Secrets of the Talking Jaguar

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1999-08-30

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0874779707

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Twenty-five years ago, a young musician and painter named Martin Prechtel wandered through the brilliant landscapes of Mexico and Guatemala. Arriving at Santiago Atitlan, a Tzutujil Mayan village on the breathtaking shores of Lake Atitlan, Prechtel met Nicolas Chiviliu Tacaxoy--perhaps the most famous shaman in Tzutujil history--who believed Prechtel was the new student he had asked the gods to provide. For the next thirteen years, Prechtel studied the ancient Tzutujil culture and became a village chief and a famous shaman in his own right.In Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, Prechtel brings to vivid life the sights, sounds, scents, and colors of Santiago Atitlan: its magical personalities, its beauty, its material poverty and spiritual richness, its eight-hundred-year-old rituals juxtaposed with quintessential small-town gossip. The story of his education is a tale filled with enchantment, danger, passion, and hope.

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: HarperElement

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 9781862045019

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Raised on a Native American reservation in New Mexico, Martin Prechtel wandered as a young man throughout the landscapes of Mexico and Guatamela. Drawn in his dreams to the traditional Mayan community of Santiago Atitlan, he carved a life for himself among the villagers. Though an outsider himself, Prechtel was adopted as an apprentice by a powerful ancient Shaman. He married a Mayan woman, and became a village chief and famous Shaman in his own right - entrusted with the rich legacy of Atitlan's ancient Mayan heritage and its deepest spiritual traditions.

The Smell of Rain on Dust

The Smell of Rain on Dust PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2015-04-14

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1583949399

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"Beautifully written and wise … [Martin Prechtel] offers stories that are precious and life-sustaining. Read carefully, and listen deeply."—Mary Oliver, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Inspiring hope, solace, and courage in living through our losses, author Martín Prechtel, trained in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, shares profound insights on the relationship between grief and praise in our culture--how the inability that many of us have to grieve and weep properly for the dead is deeply linked with the inability to give praise for living. In modern society, grief is something that we usually experience in private, alone, and without the support of a community. Yet, as Prechtel says, "Grief expressed out loud for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses." Prechtel explains that the unexpressed grief prevalent in our society today is the reason for many of the social, cultural, and individual maladies that we are currently experiencing. According to Prechtel, "When you have two centuries of people who have not properly grieved the things that they have lost, the grief shows up as ghosts that inhabit their grandchildren." These "ghosts," he says, can also manifest as disease in the form of tumors, which the Maya refer to as "solidified tears," or in the form of behavioral issues and depression. He goes on to show how this collective, unexpressed energy is the long-held grief of our ancestors manifesting itself, and the work that can be done to liberate this energy so we can heal from the trauma of loss, war, and suffering. At base, this "little book," as the author calls it, can be seen as a companion of encouragement, a little extra light for those deep and noble parts in all of us.

The Jaguar's Children

The Jaguar's Children PDF

Author: John Vaillant

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2015-01-27

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 0544290089

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This “extraordinary” novel of one man’s border crossing reveals “a human history of sorrow and suffering, all of it beginning with the thirst to be free” (NPR). Héctor is trapped. The water truck, sealed to hide its human cargo, has broken down. The coyotes have taken all the passengers’ money for a mechanic and have not returned. Héctor finds a name in his friend César’s phone: AnniMac. A name with an American number. He must reach her, both for rescue and to pass along the message César has come so far to deliver. But are his messages going through? Over four days, as water and food run low, Héctor tells how he came to this desperate place. His story takes us from Oaxaca—its rich culture, its rapid change—to the dangers of the border, exposing the tangled ties between Mexico and El Norte. And it reminds us of the power of storytelling and the power of hope, as Héctor fights to ensure his message makes it out of the truck and into the world. Both an outstanding suspense novel and an arresting window into the relationship between two great cultures, The Jaguar’s Children shows how deeply interconnected all of us are. “This is what novels can do—illuminate shadowed lives, enable us to contemplate our own depths of kindness, challenge our beliefs about fate. Vaillant’s use of fact to inspire fiction brings to mind a long list of powerful novels from the past decade or so: What is the What by Dave Eggers; The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif; The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult.” —Amanda Eyre Ward, The New York Times Book Review “[A] heartbreaker . . . Wrenching . . . with a voice fresh and plangent enough to disarm resistance.” —The Boston Globe “Fearless.” —The Globe and Mail

