Wildest Dream - An Imagined History of the Green Man

Wildest Dream reimagines the Green Man figure as he has moved through the ages, through our May festivals, church walls and peasant protest and into emerging movements of hope in the face of ecological crisis.

David first met the Green Man as a boy, in a children’s book by Gail E Haley – ‘The first book that changed my life’. Wildest Dream picks up from there, introducing him as a character from our collective folklore representing resistance and renewal. Along the way, the Green Man encounters communities striving to be a part of a better world. He encourages us to ask questions about the wildness that exists within and outside of us, and how by allowing it to thrive we might find a better relationship with this fragile planet and with each other.

David completed this beautiful book a few weeks before he died on the winter solstice in 2024, following his cancer diagnosis earlier that year. It’s full of his joyful hope and exuberance.

David said of his hopes for this book:

“I hope that the reader may feel their own love for the life within them and the life around them… the life to which they belong, the life that gives them their life. It may not do all those things. But if it says, hey, how about that? And if that lands somehow, I’ll be delighted.”

~~~

Praise:

“…a handbook and a manifesto, [Wildest Dream] is forceful, and enormously rewarding to read. A gift of defiance, of joy, of anger and of hope.” Eben Myrddin Muse in Caught by the River. Read the full review.

“I didn’t know David Gee. This eloquent and insightful exploration of the most enduring and alluring enigmas in western folk culture makes me wish I had. A genuinely captivating read.” Amy-Jane Beer

“A breath of wild truth runs through this book, carrying the rumour of a world worth living for, a hope born on the far side of despair and an invitation to lean towards life. Would that each of us might find a way to make a gift out of our lives, as David Gee has done. Listen carefully to the stories he left us in these pages and you will find clues for how it can be done.” Dougald Hine

“Gee leads us on a merry dance through the shadows and the light, peeling back the undergrowth to reveal the Green Man’s face: so familiar, so unknown, and ultimately so full of hope. A wild, joyful tangle of a book and an ecological quest.”  Nick Hunt