Author: Martin Shaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781935952015
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234
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Book Description
A BRANCH FROM THE LIGHTNING TREE is centered around several key elements: 1. It features four texts and commentaries ? Welsh, Russian, Siberian and Norwegian myths that explore the process of leaving what is considered safe and predictable and journeying out into wild, uncertain areas of nature and the psyche in search of new insights. The four stories have at their center a man, woman, and adolescent. 2. A narrative of why the author gave up a large musical publishing deal with Warner Brothers to spend four years living in a tent in the wilds and over a decade facilitating wilderness rites-of-passage for others. 3. Shaw's eloquent insistence that without a renewed attention to myth and the initiation process we are only partially equipped to reestablish a complementary relationship with the living world. 4. The core of these stories are paradoxical in nature, far from the clumsily perceived ?hero' myths, and point towards Trickster, or Coyote, as a way of existing in a world ambivalent to the insights of what you could call traditional knowledge. A BRANCH FROM THE LIGHTNING TREE is unique in the field of myth and ritual in several ways: 1. It carries an ?in-the-field' narrative of several hundred men and women who have gone out into wild places to fast for four days and nights. Not in the Amazon, or in Mongolia, but in a place that is indigenous to them, that grounds the experience in the wider context of their lives, rather than a one-off event that can be hard to reconnect with. This is part of a growing mood to get to the bones of initiatory experience, rather than the cultural affectations. The stories illustrate both the grandeur and struggle of this often subtle process. 2. Unlike many of the big mythological sellers (i.e Bly's IRON JOHN or Pinkola Estes WOMEN WHO RUN WITH WOLVES), A BRANCH FROM THE LIGHTNING TREE is not a gender piece, but focuses on both men and women's movement into wildness as part of the bigger awareness of climate change and ecology. It presents the old stories as keys into any debate on these issues, that the ability to think metaphorically/mythologically loosens the grip of literalness, and can ?re-enchant' our perspectives. 3. As a wilderness teacher Shaw has noticed that the real point of crisis that is emerging is the return to community, rather than the time out in the wild. This is turning of rites-of-passage on its head: Shaw reasons that the rites-of-passage process requires three stages following an initial Call to the Soul: (i) Going out of the Village, and the severance from ordinary life and the stepping into the image-laden language of myth, story, ritual; (ii) Into the Forest, baring the soul to extraordinary forces, receiving the sacred wound, bonding with the living world; (iii) And Back Again, return to community, the performance of identity, and the confirmation in and of the Soul. A BRANCH FROM THE LIGHTNING TREE invokes Robert Graves work on the White Goddess, and the Crow poems of Ted Hughes-it is a combination of practical knowledge, imaginative insight and passionate storytelling that gives Shaw's book its persuasiveness and power. At times incantatory, at times novelistic and poetic, he writes as someone who has been to these places, undergone these trials and tested himself at the extremes of lived experience.
Author: Martin Shaw
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Mythology
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Author: Lene Fogelberg
Publisher: Dedaun Publishing
ISBN: 9198747614
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
Winner of the 2023 MOONBEAM Gold Medal in the Young Adult - Mystery/Horror category. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things and A History of Wild Places, this is a "fast-paced, intriguing story that will likely appeal to young and older adults alike and keep them turning pages." -Kirkus Reviews Nature finally rises against humanity. Flora Reed discovers a lifeless body in her front yard the morning after the last day of her junior year of high school. Matters get worse when more people from her small town are found dead under mysterious circumstances and police take an interest in the boy next door, Carl. Flora is convinced that Carl is innocent. Instead, she suspects that the deaths are somehow connected to her younger sister Fauna's tragic accident a year earlier. What she learns changes everything, and she has to race against time to prevent the killings from spreading. Flora and a small group of friends soon find themselves at the onset of an apocalyptic battle between man and nature, with no one believing their story. The Lightning Tree is the first installment of The Natural Intelligence Revolution Trilogy. "Captivating! With lyrical prose and an engrossing combination of supernatural mystery and slow-burn romance, The Lightning Tree takes readers on an emotional journey as Flora Reed's dedication to her sister leads to a most unlikely discovery about her family's traumatic past and the future of the planet." -Amalie Jahn, author of Phoebe Unfired and The Next to Last Mistake
Author: Emily Woof
Publisher: Europa Editions
ISBN: 1609453425
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 239
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Book Description
From the author of The Whole Wide Beauty: “Transcendent. What unfolds is a story not just of young love but of how to cope when it is lost and shattered” (Financial Times). United Kingdom circa the 1980s—Ursula and Jerry find themselves surrounded by hip hairdos and dominating parents. The future looks bleak if they do not change their lives dramatically. Both are itching to escape their current lives and engage with the wider world. Ursula’s work as a teacher takes her far away to India to instruct disabled children, while Jerry accepts a scholarship to Magdalen College—but only to “highlight the absurdity of privilege.” Their written exchanges are deep, political, and full of irony. All the while, Jerry stays committed to Ursula in mind but not in body, questioning their relationship and the nature of their love. “Woof . . . succeeds in conveying ‘the infinity of moments’ that make up a lifetime.” —The New Yorker “An unusual but convincing love story that charts the often-distant lives of her two distinctive and appealing characters, written with wit and a lyrical flourish.” —The Daily Mail “Engaging . . . In precise, lyrical prose, Woof creates empathy for her characters’ struggles and desires.” —Kirkus Reviews “Woof is a storyteller and you can tell this from the first few pages.” —The Times (London) “Woof finds humor and poignancy in the gulf between how things are and how they ought to be.” —The Observer “[A] quixotic, forceful voice . . . [An] indubitable talent.” —The Guardian
