Rescuing the Light: Quotes from the Oral Teachings of Martin Prechtel

Description

A collection of quotes and sayings from the oral teachings of a leading thinker, writer and teacher of indigenous spirituality. Martin 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. 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.

A master of eloquence and innovative language, MART N PPRECHTEL is a writer, artist, and teacher who, through his work both written and spoken, hopes to promote the subtlety, irony, and premodern vitality hidden in any living language. A half-blood Native American with a Pueblo Indian upbringing, he left New Mexico to live in the village of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, eventually becoming a full member of the Tzutujil Mayan community there. For many years he served as a principal in that body of village leaders responsible for instructing the young people in the meanings of their ancient stories through the rituals of adult rites of passage. Once again residing in his native New Mexico, Prechtel teaches at his international school, Bolad's Kitchen. Through music, ritual, farming, sacred architecture, ancient textiles, tools, and story, Prechtel helps people in many lands to remember their own sense of place in the daily sacred through the search for the Indigenous Soul.

"This is a very powerful soul-growth book, one of the most powerful in recent years. The ideas here for renewal and reorganizing are so fresh and new that they quicken the taste buds and put an expectant readiness in the legs!" -COLEMAN BARKS, author of The Essential Rumi "In a time of immense cultural insanity, Martin's inimitable spirit echoes out through the words on these pages. As an Indigenous woman, his words have had a profound healing impact on the generations in my bloodlines. Rescuing the Light will reverberate across the grand loom of time, a true gift for the transformative times we find ourselves in. This book helps us remember how to be good future ancestors and responsible descendants. Ki:ken iewennahnotahkhwa. Ionkwaienawa:se aonsaionkwehiahrahkwen oh ni:ioht ahonnonkwe'tiiohake tsi nen:we ne ionkhihsothokon:'a akenhake tanon aionkhiniahese tsi nikionkwathwatsiri:non." -ROWEN WHITE, Mohawk Seedkeeper, farmer, and storyteller of the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network "Each little seed of eloquence that came before me bloomed off the page with such riotous exuberance that it couldn't be contained, and how do you turn the page from that? It's like looking out the window to see a dragon eating your car and turning to finish the dishes.... This is truly a miraculous text, like a hatful of magical castles and horses! Please be warned: This is not a book of wise sayings designed to make you feel better, to make your life better, or feed your soul. It's really not even a book at all-it's more like a bag of holes to throw onto the wall of the box you have been trained to think was your life, and if you dare let the light in, and maybe even summon up the courage to peek out, you may just find a path to becoming a useful being, capable of feeding something far grander than yourself...." -CHRIS ROBERTSON, cinematographer and president of the Fairgrounds Neighborhood Association in New Orleans "Through savoring and digesting so many sparks of wisdom, perhaps you will discover that Rescuing the Light is in essence about beauty-that is, about the light that resides inside all things and all people, visible to those who dare to look. En el proceso de saborear y digerir tantos destellos de sabiduria atesorados en estas paginas, descubriras quizas que Rescuing the Light trata en esencia sobre la belleza, sobre la luz que reside dentro de todos y todo, visible para quienes se atreven a mirar." -INAKI ZABALA, international EU worker and Basque thinker "After reading Rescuing the Light, I feel like I've been planted at this moment with spiritual common sense and that I don't have to solve the mystery but know the acceptance of amazement." -TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE, host of First Voices Indigenous Radio-all-Native hosted, all-Native produced