Bøger af Craig Chalquist

A man in his forties wakes in a park in San Diego with no memory of his name, his past, or how he got there. He finds a cowboy hat, black boots, an e-bike, and a gold medallion that talks. Who is he? Where did he come from? Ride north, the medallion tells him. Visit the old missions one by one. At each, carry out a mysterious ritual. When you reach Sonoma, your memories will be restored, including those of a mysterious past. You will know who took them and why. Refuse, and I will stop your heart. As he journeys, encountering a persistent assassin, meeting reanimated gods in his dreams, resisting being cast as a hero, and building new relationships across overheating California, he bears along the potent biochemistries needed for collective survival. But his strongest medicine is hope.

The world is indeed enchanted--but you wouldn't know that from the unimaginative ways we learn to think about it!The magic becomes visible in myth: myth not as outworn science or cold ideology, but as the language of past and present humanity. Myth reveals through story and ritual the perennial presences that haunt us until we learn how to listen for them and respond creatively to their summons. Offering an applied practical course on world mythology, Myths Among Us retells more than 100 traditional tales to examine how the plots, images, and motifs of myth dwell among us today: in our dreams, conflicts, families, relationships; in film, politics, industry, and finance; and in current events whose innermost workings the lens of myth allows us to discover. "What I thoroughly enjoyed about the savvy Myths Among Us is that the first two chapters offer enough material for reflection on myth and mythic consciousness to comprise an entire course. The second treat is how Chalquist stirs in stories from around the globe to illustrate the pleasure of myth; now readers have a rich nourishing series of meals for the soul to snack on for years." - Dennis Patrick Slattery, author of Riting Myth, Mythic Writing

THE SPECTACLE OF OURSELVES: A CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS IN WORLD HISTORY FROM BIG BANG TO 2012 tells the human story over the entire span of time up to today. Events from every continent receive brief but interesting explanation throughout.

The end of a Californian journey.... The story begun in The Tears of Llorona: A Californian Odyssey of Myth, Place, and Homecoming (World Soul Books, 2009) and extended into Ventral Depths: Alchemical Themes and Mythic Motifs of the Great Central Valley of California (World Soul Books, 2011) reaches a conclusion in this, the final volume of the Animate California Trilogy. Inland of its spectacularly busy and famously scenic coast, and around the edges of its huge Central Valley, California extends itself into a mysteriously introverted land of dry deserts, tall mountains, ancient lakes, and solitary valleys. To listen deeply to the myths, legends, and images emanating from this arc of isolation demands an open-hearted inquiry from border to border and Sierra to open sea. The Tears of Llorona took the historical, ecological, and imaginal pulse of the original Mission counties of California along El Camino Real from San Diego to Sonoma. Ventral Depths sampled alchemical and mythic motifs in the Central Valley. Edges, Peaks, and Vales moves the terrapsychological focus to the interior edges of California, and therefore to those of a quintessentially place-based consciousness attuned to its startlingly sentient surroundings.

In The Tears of Llorona: A Californian Odyssey of Myth, Place, and Homecoming (World Soul Books, 2009), California native Craig Chalquist collected stories, facts, and reflections gathered during his deep exploration of the spirit, soul, and voice of place from San Diego to Sonoma along the old Mission Trail running up and down coastal California. Ventral Depth, the second volume of the Animate California Series, examines recurring mythic and alchemical images brewing in the Golden State's Great Central Valley. From the standpoint of terrapsychology, the transdisciplinary study of the lively and interactive presence of the outer world in the depths of the human psyche, landscapes harbor rich recurrences of story and folklore, image and dream that connect us to the places we call home.At over four hundred miles in length and seventy five at its maximum width, the Central Valley provides the world with fruit, vegetables, beef, clothing, petroleum, machinery, and hydroelectric energy. Its cultural and religious diversity is unmatched. When witnessed with a terrapsychological eye, it also reveals itself as a vast, sealed-in repository of tales and events, histories and psychologies, geographies and mythologies that weave together inner and outer soulscapes in patterns discernible to a sensitized ecological imagination.

In recent years the environmental challenges facing humankind have gained increased recognition, as have the psychological impacts of these global threats. In this special issue of ReVision, leading ecopsychologists take the next step, demonstrating how to foster ecological sensitivity, and not merely react to environmental crises. In theoretically rich, yet practical essays, readers learn how to become more intimate with nature in a range of settings-from semester-long "Natural Presence" geology classes in an urban university, to week-long "Diamond in the Rough" wilderness retreats, to fleeting experiences encountering nature in one's own backyard using a phenomenological approach. Contributors to this special double issue on ecopsychology seek to cultivate greater environmental awareness in a variety of ways, including - Drawing on personal experiences of relating more deeply with nature. - Enhancing mindfulness of the natural world through Buddhist practice, either as traditionally practiced or as merged with wilderness therapy. - Highlighting cultural influences on environmental identity. - Engaging with diverse approaches to research, including - among others - quantitative and qualitative studies across cultures, laboratory experiments in cognitive psychology, and literary analysis.

California has shimmered alluringly as paradise and Promised Land since long before the projections of Hollywood and the slick brochures of real estate developers. Those who answered the call to adventure have been many: conquistadors and missionaries, lovers and dreamers, swindlers and salesmen, builders and destroyers. Yet in all the bruising centuries of exploration and exploitation, few witnesses, if any, have attended to the inside story of this haunted seaside place. When California native Craig Chalquist (author of STORIED LIVES and TERRAPSYCHOLOGY: REENGAGING THE SOUL OF PLACE) awakened from a life-changing dream to hear the troubled spirit of his homeland, he set forth on El Camino Real, the fabled King's Highway linking San Diego with Sonoma, on a journey of research, reflection, and anguishing recollection to listen in on stories and persistent images still abroad at continent's edge. As he followed in the footsteps of Junipero Serra, first missionary of California, he found himself followed in turn by the centuries-old mystery of La Llorona, the Weeping Woman of Mexican folklore, in her search for her lost children along the conquered coast. Who was she? How had she come to be here? And what did she have to do with the land? Come along on an odyssey through the heart of enshadowed California, keeper of nightmares and inspirer of dreams, and into a deep exploration of the resonances and echoes and "ecological complexes" that bind us all to the places we call home.

Chalquist shows how specific myths play out from cradle to grave. Personal accounts of discovering and working with these myths enliven the book's emphasis on refashioning these plot lines from the inside out.