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  • Published: 15 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9781583943601
  • Imprint: North Atlantic
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 476
  • RRP: $55.00

The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic

The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive




Martín Prechtel's long-awaited book will inspire fans of his poetic, brilliant non-fiction narratives as well as new readers interested in the meeting ground of indigenous cultures, sustainable farming, and spirituality.

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.

  • Published: 15 February 2012
  • ISBN: 9781583943601
  • Imprint: North Atlantic
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 476
  • RRP: $55.00

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Praise for The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic

Praise for Secrets of the Talking Jaguar
"The picture [Prechtel] creates ... is so beautifully drawn that his delight in their culture becomes contagious, as does his grief when the civil war creates havoc in their village."--Publishers Weekly
"This eloquent and expressive work ... is highly recommended."--Library Journal
"It's an encyclopedia of beauty.... Like some poems of Neruda's, a treasure house of language, in service to life."--Robert Bly, author of Iron John