me especially the poetry. I can appreciate his soul searching but it became tedious. We do and will go through such changes as we mature into life. When I was going through mine, 35 years ago, I probably would have related differently and more intensely. Thus, dear young reader might you.
I most enjoyed the first part where the author realizes he is gay and rejects the soul crushing expectations of his life. To me it seemed the most direct and honest components of his self examination journey. I mostly randomly dipped into the rest. His following travels and poems were a bit of a snore for me especially the poetry. I can appreciate his soul searching but it became tedious. We do and will go through such changes as we mature into life. When I was going through mine, 35 years ago, I probably would have related differently and more intensely. Thus, dear young reader might you.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews