The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic

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

By: Martín Prechtel

Narrated by: Martín Prechtel

Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

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 US 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.

©2012 Martín Prechtel (P)2020 North Atlantic Books

Critic reviews

"The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is like one of the seeds Martín Prechtel describes. When planted in fertile ground, the words and thoughts and images and prayers will grow into a life-giving complexity. This is a wondrous and powerful book.” (Derrick Jensen, activist and author of Dreams and Endgame)

"Martín Prechtel has seen it all: He grew up on a Pueblo Indian reservation, was apprenticed to a Guatemalan medicine man and settled in the United States after fleeing the Guatemalan civil war. The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive (North Atlantic Books) relates the preservation of seeds and plant life to the similar seeds of spirituality in human life as he chronicles his own life journey." (Indian Country)

"The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive reflects the author's experiences growing up on a Pueblo Indian reservation and his years of apprenticing to a Guatemalan shaman, returning to the US after fleeing the country's civil war... Real human culture is exterminated when the non-genetically modified seeds of plants that feed us are lost - and this approaches the issue both metaphorically and spiritually, discussing how such seeds of spirituality and culture need to be cherished, replanted, and harvested. Collections strong in tribal insights, ecology, spirituality, and autobiography alike will find this a moving, passionate work." (Midwest Book Review)

Planting seeds for life

In this book you’ll find the stories and teachings that will help us to birth ourselves as human culture into a world that has forgotten what it means to be reborn of the earth.

Essential reading for humans

So wonderful to hear Martin's voice speak this story to life. well done. thank you

best book and narration ever. life giving

the most amazing life-giving and life-changing experience. so blessed to be able to have the author narrate in this storytelling beautiful way

Drumbeat of earth herself

Through this writing Martín pries open the rusted jail cell door of the little flicker of a real full totally absorbed in the glory and beauty of life heart. Only he could read this work and bring it to a real living story that can take root in my heart body and hands.

Magical and Transformational

Magical in the sense of expanding my perspective of life and the world we live in.

I visited Lake Atitlan in Guatemala during the winter of 1980, probably the same time Martine was living there.

I experienced life there as an outsider, nevertheless my experience transformed my life.

Martine shares his experiences and stories with both the depth that only a perceptive member of an indigenous community who is also well versed In western history and life can.

Much needed wisdom and so much that we may not even notice missing in modern life is explored in depth here.

Inspired!!!

I cried through the telling of these stories feeling the disconnection from life in nature and from community that knows how to live. The priorities of planting seeds for myself and cultivating again a lost relationship with the Holy in Nature have been planted in me. May the fruit these bear honor your work to keep the seeds alive Martín - many blessings!!!

A feast of eloquent and wise words

What a delight to hear this book read in the authors own voice. As someone who has read the hardcopy several times before listening to this audiobook, i found so many new insights from hearing it in his own eloquent voice. It was wonderful to finally hear the real pronunciations of the foreign languages present in this book that my mind could only try to imagine what it might accurately sound like just from reading the quiet lettering on paper. What a difference sound harmonics make! Thank you infinitely Martin Prechtel for your poetic soulful old world wisdom, its pure medicine for the heart and future of what it means to be an intact human walking this jade jeweled rugged earth.

Amazing, wonderful, potent

I love this book and Martín Prechtel. There is glorious irreverent and wonderfully reverent wisdom all throughout. It’s a beautiful and tear-invoking thing to hear someone speak about their true connection and indigenous desire to what it is to be alive. Highly recommend for anyone with an ounce of loneliness or longing in their heart, and for everyone who knows there must be a way to feel more connected and loved and vital.

Incredible wisdom

In a world lost in the pale glow of screens while speeding towards social and ecological catastrophe, this book is like a cool dewy dawn: refreshing, hope-inspiring, and coming just at the right moment to shine light into the dark night.

Truly, if you are looking for new perspective and hope in troubled times, this is the book for you.

essential

for those who don't feel fully comfortable in this modern world despite our material comforts, this book offers a pathway to our indigenous home