Middleworld

Middleworld PDF

Author: Jon Voelkel

Publisher: Darby Creek

Published: 2010-04

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 1606840711

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When his archaeologist parents go missing in Central America, fourteen-year-old Max embarks on a wild adventure through the Mayan underworld in search of the legendary Jaguar Stones, which enabled ancient Mayan kings to wield the powers of living gods. Includes cast of characters, glossary, facts about the Maya cosmos and calendar, and a recipe for chicken tamales.

Long Life, Honey in the Heart

Long Life, Honey in the Heart PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2004-10-20

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9781556435386

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Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this heady mix of magic, humor, and spirituality immerses the reader in the experiences of Mayan birth, courting, marriage, childrearing, old age, death, and beyond, using the true story of Prechtel's own family and friends.

Rescuing the Light

Rescuing the Light PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1623176271

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A collection of quotes and sayings from the oral teachings of a leading thinker, writer and teacher of Indigenous spirituality. Martín Prechtel is widely recognized as a profound and beloved teacher for our times. Raised in the Tzutujil Maya shamanic tradition, he has dedicated his life to the preservation and promulgation of indigenous spirituality. Rescuing the Light is a collection of Prechtel's quotes and sayings spanning the course of fifteen years, and recorded at Bolad's Kitchen, a four-year course in New Mexico where students from all walks of life gather to receive hands-on training in language, history, cooking, farming, and crafts. An artist, musician, and storyteller, Prechtel teaches and initiates with passion and eloquence, awakening his students to the sacred realities present everywhere and at all times. The quotes of wisdom and inspiration collected in these pages are earth-centric and animist. Divided into thematic sections, they range from the poetic and witty to the serious and direct. Sharing his deep shamanic wisdom within a grand overview of human history, Prechtel shows us how we can reconnect with the unique and unsuspected manifestations of our own sacred selves.

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic PDF

Author: Martín Prechtel

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 1583943765

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Martín Prechtel’s experiences growing up on a Pueblo Indian reservation, his years of apprenticing to a Guatemalan shaman, and his flight from Guatemala’s brutal civil war to life in the U.S. inform this lyrical blend of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual call to arms. The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is both an epic story and a cry to the heart of humanity based on the author’s realization that human survival depends on keeping alive the seeds of our “original forgotten spiritual excellence.” Prechtel relates our current state of ecological crisis to the rapid disappearance of biodiversity, indigenous cultures, and shared human values. He demonstrates how real human culture is exterminated when real (not genetically modified) seeds are lost. Like plants that become extinct once their required conditions are no longer met, authentic, unmonetized human cultures can no longer survive in the modern world. To “keep the seeds alive”—both literally and metaphorically—they must be planted, harvested, and replanted, just as human culture must become truly engaging and meaningful to the soul, as necessary as food is to the body. The viable seeds of spirituality and culture that lie dormant within us need to “sprout” into broad daylight to create real sets of cultures welcome on Earth.

Scandals in the House of Birds

Scandals in the House of Birds PDF

Author: Nathaniel Tarn

Publisher:

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13:

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Based on a thirty-year span of fieldwork in the Lake Atitlan region of Guatemala, Scandals in the House of Birds is a multivoiced epic of a sacred crime, and its tangled mythic, religious, and political ramifications. The Maximon, a wooden statue venerated since pre-Columbian times, is stolen from the local villagers, sent to a European museum, and finally returned decades later, largely thanks to the authors' intervention.

The Lost City of the Monkey God

The Lost City of the Monkey God PDF

Author: Douglas Preston

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2017-01-03

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1455540021

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NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017#1 New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller! A five-hundred-year-old legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle. Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.