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

Martín Prechtel’s experiences growing up on a Pueblo Indian reservation, his years of apprenticing to a Guatemalan shaman, and his return to the U.S. after fleeing from Guatemala’s brutal civil war inform this lyrical blend of memoir, indigenous wisdom, and spiritual call to arms. The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic is both an epic story and a cry to the heart of humanity to keep 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 the real, non-genetically modified seeds of the plants that feed us 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. The viable seeds of spirituality and culture that lie dormant within us need to sprout and grow into real sets of cultures welcome on Earth.

Advance Praise for The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic:

“Prechtel’s words are like the wildly colored heirloom kernels of corn born of ancestral knowledge that traditional Maya farmers prayerfully place into the holy earth. Once planted, the author waters these sacred seeds of the Indigenous Soul with heartfelt compassion for a spiritually disconnected humanity in this period of global transformation. May these sprouts of indigenous awareness flourish and produce vital seeds for a collective return to an awareness of our oneness with nature.”

—Robert Sitler, director of Latin American Studies at Stetson University, Florida, and author of The Living Maya

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Each of these beautiful stories is full of delicious knowledge and spirit and like all good horses, when they bring you home at the end of the ride, you feel exhilarated and closer to your true self. I enjoyed reading it immensely.”
— Malcolm Ebright, Author of Pueblo Sovereignty, Advocates for the Oppressed, and The Witches of Abiquiu.