Author: Lightning Tree Press
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780890160503
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Dwight Barnes
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
ISBN: 1662474989
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332
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Book Description
The Lightning Tree is a deeply moving and inspirational story of the Nolan Moss clan, a close-knit black family of fifteen souls bound together by love, living on the edge of existence, struggling to eke out a living, plowing the hard red clay on a small plot of ground in the isolated backwaters of Tallassee, Alabama. The head of the family is Charlie Nolan Moss, the patriarch, a devout man of strong character, proud, fiercely independent, and deeply spiritual. He is bound and determined by the grace of God to provide for and protect his family despite the ever present threats and challenges that are a part of everyday life in the racist and repressive atmosphere of the Jim Crow South. Yet in spite of all his efforts, vigilance, and prayers, bad things still happen.
Author: Clare Weze
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526636352
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
'This exciting, science-packed novel is a cracking read and bursts with action, warmth and humour' - BookTrust Great Books Guide 2021 'This is great fun; an energetic middle-grade debut with a fresh contemporary feel and a good dash of Stranger Things' - The Bookseller Alfie has noticed a few things since his family moved to Folding Ford. He really misses life in the city. He and his sister don't exactly fit in here. But the most interesting one is that the weather is BONKERS. One frost-covered branch on one tree in the middle of June? A tiny whirlwind in a bucket in the garden? Only in Folding Ford. Armed with his bike, a notepad and his new best mate Sam, Alfie is going to investigate. His best clue is Nathaniel Clemm ... the only thing in town weirder than the weather. When Alfie 'investigates' Mr Clemm's garden, only SLIGHTLY illegally, he finds a strange box that freezes his trainers and makes his teeth tingle. And when he opens it, only SLIGHTLY deliberately, SOMETHING gets out. Something fast, fizzing and sparking with electricity and very, very much alive. But the creature from the box brings trouble of its own, and as barometers and tempers go haywire in Folding Ford, Alfie finds himself at the centre of a perfect storm. Skellig meets Stranger Things in this funny, heartfelt adventure story perfect for fans of Ross Welford, Christopher Edge and Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Author: Scott Russell Sanders
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253034817
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 22
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Book Description
Young Scott and his father have a personal way of learning the trees and remembering their names. It's a game they like to play, one you'll want to play too! Learn the name of the swallowtail butterfly who loves to sit on the dogwood branch, see the majestic beauty of the black-and-yellow Argiope spider, or see what makes the beech tree so special (its bark is smooth and gray just like the skin of a hippo). Featuring beautiful paintings by nature artist Robert Hynes and the exquisite language of renowned author Scott Russell Sanders, Meeting Trees captures the delicate details of bark, branches, and leaves while enchanting readers with the beauty of the natural world.
Author: Martin Shaw
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781935952923
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
In Snowy Tower, Dr. Martin Shaw continues his trilogy of works on the relationship between myth, wilderness, and a culture of wildness. In this second book, he gives a telling of the Grail epic Parzival. Claiming it as a great trickster story of medieval Europe, he offers a deft and erudite commentary, with topics ranging from climate change and the soul to the discipline of erotic consciousness, from the hallucination of empire to a revisioning of the dark speech of the ancient bards. Ingrained in the very syntax of Snowy Tower is an invocation of what Shaw calls 'wild mythologies' -- stories that are more than just human allegory, that seem to brush the winged thinking of owl, stream, and open moor. This daring work offers a connection to the genius of the margins; that the big questions of today will not be solved by big answers, but by the myriad of associations that both myth and wilderness offer.
Author: Martin Shaw
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745657516
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
In this intellectually and politically potent new book, Martin Shaw proposes a way through the confusion surrounding the idea of genocide. He considers the origins and development of the concept and its relationships to other forms of political violence. Offering a radical critique of the existing literature on genocide, Shaw argues that what distinguishes genocide from more legitimate warfare is that the enemies targeted are groups and individuals of a civilian character. He vividly illustrates his argument from a wide range of historical episodes, and shows how the question 'What is genocide?' matters politically whenever populations are threatened by violence. This compelling book will undoubtedly open up vigorous debate, appealing to students and scholars across the social sciences and in law. Shaw's arguments will be of lasting importance.
